Scott Oldford Site

Tag: writing skills

  • What Classic Children’s Literature Taught Me About Writing

    What Classic Children’s Literature Taught Me About Writing

    There’s a scene in Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown where Betsy’s mother helps ten-year-old Betsy turn an old trunk into a writing desk.

    Naturally, I asked my mother to do the same thing.

    If I remember correctly, she let me use an old suitcase. I put my pens and papers inside it, carried it up to the top of the bunkbed I shared with my sister, and pretended I was Betsy Ray for an afternoon.

    I didn’t keep using the suitcase, though, because I didn’t need it. I wrote everywhere, filling notebooks and diaries and the backsides of printer paper with stories. It wasn’t the desk that made me a writer.

    But it didn’t hurt to have a model like Betsy. She taught me to pay attention to the color of apple blossoms and to get a good night’s sleep before tackling a challenging writing project.

    She also taught me that once your writing is out in the world, other people can share and spread it far beyond its original intended readership. Both Betsy Ray and Laura Ingalls, as you might remember, wrote song parodies making fun of peers or teachers. In both cases, the parodies “went viral,” with disastrous consequences.

    Describing what I saw

    Laura was another childhood role model; even though she doesn’t spend much time writing in the Little House books — possibly because a slate pencil cost a half-penny — any young reader who pays attention to the book’s covers can figure out who Laura Ingalls grew up to become.

    Laura taught me to describe the world so it could be understood by someone else.

    We see Laura do this literally in By the Shores of Silver Lake, when she describes the train and its passengers to her older sister Mary, who lost her eyesight to scarlet fever. But we also see Laura Ingalls Wilder (along with Rose Wilder Lane) do this throughout the Little House series, describing butter churning and dime sociables and what it felt like to drink lemonade for the first time: the first sip sweet; the second one sour.

    I tried to replicate that discovery every time I drank a cup of powdered lemonade — which, of course, was not the same thing.

    children's literatureCombining imagination and craft

    I also tried to replicate Marilla Cuthbert’s famous raspberry cordial, working with my mom to carefully follow the recipe in The Anne of Green Gables Cookbook. I remember it tasting sticky, and I think we poured most of it down the drain. Like Anne Shirley, I was — and still am — an enthusiastic if not particularly talented cook.

    But Anne taught me to use my imagination; to see what a tree or a dress or a potted geranium might become if it were renamed or rewritten. Her shadow-sister Emily (of New Moon) taught me to be assiduous about craft. I love that L.M. Montgomery gave us both of these young writers as models: Anne with her Story Club, sharing their first drafts; Emily, in her attic, cutting out every sentence she’s no longer proud of.

    Selling my work and expanding my career

    Unlike Anne and her brush with the Rollings Reliable Baking Powder Company, I’ve never had a problem writing advertorials. I’m much more like Jo March in that aspect; if a publication is willing to pay, then I’m willing to write for them.

    Like Jo, I’ve become more discerning about the work I take on as my freelance career has progressed. I also recently published a novel that I describe as a “Millennial Little Women.”

    Because that’s what Jo — or, more accurately, Louisa May Alcott — taught me. How to take the emotions you felt growing up and write them into scenarios you might not have personally experienced. How to write characters inspired by people you love. How to go from a girl scribbling plays and stories to share with her family to a woman earning money from her writing.

    It’s no coincidence that many of the books I loved as a child featured girls who grew up to be writers. I read widely, Goosebumps and Sweet Valley High and everything the library had to offer, but these were the books I kept returning to before opening my notebook and starting another story. When I was ten years old, I pretended to be Betsy or Laura; when I was older, I asked myself what Jo or Emily or Anne might do.

    And when I need guidance — even as an adult — I still return to these stories.

    Who are your writing role models? Did you also read books about writers when you were a child, and did they shape the type of writer you became?

    This post contains affiliate links. That means if you purchase through our links, you’re supporting The Write Life — and we thank you for that!
    nolinks

  • Can Finally Doing Your Chores Help You Write More?

    Can Finally Doing Your Chores Help You Write More?

    I was an untidy child.

    Where my brother relied on a ruler to line up his toy cars, I lived with jumbled abandon. Thank heavens our mother was teetotal, or the ghastly state of my bedroom would surely have driven her to drink.

