Read Online 250 Things You Should Know About Writing by Chuck Wendig - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Chuck Wendig
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Beads." But some writers bury critical details in a mushy glop of description. Don't bury the things the audience needs to know. Highlight them. Make them stand out. I don't want to get to page 156 and say, "Whoa whoa whoa, the antagonist only has one hand? Shouldn't I have known that?" and then it turns out that yes, you told me back on page 32, but you told me in the middle of a generally descriptive paragraph. Blah blah blah, red hair, nice shoes, one hand, big belt buckle, fat thumbs, blah blah blah.
13. Here's The Truth: I Might Just Skip That Descriptive Shit You Wrote
My eyes catch onto dialogue like a hangnail on a fuzzy sweater. My eyes slide over big patches of description like a fat guy going down a log flume greased with bacon fat. Description is like sex with someone unpleasant: get in, get the job done, get out. We call that a "combat landing."
14. Break Description Apart With Your Word-Hammer
No, “word-hammer” is not a euphemism for your penis. My penis, yes. Your penis, no. What I’m saying is, shatter descriptive passages like toffee -- break it into pieces. Incorporate it into dialogue and action. Description doesn't need to exist as if time stands still so the protagonist can "take it all in." He can be running, talking, scheming, hiding -- the details he notices are the details he has to notice , and thus, are the details the reader must notice, too.
15. Pricking The Reader's Oculus With This Grim And Gleaming Lancet
Purple prose is the act of gussying up your words so that they sound more poetic. (Of course, that misunderstands poetry as some flowery, haughty thing.) If you dress up your language in such frills and frippery, you stand in the way of your own story. You do nothing but sound haughty, ludicrous, or some combination of the two. And yes, I said "frippery." If that's too purple for you, then pretend I said, "If you dress your language up in a bedazzled prom gown and give it a gaudy spray-tan..." Put differently: use the words that live inside your head. And if the words that live inside your head are those of an sentimental Victorian troubadour, then please close your head in a door jamb until you kill all that overwrought prose in an act of brain damage.
16. "The Thing Is Blue, The Dog Is Making Sound"
If you need to take the time to describe something, then aim for specifics. You can't just tell me it was a dog . I don't know what to do with that. Big dog? Little dog? Mutt? Pit bull? Rat terrier? Big-balled bulldog? Just telling me what the thing is goes a long way toward helping me place that object, character, or situation into the context of the story you're telling. Was she a leggy blonde? Was he a dumpy child? Description doesn't need to be long or drawn out to matter. It just needs to be specific.
17. Metaphor Is The Tendon Connecting Muscle To Bone
See what I did there? I used metaphor to describe metaphor. That's how a writer does things. That's some hard-ass penmonkey trickery, son. What? What ? You gonna step? You gonna front all up in my face-grill? Ahem. Sorry. Where was I? Right. Metaphor takes a mundane part of the story and connects it to the larger experience of the audience . It says, "this little thing is like this bigger thing, this other thing." Metaphor is less about fact and more about feel.
18. Metaphors Are Always Wrong
They're not wrong to use . But like I said, metaphors aren't about fact. They provide inaccurate information, but offer instead keen artistic and figurative data. When I say, "On our sales team, Bob's the last sled dog in the line -- always got a butthole view of the world," nobody really expects that Bob is a dog, or that during a sales conference he's staring down the poop-chute of a snow-covered Malamute. Metaphors have power because they're wildly inaccurate, because they take two very unlike things and bring them together in the reader's mind.
19. And Yet Metaphors Must Find Essential Truth
A metaphor has to
13. Here's The Truth: I Might Just Skip That Descriptive Shit You Wrote
My eyes catch onto dialogue like a hangnail on a fuzzy sweater. My eyes slide over big patches of description like a fat guy going down a log flume greased with bacon fat. Description is like sex with someone unpleasant: get in, get the job done, get out. We call that a "combat landing."
14. Break Description Apart With Your Word-Hammer
No, “word-hammer” is not a euphemism for your penis. My penis, yes. Your penis, no. What I’m saying is, shatter descriptive passages like toffee -- break it into pieces. Incorporate it into dialogue and action. Description doesn't need to exist as if time stands still so the protagonist can "take it all in." He can be running, talking, scheming, hiding -- the details he notices are the details he has to notice , and thus, are the details the reader must notice, too.
15. Pricking The Reader's Oculus With This Grim And Gleaming Lancet
Purple prose is the act of gussying up your words so that they sound more poetic. (Of course, that misunderstands poetry as some flowery, haughty thing.) If you dress up your language in such frills and frippery, you stand in the way of your own story. You do nothing but sound haughty, ludicrous, or some combination of the two. And yes, I said "frippery." If that's too purple for you, then pretend I said, "If you dress your language up in a bedazzled prom gown and give it a gaudy spray-tan..." Put differently: use the words that live inside your head. And if the words that live inside your head are those of an sentimental Victorian troubadour, then please close your head in a door jamb until you kill all that overwrought prose in an act of brain damage.
16. "The Thing Is Blue, The Dog Is Making Sound"
If you need to take the time to describe something, then aim for specifics. You can't just tell me it was a dog . I don't know what to do with that. Big dog? Little dog? Mutt? Pit bull? Rat terrier? Big-balled bulldog? Just telling me what the thing is goes a long way toward helping me place that object, character, or situation into the context of the story you're telling. Was she a leggy blonde? Was he a dumpy child? Description doesn't need to be long or drawn out to matter. It just needs to be specific.
17. Metaphor Is The Tendon Connecting Muscle To Bone
See what I did there? I used metaphor to describe metaphor. That's how a writer does things. That's some hard-ass penmonkey trickery, son. What? What ? You gonna step? You gonna front all up in my face-grill? Ahem. Sorry. Where was I? Right. Metaphor takes a mundane part of the story and connects it to the larger experience of the audience . It says, "this little thing is like this bigger thing, this other thing." Metaphor is less about fact and more about feel.
18. Metaphors Are Always Wrong
They're not wrong to use . But like I said, metaphors aren't about fact. They provide inaccurate information, but offer instead keen artistic and figurative data. When I say, "On our sales team, Bob's the last sled dog in the line -- always got a butthole view of the world," nobody really expects that Bob is a dog, or that during a sales conference he's staring down the poop-chute of a snow-covered Malamute. Metaphors have power because they're wildly inaccurate, because they take two very unlike things and bring them together in the reader's mind.
19. And Yet Metaphors Must Find Essential Truth
A metaphor has to
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