“What am I trying to say and dear God how do I say it?!” This is the vein of every writer’s existence, that pulsing blue and purple vein that makes one’s head hurt. It can be very difficult for a writer to take their thoughts and ideas and put them to paper. Sure most writers can talk about their ideas and describe them out loud, but when it comes time to write them-well that’s another story. Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird reminds writers that when their work is being read they are not a parrot sitting on the reader’s shoulder adlibbing and clarifying, “the material has got to work on its own,” she painfully reminds all budding authors (Lamott 57). Andrea Lunsford in The Everyday Writer shares a similar opinion, emphasizing how a sentence must make itself clear for a reader to understand it; unlike a writer sentences have no facial expressions, no arms to gesture with and no voice to change pitch. The words and the way those words are strung together must convey all the meaning that the writer intends as if he or she was speaking. Now, how to do that?
Lamott writes that there must be movement for the audience to keep its grasp; a writer must flow with their rhythm, tone, and mood. She suggests that ABDCE: Action, background, development, climax and ending, work for more then just short story writing (Lamott 62). All writers should want to seize their readers like a bomb exploding; the flying debris and fire catching their reader’s eyes and making them burn with desire to keep reading to find out why. The key is to give readers the why in a way that flows and keeps their attention. Using ABDCE helps writers take their readers from point A, the beginning, to point B, the end. ABDCE is what needs to happen to get to and from these points in an organic way (Lamott 92).
Lunsford tells writers to think carefully about what they want to write and try to arrange ideas in climatic order so that their work flows smoothly and clearly from point A to B; very similar to Lamott’s perspective. She warns that emphasis on the wrong part of a writer’s sentence can cause a different meaning and in effect lose the reader. Lunsford reminds writers to strive for consistency and completeness, especially when making comparisons. To strengthen ties between two similar ideas she suggests use of a coordinating conjunction or semicolon.
Both Lamott and Lunsford encourage the use of metaphors to express thoughts and ideas. Lamott asserts, “Metaphors are a great language tool, because they explain the unknown in terms of the known” (Lamott 77). This is all fine and dandy Lunsford believes as long as these metaphors, comparisons, are complete and clear. Ultimately both authors agree that writers should not only read their work out loud to make sure it flows and makes sense but they should also have it proof read several times so that the readers can let them know where they need some patching up.
Oh and um if you were wondering what kvetching was here you go- A chronic, whining complainer.
Works Cited:
Lamott, Anne. Bird by Bird. New York: Random House, 1994. Print.
Lunsford, Andrea. The Everyday Writer. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2009. Print.
This is great! Nice overview of both books. I really enjoyed reading this!
yay for writing!
wait! what? sums this whole class year, and this whole V.C. semester! but I will say something nice; I love your writings.