What makes you keep reading- Part Two

I want to offer a quick thanks to my lovely friend and co-blog owner, Emily K. who graciously shoots me a text every Tuesday saying, “Have you written your blog post yet?” I would not have posted the first two posts on their proper dates if not for her. Thanks Em! J

I’m sorry to say that this post is also going to be rather short due to an immense amount of work I need to get done! And Emily is very sorry she was unable to post Friday, due to some school exams (you know how those blasted muggle schools can be) and some illness in her house. She will post this Friday, once again, with her sparkling advice and words of gold.

 

So now, to our topic today…

Word craft.

Without crafting your words correctly, your reader will find your work dull, boring, and uninteresting. They will quickly lose patience due to the fact that they don’t understand the point your trying to make, or even what’s happening in the story.

In order to write a good book, you have to know the craft of writing. This is very tricky. I’ve been writing for almost three years now and I’m still far from an expert. But let me tell you, you can never MASTER word crafting. You just can’t. With every new book you read, you learn more, which is why it’s so important to immerse yourself in piles of books at every chance you have. Study what you read. See how the published authors made their work published. It’ll help more than you can imagine. Trust me.

            Every writer has a style. Style is very important. It’s a key factor in what makes an author unique. With each book you read, you may see similar writing styles, but you’ll never see writing styles that are EXACTLY the same.

What do I even mean by style? Well, let’s take describing things for an example.

When your character meets a new character, or enters a new room, or goes to an event of some type, what are the first things you point out? The colors? The types of fabrics the curtains and dresses are made of? The pinched, unpleasant expressions? The smell of the room? The smell of the person? This is a hint of style. My sister has always had a passion for doing people’s hair. She always notice’s guys hair, and girls hair, and tends to point them out, saying, “Ooh, that girl is pretty” or, “Oooooh that guy is *clicks tongue and wiggles eyebrows*” that’s usually her way of saying, “Nice hair.”

So, when going back and reading my writing, I’ve noticed that the first thing I point out in a person’s description is the hair. And I tent to give WAY to much details on how “it was pulled back in an elegant bun on the very top of her head, golden lightly curled tendrils hanging down to frame a cold, pale face… etc.” That’s my style.

What’s your style? What’s the first thing you point out in a room, or on a person? It can be anything. That’s just an example of where to find someone’s style, however, and get an idea of what it looks like.

Don’t know what your style is yet? That is perfectly okay. I didn’t have a style for the longest time, until last year when I picked up the first book in the “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” series. Then poof! My writing style, for a long time, tended to look a LOT like Rick Riordan’s. Then I branched off a little and now my writing style is part me, part his. That’s inspiration for you!

So don’t worry if you have no clue what your style is. It’ll come. Weather in the form of a book you will treasure all your life, or something else, maybe more mysterious and magical. ;)

 

I’ll come back again next Tuesday with my post on characters, part three of What makes you keep reading?

Have a blessed school week and happy writing to all!

-Hannah W.