Life in progress

Daily Archives: April 4, 2014


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The Friday Reminder and Prompt for SoCS April 5/14

It’s Friday again, and time for the Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt. Stream of Consciousness writing is a great way to open up your mind and allow your thoughts to gently land upon the page. Ask yourself the question, “What is something I care about? If I was sitting with a friend over coffee or tea, what would I like to talk about?” Then write a sentence and let the rest flow. You’ll be amazed at what comes out! The prompt can help get you started.

This week, the prompt is ‘do’ or ‘don’t.’ Write about any subject at all, but make it about something you feel strongly about doing or avoiding; whether it’s yourself or others, it doesn’t matter.

After you’ve written your Saturday post tomorrow, please link it here at the prompt page in the comments so others can find it and see your awesome Stream of Consciousness post!

Here are the rules:

1. Your post must be stream of consciousness writing, meaning no editing, (typos can be fixed) and minimal planning on what you’re going to write.

2. Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be. One sentence – one thousand words. Fact, fiction, poetry – it doesn’t matter. Just let the words carry you along until you’re ready to stop.

3. There will be a prompt every week. I will post the prompt here on my blog on Friday, along with a reminder for you to join in. The prompt will be one random thing, but it will not be a subject. For instance, I will not say “Write about dogs”; the prompt will be more like, “Make your first sentence a question,” or “Begin with the word ‘The’.”

4. Ping back! It’s important, so that I and other people will come and read your post! The way to ping back, is to just copy and paste the URL of my post somewhere on your post. Then your URL will show up in my comments, for everyone to see. For example, in your post you can copy and past the following: “This post is part of SoCS: (https://lindaghill.wordpress.com/2014/03/01/socs-stream-of-consiousness-saturday-the-rules/)” Also, you can come here and link your post in the comments. The most recent comments will be found at the top.

5. Read at least one other person’s blog who has linked back their post. Even better, read everyone’s! If you’re the first person to link back, you can check back later, or go to the previous week, by following my category, “Stream of Consciousness Saturday,” which you’ll find right below the “Like” button on my post.

6. Copy and paste the rules (if you’d like to) in your post. The more people who join in, the more new bloggers you’ll meet and the bigger your community will get!

7. Have fun!


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D is for … Detail

I’ve bemoaned, before, the difficulty I’m having in trying to cut down the length of my manuscript whilst keeping the important little details intact – and at the same time making it readable.  In a much broader sense than the idiom perhaps implies, the devil is in the details.

From http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/devil+is+in+the+detail.html – “When people say that the devil in the detail, they mean that small things in plans and schemes that are often overlooked can cause serious problems later on.”

After letting my ex read the beginning of my novel a couple of weeks ago, I know now that my problems are indeed serious. When we were together he was not only my sounding board, he was the one I wrote to impress, and impress him I did with the details I put into my stories. He told me that they were what drew him in, placed him in the story so that he could feel as though it was going on around him. Two weeks ago, however, the first criticism he gave me was, “Where’s the detail?” I knew I was screwed.

While you might want to scream at me, “He’s your ex, Linda! Of course he’s going to criticize!”, I know he wants me to succeed – and I’m sure it has absolutely NOTHING to do with the fact that if I make millions off this book he won’t have to pay child support. Heh.

So what is detail, and how am I to know the extent to which I should go to add it? I personally don’t like to read a book where every nook and cranny is described; every piece of clothing, or each hair that is blown out of place. I think the most important details are the ones that stimulate the senses.  They say the sense of smell brings the most vivid memories to mind, yet ironically it’s the one I most often forget, and have to insert into a scene after it’s written.

For me, the most efficient way to add detail is to eliminate the passive voice. Just one example and I’ll leave it there – the rest I’ll save for my fiction post.

It was hot and smelly in the kitchen.

vs

The steamy kitchen reeked of wet cat. What were they cooking?

The detail adds to the word count. And yet which would you rather spend time reading?

We’ve discussed it here in the past and the general consensus seemed to be that most people would rather read a longer well-written book than a shorter one that sucked. I agree. It’s why I read Stephen King.

What I’d love to know today is, what kinds of detail do you enjoy? Do you want to know what every character looks like or would you rather use your own imagination? Do you want to know what they’re wearing down to the designer, or is a pair of starched jeans enough to tell you that they go to way too much trouble with their laundry?

 

After you’ve commented, please visit my fiction blog for today’s A-Z installment, to see what I’ve done to demonstrate today’s topic! Find it here: http://lindaghillfiction.wordpress.com/2014/04/04/d-is-for-devil-in-the-details/

Thanks!