"Some books are dangerous to read while you're writing, because you'll start to sound like them."
~Alexander Chee
I have definitely had this happen to me before, where the things I write down can echo the latest things I read if I'm not careful. However, I also believe in the power of a mentor text.
Right now I am editing the manuscript of my first novel, and at the same time have been reading The Shipping News by Annie Proulx. She has this uncommon mastery over creating her sentences with absolutely no extra words. There are several sentences in her writing with only one or two words to them, usually barely more than a verb. Her writing has revealed to me exactly how wordy I can be, which is perfect while I'm in editing mode. Many sentences in my paper copy are squiggled-through as I'm realizing how redundant they are.
Being aware of the voice in what you're reading is clearly important to note while you are writing. Some habits if you were to pick them up may not be compatible with the way you write, while other writing may be useful to keep on your nightstand if one writer has a strength you were/are looking to incorporate.
Which writers do you use as mentor-texts? Which take you over, that you try to avoid?
Showing posts with label Phrases. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Phrases. Show all posts
Monday, August 8, 2011
Thursday, July 28, 2011
The Museum of Cliches
Recently I read through this article that targets what it considers are "cliches that should be banned from use,"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/18/bad-cliches_n_900201.html#s309863&title=247
and it reminded me of a handout I made for the English classes I precepted, based on an Annie Dillard quote we read from an essay by Alexander Chee, "Annie Dillard and the Writing Life." He talked about his days as her non ficiton writing student, and listed off many of her concrete rules for strengthening language.
One of my favorites that I haunted my students with throughout the semester, was that one should avoid "the museum of clichés in [the] unconscious." I created a corresponding handout to this effect, affectionately called "The Museum of Cliches." With the Professor Elizabeth's blessing I handed them a triple-columned page, listing as many cliches as I could think of. Elizabeth has used this list in other classes since then, and plans to use it in classes to come. Because the above link only provided 12 phrases, and with an arguable level of overuse, here is the museum I paired together for my students.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/18/bad-cliches_n_900201.html#s309863&title=247
and it reminded me of a handout I made for the English classes I precepted, based on an Annie Dillard quote we read from an essay by Alexander Chee, "Annie Dillard and the Writing Life." He talked about his days as her non ficiton writing student, and listed off many of her concrete rules for strengthening language.
One of my favorites that I haunted my students with throughout the semester, was that one should avoid "the museum of clichés in [the] unconscious." I created a corresponding handout to this effect, affectionately called "The Museum of Cliches." With the Professor Elizabeth's blessing I handed them a triple-columned page, listing as many cliches as I could think of. Elizabeth has used this list in other classes since then, and plans to use it in classes to come. Because the above link only provided 12 phrases, and with an arguable level of overuse, here is the museum I paired together for my students.
The Museum of Clichés
“She is not angry, she threw her clothes out the window. Remember this.”
~Anne Dillard
Think you should word something more creatively?
If you can find your phrase here (and maybe if you can’t), the answer is yes!