    I can’t remember when it was — or what prompted it, for that matter — but at some point I changed. Always one for extremes, I went from being super scruffy to annoyingly tidy. It turns out being too much of a neat freak is just as counterproductive. Maybe even more so.

    I spent countless hours scrubbing every nook and cranny of my home with a toothbrush and all I got for my effort was a fleeting sense of accomplishment (and washerwoman hands). Not pretty or productive.

    I eventually let go of my compulsive behavior and found a happy medium. Now I focus on doing the right thing at the right time. But what does this have to do with writing more?

    Why mornings (and evenings) matter

    What do your mornings look like? Do you fly out the door with wet hair and a slice of toast clenched between your teeth?

    If that sounds like you, you’re either a snooze-button junkie or you’re doing stuff in the morning that you could be doing the night before. Both can make for a stressful start to your day. Rushed mornings can also mean you come home to a pile of dirty dishes, an unmade bed, or other tasks you didn’t get around to doing.

    Living like this drains your energy and saps your creativity. Is it any wonder you’re not writing more? Or at all, for that matter?

    Think about what you can do in the evenings or on the weekend that will give you more time in the morning: ironing a shirt, polishing shoes, packing lunch, etc.. Using this approach will not only give you a sense of accomplishment; you’ll also feel more relaxed knowing you have less to tackle in the mornings.

    The indisputable benefits of being a neat freak

    Chores suck, I get it, but the alternative is worse. If you get into the habit of not just staying on top of your chores, but actually doing them at the right time, your life will transform itself.

    You’ll be more creative. It will help you overcome that bout of writer’s block you’ve been struggling with.

    Messy surroundings leave you uninspired and unable to focus. The opposite is also true. Without the distraction of clutter your mind is free to create.

    You’ll have more time for the things that matter.

    You can put all that extra time you used to spend doing last-minute chores to much better use. You could write 500 words for your new novel, pitch that magazine, outline a blog post, schedule your editorial calendar for the rest of the year. The list goes on.

    It will free you up to plan for freelance-writing success.

    Whether you are already a free agent or if intend to quit your cubicle in the not-too-distant future, the sooner you start planning for your imminent success, the sooner it will happen.

    Time is elastic

    We’ve all experienced how five minutes can feel like a week or how an hour can fly by in a nanosecond. When you focus on doing things at the right time, you’ll get them done sooner. Conversely, leaving your chores until the last minute invariably means they’ll take longer.

    Why? Your head isn’t in it.

    Doing something the night before won’t make it more fun, but you’ll be focused on the task at hand and ultimately more efficient. Leave it until the morning and your mind will be elsewhere (the office, the traffic, your inbox, etc.).

    Doing the things you’re supposed to do when you’re supposed to do them is boring and nerdy.

    Obviously you’d rather be [fill in the blank], but at least give it a try before you count it out. You can thank me (in vegan cupcakes) later.

    How do you plan your daily chores so you still have time to write?

  • 5 Tools for Improving Your Second-Language Writing Skills

    5 Tools for Improving Your Second-Language Writing Skills

    How do you start writing in a foreign language? Swear off writing in your own.

    At least that’s what I did when a teacher — not the inspiring kind — decimated my love for both reading and writing in my last year of high school.

    I grew up in USSR, the country best known in 1980s as both the “Evil Empire” and as the nation where Moscow’s subway often featured more readers than Lenin’s library.

    I was no exception. By the age of 16 I read most of my parents’ 600-book strong library, I dabbled in poetry writing, and I had penned a few short stories. I didn’t think of writing as my profession, but I didn’t discount it either.

    Until Svetlana Vassilievna, my Russian language and literature teacher, decided to embarrass me.

    Who needs literature?

    We called her Baba Yaga — after a Russian fairytale character who kidnapped children and threatened to eat them — for good reason. In class she tolerated no opposing arguments, discouraged creativity, and berated every mistake we made. During recess she preyed on us looking for transgressions of uniform, behavior, or both.

    When one day she overheard me say that I wouldn’t need Russian literature in the university I was applying to, she decided to teach me a lesson. She began failing me.

