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​​Name: Bob Dylan wiki
Also Known as: Robert Allen Zimmerman
Born: May 24, 1941 (Duluth, Minnesota, USA)

Bob Dylan has released thirty-eight studio albums, which collectively have sold over 120 million copies around the world. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature and has been awarded the French Legion of Honor, a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor. His memoir, Chronicles: Volume One, spent a year on the New York Times bestseller list.

Awards and Honors:
Noble Prize for Literature (2016) "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition" Tarantula

Presidential Medal of Freedom (2012)
Asturias Prize (2007)
Grammy Award (2006)
Grammy Award (2001)
Kennedy Center Honors (1997)
Grammy Award (1997)
Grammy Award (1994)
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum (1988)
Grammy Award (1979)
Grammy Award (1972)

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Five: Show Me!
Check Previous Tips

It is an easy phrase to bat young writers over the head with… but WHAT IS showing verses telling? Janet Evanovich gave us a good single-sentence example: "It is the difference between actors acting out an event, and the lone playwright standing on a bare stage recounting the event to the audience."

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​​Name: Will Jelbert Website
Born: June 03, 1978 (Truro, The United Kingdom)

Jelbert has spent the last five years researching and writing about the psychology of happiness. His first book, 'The Happiness Animal' became a best seller and is internationally recognized as the first practical exercise guide to happiness. Jelbert is currently working on a new narrative of happiness '25 Days' to be released in April 2016, an alternative careers guide 'Jobs Verse' (release May 2016) and a children's book version of The Happiness Animal (release TBA).

Jelbert was born in Cornwall, the far South Western edge of the United Kingdom, and grew up on a fourth generation family farm two miles outside of Penzance. Jelbert's childhood was spent walking the cows in for milking after school, sorting through potatoes on the harvester, and driving the tractor packing rig while Jelbert's parents and grandparents cut cauliflower. Jelbert left the farm to study modern languages at the University of Exeter. After graduating, Jelbert was offered a job at Reuters translating French and German market information into English. Over the next ten years Jelbert worked in London, Geneva, and New York and took a year-long assignment to India in 2005 before relocating to Sydney in 2006.Jelbert became an Australian citizen in July 2010, but moved to the USA in 2013.

​​Name: Ted Koppel wiki
Born: 8 Feb. 1940

A veteran of ABC News, was anchor and managing editor of Nightline from 1980 to 2005. New York University recently named Koppel one of the top 100 American journalists of the past 100 years. He has won every significant television award, including 8 George Foster Peabody Awards, 11 Overseas Press Club Awards (one more than the previous record holder, Edward R. Murrow), 12 duPont-Columbia Awards and 42 Emmys. Since 2005 he has served as managing editor of the Discovery Channel, as a news analyst for BBC America, as a special correspondent for Rock Center, and continues to function as commentator and non-fiction book critic at NPR. He has been a contributing columnist to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal and is the author the New York Times bestseller Off Camera and Lights out: a cyberattack, a nation unprepared, surviving the aftermath.

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Six: to speak to Drawl no more..
Dialog Writing

Writing Dialogue is not just writing the conversation but must also intrigue, inform and move the story along. Read this 6th lesson under 10 tips for fiction writers.

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-:-:-Previous Lessons-:-:-

Story to Poem
Write a poem based on a story that is already well known or well established. For example, how would Harry Potter seem if it was a poem? Or Star Wars? Or Your favorite show?

@WritersCafe Poetry #Prompt

You’ve bought an old chest of drawers and discover a piece of paper stuck inside. What is written on that piece of paper?

Suggested brainstorming:
• Where did these drawers come from? How old are they exactly? Is there something special about them, e.g. a hidden compartment where the paper was discovered?
• Who put the paper there? When? Why?
• What does it say on it? Does it look old or new? How is it written? Is the handwriting elegant or disjointed?
• Is it a generic letter or an extract from a diary? Or is it addressed specifically to its discoverer?
• How does the main character respond to what is said on the paper?

