With summer starting on Wednesday, I thought an acrostic poem to the season would be appropriate. Here’s mine:
Summer
So much to do
Uunder the hot sun,
More
Mmuch more than I can
Ever get done.
Ready, set, go!
Monday Sparks — writing prompts
Writing Tip — Favorite Stories — Andrew Klavan
Since I have only read two stories by Andrew Klavan, I can’t call him a favorite author, but I have enjoyed his YA Christian fiction novel If We Survive and the short story “The Killer Christian”.
If We Survive is told from the point of view of sixteen-year-old Will who, with two other teenagers, a college student, and their pastor, is on a mission trip in a South American country. Right before they are scheduled to leave, a communist coup takes place. In the small village where they were staying, the rebels target them because they are Americans. Their only hope of escape is the ex-Marine who is their pilot.
I like If We Survive for several reasons. It’s one of the few YA Christian fiction novels I have found that has a realistic setting – no fantasy or science fiction elements. It also has a male protagonist. If a YA novel has a contemporary setting, it is usually a romance told from a girl’s point of view. The action sequences held my attention and are very appealing for a teen audience.
Will is written in a way teens can relate to, but I wish the supporting characters were more distinct. I do like the change Nikki goes through. The other female character seems to good to be true, but Will is describing her and he has a crush on her.
To learn more, check out If We Survive on Goodreads.
I was introduced to Mr. Klavan in the short story collection Christmas at the Mysterious Bookshop. The title of Mr. Klavan’s story “The Killer Christian” caught my attention. Then I read the first paragraph:
“A certain portion of my misspent youth was misspent in the profession of journalism. I’m not proud of it, but a man has to make a living and there it is. Most importantly, I learned how to be painstakingly honest and lie at the same time. That’s how the news business works. It’s not that anyone goes around making up facts or anything – not on a regular basis anyway. No, most of them time, newspeople simply learn how to pick and choose which facts to tell, which will heighten your sense that their gormless opinions are reality or at least delay your discovery that everything they believe is provably false. If ever you see a man put his fingers in his ears and whistle Dixie to keep from hearing the truth, you may assume he’s a fool, but if he put his fingers in your ears and starts whistling, then you know you are dealing with a journalist.”
With an opening like that, I had to read more. I won’t tell you any more about the story but if you like to read Christmas stories at Christmas, save this one as a present for yourself. The ending, in keeping with Christian beliefs, is great and always moves me. It’s one of my favorite Christmas stories.
Writing Tip — Parts of Speech — Noun
For basic information on nouns, visit this post at Almost an Author. Ms. Toler-Dougherty writes about how specific nouns need capitalized. For example, “church” vs. “Walnut Ridge Presbyterian Church”. But I leared from my editor Sharyn a different kind of specificity when it comes to nouns.
“Be specific!”
As my characters drive into the West Virginia mountains, I wrote about the shrubs growing close to the road and the trees making a ceiling overhead.
Sharyn said, “Be specific!”
She meant: What kind of trees? Eastern hemlock? Walnut? Coconut? What kinds of shrubs? Mountain laurel? Holly? What?
My characters sit down to a meal of soup and bread.
Sharyn said, “Be specific!”
What kind of soup? Tomato? Chicken noodle? Shark fin? What kind of bread? Whole wheat, white, or rye?
One reason I didn’t make my nouns more specific was because I didn’t think readers wanted that much detail. Another reason was I thought too many details would slow down the narrative.
That’s true if I describe the soup as “chicken noodle soup with lush, homemade noodles and thick chunks of chicken” when those details add nothing to the story. But just adding “chicken noodle” to “soup” helps the reader make a more vivid “work picture”, as Sharyn says.
I didn’t specify the plants and animals of the mountains because I didn’t know them that well. But my narrator would because he has lived in the mountains all his life. So, instead of being lazy, I am doing research and will try to visit the location of my setting so I can get the species right. I won’t dwell on the botany of each plant, but writing “the red oaks and hickories made a canopy over our heads” sounds so much better than “the tall trees made a canopy over our heads.”
As long as I drop in the precise nouns just where they are needed, my story will be richer not slower.
Monday Sparks — writing prompts
Write a haiku about something happening in nature right. If you aren’t familiar with haiku, it’s a form of poetry from Japan that usually describes nature. It doesn’t rhyme. The first line is five syllables, the second line is seven syllables, and the third line is five syllables. Here’s my contribution, inspired by a heat wave I am currently experiencing. If you are inspired, please send me your poem.
Heat bakes the sky. It
Cracks with thunder, pours out rain,
Healing the baked ground.
Writing Tip — Gifts for Father’s Day
Father’s Day is less than two weeks away. If you want to give a gift of writing, like I described in my post for Mother’s Day, now is the time to start working on it
One thing I didn’t include in my Mother’s Day post was writing down humorous stories involving the person you want to give the story to. In my post on Christmas disasters, I described writing down holiday mishaps that have passed into family legend. I was reminded how meaningful these stories are when my sister, our kids, and my parents got together for an early Father’s Day party.
We asked the kids to think of stories involving their grandfather or just what they liked about him. Two of the grandkids actually took the trouble to write down what they thought. The sharing of a few stories led to other stories, which entertained the kids as much as my dad, and the kids weren’t even alive to participate in most of them.
So if you lived through a humorous incident or a comic adventure with a particular male relative, write it down. Not only will the person you give it to appreciate it, but it preserves family history for the next generation.
Don’t forget to edit!
I wrote this in my Mother’s Dat post, but it bears repeating: never give a first-draft as a gift. Always edit it. Write your piece and then got back over it. If no changes come to mind, leave it a day or two. I am often surprised how many ways I can improve a piece if I take a break from working with it.
