Douglas Adams would spend two pages describing the entire history of a character. Then move on to the important part of the scene and never mention them again.
@sleepinggorilla Him and Tom Robbins make writing seem like a hilarious great time. I don't know how seat of the pants they are, but they create that feeling for the reader. Barbara Kingsolver, another great. Apropos of nothing, so it seems, you're one inch above the forest floor seeing all kinds of incredible detail until suddenly you're not. Or Dickens describing all the food on the table, somewhat counter to the poverty of the Pratchets (or despite their poverty, to convey how important Christmas is?), because who doesn't like a detailed description of good food? And Dickens got paid per word, right?
@ I believe Douglas Adams was a pantser. Which makes sense, it was about the wit in the end. The plot just served to create those opportunities for hilarity.
Gary Provost provoked a little more, here's the full quote: “This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals-sounds that say listen to this, it is important.”
I love James Michener's quote about writing: “I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.” And of course, the opening line to Voyage of the Dawn Treader. "There was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." The use of "deserved" there just delights me.
Boat in a bog. Slimy bog. Fetid bog. Not my experience of bogs, but a bog can be deep and wide, so the depth and extent of this woman's ugly character come through. Wtf is a shiny boat doing in a bog? Bogs aren't naturally slimy or fetid, so some evil sht must have been pouring into it for years. I agree. Pretty damn good.
@@jamesdewane1642 I didn't catch that! The shiny boat must be her teeth, shiny and bright but full of artifice? Your interpretation makes it seem like some backhanded inner dialogue! Maybe this person being described is not necessarily duplicitous. Think of a white lily floating serenely over shallow, muddy water. Or a lotus. It could be a person who's been though a lot, dragged though the mud/bog so to speak. But then there are more non complimentary things in there fetid, as in smelly (bad breath/hygiene?) and the slimy part, well that's just a saliva/water metaphor isn't it? Context is key. What an interesting sentence! It's vague enough that can carry different meanings. When l write my poetry l love doing this too. It's a fabulous reminder characters/situations are intriguingly complex, embodying both light and shadow, ie ugly and beautiful all at once. (I wish l was the one who composed this, because when l think of this certain person l had known with this smarmy smile, l could vomit!)
I have a couple favorites from Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. 1. “They had been lurking in the fog for an hour now, but they had been pacing themselves and could lurk for the rest of the night if necessary, with still enough sullen menace left for the final burst of lurking around dawn.” 2. “Crowley: the angel who did not so much fall as saunter vaguely downwards” There is also: “My father took one hundred and thirty-two minutes to die.” Which is the first sentence of Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta.
There's lot to be found from Pratchett's own works as well, but among my favorites the excellent usage of contrasting adverb in "The Fool jingled miserably across the floor." from Wyrd Sisters.
My favorite fancy phrase? I got it in college in my French Lit class. "Vos yeux entendront ces sourires que vos lèvres ne pourront voir". This translates to English as: "Your eyes will hear those smiles that your lips cannot see". I think it was Victor Hugo.
Worth noting that the Epistrophe section also includes an example of near anaphore AND near epistrophe... or more accurately it is an example of (I don't know the proper term) self-mirroring. Not only do the two parts in the front-half end in silence, but the back half (once the silence has ended) starts its two sections by talking about "his father/mother" and ends talking about "his mother/father".
A sentence I really love is actually a lyric in the song Seven Days by Sting: Ask if I am mouse or man, the mirror squeaked, away I ran. Genius. Thanks for the video.
I like how Heinlein uses the word "suits" as a shorthand reply that seems to mean "yes, that suits me just fine." And i also like that he doesn't ever explain this straight out; he just lets readers pick up the lingo as they stroll through his word gardens, picking up roses and weeds alike. A Clockwork Orange does this as well - and it about killed me trying to learn that narrator's slang. Making up new words, or new ways to deliver old ones, is another neat trick. Gotta add, I Iove how well-read your viewers are! You've built quite a lovely community. It's nice to be around other writerly weirdos who are as enchanted with words as I am.
I love poetry because they're collections of beautiful sentences. Three word sentences are so punchy, especially for sudden realizations. It pulls me out of the story when a character deeply analyzes a situation first. Usually, you have that dreadful or exciting bare bones reaction, the "She's not normal." feeling that prompts you to think more deeply.
Thank you for your work putting these videos together! You are genuinely the best writing channel on the platform, and remain horrifically underrated. Great tips. Writing advice channels for the most part all repeat the same ideas; I still enjoy them even though they're repetitive, helps remind and drill down concepts. But you're the only channel I've found that genuinely on a regular basis provides new ideas I haven't heard before, or at least breaks down old ideas in a novel, direct way.
Thank you for the kind words. It's always my goal to be original with my fiction advice -- I was also frustrated by the repetitive advice out there and vowed not to be like that.
@Bookfox I'm a western born hindu and I absolutely loved your video on the hindu scripture from a dew week's ago! It made me realize I was on the right track, putting emotion first and creating my scene and setting around it! I'm a new writer but that's what I always did before. Love your content it's helped my writing a lot! Im working on a dark fantasy and sci fi novel.
This video was the advice I've always needed. I wanted to be a writer since I was 12, but didn't pursue it until I was 42 because I thought my prose was no good and had no idea how to improve it, I thought real writers were just born on planet Shakespeare and I wasn't one of those. Eventually, I decided to just try to stumble through and fortunately did manage to improve. If I'd had this video 30 years ago I would have started writing as a teenager instead of waiting half my life. Thanks for this, I think it'll really help me to continue to improve.
