by Maggie King
Looking to take your fiction to a higher level? Add a little poetry to your prose and bring music to your sentences and scenes.
I’ve been intrigued with this idea since I read Walter Mosley’s This Year You Write Your Novel. Yes, that Walter Mosley, creator of the bestselling historical crime series featuring Easy Rawlins. Mr. Mosley considers poetry the basis of all writing and suggests that reading, writing, and studying poetry gives fiction writers a deeper appreciation of the nuances of language.
He has taken several poetry workshops and, although he says he has failed to turn out “even a passable poem,” he’s confident that what he learned from the workshops has benefited his fiction.
Here’s an excerpt from This Year You Write Your Novel:
Of all writing, the discipline in poetry is the most demanding. You have to learn to distill what you mean into the most economic and at the same time the most elegant and accurate language. In poetry you have to see language as both music and content. A poet must be the master of simile, metaphor, and form, and of the precise use of vernacular and grammar, implication and innuendo. The poet has to be able to create symbols that are muted and yet undeniable. The poet, above all other writers, must know how to edit out the extraneous, received, repetitious, and misleading.
Take Walter Mosley’s advice and sign up for a poetry workshop. You may not become a poet, but you’ll gain an appreciation of language that will make your fiction come alive. If you can’t find a workshop in your community, check online sources.
Who knows … you may become a regular at poetry slams.
Words and Music
In lieu of a poetry workshop—or in addition to one—enhance your fiction with a few tips from the poets:
- Think in terms of music. When you read your work aloud, does it please the ear? Does the rhythm of your words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs vary?
- Add words into phrases, delete others, create different words. Try different ways of expressing the same idea.
- Shorten or lengthen sentences by using words with fewer, or more, syllables.
- Use beautiful words like mellifluous or enchanted to add music to your writing. Less appealing words like disgust and harangue and the like can evoke a different response.
- Use the poet’s tricks of alliteration.
- Play with punctuation to liven up the musicality of your sentences. Take out commas and periods. Combine three or four sentences into one.
- Metaphors make implied comparisons, and poets use these comparisons to evoke complex images and emotions for readers. “America is a melting pot” is one simple example of a metaphor.
Don’t wimp out
Avoid weak, wimpy verbs. Follow the “show, don’t tell” rule with action verbs that create images and stir emotions.
An example: an unhappy student with a failing grade visits her professor’s office. Show that she’s unhappy. Have her crying, pleading, screaming, kicking the door, throwing books across the room.
Eliminate or minimize to be in its various forms. Change “He’s in love with her” to “He loves her.”
To be verbs aren’t the only weak ones. Strengthen “Larry went to Florida” with “Larry traveled to Florida.”
As for your characters …
Reveal characters by how they speak: smooth words with soft sounds vs. harsh words with harsh sounds.
Try changing the name of a character or place; does it change the mood and tone of a scene? A name can affect how a reader responds to a character.
Further reveal characters by showing their honesty (or lack of). Richmond poet/novelist Vernon Wildy, Jr: “I’ve always felt that poetry was a place where I could not lie. I believe fiction holds that same weight. Characters have to be honest with themselves and how they are feeling. Readers are smart and they can tell if a character is being disingenuous. Also, it messes up the arc of the story if the characters are not being real with themselves and the others around them in the story.”
I agree with Mr. Wildy. However, consider your genre: duplicitous characters have their place, especially in crime fiction. It’s all about the writer’s intention and the character’s motivation.
A Few Caveats
By all means, flourish your writing with poetic touches. But keep the touches light, especially if you write genre fiction. Readers of literary fiction and, of course, poetry, will appreciate pretty, nuanced writing. Crime fiction enthusiasts, on the other hand, want to know who killed Ramon’s odious boss and don’t want to plow through endless metaphors and other style choices.
In a popular thriller that I recently read, the author went way overboard with beautiful poetic styling, constantly taking me out of the story. At several points I wanted to hurl the book across the room. Don’t irritate your readers!
