Posts Tagged ‘Advice for Writers’


Chess

Robert Drake on February 18, 2009 in General No Comments »

The footmen were the first to advance. They carried the white flag of their liege across the barren plain. They were met in the middle of the field by a brigade of the enemies dark-clad legions. They eyed each other warrily while the rest of the army moved in position.

A handful of knights, the bravest horsemen called from their homes, left their position at the back of the line and advanced to within a range of their friendly footmen who were being surrounded by more legions of black clad soldiers.

Unwilling to relinquish the field, the white king ordered his personal men at arms, to hold the line. His closest advisor, a nobleman of brave heart and great repute, took the field by the storm. He advanced quickly, unmolested by the dark legions. He eyed the enemy king, who fearing the Duke’s great spirit, ordered his knights to his side.

Seeing great advantage, the hoary king of the white flag, advanced his own knights beyong the center of the field. The enemy king, a notorious coward, pulled his Queen’s own men to defend his position.

As of yet no bloodshed had been spilt. It was all maneuvering and posturing. The true battle had yet to begin. This ended in an instant. The glorious footmen, bearers of the flag, engaged a dark legion, flanking them easily and taking the advantage.

The enemy responded immediately. He sent his Queen’s guards to shore up the line. The footmen responded valiantly. They matched the Queen’s men sword to sword, but they fell under the onslaunt. The Duke, his own flank now removed, was put in peril.

As an old and heroic man, the Duke knew his duty. Facing certain death he proceeded forward, well beyond where the line could protect him. He engaged the King’s knights, annihilating them to a man. As a bold, a triumphant hero his pointed his sword at the dark king and threatened him to his face.

It was a glorious moment, but it was his last. The Dark Queen’s brother, an able general of the crusades, furfilled his kingly obligations and smote the Duke. It was a terrible loss, but a glorious end for the grand commander.

The White King survayed the field. His center was in disarray. He order more footman to advance to cover his knights, stranded beyond his line. The Dark King sought to interfere with the preparation and moved his Queen’s men forward, but they were chased off by a division of crusader swordsmen.

Determined to be a menice, the Queen ordered his men to take the center of the field. Her pennat waved threateningly over the field. The White King wisely brought his siege engines into position, should it be necessary to remove her from the field by force. A second unit of knights, was moved onto the field as well, to threaten the Queen. Finally she was moved to retreat, but not before slaying another band of valiant footmen.

With a great yell the majority of the army clashed. There was smoke and fire. Arrows were traded and darkened the sky. Footmen on both sides died in their boots, still clutching their swords. The Dark King’s Bishop, a notorious butcher was forced to cover his king.

In an instant the Knights responded. Furious at the death of the Duke, they crossed the field and slew the queen. Unsatiated they captured the Dark Tower, a old fortification built in the days of Barbarians to hold the flank. It was a terrible loss for the Dark King and his men feared their demise. The Queen’s men killed the Bishop Butcher, a unit of footmen crossed the field, blood was spilt across the field.

When the smoke cleared the knights, the valiant knights who first carried forward, were dead. Slain of a pusillanimous unit of archers.

The Knights were avanged by the mighty siege engines. They threw their stones forward. Crushing the enemy archers and a units of knights as well. The Dark King’s army was in nearly complete disarray. His footmen abandoned him. His Knights and Noblemen were slain in quick order. His remaining loyal soldiers, crossed the field in a futile attempt to break through, but they were repeased. The might of the White Banner overcompassed the field. The Dark Knight, with a final brave gesture, sent his siege engines to bombard the oncoming footmen. They were destroyed and the King surrounded.

He stood amongst the corpses of his army, the dead horses, the broken engines, the crumbled walls. His own Queen lay on the field, dead. An honorless and cowardly man the Dark King refused to die with bravery. He called off the last stand, waved off any thought of resistance. He offered his sword and was captured, bound to live his life a testament to dishonor and weakness.

Duchenne Smile

According to Wikipedia:

A Duchenne smile contracts the zygomatic muscles of the cheek and eye, forming crow’s feet. The crow’s feet indicate that the smile is genuine and that the smiler is truly happy. It was discovered by and is named after Guillaume Duchenne.

After writing about prosody I spent an hour or so running around esciencenews.com. There’s some great articles and tons of science. From a writing standpoints one article stuck out in particular. Smiles!

Skin bunched by the eyes, raised cheekbones, a slight squint, all signs of a genuine smile…and useful to write when you’re sick of ‘John Smiled’

If facial expressions say more than a 1000 words, than we can cut out a thousand words by writing about facial expressions, yes? Maybe not, but prosody…what a great word! Sometimes you read something and it just overflows with…well…prosody. Tapping into little things like facial expressions is a good way to furfill that arch-commandment of show, not tell.

Here’s another article explaining just how people respond to these little facial queues.

Epeolatry: Worship of words.

That’s about as obsure a word as you can find. The only reason I know about is from Anu Garg’s word of the day email. Every day I check my email and a handful of other sites for new and obscure words to explore. Given that I’ve just put out my list of words of the year, I decided it’d be a good time for a Word of the Day article. Below are websites that offer up a word (or a handful of words) every day for your linguaphilistic pleasures.

Dictionary.com: I’ve been checking this site every day for almost four years.
NYTimes
Wordsmith.org: This is Anu Garg’s site. They also have a word of the day email you can subscribe to. It’s consistantly well-written and informative.
Marriam-Webster: I don’t tend to care much for their popup advertizements.
Oxford English Dictionary
OneLook: This one is cool. It shows 5 of the words most often searched for on their dictionary.

If you have any more, send em my way!

As you can tell, I’ve made a couple of changes to Servusamanu.  Nothing too major, just some artistic modifications.  Tell me what you think!

It’s important. It’s just a shame that it’s so hard. Writing is an art not a science, but editing is even more capricious. I’ve taken bad stories and edited them into something interesting, but I’ve taken rather clever stories and made them into dreck just the same. Editing is a difficult, time-consuming, and horribly subjective process that make or ruin any writing.

It may be subjective, but it’s not without rules. Below are a handful of websites with suggestions on editing. Some of them are well-known and fairly. (Less is more) Others are far more obscure. (Don’t norminalize your verbs).

10 Tips For Effective Editing

Improve Your Writing With These Editing Tips

How to Edit your Own Writing

And a few tips of my own:

Change the font on your manuscript so it looks different: It helps you read writing you are already intimately familiar without filling in the gaps with what you remember.

Reverse Outline: Go through a story or chapter and create an outline of the major points. Match this to your original outline to see if you said more or less than what you intended.

Keep Revisions: Keep saved versions of older edits. Feel free to tear your writing apart since you can always look back at what you had.

Good luck!

As I was going through my bookmarks, looking for things that I thought might be useful tools for writers, and I came across the notes I had scribbled down after reading The Cimarron Review. Published quarterly out of Oklahoma State University , each issue is approximately one hundred pages and features three or four short stories and about thirty or so poems. While a few stories have a slight supernatural or eerie bent, The Cimarron Review is mostly filled with stories of cultural exploration, conflicts with society, and “slice of life” vignettes. While my interests tend to lie more towards genre fiction, I’ve found it to be an excellent source of ideas. The Review also allows short story and poem submissions!

Subscription Information can be found here.