Bestselling Authors and Touch
What if you uncovered how bestselling authors view touch differently, approach touch differently, and apply touch differently than unpublished and even mid-list authors? What if you could pull back the veil on this set of powerful sensory secrets?
Now you can.
How Bestselling Authors View Touch
Bestselling authors view touch as a visceral portal to a reader's imagination, a kaleidoscope of kinesthetic opportunities to reveal character traits, relationships and changes in the story.
How Bestselling Authors Approach Touch
Bestselling authors not only view touch differently, they approach the sense of touch differently in the story. To a bestselling writer, touch offers a playground of opportunities. Touch is a versatile sense that can be engaged in a variety of ways in stories. Touch is a powerful scene builder and story changer. Bestselling authors know this and, therefore, approach touch with thought and care and much deliberation.
How Bestselling Authors Apply Touch
Here we get to the meat of the article, where theoretical understandings of touch meet the written page. Bestselling authors apply touch in a plethora of ways in the story to accomplish multiple story goals.
Touch reveals character traits. Bestselling authors use touch to reveal information about a character. Instead of simply telling the readers that "Joe loves his son" we see Joe hugging his son and teaching his son how to hit a baseball. We learn about the father, Joe, through the way he physicaly touches his son. In another story, we may learn that a character is aggressive and abusive when he or she threatens, grabs, pulls, or slaps another character. Touch helps us "show not tell" who characters are in the story.
How does the main character in your current story touch others? What does that reveal about him or her? Somewhere in your story, find a place where you reveal a character trait through touch.
Touch distinguishes characters. The way someone touches others can distinguish one character from another. For example, one character may be very "touchy feely" and always be touching others. Another character may be standoffish and hardly touch anyone at all.
How do different characters in your story touch others? Do they all touch people the same? How can you make the differences even more clear?
Touch reveals character relationships. By watching how couples touch (or don't touch) we learn how close or distant they feel to each other. Think about it. Characters who hold hands, hug and kiss each other affectionately probably have a close, meaningful relationship. Couples that don't look at each other, who stand far apart, and who don't touch probably are in serious trouble.
How do the characters touch each other in your story? What does that say about them? How can you more clearly reveal relationships through touch? Try to come up with five times in your story where touch speaks to character relationships.
Touch reveals relationship changes. As people grow closer emotionally, they tend to also grow closer physically. They touch more frequently and more lovingly. Bestselling authors often show relationships changing by how touch changes over the course of the story.
How does touch change in your story? Does the way two people in love change in your story? (grow closer or farther apart)
Touch reveals character change.Bestselling authors also apply touch to show a character arc in full swing, such as when a cold-blooded killer first slashes his way through a upper-class neighborhood, then eventually hesitates before he kills, and finally leaves a survivor.
How can you use touch to show how a character changes in your story? Try to insert three (or more) paragraphs or entire scenes in your story where the way your characters touch others communicates internal personality change.
Extra Tips on Touch
1. The way a character touches any object (i.e., washes a car, punches the wall) broadcasts internal feelings about the object, or emotions in general
2. Characters can move from positive to negative or from negative to positive touch
3. Characters may touch differently in differently situations (i.e., at the gym, at home, at the office, etc).
4. Figure out what your character would never touch and then force him or her to touch it in the story.
Showing posts with label description. Show all posts
Showing posts with label description. Show all posts
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Friday, March 25, 2011
The Sensuous Story
Sensuous.
It's a word that conjures up a constellation of images, ideas, thoughts, memories and feelings. It's a word that describes some of the most powerful moments of life: falling in love, a wedding, the birth of a child, etc.
It's also a word that describes bestselling fiction.
Does it describe your story?
Check out this opening paragraph from Dean Koontz's novel, Frankenstein: Lost Souls:
If you're like me, descriptions like that set off explosions of sensory delight in your head. The words expertly draw you into the story through the doorway of your senses.
How to Become a Sensuous Writer
You, too, can write with such poetic magic. Part of Koontz's blockbuster success is owed to his ability to engage the reader's senses.
In that short excerpt above, Koontz managed to activate three of the five senses (i.e. sight, sound, touch, taste and smell).
Sight = stars, airbrush, pale moonlight, mist of paint, slate roof, limestone walls, high windows
Sound = hiss
Touch = blow...across the slate roofs, across the high windows, etc.
