Everything You Need to Know About Writing

Stephen King gives great advice in this piece: Everything You Need to Know About Writing in 10 Minutes

Stephen King (Stephen King.com) has published over 40 books and has become one of the world's most successful writers.

King's advice begins with a story about editing. Upon editing a first draft - eliminate the unneeded. Be concise. Reduce.

I had been writing first drafts of stories which might run 2,500 words. The second drafts were apt to run 3,300 words. Following that day (a story about his first writing boss's advice), my 2,500-word first drafts became 2,200-word second drafts. And two years after that, I sold the first one.

Here is his advice quickly:
1) Be talented. (here he is talking about what it takes to get published)
2) Be neat. Type. Double space. Use heavy white paper.
3) Be self critical. "If you haven't marked up your manuscript a lot, you did a lazy job. Only God gets things right the first time. Don't be a slob."
4) Remove every extraneous word. Be concise.
5) Never look at a reference book on a first draft. Good advice to avoid writer's block - just let it flow.
...

9. How to evaluate criticism (I love this) Show your piece to a number of people - ten, let us say. Listen carefully to what they tell you. Smile and nod a lot. Then review what was said very carefully. If your critics are all telling you the same thing about some facet of your story - a plot twist that doesn't work, a character who rings false, stilted narrative, or half a dozen other possibles - change that facet. It doesn't matter if you really liked that twist of that character; if a lot of people are telling you something is wrong with you piece, it is. If seven or eight of them are hitting on that same thing, I'd still suggest changing it. But if everyone - or even most everyone - is criticizing something different, you can safely disregard what all of them say.

Smart advice from someone who knows.

Want to be a better writer?

How to Write (in a thousand words or less)

This is a great little blog post on some tips on writing. Here's a preview:

# Hook ‘em early. Start with the headline, which should say why I should read this. Then write a strong introduction that draws your reader in and makes them want to read on. Tell a story, make a bold statement, offer up a surprising fact. Don’t open with "According to Wikipedia…" or "According to Webster’s…". YAWN!
# Use topic sentences. Every paragraph should clearly say what it’s about. The topic sentence might not be the first sentence — it might even be the last sentence, or the first part of the third sentence. But somewhere in the paragraph there should be a line that, taken on its own, says what the paragraph is about.
# Have a conclusion. People fuss a lot over introductions, and slack on conclusions. Tell your reader why they bothered to read your piece. Remember, the conclusion is the part your reader is going away with — make it count.
# Explain yourself. Never assume your reader agrees with you. If you say someone’s bad because he barbecues puppies, you’d better explain why barbecuing puppies is a bad thing. Maybe your reader thinks puppies are delicious and nutritious — can you afford for that reader to completely miss the intent of your writing?
# Have a trusted reader. Whenever possible, get your work read by someone you trust to be honest with you. Listen intently to their responses, even when your reader tries to blunt their critique. For example, if they say they didn’t get a part, but that’s probably because they didn’t know anything about the topic, you need to rewrite that part so that, even knowing nothing about the subject, they do get it.

Pretty good advice and very well written (interestingly enough).

For me, writing is exploration; and most of the time, I'm surprised where the journey takes me.
Jack Dann

The Dark Side of the Rainbow

This week we watched a short clip of The Wizard of Oz in AVID. I asked the students to consider who might play the parts of the characters in the movie in their life. It was a nice writing assignment and some students did an excellent job of coming up with comparison, simile, and metaphor.

We discussed a bit in my AVID II sophomore class that some have thought it odd how the Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd and the Wizard of Oz seem to go together. You start both at the very beginning and turn the sound down on the movie and the sound up on the album. I thought I'd post a few of the similarities here. We obviously don't have time in class to get into all that there. :)

Wikipedia says this: "When the album is played simultaneously with the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, numerous images from the film appear to synchronize with the music and lyrics. All band members (save Roger Waters) and engineer Alan Parsons have firmly stated that the phenomenon is a coincidence. This effect has often been called Dark Side of the Rainbow. Arguably, playing any two media together will produce an impression of a striking amount of coincidence (an effect known as apophenia)."

Rolling Stone did a quick Video Mashup of the coincidences: Dark Side of Oz! Pretty neat.

Here is the very beginning of the movie in sync with the album:

According to this author, here are the similarities:
Here are some interesting parallels that we've noticed over the years. As I said, I've tried to keep this list to the more striking moments. An internet search will turn up dozens more.

-First and foremost - take a look at the cover of the album. It's white light exploding into color, just as the films moves from black and white into color.

-In Breathe, the lyrics say "balanced on the biggest wave," as Dorothy balances carefully on a piece of wood.

-The piercing bells of Time begin just as the Wicked Witch of the West appears on her bicycle (it's pretty chilling if synced correctly).

-The lyrics say "home, home again, I like to be here when I can," as Dorothy contemplates heading back to the farm.

-Great Gig in the Sky begins as Dorothy's house goes up into the tornado. The wails of Clare Torry, the female vocalist, crescendo and decrescendo as Dorothy sails up into the sky, and then back down again. Again, it's pretty chilling. Also, Great Gig in the Sky is an interesting title for a song with no lyrics - They could have called it anything. Why something so reminiscent of Dorothy's situation?

-Then, in what is probably the most amazing feature of the sync, if your CD and movie are lined up just right, Dorothy opens the door to the world of color just as the cash register opens in Money. It's pretty amazing. And interesting that Money is the song playing while we are introduced to a world made of gold.

-Sometimes, it seems the munchkins dance to the rhythm of Money; though that may be stretching a bit.

-In Us and Them, the lyrics say "black and blue, and who knows which is which, and who is who," as the camera switches from the Wicked Witch (black) to Dorothy (in a blue dress). Did they mean "which is which" or "witch is witch?"

-In the same song, the lyrics say "up and down, but in the end it's only round and round," which is exactly what happened to Dorothy's house.

-It's interesting that the title of next song, Any Colour You Like, references "color." Again, it's an instrumental that could have been given any title.

-The next song is called Brain Damage - and we meet the "brainless" Scarecrow.

-In Brain Damage, the lyrics say "the lunatic is on the grass," as the Scarecrow, who's made of straw (grass), dances around.

-The song Eclipse ends with a thudding heartbeat, as Dorothy listens to the Tin Man's chest in search of a heartbeat.

What do you think? Coincidence??? Silliness??? Neat? Stupid?