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Thursday, August 21, 2014

"Feelings"



"Steps for Writing Feelings"

You decide what's good and what's bad
You give your reader a character for a compass
You create a story world
You inject an element of change
You draw motive power from cause and effect
You pin down development to motivation and reaction
You make motivation-reaction units shape emotion
You measure copy length with tension (D. V. Swain)




So, my question today is how do we decide whether a thing is good or bad? Everything is good and bad, in varying degrees. Is a rainstorm bad or good? How about a bombing raid? A strike? A divorce?  A marriage? A cigarette? A chocolate bar? A job? A baby? A weed?

Because we're human, we measure each instance with cause and effect, pushed together with our feelings of the world we live in. 

You, the writer, decides how significant a rainstorm, a marriage, a chocolate bar or a divorce is to your fiction world. Whether we have a hand full of facts or three barrels full, we humans judge and respond with our feelings.

Happy Writing,
Sherry L White 









Friday, August 1, 2014

Eat chocolate daily . . .

Whose Stories?

Once upon a time, we sat around the campfire and told our stories. It united our clan and our culture inside the safety of our cave. Today's stories are instant, demanding, and in our face. The venues are numerous. Many stories encourage that we have value and a voice, others deflate our confidence in the human race. The question is: whose stories and what media can you believe? The world today is an ongoing story, and somehow, we have to sort it all out to a story that makes sense to us.

What's your view on story?

Sherry