Back to Walter Mosely (who does strike the right balance of the poetic in his crime novels)
If the fiction writer demands half of what the poet asks of herself, then that writer will render an exquisitely written novel.
Now, let’s make music together!
Thank you for letting me visit one of my favorite blogs. Happy Holidays to all!
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Maggie King is the author of the Hazel Rose Book Group mysteries, including Murder at the Book Group and Murder at the Moonshine Inn. She has contributed stories to the Virginia is for Mysteries anthologies and the 50 Shades of Cabernet anthology.
Maggie is a member of Sisters in Crime, James River Writers, and the American Association of University Women. These days she lives in Richmond, Virginia with her husband, Glen, and cats, Morris and Olive. She enjoys reading, walking, movies, traveling, theatre, and museums.
Website: http://www.maggieking.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MaggieKingAuthor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaggieKingAuthr
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authormaggieking
Amazon author page: http://amzn.to/2Bj4uIL
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Optional links:
Walter Mosely: http://www.waltermosley.com
Vernon Wildy, Jr.: https://vernonwildyjr.com
Poetry workshops
Key “online poetry workshops” in a search engine or visit the following sites:
Gotham Writers: https://www.writingclasses.com/classes/description/poetry-writing
Lighthouse Poetry Workshop (online) https://www.lighthousewriters.org/workshop/8-week-online-poetry-workshop
Poets&Writers: Writers Conferences, Colonies, and Workshops http://www.pw.org/content/writers_conferences_colonies_and_workshops?cmnt_all=1
For further reading
Norton Anthology of Poetry 6th Edition
This Year You Write Your Novel by Walter Mosley
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This page was posted for Guest Blogger, Maggie King, by The Writers In Residence member, Jackie Houchin.
Now, the week before Thanksgiving I thumb through the 3×5 cards in Mom’s old plastic recipe box, looking for the Cranberry Salad, the Holiday Mincemeat Cake, and the Chiffon Pumpkin Pie recipes. The writing is faint and blurred; the cards are stained. And my heart gives a twist as I picture Mom taking each one out and assembling the ingredients on the counter. (This “treasured” box came to me 20 months ago when, at 94, she died.)
Daily for a year or so in 1999, Dad sat at their kitchen table and drew stick figure sketches of Mom in various situations, from housecleaning and cooking, to relaxing with a morning coffee on the patio, working a jigsaw puzzle, gardening, and packing/traveling to Solvang on their anniversary. Each filmy paper illustration has her comment in a balloon above her head. I can hear her saying them all! I admit, I cried as I looked at each one in the stack.
Years ago I bought a novel written by a well-known author because it took place in Seattle, a city where I’d lived, went to school, and worked for many years. A few chapters in, I was dismayed that the descriptions of setting were so generic that the story could have taken place anywhere. It was almost as if that the author had never set foot in the city.
A few days later I threw out some stale bread crusts that I’d cut into tiny squares. (I’d hesitated only briefly as the thought of making croutons crossed my mind.) Too much trouble, and besides, maybe my new feathered friends would come again.
Now I have twenty-four black birds each morning. And they are beginning to make a lot of noise if I’m late. A man down the street came out with hands on hips and frowned at me. Dog walkers give my house that “look” as their dogs pull on their leashes towards the kibble mix.
I TASTED the cool creamy sweetness of real Italian Gelato, bit into crusty (salt-free) Tuscan bread piled high with fresh-made tomato Bruschetta and drizzled with first-press virgin olive oil from an orchard that covered the nearby rolling hills. I sipped a frosty pale green menta (mint) icy that tingled my taste buds and sent shivers of coolness through my mouth and throat…on a baking-hot humid day.
I sampled a vast array of Italian cheeses (said to outshine France’s), from wedges of soft, creamy whites, protected by powdery rinds, to the mellow, medium-soft, large-holed varieties (not Swiss), that were delicious in a salty-sweet way with a dollop of apricot jam on top, to the hard, net-wrapped aged cheeses that take a good strong knife to slice, and a hunk of soft Italian bread to eat it with to even out the sharpness.
