You are probably very familiar with the accounts of Jesus’ birth found in Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2:40. They are written in the omniscient point of view. That is, the writers tell us everything about everyone.
What if you read the account from the perspective of one of the Magi? Would the story be filled with curiosity and longing? What if the account were written by the wicked King Herod? How angry would he be that he missed his chance to kill the Christ Child?
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Although author Joseph Conrad was born in Poland as Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, he learned to speak and write in English in his twenties.
The fact that he learned how to write in the English language so late in life makes his command of the language, as seen in his stories, impressive.
Joseph Conrad is famous for his novella Heart of Darkness in which the narrator goes on a voyage to the jungles of Africa in the late 1800s in search of a man named Kurtz.
Below is the narrator’s description of a scene he comes upon. You can tell by the words and items he chooses in this description that what he finds next will not be nice:
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Many stores and libraries this time of year have donation boxes to collect gifts for children. Some even have Christmas trees with places to hang mittens, warm hats, socks, and so forth. Those items will be distributed later to children who have no other way to get these needed items.
Christmas is the perfect time to think about giving something to others less fortunate than ourselves.
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How can you tell someone, “Thank you”? What can you do to show your gratitude?
Reader’s Digest asked their Facebook followers to suggest some ways. Here are two of the methods their followers recommended:
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When Corrie ten Boom was arrested with her family in February 1944 for helping Jews escape the Nazis, she and her sister were sent to the women’s section of a harsh concentration camp. There she found infestations of vermin: lice and fleas.
Instead of being angry about the vermin, she decided to thank God for them. Soon, she found out
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Every so often, it’s fun to forget about essay writing.
Today, instead of learning some writers’ device or essay format, you get to write a story or a journal entry from a photograph.
Here’s the photo, taken in Yosemite National Park:
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Dark woods have long been a vital part of many stories.
Snow White encounters the huntsman in a dark woods and escapes into another part of the woods. Ditto with Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf.
Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz is attacked in dark woods. Bilbo Baggins and the dwarves are set upon by oversized spiders in the dark woods called Mirkwood.
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This is a good time of year to read James Whitcomb Riley’s “When the Frost Is on the Punkin,” which you can read here. It describes the glories of life on the farm during the cool, crisp days of autumn, and the harvest season.
In the poem, you’ll find this phrase: “The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn / And the raspin’ of the tangled leaves as golden as the morn. . .”
Note: Riley misspells “russel” on purpose. The correct spelling is “rustle.” Same with “tossels,” which is supposed to be “tassels.” And, of course “punkin,” which is, you guessed it, “pumpkin.” He’s using a country dialect in his writing.
Riley uses the three wonderful words “husky, rusty russel” to describe the sound of the dried leaves of the corn plant as they rub together in the wind. If you have ever heard those dry leaves or blades rubbing together, you can almost hear the “s” sound in the wind, as though they are whispering to each other.
What are Riley’s secrets to writing so well?
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Robert Louis Stevenson is the author of Treasure Island, The Black Arrow, Kidnapped, A Child’s Garden of Verses, the deliciously creepy The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde based on a real person, and much more. You can learn more about him here.
In Treasure Island, young Jim Hawkins is warned to be on the lookout for and avoid “the seafaring man with one leg.” Yet when he meets a sailor with one leg named Long John Silver, Hawkins is not troubled. Why?
First, he’s had a letter from his friend the squire claiming that Long John Silver is a war veteran who lost his leg “in his country’s service.” Next, when he meets Silver for himself, Silver seems “clean and pleasant-tempered.” Here is the paragraph where Jim Hawkins meets the truly nasty Long John Silver who, at the moment, doesn’t seem so nasty:
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Are you ready for NaNoWriMo?
Would you like to be?
NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month in which people sign up to write a novel in the month of November. (They obviously are not the ones cooking the turkey. Just saying.)
You can read more about NaNoWriMo here and here. Both sites will show you how to organize your writing days and give you tips on how to begin and complete that novel.
Or maybe you are more interested in writing a picture book. Do you remember a favorite picture book from your youth? Would you like to have some fun at creating fun titles for one? Storystorm encourages writers to “create 30 story ideas in 30 days.”
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