Communication is Key - Bonnie Way

In university, I took a biology course to fulfill the science requirements for my Arts degree. It was not a course I looked forward to. Biology was my best science in high school, but my marks were just good enough to get me into university. Fortunately, I had an excellent professor and a friend to study with, but what got me through the course was my writing skills.

The exams had two parts: a multiple choice section and a written part. The multiple choice questions were specific. More specific than I knew. I couldn’t keep the Krebs’ cycle in my head long enough to get to the exam. What I could do was write. As an Arts major, most of my exams were written. I could write a whole essay on something I had only the foggiest idea about. And because I could write, I passed the course.

Communication is key in our world today. If we cannot communicate the information we know, it doesn’t matter what we know. Miscommunication or unclear communication can result in huge blunders or great confusion. As an editor, my job is to make sure that concepts and information are clearly communicated to the intended audience. As a writer, communication is my job.

So how can we make sure we are communicating clearly—as mothers, as writers, as employees? Written communication gives us the opportunity to check for clarity. Even a quick email should be double-checked before the SEND button is hit. Here are a few hints for checking your writing (whether email, articles, or other documents) before it goes to its audience. 

1. Read it aloud to yourself. You may want to make sure the room is empty before you do this (though your two-year-old may not care), but it allows you to hear awkward constructions, errors, run-on sentences, and other problems you may miss by just reading the document. Read carefully. Pause at commas and periods. Run out of breath? Your sentence is too long. Does a pause feel awkward? Maybe it is incorrectly punctuated.

2. Give it some time. If the document isn’t urgent, put it aside for an hour or a day or two and look at it later. This will let you “forget it” and see it with fresh eyes. You may catch mistakes that you did see as you were writing.

3. Have another person read it (critique groups are great for this!). If they are confused or uncertain, fix it. Perhaps in explaining it to them, you’ll discover a better way to express it. They may also be able to catch spelling or punctuation errors that you missed. 

Communication requires constant work but improves with practice. Pay attention to how those around you communicate (especially if you write fiction and need dialogue ideas!). Just remember that even if you don’t know everything, you can communicate clearly what you do know.

~ © Bonnie Way, http://thekoalabearwriter.blogspot.com

Writing On A Slant - Shirley S. Tye

You've probably heard it said that when a person's handwriting slants downward it's a sign they are sad, tired, or ill. If the writing slants upward, the person is feeling happy, energetic and well.

Lately, my writing has been slanting downwards despite two writing successes this year. My children's middle-grade novel was short-listed in a contest. My friend's novel which I ghost wrote was self-published by my friend. Many who have read her book have enjoyed it; in fact, some have said they couldn't put it down. Both achievements should have been celebrated. But for a year, I've been in a slump; everything I've tried has fallen apart. I'm feeling discouraged and these two "accomplishments" only added to my list of failures. Through my sad eyes, I viewed being short-listed to mean "close but no cigar" and "here's the big looser". And hearing all the compliments about my friend's book made me jealous that my name wasn't on the cover. God forgive me.

Sure I'm feeling discouraged now but I'll be up soon. I still have plans and there are other paths I'd like to explore.

First of all, I'm making corrections and improvements to the novel that was short-listed. Next time it's submitted, it'll be a winner and be published.

Second thing I'm working on is a play. That's a totally new genre for me but I'm learning about playwriting and will boldly try it. This past spring, I had an acting part in a comedy play and was told by many that I did a very good job. That experience taught me what works and what doesn't work for amateur theatre. The director, who I worked under, is also the President of the Executive at the amateur theatre in town. Since he was pleased with my acting, I feel confident that he'll at least read my play. That'll be a big step forward on the learning curve.

This summer, I began work on a romance novel. It's another unfamiliar genre for me but I thought I'd give it a go and see what happens. I like new adventures.

Yes, I'm beginning to feel hopeful. My writing is developing an upward slant again. Praise the Lord!

The Truth About Personal Essays - Kathleen Gibson

We are honoured to have Kathleen Gibson guest post for us today.
 

A few times (countable on my fingers, thank God!) over my decades as primarily a personal essayist, someone who may share a memory I’ve written about has accused me of either telling half-truths, misleading truth, or an outright lie.

Delving deeper, what I hear is, “That’s not the way I remember it!” Siblings with shared memories encounter this frequently. I call it the sibling-story-squabble. As the Synoptic Gospels demonstrate, no two people—even no two disciples—tell the same story the same way.

Nevertheless, comments like that always cause me to stop and check both my motives and my memory. Sometimes (and this has happened more often than I can count on my fingers!) I need my memory adjusted regarding unimportant details—colours, numbers, comments, times, etc. Things that don’t change the thrust of the story, but may make at least one reader feel the work is more accurate. I’ve gone back and adjusted plenty of details like that over the years.

But the strongest objections to my personal essays have come not because I forgot the true colour of the carpet, or didn’t include a name, or called evening, morning, or 1993, 1994. They come primarily because, though our memories may be almost identical, our interpretations are vastly different.

"That's not the way I see it!" is usually how those discussions start. Oh, dear.

I have never changed a word where interpretation is involved. “Thank you,” I say. “Your perspective is valid. But it’s YOURS, not mine, and I need to be true to the thoughts and memories that have camped in my soul.”