What about a decadent hot chocolate so thick and rich that it looks like Hershey’s Chocolate Topping, but more delicious, served with a scoop of freshly whipped cream so thick you could eat it with a fork.
Move through wet heat that causes limp hair, sticky skin, and clothes that cling. And then come upon an arched metal fountain in a park or piazza in the shape of a bull’s head (honoring “Torino”) that flows with cool sweet entirely drinkable water from its mouth. Hold out an empty water bottle, or cup your hands to catch the coolness, or even bend your head and drink freely.
Kids walk down the streets holding hands and they hug their siblings freely, unembarrassed.
Why do I use a time machine when I write? For Sandy Fairfax, I had no choice. I wanted to write about a ‘70s teen idol because of the culture of that time when teen idols were promoted through TV shows. I like the melodic songs from the era, the cheesy clothes, and the drama that often took place behind the idols’ innocent façades. \
In “Flower Power Fatality,” Noelle McNabb is an actress at a Christmas-theme park in Yuletide, Indiana. Her drab routine is interrupted when a stranger shows up on her porch with a bullet in his chest. Then, a super-secret spy agency recruits Noelle to find missing microdots along with veteran agent Destiny King. As Noelle goes undercover, she finds herself dancing in sleazy nightclubs and chasing bad guys at night while wondering who is going to feed her pet cat.
Sally Carpenter was born and raised in southwest Indiana but now lives in Moorpark California, leaving the land of rain and snow for wildfires and earthquakes. She has a master’s degree in theater from Indian State University. She also has a master’s degree in theology and a black belt in tae kwon do. She’s also “mom” to two black cats.
Hanna Rhys Barnes is one of those people with an evenly balanced right and left brain. She has a BA in English but retired as a high school math teacher.
A member of RWA’s national organization and of several local chapters, she currently lives and works on Whidbey Island in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Hanna’s historical romances, Widow’s Peak and A Knight’s Kiss are currently available from the Wild Rose Press.
It has worked well for us. But many want to know exactly how this is done. Do we alternate chapters? Does one write and the other edit? Do you write in the same room with one looking over the other person’s shoulder? One person even said, “I don’t see how this could work. Why haven’t you killed each other?”
Writing with a partner is not for everyone. A problem can arise if your writing styles are different. For instance, Janet is an “outliner” extraordinaire, while Will has always been a “seat of the pants” writer or “pantser.”
When editing, the challenge of giving up scenes one of us puts time, energy, sweat and blood into may have to be cut. The standard answer for each partner is: “It’s for the good of the story”, or “We want to write a good story, right?” It’s these reminders that help the partnership move forward rather than having arguments about whether or not one scene out of hundreds should stay in.
Published authors Will Zeilinger and Janet Lynn write individually until they got together and created the Skylar Drake Mystery series. These hard-boiled tales are based in old Hollywood of 1955. Janet has published seven mystery novels and two short stories. Will has published three novels plus three short stories. Their world travels have sparked several ideas for murder and crime stories. This creative couple is married and live in Southern California.
I was going to write this post on “how to make $1 million on your first book” and follow the story of paranormal-romance writer Amanda Hocking who actually sold 1.5 million eBooks in 2010 and made $2.5 million. “All by her lonesome self. Not a single book agent or publishing house or sales force or marketing manager or bookshop anywhere in sight.”
As I began to read blogs about self-publishing and downloaded PDFs like “Checklist for Publishing Your Book” and “Which Format Should I Choose” and followed marketing blogs with tips on using social media, launching your book, advertising, newsletters, and websites, I discovered there’s a lot more to consider.
I bought and read “How to Self Publish Your Book” by Craig Gibb, which details about titles, pen names, and blurbs, as well as editing, cover designs, formatting, promoting and marketing options.
“Word by Word, An Editor Guides Writers in the Self-Editing Process” by Linda Taylor describes in detail the process of content and copy editing, proofreading, formatting, and all the front and back matter I would need to write for a complete “up-loadable manuscript package.”
The Writers in Residence 
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