A bone to pick
A glimmer of hope
A twinkle in her eye
Ace up her sleeve
Actions speak louder than words
Against the grain
All bets are off
All boils down to
All in a day’s work
All walks of life
An oldie but a goodie
Are a big part of my life
As (fast, loud, etc) as she could
As all get out
As luck would have it
As the day is long
At the end of the day
At the last minute
At the top of her voice
Back against the wall
Bark worse than her bite
Basically/Overall/Nowadays…
Beat around the bush
Been there, done that
Beggars can’t be choosers
Behind her back
Behind the times
Being all ears
Bend over backwards
Bent out of shape
Better safe than sorry
Better than ever
Bite the bullet
Blew a gasket
Bored to tears
Bright and early
Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed
Buck/Butt naked
Bump on a log
Bust your chops
Busy as a bee
Buy into
Call it a day
Call the shots
Chewed her out
Chomping at the bit
Clean your clock
Close call
Cool as a cucumber
Costs an arm and a leg
Couch potato
Cute as a button
Dealt a fatal blow
Dig yourself a hole
Dirt cheap
Down on your luck
Drawing a blank
Driving me crazy/up a wall
Easy as pie/taking candy from a baby
Even the odds
Everyday life
Fancy meeting you here
Forever and a day
Get worked up
Give a hoot/damn/crap
Give and Take
Glass half full/empty
Grasping at straws
Guns blazing
Had it up to here
Half-hearted
Hang on every word
Hard to swallow
Have high hopes
Have made me who I am today
Have two left feet
Having a short fuse
Hell to pay/freezes over
Hit the hay/road/sack/deck
Hold/bite your tongue
Hook, Line, and Sinker
In the nick of time
In this day and age
In today’s society
Just in time
Just the tip of the iceberg
Keep on ticking
Kick the bucket
Last but not least
Let’s face it
Light as a feather
Like a knife through butter
Like Romeo and Juliet
Like there’s no tomorrow
Lose steam
Lost her marbles
Made her skin crawl
Made my blood boil
Memory like a goldfish
Memory like an elephant
Most people…
Necessary evil
Never a dull moment
No pain, no gain
No place like home
No time like the present
Not exactly rocket science
Now and again
Now and then
On tender hooks
On/In the same page/boat
One hundred and ten percent
One in a million
Push comes to shove
Push your buttons
Put your best foot forward
Raining cats and dogs
Read between the lines
Rhyme or reason
Rubbed me the wrong way
Seeing eye to eye
Since sliced bread
Slow as molasses
Stop on a dime
Stuck out like a sore thumb
Swallowed her pride
Tail between his legs
Take by storm
Take its toll
Tears of joy
The big cheese
The calm before the storm
The fact of the matter
Through thick and thin
Throw a curve ball
Tickles your fancy
To be fair/honest
Twenty four/seven
Twist of fate
Two-way street
Ugly as sin
Until the Bitter end
Until the cows come home
Wake-up call
What on earth
Whole nine yards
Wig out
Winds of change
Wishy-washy
With all of her heart
Work like a dog
World of trouble/hurt
Worry wart
You snooze, you lose
Young and foolish
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Writers for Writers: Wes McNair's Rules for Poetry Line Breaks
Recently crowned with the title of Maine's Poet Laureate (What some argue is the only good decision made by governor Lepage), and who is also the founder of UMaine Farmington's BFA creative writing program, Wes Mcnair often meets with UMF students in his retired years in a workshop or one-shot lecture format to offer his sage advice.
This semester, Wes visited to discuss his new thinking, among other things, about why and how to select one's poetic line breaks. He eluded to having a longer list, but please enjoy the ten thoughts he shared with us.
For more about Wes McNair, see: http://blackwidow.umf.maine.edu/~wesmcnair/
Rules for Line Breaking
1. Break to suggest central action and its unfolding, to create anticipation
Let words stick out of your lines that connect to the poem's heart. Also, let the lines create tension, as professor Jeff Thompson would put it. Make the reader chase you to the next line to find out what fell, or who chased her, or whatever have you.
2. Break for interplay between line and sentence; This is free verse's rhyme & meter equivalent
In other words, as Wes was once advised: The line is Buddha, the sentence is Socrates
Buddha is content to be were he is, as he is, the way a line, on its own, its simple, perhaps pretty or cryptic, but calm. Socrates is always asking, wanting, and hungry. You follow the entire sentence line to line to find out what, who, or why, jumping from Buddha to Buddha until your questions are answered. When line breaking, be aware of how you answer Socrates's questions effectively, but also create graceful pauses in your lines, to enjoy the moment.
3. To create a graph of feeling
Playing with jagged margins, or waves, or open space to illustrate a reflection of the poem's feeling. Using shorter lines for riddles and unknowns also plays with what isn't said.
