Do The Unfamiliar To Keep Your Writing Going

Written by Catherine Franz


One ofrepparttar best ways to blow someone's winning streak during a tennis game is to comment on how great they are doing. Your comment will kick in their left brain's inner critic which will zap their flow and change their focus. In tennis, this is an underhanded type of gamesmanship.

In life, it happens to each of us allrepparttar 139573 time. Even to writers.

In writing,repparttar 139574 same thing occurs as soon asrepparttar 139575 right side ofrepparttar 139576 brain,repparttar 139577 right hemisphere, gets a break,repparttar 139578 left side begins editorializing. Even ifrepparttar 139579 left side compliments you on your progress orrepparttar 139580 time you committed, it still zapsrepparttar 139581 flow. Flow stops, hiccups, andrepparttar 139582 writing or idea doesn't get torepparttar 139583 next step.

This is an event that affects us all in more than just writing.

There is not any particular timeframe when this occurs either. It may occur when you are writing something short, like an article, memo, or email. Or it might not occur untilrepparttar 139584 chapter six of your book. This is whyrepparttar 139585 freewriting exercise works so well. It allows your right brain to tellrepparttar 139586 left side to shut up for a particular amount of time.

There is actually only one way to getrepparttar 139587 writing flowing again. It is by doing something unfamiliar. When you are doing something unfamiliarrepparttar 139588 left side doesn't know how to logically respond. The left side then can't be its helpful self. Flow, intuition, and ideas naturally return with a renewed rhythm.

Paint Me A Picture

Written by Jean Fritz


Compare these two paragraphs:

“I rented a room in an old building on Broadway. The room was dark, and had not been occupied for many years. Dust and spiderwebs were hanging from every wall and corner. I went uprepparttar stairs, and did not see a cobweb because ofrepparttar 139420 darkness. It hit me inrepparttar 139421 face; it was creepy.”

“I took a large room, far up Broadway, in a huge old building whose upper stories had been wholly unoccupied for years until I came. The place had long been given up to dusts and cobwebs, to solitude and silence. I seemed groping amongrepparttar 139422 tombs and invadingrepparttar 139423 privacy ofrepparttar 139424 dead, that first night I climbed up to my quarters. Forrepparttar 139425 first time in my life a superstitious dread came over me; and as I turned a dark angle ofrepparttar 139426 stairway and an invisible cobweb swung its slazy woof in my face and clung there, I shuddered as one who had encountered a phantom.”

The first paragraph accurately describesrepparttar 139427 setting;repparttar 139428 second takes you there, and puts you smack inrepparttar 139429 middle ofrepparttar 139430 action. You see, feel and sense everything thatrepparttar 139431 narrator has experienced. The difference betweenrepparttar 139432 two lies inrepparttar 139433 use of powerful adjectives and adverbs. Effective use of descriptive words allows your readers to paint a mental picture, and transmutes them from passive recipient to active participant.

The English language is redolent with adjectives and adverbs, each of which imparts subtle shadings torepparttar 139434 objects or actions they describe. Yet, writers tend to stick torepparttar 139435 familiar. Inrepparttar 139436 process, their manuscripts lack verve and allow reader interest to wane.

Adjectives allowrepparttar 139437 writer to expand on seminal ideas. For example, describing a train ride fromrepparttar 139438 Indiana Dunes to Chicago’s Loop as “relaxing, yet educational” doesn’t offerrepparttar 139439 reader much information. Take that reader on your journey. Contrastrepparttar 139440 differences betweenrepparttar 139441 pastoral greens and sparkling open ponds of Dunes State Park torepparttar 139442 rotting hulks of abandoned steel mills ringed with razor wire fencing, burned out businesses and blocks of housing projects in Gary, Indiana. Give them a glimpse ofrepparttar 139443 rows of brick houses with neatly-clipped green lawns all lined up like soldiers on parade that you spot in East Chicago. Take them fromrepparttar 139444 barren expanses of Hammond’s oil refinery tank farm torepparttar 139445 magnificence of McCormick Place’s glass and steel glinting like a prism withrepparttar 139446 sunlight reflecting off Lake Michigan. If your reader eventually takes this journey, they will have an immediate sense of deja vu. After all, you’ve taken them there before.

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