Don’t wait for inspiration, it’s so capricious… Writing every day, even a little, will prove to you that you don’t need to be inspired to write.
The more you get used to writing, the easier it will be… and the risks of getting stuck will decrease proportionately: goodbye to the anxiety of the blank page! And that’s not all…
Writing every day allows you to renew yourself
Many authors practice only one form of writing: novel, short story, autobiography, screenwriting or song writing… Writing every day allows you to try different literary fields. Is your time limited? Test short forms: poem, micro-fiction or haiku … Do you write autobiographical texts? For once, try fiction: write a short story or a fantastic tale. If you’re struggling with a novel, put it aside while you write a song or a micro-story… Get out of your way and don’t be afraid of the unknown!
Writing every day stimulates creativity
If you write every day, you will see ideas arise more easily. A tip to make things easier: keep a best and affordable book writing services share with you at all, you won’t be able to do without it. After 365 days, you will have a harvest of texts…
Writing every day combats perfectionism
Stendhal said: “Write every day, genius or not.” A few pages of “without genius” writing will not be wasted time, on the contrary: writing, even a little, even unimportant things, keeps the desire to write alive! Beware of perfectionism which can become a hindrance. You don’t have to produce a competition text every day…
Writing every day makes a manuscript progress
All writers will tell you, if there is one “recipe” and only one for finishing a manuscript, it is this: write every day, a little or a lot (it depends). But every day. You will thus stay close to your characters, you will not drown in the plot and above all, you will maintain the motivation necessary to write a long-term manuscript! …
Description: this single word makes both the reader and the author want to flee. However, a successful description not only provides setting elements, but allows the reader to be involved or a character to be characterized.
Don’t like descriptions? You are not the only one. School memories die hard, and this single word of description evokes moments of deep boredom for many! And yet, a good description makes it possible to make the reader a sensory participant in the story: in short, to involve them in the story.
A good description does not slow down the story
Even a good description, if it is too long, gives the impression of boredom because it slows down the pace of the story. If it slows it down too much, the reader stalls. “A description begins in the imagination of the writer and must end in that of the reader” writes Stephen King in Writing, memoir writing services. “To me, a good description is usually about giving a few well-chosen details that will take care of everything (…)
One of my favorite restaurants in New York is the Palm Too on Second Avenue. If I decide to set a scene at the Palm Too (…) before starting to write, I will conjure up an image of the place based on my memories (…) The first four things that come to mind are a) the dark color of the bar, which contrasts with the brightness of the mirror which lines the back, reflecting the light from the street; b) sawdust on the floor; c) the drawings on the walls (grotesque caricatures); and d) the smells of grilled meat and fish. »
Show and feel
Rather than description, think suggestion. If you want to keep the reader’s interest, don’t drown them in details: choose two or three significant elements and above all give them something to see, feel, hear… Take care of the atmosphere. For example, the room had been vandalized doesn’t mean much to you. On the other hand, you can imagine the scene much better if you read “A coffee table was overturned, a table lamp on the ground, its yellow silk lampshade twisted and torn. Everything was upside down, as if a herd of elephants had crossed the room. Really clumsy elephants. » (Kate Atkinson, Things Are Getting Better but It’s Not Getting Better).
Another example, illustrating the words of S. King cited above: “After the blinding light of Second Avenue, the restaurant seemed as dark as a cave. The mirror behind the bar reflected some of the light coming from the street and shone like a mirage in the darkness (…) There were a few solitary drinkers at the bar. A little further away, his tie at half-mast and the sleeves of his shirt rolled up on his hairy forearms, the maître d’ was talking with the bartender. There was still sawdust on the floor, Billy noticed (…) The smell of grilled meat and onions filled the air. Nothing had changed, no, really. » (S. King, Writing, memoirs of a profession)
The reflection of a state of mind
In some cases, the description of a location can reflect the character’s inner state. “It was awful weather, stormy and wet, and the mud, mud, awful mud was thick in all the streets. For several days, an immense veil of lead had hung over London, coming from the East, and it was constantly expanding, as if in the East there were an eternity of clouds and winds. (Charles Dickens, Great Expectations). Here the author uses weather conditions to foreshadow the upcoming upheavals in the narrator’s life.
In The Fall of the House of Usher, Edgar Poe expresses in the description of the house the state of the eponymous character. For his part, Balzac considered that the environment in which a character lives is in his image, so when he describes the Vaquero pension in Le Pere Griot, he paints us a sordid and mean place in the image of its owner.
Some tips for writing a description
Start by visualizing what you want the reader to imagine. Use all five senses or as many senses as possible. Give a few well-chosen details, those that provide information and will capture the reader’s imagination. Be clear and precise: do not hesitate to make comparisons to better describe, as K. Atkinson does in the extract cited above (“glass began to crack under his feet as if a bomb had exploded”).