7:37 When I think of a sentence I really like, I always recall part of a sentence I put down in my keep notes that I saw somewhere a while ago. I forgot where I saw it, but I really like it. It's an incomplete sentence, as I don't have the whole thing: "but the night never seems so bad until a candle is lit to highlight just how deep the darkness goes."
What people sometimes forget is that punctuation carries meaning. It's not just the words within the sentence, it's the spaces between them, the blocks they form and the little signs that break them up. I use full stops not only to indicate the end of a sentences, but the end of an action. "He stood up, breathed in, turned around and looked his brother in the eye." has a slightly diffrent meaning then "He stood up. He breathed in, turned around and looked his brother in the eye." even though the words and actions are the same. But having a full stop focus the readers attention to that specific part of the action, lets them stop for a moment and indicates a short pause in the action of the character. It makes it abundantly clear that he first stood up and paused a bit before he breathed and turned around, while the comma indicates it all happening in short, direct succession or even at the same time. This is a thing I fight over with my editor right now, as she wants longer, flowing sentences, where I used a full stop to indicate this little diffrence in time. Also: Read your story out aloud as a step in the editing process. It helps so much. Reading the sentences aloud forces you to actually read every word and regard every punctuation mark. It lets you find clunky sentences, bad repetitions, too similar characer voices and sometimes even plotholes so easily.
I read my work to my husband sometimes as a 'bedtime story', but he gets annoyed with my constant stopping to go, "Oof--gotta change that." "Wow, that’s clunky." "Hold on, just making a note for myself." It just hits so differently when you read it aloud, especially to another person!
Mary Robinette Kowal, on the Writing Excuses podcast speaks about how (I hope I remember this right), there's a different amount of pause after different forms of punctuation -- something a ebook reader must be aware of. She's a voice actor/ebook performer, in addition to being a writer and a puppeteer.
Awesome video! Love that you highlighted the power of contrast and tension---juxtaposition is a delectable device! "I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life" is a classic example from Fitzgerald. Certainly, there are more artful sentences, but I salute its beauty and ability to reinforce so many other elements of the novel. It's smart, true, and lovely. Perfect for the mode of narration.
“He was still a handsome man, with a tanned, chiseled face and long, thick, wavy white hair, but his cells had begun to reproduce in a haphazard fashion, destroying the DNA of neighboring cells and secreting toxins into his body.” I really like this sentence because it is also a good example of something else that I like. Substituting a word with a definition of that word. It engages our brain to figure out, "What are they describing...oh it's cancer" and helps us look at the concept of that thing rather than just using our immediate mental associations with the word "cancer" and moving on to the next sentence.
Thank You! Thank You for the education. The deep description of body functions, unveiled an added prospect to my sketched narration of the tests subjects inner body processes. Rather than constantly portraying to the reader the outer evaluation. What's going on on the inside. Thank You for opening my eyes to that angle of view. 👍💥
I like the verb advice. I kinda did this in my first novel. It's about a German soilder mostly after WW1 but when he has flashbacks of the events I use "harder" verbs, to show what he thinks and how the life in the trenches affects his soul and mind. When he is back in Germany and meets a woman and lives a normal life(this is his main goal through he has PTSD) the verbs get softer
Wow! I hooked till the end and salivate for more. I thought I was going to stay for five or ten mins, but boom, I keep punching the bar because I need to jot down important concepts and listen again. Goodness me, time flew so fast. Indeed. "It was was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." Thanks a lot.
Perhaps one exception to tip 2 is with dialogue. “Said” is a perfectly fine verb that stays out of the way. It can get really tedious if every line of dialogue is exclaimed, shouted, inquired, or demanded.
The great thing about this video, if you know art but are a new write these technique will come to you naturally, even if you aren't aware of them. So it's really great to see you nail them done. I found myself doing this, even though I'm not the most astute, Grammarly correct write. I blame my noobness.
I like the advice you've given about the important meaningful words in the beginning and end of the sentence. Pointing out psychologically it's what people remember. Gosh I really like your videos. Thank You. You have been so helpful. 👍💥
I had an idea for future horror books: start with a one or two sentence hook as the prologue, and then the entire novel will give the mystery. For instance: The last human on earth awakes from the kicks of a nine month old fetus inside her womb. Who got her pregnant? How did she become the last woman on earth? What happened to the humans?
The most challenging part in writing for me is not the actual story, but the prose that's used to convey said story. This is extra challenging to me, because I'm not a native English speaker, and thus had less experience than you all. That being said, I appreciate your tips!
From “Suite Francaise” by Irene Nemirovsky, two come to mind: (1) “What separates or unites people is not their language, their laws, their customs, their principles, but the way they hold their knife and fork.” (2) “Waiting is erotic.”
“What separates people is not their language, their customs, their principles, but the way they hold their knife." Even better, because shorter and stronger.
I loved loved loved this video! How you explained concepts, how you provided examples, and how, in the process, it re-energized my desire to sit down and write today. (He-he-he)
A point you could add is that the first and last words of a sentence have the most impact. So that's where you should put the words that you want to catch the reader's attention and remember. Example: 'Richard opened his coat and pulled out a gun.' That's more dramatic than 'Richard pulled a gun from inside his coat'. In the first example, all the focus is on the gun. In the second, the gun is buried in the middle of the sentence and more attention is given to his coat. The sentence tails off boringly, whereas the first ends with a sting.