Personal essay writing is vastly different from straight journalism, where the driving motivation is (or should be!) objective, unbiased and fair reporting, with opinions garnered from as many points of view as possible. Things get a little fuzzy sometimes, but though it may include quotes and references, the primary medium of the personal essay is subjectivity: the experience of the essay writer and their interpretation of that experience.

If you’re a published personal essayist, you should know (if you don’t already) that at some point, someone will object to you publishing an experience involving them, even to the point of trying to stop you. But regardless of who else they involve, the files stored in your heart and memory belong solely to you. They are yours to recall, yours to discuss, and yours to convey to others as you please. But so too, are the consequences for doing so wisely or unwisely—and that may include accusations of slander or libel.

Choose to publish sensitive essays with care and prayer, considering others’ hearts and the motives of your own. Always ask, “Would I want my worst enemy to read this?” Because sure as dandies have lions, that enemy will find it, and know how to use it against you.

Aside from making it a constant practice to study genuinely good writing, the most foundational tool of the personal essayist is truth. Staying true to one’s beliefs, memories, perspectives, and opinions reveals to your readers a developing, live, personality. In this genre, the maxim “to thine own self be true” must be followed.

That’s not ego, by the way. Publishing something that, while truthful, is unnecessarily hurtful to someone else, is. (Don’t ask me how I know that.) Change names and unimportant details, if you must. I sometimes write under a pseudonym, for those reasons.

The intentional personal essay (as opposed to the spill-your-guts social media genre of lazy writing) always serves more than a desire to “let it all out.” It has an agenda, artfully disguised, to move its readers in some way—towards new ideas, opinions, even beliefs. The effective personal essay is always ultimately not about its writer, but its reader.

The more experienced the personal essayist, the more their writing resonates with their readers’ stories. Consider authors like Erma Bombeck, E.B. White, Anne Lamott, Robert Fulghum and Phil Callaway, for starters. Their lives, revealed through the medium of honest reflection, help us see our own in new ways. We spy the truth of our stories through lens of theirs.

Some of my essays, to my surprise, have stumbled into the spotlight of a few major media outlets, some national, some international. I’ve addressed the issues of gay marriage, spousal abuse, lack of integrity in the church, fallen leaders, conservation and politics, for starters. My words have incensed some, and sent others scurrying for pen, phone, or computer to protest or agree, or simply spill out a little heart. I’ve had responses to my articles, books and blog entries from around the world. Even my newspaper faith columns, and 90 second radio spots (very short personal essays) bring some of the same results. The responses I value most are always those that come in the shape of a readers’ own personal story.

Ultimately, even when the details may be a little skewed—the tree a cedar, not a spruce—the medium of the personal essay is all about truth—your readers’ as much as your own.

So tell it already.




Find author, columnist, and broadcaster Kathleen Gibson at www.kathleengibson.ca

Out There with Blogs and Book Reviews – Ramona Heikel

This past year of writing has definitely been an experiment and an education. To ease my problems at work with tendonitis brought on by non-stop computer work all day, I started taking 2 days a week off in January of this year. Then I dug out my pen and paper and pursued two of the writing projects I’d dreamed of doing for years.

I’ve been curious about making a webpage, but put off by the belief that I had to learn HTML. And I’d been wondering if I had enough to say to consistently write posts for a blog. So I finally took the plunge and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy and inexpensive it was to create a website.

WordPress guided me through each step and their built-in formatting and graphics made me look like a pro. I haven’t succeeding in writing as many blogs as I’d intended, though, partly because I’m trying to keep my topics focused on only a few areas. But I am “out there” and that is a success for me.

For almost twenty years whenever books excite me, I’ve been writing my own personal book reviews, and most of the time it’s a novel that stirs up my emotions. I think it’s my way of preserving the experience of meeting fascinating characters, entering into their world, living through their trials and reaping their inner rewards of revelation and transformation. Sometimes an extraordinary non-fiction book may inspire me to take notes, and I’ll record some valuable insights and perspectives on the Christian faith or various other topics in a review.

I’ve wanted to share that excitement with others, especially because I don’t normally read what everyone else is reviewing. When I find a great book I want to say, “Hey, everybody, look at this gem I just dug up! It’s worth reading!” So when I started my own blog in February, I started posting my reviews of favorite books. I call them “book responses” because they are literally my reactions and aren’t necessarily in the proper format of a review. Sharing these has been a thrill for me.

Then, because I finally had a blog, I signed up to be a reviewer for two publishers and a website. Now I am actually reading hot-off-the-press books and children’s books. One of the genres I am focusing on writing at this time is children’s stories and articles, and reviewing children’s books not only helps get the word out about my favorites, but it also keeps me up to date on what is being published. I have even been sent a book by a children’s author who saw my reviews and asked me to review his new book!

Since I am attempting to write an educational “learning is fun” fiction story for middle grades, I am also reading other books of that type, and I don’t know when I’ve had so much fun. Can I just recommend one? If you are at all inclined toward science or history, pick up Benjamin Franklinstein Lives by Matthew McElligott. It’s a delight from start to finish.

Blogging and reviewing have made this writing year a successful one. My audience has expanded as well as my enjoyment!


Posted by Ramona
Happilywriting.com