    After my mother, horrified at the prospect of an F on my school transcript, intervened, Svetlana Vassilievna offered a makeup opportunity. She had me stand up in front of the entire class, glared at me through her large, round glasses, and for fifteen minutes quizzed me about class struggle themes in Dostoevski, Tolstoi, and Mayakovski.

    I wanted to die.

    A change of perspective

    When I came home that day I burned all my short stories, ripped up my poems, and decided there would be no more reading — or writing — for me.

    Then I moved to the United States and had to include an elective in my pre-med curriculum. Creative writing was the only course I could fit into my schedule.

    During the first few classes, I sat there perplexed: Not only did my fellow students engage in open discussions with the professor, speak their minds, and ask questions, but the teacher also gave actual instructions on the craft of writing. At the end of that semester I wrote a paper on Mrs. Dalloway and Taoism. I got a B+.

    I was hooked.

    Since then, writing — but only English writing — has accompanied me through my master’s degree and several careers in non-writing fields.

    In my free time I translated Russian poetry into English and wrote short stories.

    When I moved abroad and couldn’t find a job, I began writing full-time. The result? A debut novel, several personal essays in national outlets, a screenplay, and a finished pilot.

    I never went back to writing in Russian and although I still make mistakes common to non-native English speakers — “a” and “the” continue to elude me — I now write in English full time.

    The following have been, and continue to be, invaluable in my journey as a writer in a foreign language:

    1. An active community of writers

    Ever since I began writing I’ve made sure, wherever I’ve lived, to get together with people writing in English on a weekly basis.

    Not only do these groups guarantee a constant creative atmosphere; they also offer a continuous stream of writing samples I can read, provide input on, and learn from.

    There’s also the added bonus of making friendships, but you probably already knew that.

    2. Writing workshops and retreats

    If you can afford it, take one. Most likely it’ll be the best several days you’ll ever spend. You’ll learn from some great writers, have a chance to hear what they think of your work, and make new contacts in the writing world.

    3. An aversion to cliches

    If you hail from another country and have been speaking another language for most of your adult life, chances are you are not aware of cliches in English.

    My first stories were littered with them. I couldn’t figure out how to recognize which phrase made a cliche and which one didn’t.

    After struggling for a few years, I decided that the best way to avoid those pests would be to come up with a different turn of phrase for every potential cliche.

    4. Active reading

    I read my favorite essays and stories with a pen in hand. Whenever I see a word I don’t know or a sentence structure that mesmerizes me, I record it. Then, either while walking or waiting for a bus or exercising, I practice making sentences with it in my head. Next time I write something I often discover that word or that structure has somehow made it into my narrative.

    5. A dictionary and a thesaurus

    There are moments when I’d be writing and suddenly instead of an English word my brain would produce a Russian word.

    If after a few minutes of concentration I still cannot remember the English word I want, I open a dictionary (or go to Google translate) and look up the translation of that Russian word.

    Then I check the thesaurus for the synonym that feels right.

    And finally? Don’t wait for something inspiring — or someone inspiring — in your life to give you a push. It may just be the opposite that does the trick.

    Are you fluent in several languages? Which do you prefer for writing?

  • Want to Improve Your Writing Skills? 5 Fun Storytelling Exercises to Try

    Want to Improve Your Writing Skills? 5 Fun Storytelling Exercises to Try

    Football players practice ballet. Pianists repeat small sections of music until it’s perfect.

    In Outliers, it’s called “putting in your 10,000 hours.” In The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle names it “deep practice,” small exercises that are both challenging and repetitive.

    The goal: Get better, quicker.

    As Daniel Coyle writes in The Talent Code:

    “Deep practice feels a bit like exploring a dark and unfamiliar room. You start slowly, you bump into furniture, stop, think, and start again. Slowly, and a little painfully, you explore the space over and over, attending to errors, extending your reach into the room a bit farther each time, building a mental map until you can move through it quickly and intuitively.”

    But what about writers? How do we pursue deep practice?

    Tired of the same advice to “read more” and “write more,” I’ve been experimenting with my own challenging and repetitive exercises to improve my storytelling.

    Here are the five techniques I use.

    1. People watching

    Every Sunday, my husband and I sit at a little outdoor cafe in Düsseldorf’s Altstadt. It’s perfectly positioned on a busy cobblestone street. We order coffee, tie our dog under the table and watch.