You're awesome. I love these videos. I learn so much, and they help give me a good depth of knowledge so I can approach the writing process of my first novel with more confidence. Thank you!
Something I learned while writing lyrics for ai to sing is that ending your sentences with one that moves in the opposite direction (in terms of syllable count) sounds poetic. I think people who write music already know this, since it's one of the ways you end a melody in classical music. This has three, And this one four. Let's set up a jump, That does not bore. 4:45 reminds me of shakespearean writing. "He tabled the motion and floored the jury."
I know it's not a famous writer ( it's the first sentence that made me realize i wanted to stop talking about and start doing), but i love how it came out- "Throne Porcelain's annual holiday gala was a cacophonous sound of overflowing conversation and party noises." I was just excited because i felt like i nailed it.
This video is great! Thank you, Bookfox. 🏆 I'm adding it to my writing playlist, so I can reference it again, should I need it!. Btw, I've been watching your videos for a while, and have gleaned such useful information. I appreciate all the time and energy you put into making these videos! Thank you. Now, that I have my motivation, I need to get to work. I need to finally finish my novel! (I have seven-ish more chapters to go. I've only been working on it for the last Nine Years.) *frustrated chuckle* Thanks, again!✍
There is a sentence that I have always loved and it is a quote from Gruntvig that encapsulated his entire theological philosophy: "Livet er en gave og en OPgave" (emphasis added)
For selecting verbs (and other words), I've found that "Use the Right Word: Modern Guide to Synonyms and Related Words" by S.I. Hayakawa to be invaluable. It gives you the subtle differences in their meanings.
The skalds of yore did metonymy really well, only that had their own words for it, kennings ("wave horse" for ship) and _heiti_ (e.g., "brand" for sword). Composing of many forms of their poems (e.g., royal meter or _dróttkvætt_), the best works used a lot of kennings and heiti -- more heavily than might be good in prose.
There is a lot of good advice here. I already make no small use of litotes, but some of the other figures of speech probably need my attention as well.
The opening line of In Watermelon Sugar: 'In Watermelon Sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in Watermelon Sugar.' One of my favorite uses of repetition.
This is the opening sentence from my horror/thriller book: "Evil's embrace is as cold as the grip from a dead man’s icy hand; wearing a thousand faces, it tears mine asunder, used as its mask stitched in place."
You want a sentence. "There was a dark shape next to the boat, as if land were rising from the water." This is from Hannah Stowe's "Move Like Water", describing a whale rise up beside the boat.
As far as the quote by Gabriel Garcia Marquez there is a river on the border of Columbia and Venezuela called Catatumbo River where it empties into Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. The geography somehow creates a storm almost 160 days a year and it has the most yearly lightning strikes of any place on the planet. The storms used to be so predictable the Spanish sailors called it the Catatumbo Lighthouse because the lightning could be spotted from hundreds of miles away at sea. So Marquez may not have been literal, but the concept of a continuous storm since the 16th century existed in the region where he grew up since it was colonized. Anyway, geek moment there :)
If you have to pile on adverbs to clarify your meaning, it's the wrong verb. "he walked through the town in a way to avoid notice" versus "he skulked through the town".
My favorite sentence from Kurt Vonnegut's 'God Bless You Mr. Rosewater' requires some context. The context: --- "This is the Rosewater Foundation. How can we help you?" "Mr. Rosewater-" said a woman, "there was a thing on the radio about you." "Oh?" Eliot now began to play unconsciously with his pubic hair. It was nothing extravagant. He would simply uncoil a tight spring of it, let it snap back into place. "It said they were going to try to prove you were crazy." "Don't worry about it, dear. There's many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip." "Oh, Mr. Rosewater-if you go away and never come back, we'll die." "I give you my word of honor I'm coming back. How is that?" "Maybe they won't let you come back." "Do you think I'm crazy, dear?" "I don't know how to put it." "Any way you like." "I can't help thinking people are going to think you're crazy for paying so much attention to people like us." "Have you seen the other people there are to pay attention to?" "I never been out of Rosewater County." "It's worth a trip, dear. When I get back, why don't I give you a trip to New York?" "Oh God! But you're never coming back!" "I gave you my word of honor." "I know, I know-but we all feel it in our bones, we smell it in the air. You're not coming back." --- And now comes my favorite sentence: "Eliot had now found a hair that was a lulu. He kept extending and extending it until it was revealed as being one foot long. He looked down at it, then glanced at his father, incredulously proud of owning such a thing."
Forgive my self-indulgence, but this is my favourite sentence from my own current story, which a 350,000 word fantasy trilogy. Ultimately, there's probably nothing that astonishing about it, I think I just like the sensory experience - After an indeterminant amount of time, they emerged from the catacombs to the sounds of both the woodlands around them and waves washing ashore ahead, a salty tang on the air penetrating the forest boundary and mingling with the woodland scents.
I've entered poetry contests in my youth after the coaxing of my mother. I used to write colorful (but not over done purple pros.) poems for self enjoyment and for my mom. Things seem to come to me with a natural flow. As you said, (paraphrased) like in music. I like to think of show don't tell as Painting with words. I relax and imagine Bob Ross coaching me saying. Now, we're going to add a little something here, and how about if we have this going on the background as his indistinct voice fades in the background we work together. Painting with words. (But not too colorful.)