You could keep going with brainstorming questions here. And as mentioned earlier, this is exactly what you want to get started with writing: to be metaphorically asked “what do you think about this?” You’re invited to answer these questions in your own unique way and write a story in response.

@WritersCafe story #prompt

Which of these is an effective way of describing a character’s appearance?
1️⃣ Providing a description of each character at the start of the story.
2️⃣ Subtly referring to various features and mannerisms throughout the story.
3️⃣ Describing their appearance and demeanor when they first enter a scene.
4️⃣ Primarily using mirrors in a scene as a device for describing their appearance.

Choose the right one..
@WritersCafe #test

Which of these will most effectively enhance your ability to write an engaging story?
1️⃣ Reading stories on a regular basis.
2️⃣Revising top tips about creative writing once a week.
3️⃣ Analysing how books are translated into films.
4️⃣ Emulating the style of a successful author.

@WritersCafe #test

Which of the following can have a negative affect on how engaged the reader is in your story?
1️⃣ Swapping tenses without any explainable reason
2️⃣ Inconsistent tone and style
3️⃣ Excessive use of cliches
4️⃣ All of these

@WritersCafe #test

What length of sentences should you ideally use when writing a story?
1️⃣ A mix of short, medium, and long to keep the story well-paced and flowing smoothly
2️⃣ Primarily short sentences to keep the reader engaged and the story suspenseful
3️⃣ Long sentences, especially to make ideas and themes sound deep and complex
4️⃣ Any length you choose, so long as you incorporate numerous commas and semi-colons

@WritersCafe #test

Adopting which of these thought processes when writing will make for more three-dimensional, engaging characters?
1️⃣ I should make all my characters behave like the protagonists from successful published stories.
2️⃣ I should only write characters other than the protagonist into a scene for the sole purpose of moving the plot forward.
3️⃣ Each character should only display one type of emotion which makes them more memorable and individualised.
4️⃣ Each character has a life of their own and their own motivations, which should drive and be reflected in their actions.

@WritersCafe #test

Writing Tool #1:
Branch to the Right
Begin sentences with subjects and verbs, letting subordinate elements branch to the right. Even a long, long sentence can be clear and powerful when the subject and verb make meaning early.

To use this tool, imagine each sentence you write printed on an infinitely wide piece of paper. In English, a sentence stretches from left to right. Now imagine this: A reporter writes a lead sentence with subject and verb at the beginning, followed by other subordinate elements, creating what scholars call a "right-branching sentence."

I just created one. Subject and verb of the main clause join on the left ("A reporter writes") while all other elements branch off to the right. Here's another right-branching sentence, written by Lydia Polgreen as the lead of a news story in The New York Times:

Rebels seized control of Cap Haitien, Haiti's second largest city, on Sunday, meeting little resistance as hundreds of residents cheered, burned the police station, plundered food from port warehouses and looted the airport, which was quickly closed. Police officers and armed supporters of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled.

That first sentence is 37 words long and rippling with action. The sentence is so full, in fact, that it threatens to fly apart like some overheated engine. But the writer keeps control by creating meaning in the first three words: "Rebels seized control..." Think of that main clause as the locomotive that pulls all the cars that follow.

Master writers can craft page after page of sentences written in this structure. Consider this passage by John Steinbeck from "Cannery Row," describing the routine of a marine scientist named Doc:

He didn't need a clock. He had been working in a tidal pattern so long that he could feel a tide change in his sleep. In the dawn he awakened, looked out through the windshield, and saw that the water was already retreating down the bouldery flat. He drank some hot coffee, ate three sandwiches, and had a quart of beer.

The tide goes out imperceptibly. The boulders show and seem to rise up and the ocean recedes leaving little pools, leaving wet weed and moss and sponge, iridescence and brown and blue and China red. On the bottoms lie the incredible refuse of the sea, shells broken and chipped and bits of skeleton, claws, the whole sea bottom a fantastic cemetery on which the living scamper and scramble.

