Writing Tools

Remember this: When writing outside, use sunscreen. It will help shield you from the pain of your craft.

Put subjects close to verbs. They like each other and will pay you back time and again.

Order your words for emphasis. Place your best stuff at the beginning and the end. Use the middle of the sentence for things you want to hide.

WRITING TOOLS: THE MUSICAL

You can listen to, download or drag Writing Tools: The Musical into your iTunes here. Print out an origami paper CD cover here.

Go easy on the adverbs. There are good ones and bad ones. The bad ones repeat the meaning that is in the verb: "She planted her foot firmly in the ground." Firmly: bad adverb. She smiled happily: bad adverb. She smiled sadly. Good adverb. She frowned happily. Good adverb.

Establish a pattern, then give it a twist. Winken, Blynken, and Nod. Peter, Paul, and Mary. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

Remember: get the name of the dog. Is it Fluffy or Spike? Aristotle or Madonna? It matters.

Speaking of Aristotle and Madonna: remember that the number of elements you use in a story, sends a secret message. One name stands for the one and only: Elvis. Two names or examples always implies comparison or contrast: Sonny and Cher. Three has power because it gives us a sense of the whole: beginning, middle, and end. Moe, Larry, and Curley. Four or more is a list. That means that in the arithmetic of writing, three is bigger than four.

Climb up and down the ladder of abstraction. At the top are meaning words like hope, literacy, and violence. At the bottom are things we can see and feel: a wedding ring, an old book, a bloody towel. Remember what you learned in kindergarten: Show and tell.

Learn the difference between reports and stories. Reports point you there. Stories put you there. On the scene. Stories transport you to another time and place.

Work from a plan.

Put odd and interesting things next to each other: Remember that the Vampire Slayer's name is Buffy, not Conan.

Place gold coins along the path. Resist your editor's attempt to move all the good stuff to the top. That creates a bait and switch. You might as well tell the reader: here are two wonderful paragraphs. And here's the rest of the junk in my notebook.

Write toward an ending. But avoid concerto endings. Put your hand over the last paragraph and ask yourself: What would happen if my story ended here. Keep moving your hand up until you find the natural stopping place.

If you are writing outside and are bitten by a dog, be sure to get the name of the dog, and be sure to wear sunscreen.

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Writing Tools: The Rap

Like a magician with tradition, composition needs juxtaposition.

Your function, punk with junk in your trunk, needs subjunctives and conjunctions.

Those verbals, Al, mixed with herbals, pal, makes a treadmill for a thousand gerbils.

You been showin' and tellin', posin' and yellin', not Columbus, but a slackin' Magellan.

Circumnavigation will change the equation. So just write it, dude, don't fight it, grab the teacher's apple and bite it.

Dichotomy, takes a lot out of me. I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a freakin' frontal lobotomy.

It's tools, fool, not rules, fool, take care of the family jewels, Jules.

Go slow, Van Gogh, as far as it goes; nice ear, Shakespeare, your rhymes for to hear. Roll over Beethoven...

Word. To your mother. And your sister.