I don't know why, but all three University I tried to incorporate the word elucidate into everything I wrote. Still haven't managed to get it into my novel, but perhaps one day
"You think you know how to write a sentence." For me it takes a lot of re-writes to get it right. In the first draft of my first book, I ended up with sentences that were a paragraph long, with no punctuation. I wrote it, and I could not understand it when I read it.🤣
If every sentence "tries too hard" to be some flowery masterpiece, it will be exhausting to read. I think another tip could be to focus the weight of your writing into particularly important sentences, don't flood the text with competing sentences. Also, the cadence of the sentences and their level of complexity should vary based on which character serves as the perspective. A simpleton can have a lot of short sentences. A scientist might have narration which describes a concept with more fundamental understanding than a layman, etc.
As a child I fell in love with "myriad". Here's a twelve dollar word that shares the identical function as a common two cent word. And then the world made it a cliche while completely ignoring its proper usage. I've heard myriad verifiable geniuses including Neil DeGrasse Tyson get it wrong. It's like poison in my ear. Now I hate "myriad" and refuse to use it. EVER!
10:38 Sorry, buddy, but ‘hands’ here refers to an older term you young’ens don’t know. They were farm hands or ranch hands that refer to ‘help’, not a body part. Edit: I guess you did reference it correctly,… 😎
Read, read, read. Technical grammatical terms anguished me as a child, but much of this can become instinct if you continue to saturate yourself in others' good work.
If I spend all my time thinking about these things, I'm never gonna get anything written. So, maybe I'll look at the manuscript after I've got it out of my brain and onto electrons to see whether I sucked completely or occasionally got it write ... er ... right.
The power words you use as example are mostly adjectives and adverbs. I often hear to avoid them in writing, because it implies that you're using the wrong verb or noun. Would it be correct to only use modifiers if they act as power words?
There’s no “correct” way to do this per say. It’s a matter of your own poetic voice, and how you want to communicate your story. Modifiers can be extremely useful and powerful in and of themselves. Power words, on the other hand, have no power and evoke no emotion if the story surrounding doesn’t have a strong enough structure to hold those words in their proper places.
Power words can be anything. The examples just happened to be adjectives and adverbs. But yes, you're right to be slightly suspicious of adj/adv, and to want to prioritize nouns/verbs. Still, it's all about style, whether you're going for more of a spare Hemingway or more of a verbose Faulkner.
“The ships hung in the sky in much the same way as bricks don’t” - Douglas Adams in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Now that’s a memorable sentence.
This one always cracks me up! The non-metaphor!
This one is great. I love the implication of the ships resembling bricks. Heavy, ugly and unnatural as they fill the sky.
Douglas Adams would spend two pages describing the entire history of a character. Then move on to the important part of the scene and never mention them again.
@sleepinggorilla Him and Tom Robbins make writing seem like a hilarious great time. I don't know how seat of the pants they are, but they create that feeling for the reader.
Barbara Kingsolver, another great. Apropos of nothing, so it seems, you're one inch above the forest floor seeing all kinds of incredible detail until suddenly you're not.
Or Dickens describing all the food on the table, somewhat counter to the poverty of the Pratchets (or despite their poverty, to convey how important Christmas is?), because who doesn't like a detailed description of good food? And Dickens got paid per word, right?
@ I believe Douglas Adams was a pantser. Which makes sense, it was about the wit in the end. The plot just served to create those opportunities for hilarity.
Gary Provost provoked a little more, here's the full quote: “This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals-sounds that say listen to this, it is important.”
Thanks for posting the whole thing.
Beautiful.
I love James Michener's quote about writing: “I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.”
And of course, the opening line to Voyage of the Dawn Treader. "There was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." The use of "deserved" there just delights me.
I love that C.S. Lewis line, too! Such a funny line.
And good quote by Michener.
My favorite sentence so far: "in her smile he saw the depth of her beauty, and it floated on the surface like a shiny new boat on a slimy, fetid bog."
Who wrote this?
It's from an unpublished book I'm proofreading for a friend.
Boat in a bog. Slimy bog. Fetid bog. Not my experience of bogs, but a bog can be deep and wide, so the depth and extent of this woman's ugly character come through.
Wtf is a shiny boat doing in a bog? Bogs aren't naturally slimy or fetid, so some evil sht must have been pouring into it for years. I agree. Pretty damn good.
Goddamn
@@jamesdewane1642 I didn't catch that! The shiny boat must be her teeth, shiny and bright but full of artifice? Your interpretation makes it seem like some backhanded inner dialogue!
Maybe this person being described is not necessarily duplicitous. Think of a white lily floating serenely over shallow, muddy water. Or a lotus. It could be a person who's been though a lot, dragged though the mud/bog so to speak. But then there are more non complimentary things in there fetid, as in smelly (bad breath/hygiene?) and the slimy part, well that's just a saliva/water metaphor isn't it?
Context is key. What an interesting sentence! It's vague enough that can carry different meanings. When l write my poetry l love doing this too. It's a fabulous reminder characters/situations are intriguingly complex, embodying both light and shadow, ie ugly and beautiful all at once.
(I wish l was the one who composed this, because when l think of this certain person l had known with this smarmy smile, l could vomit!)
I have a couple favorites from Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.
