I have a neighbor who is interested in my writing and frequently asks me questions about it. She’s from South America and expresses herself in refreshing ways sometimes.
One day this week she called me on the phone around lunch to ask me something about our girls’ drama class. “Elizabeth,” she said, “I’m sorry to have to call you! Did you have the inspirations and I am interrupting them?”
Sadly, no. I was actually writing when she called, but I was definitely not having the inspirations. Being on a schedule, though, means writing every day—and not just when I’m inspired. The story comes out just as easily, even when the muse is silent. But the words don’t sparkle as much.
I’ve gotten over the lack of sparkle in the uninspired days because I know I can add the sparkle later, in revisions.
The sparkle to me in a book is the feeling I get when reading it that the author was enthusiastic. And, maybe, that the characters themselves are enthusiastic and vibrant as they face whatever challenge they’re up against.
Sometimes it’s hard to put my finger on exactly what makes for sparkle. But this is what I’ve been able to find that helps:
Strong verbs—Usually they show instead of tell. And sometimes if you look for ‘to be’ verbs like is, was, been, you can find passive construction that could be written stronger.
Vivid imagery— adjectives that go the extra mile (using all the senses.) Words that add texture.
Clever metaphors and similes. Just a dash. Too many and I tend to see the puppet’s strings.
Precise nouns—Try not to overuse pronouns. And name things—”the diner” is Bo’s Diner. “The chair” could be a rocking chair, an armchair, or a recliner.
Varied sentence structure—Something a little different than a subject-verb start. And both short and long sentences.
Characters that are animated instead of stagnant. And that can be both literally animated—they’re in motion—or that their speech is lively.
What do you do to bring the sparkle back to your writing?
Elizabeth – Oh, I know just what you mean about sparkle! I think for me, the way I go back and add sparkle is precise verbs: stride instead of walk; slip something into one’s pocket instead of put there. If I use those more precise, descriptive verbs, they make my story more interesting to me. That’s got to be good for readers ;-).
I love using long and short sentences. By using sentences in this way, I can make the story fresher and with those same lengths build suspense.
I feel like I’m a visual learner and person in general. Therefore, I want (notice want) to bring the images of my story to the readers mind with action verbs and clear and consise description.
I have to be careful about overusing the varied sentence structure- it tempts me to throwing in all the fragments I love so much!
Great post, as always.
And here I thought you were going to talk about vampires…(*someone* had to say it).
But there definitely is a difference between prose I forced myself to write and prose that came out in a rush in the throes of inspiration. (Though both’ll be edited a TON, so I guess the eventual difference is quite subtle, after all.)
Margot–Precise verbs! Good point. :)
Teresa–The nice thing about sentence length is that it’s so easy to fix!
Simon–Lord, but I’m uncool! I had to Google vampires + sparkle and now I do get it! I’m amazingly Twilight-un-knowledgeable, but plan on reading Meyer’s stuff…I always get around to reading really hyped books at some point!
My uninspired writing just plods along. I do get words on the page, which is really the point of what I’m doing…they just don’t pop.
I try to do many of these things, but I think I’m going to print this post out to keep nearby as a reminder. :)
I’m rather like you, my “sparkle” comes in the edit or re-write phase. The plot is down and I can focus on the words.
After I’ve written out the foundation, I like to use specific words to add the texture and colorful adjectives. Plus, I can’t forget to eliminated the “sentence fillers” like just and that. Those are boring.
You’re right that if we aren’t excited and inspired when writing a piece, it will show. I tend to plow through those moments as well and add the passion later.
Sparkle, I like that. I have a story I’m working on and right now it’s not sparking. There’s a few spots that sparkle, but for the most part I’m struggling w/ getting my characters to shine (they want to hide in the dark and refuse to speak.) The lack of sparkle depresses me because I know if I can get it to sparkle then wow will it shine! Hopefully the sparkle will come out in the future.
Helen–Some days the sparkle happens while I’m writing my first draft. But those days can be few and far between!
Tamika–Oh, I’m Fragment Girl! But then, dialogue is just full of fragments and I love dialogue. :)
JEFritz–Absolutely! I use a ton of fillers in the first draft and do a find/delete in the second draft.
Alex–I’ve noticed that there are some bestselling authors who are really churning out books–and the enthusiasm in SOME of their books is just completely missing. And it’s really something the *author* has to fix…I don’t think it works as well if the editor tries to.
Patricia–You CAN bring the sparkle in during revisions, so don’t get discouraged! Sometimes it’s just important to get the story down on the page and then go back and fix those types of problems.
Janel–I think I will, too!
“Did you have the inspirations and I am interrupting them?”
I love this! Oh that everyone would be so considerate of our time which often looks like doing nothing but staring out of windows or even Twittering.
This is a wonderful post – thanks! And just when I need it as I will be working with a line edit and a sparkle shiner when I get my manuscripts back from my first readers. I really like the precise noun one. I also look for the rhythm in my writing (or lack of) when I want to increase the sparkle. That’s why I read it outloud. I hear where I’ve lost the rhythm and then I hunt til it is back in…
This is such a great post!
I love adding vivid imagery, it’s perhaps one of my favorite parts of writing, well, that and character building.
Also, long and short sentences are a great way to show the readers the level of intensity in the scene.
Great stuff here, I’m sharing it through my Top Links For Writers weekly blog post out tomorrow (Tuesday).
“Did you have the inspirations and I am interrupting them?”
That is such a great way of putting it.
And yes, though I can rarely figure out what makes one piece of work sparkle and not another, I can always recognise it when I see it.