4. Break to emphasize related sounds
Is there a song to your poem? Find the music. See if there is a sense of metronome, or words you can link together at the poem's pauses to create a resonance. This can be done with or without rhyme.
5. The word at the end of the line is most important.
Use Nouns, verbs, and their describers. All sentences have and, the, or but. They are less important, only connectors. End on the words that need to stand out of the poem, let them linger with the reader on the end of the line before they continue through your poem, or follow them through their day after they put your poem down.
6. Break to show the stresses of meditation
Listen to people around you as they speak. It was Wes Mcnair's observation that people speak in line breaks as well as can write in them. People pause for thought, for continued meditation, at places in their sentences that are their own, and make their voice. He advises to play with this in our poetry.
7. When breaking, be aware of stanza form: Do you use regular, or irregular stanzas?
You'd better know, and have done it on purpose.
8. "Let me learn the rules so I can break them"
In the days of rhyme and meter, rhythm would be broken in choice places in order to bring attention to a message. This rule was not abandoned in the days of free verse. Create a theme, pattern, or message, and then obscure it. Play with capital letters or punctuation at the end of lines in a way that brings focus to a contrary feeling or ironic concept.
9. Find the second story
It isn't really a secret of the trade that poems about waltzes, or red wheelbarrows, or horses at night, rarely stop at just creating those everyday images. There is always a "second story," or rather, a reason for why the initial object was worth writing about, a discovery that is made along the way.
Additionally, putting this much though into how one writes their poetry makes you a stronger reader. You will pay more attention to these choices as they are made by other poets, and take this play into consideration when you absorb their work.
This semester, Wes visited to discuss his new thinking, among other things, about why and how to select one's poetic line breaks. He eluded to having a longer list, but please enjoy the ten thoughts he shared with us.
For more about Wes McNair, see: http://blackwidow.umf.maine.edu/~wesmcnair/
Rules for Line Breaking
1. Break to suggest central action and its unfolding, to create anticipation
Let words stick out of your lines that connect to the poem's heart. Also, let the lines create tension, as professor Jeff Thompson would put it. Make the reader chase you to the next line to find out what fell, or who chased her, or whatever have you.
2. Break for interplay between line and sentence; This is free verse's rhyme & meter equivalent
In other words, as Wes was once advised: The line is Buddha, the sentence is Socrates
Buddha is content to be were he is, as he is, the way a line, on its own, its simple, perhaps pretty or cryptic, but calm. Socrates is always asking, wanting, and hungry. You follow the entire sentence line to line to find out what, who, or why, jumping from Buddha to Buddha until your questions are answered. When line breaking, be aware of how you answer Socrates's questions effectively, but also create graceful pauses in your lines, to enjoy the moment.
3. To create a graph of feeling
Playing with jagged margins, or waves, or open space to illustrate a reflection of the poem's feeling. Using shorter lines for riddles and unknowns also plays with what isn't said.
4. Break to emphasize related sounds
Is there a song to your poem? Find the music. See if there is a sense of metronome, or words you can link together at the poem's pauses to create a resonance. This can be done with or without rhyme.
5. The word at the end of the line is most important.
Use Nouns, verbs, and their describers. All sentences have and, the, or but. They are less important, only connectors. End on the words that need to stand out of the poem, let them linger with the reader on the end of the line before they continue through your poem, or follow them through their day after they put your poem down.
6. Break to show the stresses of meditation
Listen to people around you as they speak. It was Wes Mcnair's observation that people speak in line breaks as well as can write in them. People pause for thought, for continued meditation, at places in their sentences that are their own, and make their voice. He advises to play with this in our poetry.
7. When breaking, be aware of stanza form: Do you use regular, or irregular stanzas?
You'd better know, and have done it on purpose.
