Saturday, April 28, 2007

Writing Lessons From Son Number Three

Son Number Three gets attention in three ways. When I thought about it, all three can be adapted into a writing lesson. Let me count the ways:

1. Scream
2. Look adorable
3. Fill the diaper

My friend, all of these can be accomplished by your writing to make it get noticed as well. (However, if you find a way to do all three at once, you either need a Pulitzer or a therapist.)

When your writing screams it demands attention through sheer force of will. This implies a certain amount of emotion devoted to your story. Don't lollygag around, get to the heart of it and keep it up. Looking adorable is all about crafting a word, sentence, paragraph, or entire passage that is so mesmerizing it can't be ignored. It's the type of writing that must be worked at, to be sure, but mostly comes from a lightning strike of inspiration. And I've noticed that the more you're sitting at your computer the more likely these flashes are to be captured in copyrightable form. The third way is not what you think. (Although it may be, in which case I can't help you.) It's also my favorite style of writing. I should coin the phrase, Diaper Filled Writing or some such. This method is to present your readers with a dilemma that compels them to act. The action you're looking for is reading; reading that will solve the dilemma for them and give them the answer they're after and yet pose another question in a never ending string of filled diapers. And just like filled diapers, when you're writing the solution to one your protagonist should be filling another.

Or something like that.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's good to know that those three things can also be to my writing and not just my second daughter. Thanks for the laugh. VMcNeill

Kappa no He said...

Hilarious! What an amazing analogy.

Yea, I was thinking of something else when you said Diaper Filled Writing. I like your idea better.

Crabby McSlacker said...

Very nice analogy!

As a reader, I tend to be more likely to respond to adorable or diapery. Not so much to screaming. A writer's passion for his or her work somehow doesn't automatically inspire mine--while I'm always a sucker for deft prose and compelling plot.

Anonymous said...

So tell me how I dispose of all those diapers that my writing is filling?

Jeff Draper said...

Thanks for the kind words. Unfortunately, I haven't thought through the analogy enough to provide in depth analysis butt I hope you find markets to dispose of your work.

Leah J. Utas said...

Hmm, now my mind's fixed on finding a way to do all three at once.

Anonymous said...

Pretty impressed with the analogy, especially the last one.

For my brand of horror, heaping shit at people is real life and in my fiction, it should do the same until there's a breaking point that compels them to act and fight back.

Harbormaster said...

I was wondering how you would make the stretch on the third topic. Yes, using all three at once would be sporting :)