This week: Whoa, Nellie! Edited by: Legerdemain  
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Whoa, Nellie!
I was reading a western story this weekend and really enjoyed the author's descriptive work. While there are many ways to describe a western town and prairie grasses, this author didn't try to accentuate the unnecessary things. If you're like me, when you read a story that not only has a good plot but feels good reading it, you start to examine why.
I looked to find what the author did to make it a wonderful read. I find I learn a lot that way, drilling into other stories to see what I liked or disliked about their writing. This isn't about grammar or sentence structures, while that's important, I like to look inside and see what it is about a character or scene that resonates with me more than others.
For example, this western has the typical ride out into the countryside. The author spends absolutely no time describing the horses. I can only tell you what horse I saw in my mind as I read the story. The animals have no more significance other than transportation from one setting to another and the author kept it that way. I really admired that perspective, not feeling the need to paint the entire picture with a heavy brush, just sketching the minimum to convey the right feeling and keeping the reader's focus on the important part of the scene.
So when you read something that feels good, something that touches the author-part of you, take a few moments when you finish the story to root out the cause and learn from it. I'm not saying copy it, I'm encouraging learning from it. Even when we're not writing, we're learning and improving our voice.
So...read on, and Write On!
This month's question: Does the author in you learn from other's story structures?
Where do you use that in your writing?
Answer below  Editors love feedback!  |
Excerpt: Yaz could remember a time when the grass was green. Well, not actually green as in the colour. Nothing around here was green—had ever been green as far as she knew. It was metaphorical, the saying, represented a time that things were good. She was fairly sure that’s what the saying meant.
Excerpt: He ambled into the light of the campfire, leading his horse by its reins. The three men by the fire reached for the pistols they wore on their hips, but the man made no move to draw the pair of revolvers he wore. “Relax gentlemen, I just wanted to share your fire on this chilly night.”
The men relaxed slightly and with a slight wave showed he could join them. He unsaddled his horse and hobbled it before joining the men by the fire. “A warm fire and friendly company are good on a night like this,” the cowboy said as he rolled a smoke. “It is on nights like this that the Devil’s bounty hunter rides out to collect souls.”
Excerpt: Cody groaned when the sound of the vacuum cleaner roared outside his bedroom door. Dragged into consciousness he pulled his pillow over his head and attempted to go return to his dream. But his mother continued with her household chores and eventually he gave in and got out of bed.
Excerpt: Her finger trailed the long, ugly scar displayed across her cheek as she remembered the man who'd put it there two months previous. Mercy Kinkaid's face burned with rage as she choked back hot, angry tears. Why had she ever believed Billy loved her? She turned from the mirror and hurried to the porch in need of fresh air.
Excerpt: “Ya sure yer ready to work cattle?”
Jake Miller shook his head in disgust as he took inventory of the newest hand on the Rocking R Ranch. Glossy hand-stitched boots, stiff new jeans, spotless floral shirt, and a perfectly shaped Stetson hat. Alvin Liebman looked like he’d just stepped out of a display window at the western wear store.
Excerpt: "But – but, Doctor ..."
"There's no 'but' about it, I'm afraid."
"But ..."
"Listen. The only 'but' is the one spelt with a double-t. Butt. Yours. Which you'll henceforth keep OFF a horse."
"But I'm a cowboy!"
Excerpt: Lana picked up the brochure on her way out of the saloon in Tombstone, Arizona.
"Take an honest-to-goodness covered wagon to an honest-to-goodness ghost town for a rollickin' good evening!"
Excerpt: "Oh, but for you, William Henry Fokke," she hissed, "a special curse!"
Once he would have stopped to listen to the girl, for at twenty she'd been pretty. But five years of Kansas wind and dust had blighted and blurred her face, so—
"Aw, button it, Molly," Fokke growled. He kicked over the spindly pinewood bureau where Duke Winslow was used to keeping his money. Papers and pens and a gold watch on a chain scattered across the warped cabin floor. "You already cussed me once," he said as he picked through the mess.
Excerpt: A young soldier hung from a dead tree nestled in the shallow gully of two hills. His hands were tightly bound above his head to an over-hanging branch, and his legs were tied to the trunk. He was stripped to his long-johns, a dark-red stain marring the white fabric at his side where a broken arrow jutted from its center. Groaning softly from the pain of the wound, the captive dropped his head to his chest and the movement caused his bright, yellow hair to flutter in the warm, midday breeze.
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This month's question: Does the author in you learn from other's story structures?
Where do you use that in your writing?
Answer below Editors love feedback!
Last month's "Action/Adventure Newsletter (August 2, 2023)" question: Have you written about your personal adventures or mishaps?
What was it?
Damon Nomad  : Good newsletter about personal experiences for action adventure. You can use your own encounters for a fictional base or a true story. Here is an example of a true adventure of my own with a bit of a twist.
Annette  : You are so right that research before taking a trip is helpful. In spring, I was able to travel to Seattle, Washington for the first time. I had a whole page of things printed out. We even did most of them. I didn't have any mishaps, but standing atop the Space Needle and looking down felt like an adventure. And as a Shadow Run player, I loved standing in the Seattle Underground. There is not much to it, but my mind was racing with stories.
Monty  : Yes many times.
s  : I have been known to... "Ring Rusted" [18+]
tj ~ endeavors to persevere!  :
I do sometimes write about personal adventures and or mishaps in my blog. I also write entries in my blog for prompts from "Invalid Item" and should add, in case anyone wasn't aware, there's a challenge over there titled "URGENT: Andre Wants Your Prompt August Challenge Contest" and time is running out.
Run, don't walk, over to the bar and get your item entered before midnight WdC time!
Arsuit  : Sure - not directly, but I like to sneak personal experiences into my stories through my characters.
Giovannius : My recently published novel is FULL of them!! https://mybook.to/6CZAJFg
Fernando : Metaphorically I have written about my life, but I just feel better when I don't plainly write about my life. I feel I am better able to speak about my experiences when it is done metaphorically than literally.
Ghelatlishol : I did write a story about the first time I flew a plane (not flew in one, flew one) in the Boy Scouts, but I fictionalized it :D It's called "Three Miles High."
elephantsealer : I incoporate my personal adventures or mishaps in some of my stories... I have done one or two, I believe......
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Action/Adventure: August 30, 2023 Issue [#12154]
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