8. "Let me learn the rules so I can break them"
In the days of rhyme and meter, rhythm would be broken in choice places in order to bring attention to a message. This rule was not abandoned in the days of free verse. Create a theme, pattern, or message, and then obscure it. Play with capital letters or punctuation at the end of lines in a way that brings focus to a contrary feeling or ironic concept.
9. Find the second story
It isn't really a secret of the trade that poems about waltzes, or red wheelbarrows, or horses at night, rarely stop at just creating those everyday images. There is always a "second story," or rather, a reason for why the initial object was worth writing about, a discovery that is made along the way.
Additionally, putting this much though into how one writes their poetry makes you a stronger reader. You will pay more attention to these choices as they are made by other poets, and take this play into consideration when you absorb their work.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Tameri Guide for Writers' Latin Phrases
This is is taken from:
http://www.tameri.com/write/coollatin.html
It is not mine, but I'm sharing their knowledge for its value. =)
Latin Phrases
http://www.tameri.com/write/coollatin.html
It is not mine, but I'm sharing their knowledge for its value. =)
Latin Phrases
It’s a matter of taste and style, but not long ago American writers attempted to demonstrate their credentials to the world by including Latin and French phrases within works. A dash of Latin was expected of the moderately educated throughout the Western world.
annus mirabilis - wonderful year
arbiter elegantiae - judge of the elegant; one who knows the good things in life
bona fides - good faith; credentials
carpe diem - sieze the day; enjoy the present
casus belli - cause justifying a war
caveat emptor - buyer beware
cui bono? - for whose advantage?
de facto - of fact; it is
de gustibus non est disputandum - no disputing tastes; there is no accounting for taste
Dei gratia - by the grace of God
Deo gratias - thanks to God
Deo volente - God willing
dis aliter visum - it seemed otherwise to the gods
Dominus vobiscum - Lord be with you
dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - sweet and seemly it is to die for one’s country
ecce homo - behold man
ex cathedra - with authority
ex more - with or according to customs
exempli gratia - for example (e.g.)
genius loci - spirit of the location
hic et ubique - here and everywhere
hinc illae lacrimae - hence, those tears
humanum est errare - to err is human; human is to err
id est - that is (i.e.)
in extremis - at death
in hoc signo vinces - by this sign, you conquer
in loco parentis - in place of the parent
in medias res - into the middle of things; the heart of the matter
in omnia paratus - prepared for all; ready for anything
in perpetuum - forever; perpetually
in propia persona - in person; in one’s own life or words
in statu quo - as things were
in toto - entirely; in total
ipso jure - the law itself
jure divino - Divine law
labor omnia vincit - labor conquers all things; effort results in victory
laborare est orare - to work is to pray
laus Deo - praise God
loco citato - in the location cited
loquitur - he speaks
mens sana in corpore sano - of sound mind in a healthy body
meum et tuum - mine and yours
modus operandi - mode of operating
morituri te salutamus - we who are about to die, salute you
motu proprio - of one’s own accord; on your own
multum in parvo - there is much in little
nemo me impune lacessit - no one attacks me with impunity
nil admirari - wondering at nothing
nolens volens - willing or not
Nota Bene - note well; pay special attention to
omnia vincit amor - love conquers all
opere citato - in the volume cited; in the book cited
otium cum dignitate - leisure with dignity
passim - here and there
pater patriae - father of his country
pax vobiscum - peace be with you
persona non grata - unwelcome person
primus inter pares - first among equals
pro bono publico - for the public good
pro Deo et ecclesia - for God and the Church
pro forma - as a matter of form; standard
quod erat demonstrandum - which was demonstrated; that which was shown
requiescat in pace - rest in peace
sic - thus; so it was
sic passim - so throughout
sic semper tyrannis - thus always to tyrants
sine die - some day; not a particular time
sine quo non - without which, nothing; it is essential
tempus fugit - time flies
timeo Danaos et dona ferentes - I fear the Greeks, even when they bear gifts
verbatim et literatim - word for word, letter for letter
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