One of the first rules story writers learn is this: Show, don’t tell.
What does that mean? Check out the following examples to see what I mean.
When you write a story, try not to tell your readers what your character is feeling, like this:
Jeremy was angry.
Instead, show your character in action, like this:
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April is National Poetry Month. What a wonderful time to try your hand at writing a poem!
Haiku (high KOO) is a beautiful poem form that comes from Japan. It is usually about nature and can be spoken in one breath.
Syllables are important in a haiku. Words can be broken into parts based on their vowel sounds. Those parts are syllables. Tree has one syllable. Forest has two. And timberland has three. When you speak these words out loud, you can hear their syllables.
Haiku poems have another feature: They do not rhyme.
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Let’s write a fun poem to celebrate National Poetry Month!
A diamante (Dee-a-MON-tay) is an interesting type of poem. It is a diamond-shaped poem of opposites, and the last word in the poem is the opposite of the first word.
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Reading descriptions can be super boring; you probably skip them when you read older books, especially if they go on and on.
Today’s writers know how to capture your attention and keep the descriptions interesting. What are their secrets? We’ll explore two today.
First, they use their senses. Here’s a fascinating verse about Jesus that the apostle John writes in the beginning of his first letter:
“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life” (I John 1:1 NIV)
How many senses from the list below does he depend on to tell us that Jesus is real?
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You are familiar with topic sentences, how they come at the beginning of paragraphs and tell readers what the paragraph is all about.
But what if the topic sentence came at the end of the paragraph? And what if that paragraph described something from a story?
Here’s part of a paragraph from J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Notice the topic sentence at the end of the description:
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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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You may be very good at expressing your opinions, especially when you want to change someone’s mind.
What you may not know is that if you truly want to change someone’s mind, you have to stop thinking about your opinion and start thinking about your audience.
This tutorial, with a free infographic to download, will show you very clearly the difference between writing an opinion and writing to persuade an audience.
Writing or expressing an opinion is all about what you like; convincing another person to do something is all about what they need to hear to be persuaded.
Here’s an infographic that shows the difference between writing an opinion and writing to persuade. After the infographic, I’ve included a short writing exercise you can do quickly. My writing class just did it, and they had fun sharing their ideas about alligators, snow leopards, snakes, and so forth.
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How do you write a story about Alaska before people arrived? You make animals the main characters, which is exactly what James A. Michener does in Alaska.
Michener creates Matriarch, a mammoth that is old enough to be the grandmother of many other mammoths. Through her eyes, we see the landscape and experience the early troubles of the area now known as Alaska.
Here’s a passage from Alaska in which Matriarch first encounters . . . well, I think you’ll figure out what’s going on here:
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Let’s celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month by highlighting a short story by Colombian-born Gabriel García Márquez.
Many stories can be put into one of two categories when talking about how the ball gets rolling:
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Note: This is part one of the Intro to Writing series. Find links to the other tutorials here.
What do you do when your teacher gives you a subject to write about, but that subject is too broad?
For instance, what if your teacher says, “Write about natural disasters”? Right off the bat, you know you are in trouble. That subject is too large; there are too many possibilities. It would take a few books to cover everything, and your essay is due in two days.
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