In each sentence, Steinbeck places subject and verb at or near the beginning. Clarity and narrative energy flow through the passage, as one sentence builds upon another. And he avoids monotonous structure by varying the length of his sentences.

Subject and verb often get separated in prose, usually because we want to tell the reader something about the subject before we get to the verb. When we do this, even for good reasons, we risk confusing the reader:

A bill that would exclude tax income from the assessed value of new homes from the state education funding formula could mean a loss of revenue for Chesapeake County schools.

Eighteen words separate the subject "bill" from its weak verb "could mean," a fatal flaw that turns what could be an important civic story into gibberish.

If the writer wants to create suspense, or build tension, or make the reader wait and wonder, or join a journey of discovery, or hold on for dear life, she can save the verb until the end.

Workshop:
1. Read through an edition of The New York Times with a pencil. Mark the location of subjects and verbs.
2. Do the same with a collection of your own stories.
3. Do the same with a draft of a story you're working on now.
4. The next time you struggle with a sentence, see if you can rewrite it by placing subject and verb at the beginning.

« By Roy Peter Clark »
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Writing Tool #2:

Use Strong Verbs

Use verbs in their strongest form, the simple present or past. Strong verbs create action, save words, and reveal the players.

President John F. Kennedy testified that his favorite book was "From Russia With Love," the 1957 James Bond adventure by Ian Fleming. This choice revealed more about JFK than we knew at the time and created a cult of 007 that persists to this day.

The power in Fleming's prose flows from the use of active verbs. In sentence after sentence, page after page, England's favorite secret agent, or his beautiful companion, or his villainous adversary performs the action of the verb.

Bond climbed the few stairs and unlocked his door and locked and bolted it behind him. Moonlight filtered through the curtains. He walked across and turned on the pink-shaded lights on the dressing-table. He stripped off his clothes and went into the bathroom and stood for a few minutes under the shower. … He cleaned his teeth and gargled with a sharp mouthwash to get rid of the taste of the day and turned off the bathroom light and went back into the bedroom.

In writing this passage, Fleming followed the advice of his countryman George Orwell, who wrote of verbs: "Never use the passive when you can use the active."

Never say never, Mr. Orwell, lest you turn one of the writer's most reliable tools into a rigid rule. But we honor you for describing the relationship between language abuse and political abuse, and for revealing how corrupt leaders use the passive voice to obscure unspeakable truths and shroud responsibility for their actions. They say:
"It must be admitted after the report is reviewed that mistakes were made," rather than, "I read the report, and I admit I made a mistake."

News writers reach often for the simple active verb. Consider this New York Times lead by Carlotta Gall on the suicidal desperation of Afghan women: "Waiflike, draped in a pale blue veil, Madina, 20, sits on her hospital bed, bandages covering the terrible, raw burns on her neck and chest. Her hands tremble. She picks nervously at the soles of her feet and confesses that three months earlier she set herself on fire with kerosene."

While Fleming used the past tense to narrate his adventure, Gall prefers verbs in the present tense. This strategy immerses the reader in the immediacy of experience, as if we were sitting – right now — beside the poor woman in her grief.

Both Fleming and Gall avoid the verb qualifiers that attach themselves to standard prose like barnacles to the hull of a ship:
• Sort of
• Tend to
• Kind of
• Must have
• Seemed to
• Could have
• Use to

Scrape away these crustaceans during revision, and the ship of your prose will glide toward meaning with efficient speed and grace.

Workshop:
1. Verbs fall into three categories: active, passive, and forms of the verb "to be." Review three of your stories and circle the verb forms with a pencil. In the margins, mark each verb by category.
2. Look for occasions to convert passive or "to be" verbs into the active. For example, "It was her observation that …" becomes "She observed …"
3. In your own work and in the newspaper, search for verb attachments and see what happens when you cut them from a story. 4. Read "Politics and the English Language," by George Orwell. As you listen to political speech, mark those occasions when politicians or other leaders use the passive voice to avoid responsibility for problems or mistakes.

« by Roy Peter Clark »
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