    Every week, without fail, someone fascinating catches our eye.

    Like the scruffy middle-aged man with long hair, black jeans and a heavy metal T-shirt. He had band stickers plastered all over the beat-up guitar case in his hand.

    “That’s Günter,” my husband said.

    “Oh, definitely. That’s absolutely his name,” I replied.

    “Where do you think he’s going?”

    “He just got back from Chicago. He had an audition.”

    “For a jazz band.”

    “But he lied to his bandmates and said an aunt died,” I said. “He was embarrassed. He’s been harboring a secret desire to become a jazz guitarist, but because this is Germany and he looks like that, he fell into heavy metal.”

    “How’d the audition go?”

    “He didn’t get in. They didn’t think he looked jazzy enough. He doesn’t know how to improvise and he kept screeching into the microphone.”

    On and on it goes.

    Our ritual is part improv, part eavesdropping. It helps to have a friend during this exercise. Always say yes and always ask follow-up questions. This encourages you to work with plot twists you might not have considered otherwise — and it’s a ton of fun.

    2. Buy old postcards and photographs

    Who doesn’t love reading stranger’s letters? Imagining stories untold?

    Flea markets, antique stores and even eBay are perfect for snagging piles of old notes. Old postcards often sell for pennies each.

    It works just as well with photographs. Heck, you don’t even need to buy them. Just search for “antique photographs” on eBay. Don’t read the description though — the story should only exist in your head.

    Turn off all distractions and stare at the image or letter. What immediately comes to mind? Write it down.

    Consider these questions or just let your mind wander:

    • Where was the person sitting when they wrote this note?
    • What’s their relationship to the person they’re writing to?
    • Where was this photo taken? Why were these people there?
    • What do the facial expressions in the photograph say?

    3. Browse graveyards and phone books

    A few months ago I stumbled across an old graveyard in West Hampstead while visiting a friend in London.

    Something about the graveyard’s energy inspired me. It was old, but not spooky. Like I had both stepped back in time and also discovered a hidden place left unexplored.

    The graveyard was empty and the neighborhood was quiet. I spent hours walking through the stones, jotting down interesting-sounding names:

    • Basil Champneys
    • The Llewelyn Davies Family
    • August John Dare

    My two personal favorites weren’t even names, but phrases etched on tombstones:

    • In affectionate memory of the soldier’s daughters
    • Hampstead’s Pearly King and Queen

    I mean, come on: Hampstead’s Pearly King and Queen? That’s a book title right there. Who were they? Why aren’t their given names on display? How could I tell their story?

    You can do this with a phone book too, but I’m a fan of physically touching and experiencing objects that inspire a story. The energy is different than when I’m at a computer, scrolling through the virtual white pages.

    4. Stop reading and listen

    Most of us practice writing by writing. But remember those football players practicing ballet? The two sports may seem like opposites, but ballet helps the players with balance, flexibility and precision in a way football drills don’t.

    The same goes for writing. My storytelling skills improve by listening to stories, not just reading and writing them.

    You can do this with audiobooks, short films or podcasts. My personal favorites are podcasts featuring short stories, like The Moth and Risk. These, like reading short stories, distill the basic storytelling structure down into digestible bites.

    I’ve even submitted stories to these podcasts. The act of voicing my story showed gaps in my technique and gave me things to work on. The next time I submitted, I got a callback! Baby steps.

    5. Use writing prompts

    I’d never tried writing prompts before joining a local English-language writers group. I was terrified that first day when the group leader gave us 20 minutes and an outlandish fiction prompt. I’d never written fiction, never mind doing it for 20 minutes.

    The result? Some of the best writing I’d ever done. And it keeps getting better every time I go. Something about the timer makes me stop thinking and instead trust the images that pop into my mind.

    Turns out I’m not half bad at fiction and some of the prompts have turned into short stories.

    I especially enjoy the group aspect because it gives me accountability and a jolt of inspiration. It’s fascinating to hear the different stories people come up with using the same prompt.

    Sometimes I’ll use Writer’s Digest prompts, which feature other people’s responses in the comments.

