Category Archives: Creative

A cliché too far

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Along with adjectives and adverbs, the poor old cliché comes in for a lot of stick.

A cliché is a platitude, a figure of speech which has been so overused that it has lost its original meaning and relevance and is no longer effective. Often humorous, these trite expressions would have been considered original and loaded with meaning when first used. Clichés are often derogatory, but they are not necessarily false or inaccurate. In his autobiography, ‘Moab is My Washpot,’1997, Stephen Fry says, ‘It is a cliché that most clichés are true, but then like most clichés, that cliché is untrue.’

They’re clever little things; readymade idioms often summarising lines of description in one pithy phrase that everyone understands because they form part of our cultural fabric. They can also have an implication which is different from its true meaning. For example, ‘do you think I’m made of money?’ implies just the opposite.

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Stuck in a creative vacuum?

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Writer’s block? Or just having a blank moment? Bring out the Five Ws and One H.

Say what?? Rudyard Kipling immortalised the concept in the opening of  ‘The Elephant’s Child’, a poem that accompanied one of his Just So Stories, written in 1902:

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

Used widely in journalism, interrogative pronouns are basic tools for gathering information. Continue reading →

Apostrophe Catastrophe

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Lots of talk on the interweb about the poor old apostrophe. Apparently Waterstone’s are going to phase theirs out. Let me nail my colours to the mast straight away – I LOVE apostrophes!

The apostrophe is probably the most misunderstood and misused piece of punctuation in the English language, but it’s fundamental to making our work comprehensible.

Lynne Truss, in her seminal work about English punctuation ‘Eats, Shoots and Leaves’, mentions her ‘inner stickler’ who rails against the incorrect use of the apostrophe. Me too – although I appreciate that I can come across as rather pedantic whenever I bring it up. Eyes glaze over; people start humming snatches of ‘Here I go again’. Do I care? No.

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Great expectations

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My first novel is finished; I’ve brushed its hair and straightened its clothes in preparation and now it’s as ready as it will ever be. I’d like to get it published, so these are the necessary first steps, but why am I so reluctant to pat its bottom and send it out into the world?

The need to examine it one more time, to substitute a better turn of phrase or rewrite that clumsy paragraph yet again, is almost overwhelming. It threatens to ruin the whole; I must release my grasp and let it fly.

The novel is entitled ‘The Silly Season’.  Click on the tab to read the synopsis and some extracts.

Accents and Dialects

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An accent is an individual mode of pronunciation often associated with a particular locale. A dialect is a form of speech peculiar to a district, usually employing colloquial vocabulary specific to that geographical area.  In fact, George Bernard Shaw once observed that, England and America are two countries separated by a common language.

For such a small geographical area, the United Kingdom has hundreds of dialects, many existing almost side by side but sounding like different languages. I come from Yorkshire, a county once divided into three Ridings; East, West and North (Riding is an old term meaning a third – the South Riding that Winifred Holtby wrote about was fictitious), where the local dialect can be very thick. I’ve lived elsewhere in the country, and in the US, and the rough edges have been smoothed, but whenever I return to Yorkshire, I fall back into the accent and dialect without a second thought.

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Versatile Blogger Award

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I got nominated for an award! How amazing is that? Thank you so much, Limebird guys and gals. Now all I need to do is list seven random facts about me….

In no particular order…
Purple is my favourite colour
I prefer dogs to cats
I once did a parachute jump
I can never find jeans that fit
(probably because) I eat too many biscuits
I was once regressed to a former life
I love old Hollywood musicals

Find another word

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Many years ago, my English teacher strove to instil in his class the beauty of words. He encouraged us to find and use words that we hadn’t heard before; words we had to look up in the dictionary. He would employ his red pen to great effect if any of us dared to use a lacklustre word such as nice. ‘Find another word!’ he would storm. ‘Find a better word. There’s plenty to choose from, use your imagination.’

Stephen King has something else to say on the subject:  ‘One of the really bad things you can do to your writing is to dress up the vocabulary, looking for long words because you’re maybe a little bit ashamed of your short ones.’

What they are both getting at is that there’s nothing wrong with short words, as long as they’re the best, most appropriate words for the occasion. Rather than use adjectives and adverbs, chose stronger verbs to reveal, to describe and to explain.

 

Storytelling

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Every culture has a storytelling tradition; it helps us interpret the past and shape the future. For centuries, the description of events in words has been a way of entertaining and educating, and a means of preserving customs and beliefs.

Today, when we commit stories to print we share our limited knowledge and understanding of the world with others, in the hope that they will recognise the fictional universe we have created.

For a story to succeed it should contain cultural references that the reader understands; it needs some memorable characters, some conflict and a strong, plausible plot. A satisfying payoff is crucial though unlikely coincidences are to be avoided at all costs. How we decide to tell our story – in the past, present or future, and whose voice we choose to relate events will all have an effect on the narrative.

In the end, it all sounds deceptively simple. Surely we can produce an engaging tale that will give our readers pause; with a storyline that’s filled with twists and turns and a conclusion that will take them completely by surprise?

Reading and Writing

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They’re in constant competition. Sofa, cup of tea, book, is my default position. I already get up an hour earlier to shoehorn some more reading time into my day and I often sit up with a book late into the night. But a serious writing addiction requires serious amounts of time and commitment, and it’s a daily struggle to achieve a balance. Lunch hours become ten minute breaks, the rest of the time spent scribbling plotlines or mulling over new characters.

I snatch odd minutes here and there in the evenings. It’s true what everyone says: foregoing an hour of television every night means I’ll have a substantial piece of work by the end of the year. It’s not easy, summoning the muse when the moment dictates, but it’s a skill I’m learning. If I’m not making any progress with the novel I’ll spend the time exercising my writing muscles in a different direction, like a short story.

But back to the conundrum: we writers must read, read, read to hone our skills. How can we hope to write with style, elegance and panache if we haven’t studied the masters of the craft?

Computer v Pen and Paper

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When I first started writing seriously I wrote longhand, with my special Mont Blanc rollerball, on pads of unlined A4 paper. I transferred the completed pages onto computer, using this process as my first edit. I found it difficult to write directly onto the computer; it was as if the keyboard created a barrier to my imagination. But after I’d finished this copying out in best I would be deep into the story and I’d often carry on typing without a problem.  Gradually I dispensed with the paper and pen.

Computers have their good points: I can still remember the rapture I felt when I discovered the synonym facility (I’m easily pleased). At my age I’m often at a loss for the precise, apposite word and stopping to look it up in the Thesaurus breaks my concentration. Imagine having this resource quite literally at my finger tips!

However, it isn’t foolproof and sometimes it doesn’t deliver quite what I want. In these instances, I use the first word that presents itself, highlight it in a different colour and move on. The colour serves as a reminder, I don’t lose my flow, and the word will come, eventually.

P.S. I carry a notebook with me at all times, so the expensive biro is still pressed into service.