1. “They had been lurking in the fog for an hour now, but they had been pacing themselves and could lurk for the rest of the night if necessary, with still enough sullen menace left for the final burst of lurking around dawn.”
2. “Crowley: the angel who did not so much fall as saunter vaguely downwards”
There is also:
“My father took one hundred and thirty-two minutes to die.” Which is the first sentence of Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta.
Ha! Love the "lurking" repetition.
And saunter vaguely downwards is so funny.
That's a great first sentence.
There's lot to be found from Pratchett's own works as well, but among my favorites the excellent usage of contrasting adverb in "The Fool jingled miserably across the floor." from Wyrd Sisters.
I signed up for a writing competition with the challenge being a word count at 250- words.
This is gonna help me a lot.
My favorite fancy phrase? I got it in college in my French Lit class. "Vos yeux entendront ces sourires que vos lèvres ne pourront voir". This translates to English as: "Your eyes will hear those smiles that your lips cannot see". I think it was Victor Hugo.
Worth noting that the Epistrophe section also includes an example of near anaphore AND near epistrophe... or more accurately it is an example of (I don't know the proper term) self-mirroring. Not only do the two parts in the front-half end in silence, but the back half (once the silence has ended) starts its two sections by talking about "his father/mother" and ends talking about "his mother/father".
“You should have at least one!” Comment about the 3 word sentence had me laughing out loud 😂 what a genuine reaction
A sentence I really love is actually a lyric in the song Seven Days by Sting: Ask if I am mouse or man, the mirror squeaked, away I ran. Genius. Thanks for the video.
I like how Heinlein uses the word "suits" as a shorthand reply that seems to mean "yes, that suits me just fine." And i also like that he doesn't ever explain this straight out; he just lets readers pick up the lingo as they stroll through his word gardens, picking up roses and weeds alike. A Clockwork Orange does this as well - and it about killed me trying to learn that narrator's slang. Making up new words, or new ways to deliver old ones, is another neat trick.
Gotta add, I Iove how well-read your viewers are! You've built quite a lovely community. It's nice to be around other writerly weirdos who are as enchanted with words as I am.
I love poetry because they're collections of beautiful sentences.
Three word sentences are so punchy, especially for sudden realizations. It pulls me out of the story when a character deeply analyzes a situation first. Usually, you have that dreadful or exciting bare bones reaction, the "She's not normal." feeling that prompts you to think more deeply.
Thank you for your work putting these videos together! You are genuinely the best writing channel on the platform, and remain horrifically underrated. Great tips. Writing advice channels for the most part all repeat the same ideas; I still enjoy them even though they're repetitive, helps remind and drill down concepts. But you're the only channel I've found that genuinely on a regular basis provides new ideas I haven't heard before, or at least breaks down old ideas in a novel, direct way.
Thank you for the kind words. It's always my goal to be original with my fiction advice -- I was also frustrated by the repetitive advice out there and vowed not to be like that.
@Bookfox I'm a western born hindu and I absolutely loved your video on the hindu scripture from a dew week's ago! It made me realize I was on the right track, putting emotion first and creating my scene and setting around it! I'm a new writer but that's what I always did before. Love your content it's helped my writing a lot! Im working on a dark fantasy and sci fi novel.
This video was the advice I've always needed. I wanted to be a writer since I was 12, but didn't pursue it until I was 42 because I thought my prose was no good and had no idea how to improve it, I thought real writers were just born on planet Shakespeare and I wasn't one of those. Eventually, I decided to just try to stumble through and fortunately did manage to improve. If I'd had this video 30 years ago I would have started writing as a teenager instead of waiting half my life. Thanks for this, I think it'll really help me to continue to improve.
i'm 1 minute into watching this and already know I'm gonna memorize all these steps. this is so immediately helpful
7:37 When I think of a sentence I really like, I always recall part of a sentence I put down in my keep notes that I saw somewhere a while ago. I forgot where I saw it, but I really like it. It's an incomplete sentence, as I don't have the whole thing:
"but the night never seems so bad until a candle is lit to highlight just how deep the darkness goes."
What people sometimes forget is that punctuation carries meaning. It's not just the words within the sentence, it's the spaces between them, the blocks they form and the little signs that break them up. I use full stops not only to indicate the end of a sentences, but the end of an action.
"He stood up, breathed in, turned around and looked his brother in the eye." has a slightly diffrent meaning then "He stood up. He breathed in, turned around and looked his brother in the eye." even though the words and actions are the same. But having a full stop focus the readers attention to that specific part of the action, lets them stop for a moment and indicates a short pause in the action of the character. It makes it abundantly clear that he first stood up and paused a bit before he breathed and turned around, while the comma indicates it all happening in short, direct succession or even at the same time.
This is a thing I fight over with my editor right now, as she wants longer, flowing sentences, where I used a full stop to indicate this little diffrence in time.
Also: Read your story out aloud as a step in the editing process. It helps so much. Reading the sentences aloud forces you to actually read every word and regard every punctuation mark. It lets you find clunky sentences, bad repetitions, too similar characer voices and sometimes even plotholes so easily.
I read my work to my husband sometimes as a 'bedtime story', but he gets annoyed with my constant stopping to go, "Oof--gotta change that." "Wow, that’s clunky." "Hold on, just making a note for myself." It just hits so differently when you read it aloud, especially to another person!