    Whether you write novels or branded blog posts or hard-hitting articles, storytelling is the essence of our work. We should practice it daily, opening up our minds for more, better, tighter stories.

    Try a few of these exercises and let me know how it goes. And if you have any favorite storytelling exercises, let us know in the comments!

    [twl_reusable_block post_id=41455]

  • Sharpen Your Writing Skills: 6 Free Tools to Help You Write Better Blog Posts

    Sharpen Your Writing Skills: 6 Free Tools to Help You Write Better Blog Posts

    As a writer, your salary may depend on the number of articles you can get published, as well as the the number of words in your articles.

    To make the most money possible, you need to establish a process that will allow you to write as many high-quality articles or blog posts as possible.

    But sometimes it’s not feasible to churn out articles on a consistent basis. There are times when you feel like writing all day, while there are days when you can’t even muster a single word.

    As a result, you might find yourself struggling to make a living because you rely only on inspiration and natural momentum to complete your writing tasks.

    You need to remember writing is a discipline. Without a reliable process to practice your writing skills, you will not be the successful freelance writer that you aspire to become.

    These six free tools can be a part of your own perfect system that helps you write more effectively — and helps you spend less time doing it.

    1. Soovle

    If you’re a content writer, you need to determine the best keywords for your content. Choosing keywords can be a long-winded process, but you can simplify it by using Soovle.

    This online tool lets you find most-searched phrases from popular search engines and even includes Amazon and Wikipedia to find the most common phrase that relates to your topic.

    Use the keyword phrase that appears on all Soovle’s aggregated sites so you can optimize your content and boost it to the top of these search results.

    2. Hubspot Content Idea Generator

    Finding it difficult to come up with a title for your content? Hubspot Content Idea Generator will create one for you.

    This tool lets you brainstorm headlines for your blog posts using a target keyword or phrase (perhaps the SEO-friendly keyword you discovered through Soolve!). After submitting at least one keyword phrase out of three available fields, the generator will return five interesting titles.

    If you’re not satisfied with the results, you can try again for another batch of title suggestions. Repeat the process until you find the most appropriate headline for you.

    3. CoSchedule Headline Analyzer

    Crafting an effective headline is an art — you need to choose deliberately to invoke the intellect and emotions of your readers.

    While the title suggestions from Hubspot may be interesting, they may not be enough to compel your target audience to click when they read the headline in search results or on social media.

    Enter the CoSchedule Headline Analyzer.

    The tool refers to different factors to compute an aggregate score of your title. Ideally, your title must possess common, uncommon, emotional, and powerful words to achieve a high score. CoSchedule recommends using headlines with a score of 70 or higher.

    Test a few different headline options to see which has the highest score. You might be surprised!

    writing tools

    4. Noisli

    Distractions are productivity thieves. It’s difficult to focus on writing online where sites like Facebook and YouTube are just a click away from the resources you actually need to consult.

    It’s next to impossible to build writing momentum when distractions just around the virtual corner.

    Noisli aims to help people focus on work by playing different sounds sure to calm your nerves and inspire you to write. You can mix different sounds, from falling rain to the whirling of a fan, so you can achieve the perfect sound of productivity for you. You might find it boosts your energy better than your go-to playlist.

    Noisli also offers a minimalist text editor so you can write your content there without distracting buttons and links.

    5. Grammarly

    It’s important to review your work for errors before submitting to editors. But small mistakes always seem to slip through the cracks, don’t they?

    Human error increases the chance your article will get sent back for edits, and lowers your chances of even getting published on many sites. Editing articles you’ve already written takes away from your writing momentum.

    Enlist Grammarly to check your grammar, spelling, and sentence structures before you submit your work. The Premium version of the tool lets you look up better word suggestions, check for plagiarism and more.

    But, the free version is great for checking your article for simple mistakes you might miss while you’re working.

    6. Hemingway

    There’s no single perfect method for writing an article or blog post. But if you want more people to read your work, it can help to make sure it’s easy to understand.

    Hemingway helps you remove the clutter in your posts by identifying sentences and phrases that are difficult to understand. The tool also computes a readability score of your article. The lower the grade level, the easier it is for readers to understand what you’re trying to say.

    What other tools help you write more — and more quickly? Share them in the comments!