You become a sensuous writer by imitating Koontz, by tapping into the senses in every scene of your story. Stephen King has suggested that aspiring writers include three sensory details in each scene to ground readers in the sensory experience of the story.
The Sensory Cheat-Sheet
Sight: colors (yellow, blue, red, green, turquoise, brown, black, white, etc), rough, smooth, flat, bumpy, jagged, rugged, tough, flimsy, tall, short, fat, thin, massive, tiny, twisted, ropey, damaged, bubbly, calm, etc.
Sound: beep, clink, clatter, chirp, bam, bang, clang, chatter, fluid, smooth, jazzy, screech, scream, whisper, melodic, angelic, floating, pop, etc.
Touch: harsh, cold, hot, warm, soft, hard, blow, brush, slam, jam, scrape, scratch, move, deliberate, clumsy, loving, tender, brackish, sexy, spongy, etc.
Smell: moldy, nasty, sweet, gross, delicious, sexy, fresh, overpowering, overwhelming, hint of..., etc
Taste: chewy, soft, hard, slippery, salty, spicy, hot, cold, warm, delicious, gross, sweet, crunchy, stale, etc.
More Tips on Sensuous Writing
1. Use a thesaurus: don't settle for the first word that comes to mind. Be unique and come up with a fresh new way to immerse readers into your story world.
2. Combine two or three senses into a single paragraph, or even a single sentence, as Koontz does in the above excerpt.
3. Spend five minutes a day listening and paying attention to and recording the everyday sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and "touches" around you. Use them in your stories. Take a notebook or recording device with you.
4. Transfer the information on the notebook or recording device to your computer. Create a file of sounds, sights, tastes, etc.
5. Review your "sensory" file often as you write and edit your stories. Your file may spark new and surprising ways to lure readers into the sensory world of your fiction.
It's a word that conjures up a constellation of images, ideas, thoughts, memories and feelings. It's a word that describes some of the most powerful moments of life: falling in love, a wedding, the birth of a child, etc.
It's also a word that describes bestselling fiction.
Does it describe your story?
Check out this opening paragraph from Dean Koontz's novel, Frankenstein: Lost Souls:
"The October wind came down from the stars. With the hiss of an artist's airbrush, it seemed to blow the pale moonlight like a mist of paint across the slate roofs of the church and abbey, across the higher windows, and down the limestone walls."
If you're like me, descriptions like that set off explosions of sensory delight in your head. The words expertly draw you into the story through the doorway of your senses.
How to Become a Sensuous Writer
You, too, can write with such poetic magic. Part of Koontz's blockbuster success is owed to his ability to engage the reader's senses.
In that short excerpt above, Koontz managed to activate three of the five senses (i.e. sight, sound, touch, taste and smell).
Sight = stars, airbrush, pale moonlight, mist of paint, slate roof, limestone walls, high windows
Sound = hiss
Touch = blow...across the slate roofs, across the high windows, etc.
You become a sensuous writer by imitating Koontz, by tapping into the senses in every scene of your story. Stephen King has suggested that aspiring writers include three sensory details in each scene to ground readers in the sensory experience of the story.
The Sensory Cheat-Sheet
Sight: colors (yellow, blue, red, green, turquoise, brown, black, white, etc), rough, smooth, flat, bumpy, jagged, rugged, tough, flimsy, tall, short, fat, thin, massive, tiny, twisted, ropey, damaged, bubbly, calm, etc.
Sound: beep, clink, clatter, chirp, bam, bang, clang, chatter, fluid, smooth, jazzy, screech, scream, whisper, melodic, angelic, floating, pop, etc.
Touch: harsh, cold, hot, warm, soft, hard, blow, brush, slam, jam, scrape, scratch, move, deliberate, clumsy, loving, tender, brackish, sexy, spongy, etc.
Smell: moldy, nasty, sweet, gross, delicious, sexy, fresh, overpowering, overwhelming, hint of..., etc
Taste: chewy, soft, hard, slippery, salty, spicy, hot, cold, warm, delicious, gross, sweet, crunchy, stale, etc.
More Tips on Sensuous Writing
1. Use a thesaurus: don't settle for the first word that comes to mind. Be unique and come up with a fresh new way to immerse readers into your story world.