Mary Robinette Kowal, on the Writing Excuses podcast speaks about how (I hope I remember this right), there's a different amount of pause after different forms of punctuation -- something a ebook reader must be aware of. She's a voice actor/ebook performer, in addition to being a writer and a puppeteer.
"It was early morning but that really ugly part of the morning where everything's blue." Is my personal favorite sentence I've written.
somehow, that's the prettiest part of the morning for me haha
Awesome video! Love that you highlighted the power of contrast and tension---juxtaposition is a delectable device!
"I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life" is a classic example from Fitzgerald. Certainly, there are more artful sentences, but I salute its beauty and ability to reinforce so many other elements of the novel. It's smart, true, and lovely. Perfect for the mode of narration.
Here was every tip in the video!
1. Words that here
2. Babaganosh
3. The right stuff
4. It's awesome
5. Filler stuff
6. Thousand
Ha ha! I wanted to blur more but it didn't look like words any more!
😂 and I thought I was having a stroke or something when I read the thumbnail
As someone who often stares at the cursor thinking "how do I sentence?", this title spoke to my soul.
Cherry picking the verb couldn’t be a better way of explaining it 👏 that’s what I do!
“He was still a handsome man, with a tanned, chiseled face and long, thick, wavy white hair, but his cells had begun to reproduce in a haphazard fashion, destroying the DNA of neighboring cells and secreting toxins into his body.”
I really like this sentence because it is also a good example of something else that I like. Substituting a word with a definition of that word. It engages our brain to figure out, "What are they describing...oh it's cancer" and helps us look at the concept of that thing rather than just using our immediate mental associations with the word "cancer" and moving on to the next sentence.
Thank You! Thank You for the education. The deep description
of body functions, unveiled an added prospect to my sketched narration of the tests subjects inner body processes. Rather than constantly portraying to the reader the outer evaluation. What's going on on the inside. Thank You for opening my eyes to that angle of view. 👍💥
I like the verb advice. I kinda did this in my first novel. It's about a German soilder mostly after WW1 but when he has flashbacks of the events I use "harder" verbs, to show what he thinks and how the life in the trenches affects his soul and mind. When he is back in Germany and meets a woman and lives a normal life(this is his main goal through he has PTSD) the verbs get softer
Wow! I hooked till the end and salivate for more. I thought I was going to stay for five or ten mins, but boom, I keep punching the bar because I need to jot down important concepts and listen again. Goodness me, time flew so fast.
Indeed. "It was was the best of times, it was the worst of times..."
Thanks a lot.
Thanks for sharing your experience and expertise. Your passion for your work shows.
Perhaps one exception to tip 2 is with dialogue. “Said” is a perfectly fine verb that stays out of the way. It can get really tedious if every line of dialogue is exclaimed, shouted, inquired, or demanded.
I just made a video about Elmore Leonard's 10 writing rules and talked about dialogue tags and this very thing!
I firmly believe if you need to tag every line of dialogue, you're writing bad dialogue; either too many speakers or too similar voices.
Wow, you are really great at introducing the love of language to your audience. Those are some truly brilliant and witty examples there!
Thank you! I do my best!
The great thing about this video, if you know art but are a new write these technique will come to you naturally, even if you aren't aware of them. So it's really great to see you nail them done. I found myself doing this, even though I'm not the most astute, Grammarly correct write. I blame my noobness.
I like the advice you've given about the important meaningful words in the beginning and end of the sentence. Pointing out psychologically it's what people remember. Gosh I really like your videos. Thank You. You have been so helpful. 👍💥
I had an idea for future horror books: start with a one or two sentence hook as the prologue, and then the entire novel will give the mystery.
For instance: The last human on earth awakes from the kicks of a nine month old fetus inside her womb.
Who got her pregnant? How did she become the last woman on earth? What happened to the humans?
Thank you, this is a lovely video. Great idea and super effective with the examples from different authors.
The most challenging part in writing for me is not the actual story, but the prose that's used to convey said story. This is extra challenging to me, because I'm not a native English speaker, and thus had less experience than you all. That being said, I appreciate your tips!
Thanks for this!!! This has helped me with my writing. ❤❤
Your Channel is so useful! Thank you😌
From “Suite Francaise” by Irene Nemirovsky, two come to mind:
(1) “What separates or unites people is not their language, their laws, their customs, their principles, but the way they hold their knife and fork.”
(2) “Waiting is erotic.”
“What separates people is not their language, their customs, their principles, but the way they hold their knife." Even better, because shorter and stronger.
I loved loved loved this video! How you explained concepts, how you provided examples, and how, in the process, it re-energized my desire to sit down and write today. (He-he-he)
A point you could add is that the first and last words of a sentence have the most impact. So that's where you should put the words that you want to catch the reader's attention and remember. Example: 'Richard opened his coat and pulled out a gun.' That's more dramatic than 'Richard pulled a gun from inside his coat'. In the first example, all the focus is on the gun. In the second, the gun is buried in the middle of the sentence and more attention is given to his coat. The sentence tails off boringly, whereas the first ends with a sting.
I actually cover sentence order and important in the sentence course! Good points to bring up, thank you.
“The city traffic brawled through the streets, threatening to assault him.”
You're awesome. I love these videos. I learn so much, and they help give me a good depth of knowledge so I can approach the writing process of my first novel with more confidence. Thank you!