2. Combine two or three senses into a single paragraph, or even a single sentence, as Koontz does in the above excerpt.
3. Spend five minutes a day listening and paying attention to and recording the everyday sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and "touches" around you. Use them in your stories. Take a notebook or recording device with you.
4. Transfer the information on the notebook or recording device to your computer. Create a file of sounds, sights, tastes, etc.
5. Review your "sensory" file often as you write and edit your stories. Your file may spark new and surprising ways to lure readers into the sensory world of your fiction.
Monday, January 4, 2010
The Heart of a Bestseller Part II
Welcome back, friend. Continuing with the last post, here are some additional writing secrets culled from Dean Koontz's Your Heart Belongs to Me.
Chapter 2
-The main character reacts and responds both physically, emotionally and mentally to the "episode" in the water (Don't know what I'm talking about? Review the previous post, Heart of a Bestseller Part I).
-The chapter is filled with wonderful sentences like, "The offshore breeze strengthened, blowing liquid smoke off the lips of the waves."
-The two main characters move from the beach to an apartment, where they eat and talk about Sam's (female main character) history with a certain family member. Talk is off death and dying, with a bit of Koontz humor drizzled in for flavor.
-The chapter ends with a short, powerful scene where Ryan (male protagonist) experiences another "episode" with his heart.
Chapter 3
-This four-page chapter details the "episode," detailing both the physical experience and Ryan's response to it.
-More beautiful language.
Chapter 4
-More response to the episodes. Ryan decides to have a doctor check him out.
Chapter 5
-Ryan at the doctor's office.
-The dialogue between doctor (who is a friend) and patient dominates this chapter. The doctor gives information, Ryan responds to it. After dumping the painful prognosis, the doctor and patient talk of common things, things having nothing to do with death and dying or heart problems. They talk about boats.
-The end of the chapter finishes with the twosome returning briefly to the painful prognosis.
What writing secrets can you learn?
*Craft memorable and vivid sentences that fire your reader's brains with delight. Study how bestsellers like Koontz pair words and structure sentences.
*Describe (show!) your protagonist reacting and responding to what happens in the story.
*Go one step further by showing how your characters respond emotionally, physically and mentally to the events of the story. This will add depth and realism to your novel.
*After characters discuss a painful or uncomfortable topic, have them briefly talk about mundane subjects, like mutual passions for boats, for instance. Then, right before the end of the scene or chapter, have the characters return to the painful topic. This will lend the often elusive quality of subtext to your novel or short story.
Stay tuned for the next installment, Heart of a Bestseller Part III.
Chapter 2
-The main character reacts and responds both physically, emotionally and mentally to the "episode" in the water (Don't know what I'm talking about? Review the previous post, Heart of a Bestseller Part I).
-The chapter is filled with wonderful sentences like, "The offshore breeze strengthened, blowing liquid smoke off the lips of the waves."
-The two main characters move from the beach to an apartment, where they eat and talk about Sam's (female main character) history with a certain family member. Talk is off death and dying, with a bit of Koontz humor drizzled in for flavor.
-The chapter ends with a short, powerful scene where Ryan (male protagonist) experiences another "episode" with his heart.
Chapter 3
-This four-page chapter details the "episode," detailing both the physical experience and Ryan's response to it.
-More beautiful language.
Chapter 4
-More response to the episodes. Ryan decides to have a doctor check him out.
Chapter 5
-Ryan at the doctor's office.
-The dialogue between doctor (who is a friend) and patient dominates this chapter. The doctor gives information, Ryan responds to it. After dumping the painful prognosis, the doctor and patient talk of common things, things having nothing to do with death and dying or heart problems. They talk about boats.
-The end of the chapter finishes with the twosome returning briefly to the painful prognosis.
What writing secrets can you learn?
*Craft memorable and vivid sentences that fire your reader's brains with delight. Study how bestsellers like Koontz pair words and structure sentences.
*Describe (show!) your protagonist reacting and responding to what happens in the story.
*Go one step further by showing how your characters respond emotionally, physically and mentally to the events of the story. This will add depth and realism to your novel.
*After characters discuss a painful or uncomfortable topic, have them briefly talk about mundane subjects, like mutual passions for boats, for instance. Then, right before the end of the scene or chapter, have the characters return to the painful topic. This will lend the often elusive quality of subtext to your novel or short story.
Stay tuned for the next installment, Heart of a Bestseller Part III.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