Something I learned while writing lyrics for ai to sing is that ending your sentences with one that moves in the opposite direction (in terms of syllable count) sounds poetic. I think people who write music already know this, since it's one of the ways you end a melody in classical music.
This has three,
And this one four.
Let's set up a jump,
That does not bore.
4:45 reminds me of shakespearean writing. "He tabled the motion and floored the jury."
Thanks for the video, i started writings ff for my own enjoyment in English this year. Its always a pleasure to learn more 😄
Idk if it's an amazing line, but it's a legend :D
"It was a dark and stormy night"
Thanx for the video. Binge-watching, super helpful stuff.
Thanks for this video. I like this sentence: "Tendrils of electricity stretched toward her but stopped short of hitting her."
I know it's not a famous writer ( it's the first sentence that made me realize i wanted to stop talking about and start doing), but i love how it came out-
"Throne Porcelain's annual holiday gala was a cacophonous sound of overflowing conversation and party noises."
I was just excited because i felt like i nailed it.
This video is great! Thank you, Bookfox. 🏆 I'm adding it to my writing playlist, so I can reference it again, should I need it!. Btw, I've been watching your videos for a while, and have gleaned such useful information. I appreciate all the time and energy you put into making these videos! Thank you. Now, that I have my motivation, I need to get to work. I need to finally finish my novel! (I have seven-ish more chapters to go. I've only been working on it for the last Nine Years.) *frustrated chuckle* Thanks, again!✍
Thanks for watching! And so glad the videos have helped.
I'm cheering you on to finish your novel!
Your content is very detailed and great! Love all the examples and the insights
I appreciate that! Glad you enjoyed it.
There is a sentence that I have always loved and it is a quote from Gruntvig that encapsulated his entire theological philosophy: "Livet er en gave og en OPgave" (emphasis added)
"Any roadagent or gambler would
have known that the first to speak would lose but Shelby had already lost it all." - Blood Meridian
For selecting verbs (and other words), I've found that "Use the Right Word: Modern Guide to Synonyms and Related Words" by S.I. Hayakawa to be invaluable. It gives you the subtle differences in their meanings.
The skalds of yore did metonymy really well, only that had their own words for it, kennings ("wave horse" for ship) and _heiti_ (e.g., "brand" for sword). Composing of many forms of their poems (e.g., royal meter or _dróttkvætt_), the best works used a lot of kennings and heiti -- more heavily than might be good in prose.
My word is "voluté", with the French pronunciation. I would say it aloud repeatedly to experience the silkiness echoing through my soul.
There is a lot of good advice here. I already make no small use of litotes, but some of the other figures of speech probably need my attention as well.
The opening line of In Watermelon Sugar: 'In Watermelon Sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in Watermelon Sugar.' One of my favorite uses of repetition.
"If words are paint, then sentences are the brushstrokes of a writer." You see, I can do it too, because I am a Natural Born Awesome Writer (NBAW).
This is the opening sentence from my horror/thriller book: "Evil's embrace is as cold as the grip from a dead man’s icy hand; wearing a thousand faces, it tears mine asunder, used as its mask stitched in place."
You want a sentence. "There was a dark shape next to the boat, as if land were rising from the water." This is from Hannah Stowe's "Move Like Water", describing a whale rise up beside the boat.
Thanks so much ✨
As far as the quote by Gabriel Garcia Marquez there is a river on the border of Columbia and Venezuela called Catatumbo River where it empties into Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. The geography somehow creates a storm almost 160 days a year and it has the most yearly lightning strikes of any place on the planet. The storms used to be so predictable the Spanish sailors called it the Catatumbo Lighthouse because the lightning could be spotted from hundreds of miles away at sea. So Marquez may not have been literal, but the concept of a continuous storm since the 16th century existed in the region where he grew up since it was colonized.
Anyway, geek moment there :)
Love your videos!
Can't stop looking at the sleepy bog in the background omg-
If you have to pile on adverbs to clarify your meaning, it's the wrong verb. "he walked through the town in a way to avoid notice" versus "he skulked through the town".
GREAT VIDEO!
Excellent advice
This is wise advice and I will learn from it.
My favorite sentence from Kurt Vonnegut's 'God Bless You Mr. Rosewater' requires some context. The context:
---
"This is the Rosewater Foundation. How can we help you?"
"Mr. Rosewater-" said a woman, "there was a thing on the radio about you."
"Oh?" Eliot now began to play unconsciously with his pubic hair. It was nothing extravagant. He would simply uncoil a tight spring of it, let it snap back into place.
"It said they were going to try to prove you were crazy."
"Don't worry about it, dear. There's many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip."
"Oh, Mr. Rosewater-if you go away and never come back, we'll die."
"I give you my word of honor I'm coming back. How is that?"
"Maybe they won't let you come back."
"Do you think I'm crazy, dear?"
"I don't know how to put it."
"Any way you like."
"I can't help thinking people are going to think you're crazy for paying so much attention to people like us."
"Have you seen the other people there are to pay attention to?"
"I never been out of Rosewater County."
"It's worth a trip, dear. When I get back, why don't I give you a trip to New York?"
"Oh God! But you're never coming back!"
"I gave you my word of honor."
"I know, I know-but we all feel it in our bones, we smell it in the air. You're not coming back."
---
And now comes my favorite sentence:
"Eliot had now found a hair that was a lulu. He kept extending and extending it until it was revealed as being one foot long. He looked down at it, then glanced at his father, incredulously proud of owning such a thing."
However, "bitter prayer" has another layer... Bitten, in German, means "to ask". And Bitte simply means, "Please."
Oh, love that! Great insight.
Great Video - which style should you use for a fast paced paragraph - slow paced paragraph...
Love the pooch just looking dead af in the background 😂
From Ray Bradbury's, Fahrenheit 451:
Montag grinned the fierce grin of all men singed and driven back by flame.
Forgive my self-indulgence, but this is my favourite sentence from my own current story, which a 350,000 word fantasy trilogy. Ultimately, there's probably nothing that astonishing about it, I think I just like the sensory experience - After an indeterminant amount of time, they emerged from the catacombs to the sounds of both the woodlands around them and waves washing ashore ahead, a salty tang on the air penetrating the forest boundary and mingling with the woodland scents.
"I commit these words to parchment as a testament to truths so terrible they must stand alone in the chronicles of time."
Thanks a lot ❤
I've entered poetry contests in my youth after the coaxing of my mother. I used to write colorful (but not over done purple pros.) poems for self enjoyment and for my mom. Things seem to come to me with a natural flow. As you said, (paraphrased) like in music. I like to think of show don't tell as Painting with words. I relax and imagine Bob Ross coaching me saying. Now, we're going to add a little something here, and how about if we have this going on the background as his indistinct voice fades in the background we work together. Painting with words. (But not too colorful.)
the advertising is strong with you
I don't know why, but all three University I tried to incorporate the word elucidate into everything I wrote. Still haven't managed to get it into my novel, but perhaps one day
"You think you know how to write a sentence." For me it takes a lot of re-writes to get it right. In the first draft of my first book, I ended up with sentences that were a paragraph long, with no punctuation. I wrote it, and I could not understand it when I read it.🤣
If every sentence "tries too hard" to be some flowery masterpiece, it will be exhausting to read. I think another tip could be to focus the weight of your writing into particularly important sentences, don't flood the text with competing sentences.
Also, the cadence of the sentences and their level of complexity should vary based on which character serves as the perspective.
A simpleton can have a lot of short sentences. A scientist might have narration which describes a concept with more fundamental understanding than a layman, etc.
Yes, I agree 100%.
Reading For Whom the bell tolls, and wondering what would Hemingway . . .?
“Become my friend and you embrace a nightmare.”
Juliet Marillier
I am a fan of "pithy." One of my favorite sentences (and book openings) is "Call me Ishmael."
“Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!”
Bram Stoker, Dracula
The biggest thing I get from these videos is how much I actually suck at writing.
My tongue was a motorman's glove. - Raymond Chandler in The Big Sleep
As a child I fell in love with "myriad". Here's a twelve dollar word that shares the identical function as a common two cent word. And then the world made it a cliche while completely ignoring its proper usage. I've heard myriad verifiable geniuses including Neil DeGrasse Tyson get it wrong. It's like poison in my ear. Now I hate "myriad" and refuse to use it. EVER!
Great video. I especially like the multiple examples per case.
The background music annoys me.
Oeh this video is what i was looking for :D
10:38 Sorry, buddy, but ‘hands’ here refers to an older term you young’ens don’t know. They were farm hands or ranch hands that refer to ‘help’, not a body part.
Edit: I guess you did reference it correctly,… 😎
I actually think you are right. Farm hands is a common term and I don't think it needs to be explained.
@ Thanks, Susan. 😊
10:07
Me who isn't fluent in English and doesn't understand technical terms when it comes to grammar:
*Cries In stoopid*
Read, read, read. Technical grammatical terms anguished me as a child, but much of this can become instinct if you continue to saturate yourself in others' good work.
@HH-wq6se it took me 8 days to understand it but thank you my man♥️
McCarthy borrowed form Augusto Monterroso, "When he woke, the dinosaur was still there." 🤣
“Trim” your sentences. ☝️😃
If I spend all my time thinking about these things, I'm never gonna get anything written. So, maybe I'll look at the manuscript after I've got it out of my brain and onto electrons to see whether I sucked completely or occasionally got it write ... er ... right.
first to another awesome video 🎉
These "tips" are things a teacher would review in a sixth grade English class.
"If anything happens," Odessa repeated slowly, nodding her head with terrible significance, "eat my eyes..." The Elementals by Michael McDowell
I always liked the word "ostensibly."
The power words you use as example are mostly adjectives and adverbs. I often hear to avoid them in writing, because it implies that you're using the wrong verb or noun. Would it be correct to only use modifiers if they act as power words?
There’s no “correct” way to do this per say. It’s a matter of your own poetic voice, and how you want to communicate your story. Modifiers can be extremely useful and powerful in and of themselves. Power words, on the other hand, have no power and evoke no emotion if the story surrounding doesn’t have a strong enough structure to hold those words in their proper places.
Power words can be anything. The examples just happened to be adjectives and adverbs.
But yes, you're right to be slightly suspicious of adj/adv, and to want to prioritize nouns/verbs. Still, it's all about style, whether you're going for more of a spare Hemingway or more of a verbose Faulkner.
@@BookfoxLiterary fiction lends itself more to the adjective/adverb pairing than genre fiction. Seems to me, anyway.
I let my verbs enhance the mood. The fog didn't slither. It's a love scene. The fog crept silently and kissed her with cool lips.
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.” -- Albert Camus