WriteOn! Give It a Twist

by strawbale

Community

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Thursday, Jun. 08, 2023 Thursday, Jun. 08, 2023 at 5:00:21pm PDT

We often have to write about things we are familiar with, and our readers also recognize. But we also want them to sound fresh and interesting, combined in new ways, described in new words.

I have been following along with Dr. Lori’s series on the Locked Tomb novels, and I must say, Tamsyn Muir provides some stellar examples of this kind of thing. Rather dreadful things are often happening, and you expect people to be a bit freaked. But

Gideon’s skin had already been crawling, but now it was trying to sprint.

gives it a twist.

...her eyes were wild and white again, and she screamed in a voice that required many more vocal cords than she possessed.

puts the common scream on a new level.

Or, moving on to Nona the Ninth, we have a description of two people currently inhabiting the same body. Nona can tell them apart by how they stand.

Camilla couldn’t stand still, ever, not without shifting her weight back and forth on each knee or popping her knuckles, and Palamedes stood like he was playing a game of Hot Chocolate and the tagger was looking right at him.

which not only gives us some info on the two that will be significant later in the book, but does it by inferring a new children’s game well enough we can guess the rules.

CHALLENGE:

take one of these ordinary ideas and write it in a new way. Or come up with your own.

a long, boring trip

a busy, crowded shop

feeling under the weather

seeing a friend or lover after an absence

READERS & BOOK LOVERS SERIES SCHEDULE

DAY	TIME EST/EDT	SERIES	EDITOR(S)
SUNDAY	6:00 PM	Young People’s Pavilion	The Book Bear
(LAST SUN OF THE MONTH)	7:30 PM	LGBTQ Literature	Chrislove
MONDAY	8:00 PM	The Language of the Night	DrLori
TUESDAY	8:00 PM	Contemporary Fiction Views	bookgirl
	10:00 PM	Nonfiction Views	DebtorsPrison
WEDNESDAY	8:00 PM	Bookchat	cfk et al.
THURSDAY	8:00 PM	Write On!	SensibleShoes
(FIRST THURS OF MONTH)	2:00 PM	Monthly Bookpost	AdmiralNaismith
FRIDAY	7:30 AM	WAYR?	Chitown Kev
(OCCASIONALLY)	8:00 PM	Books Go Boom!	Brecht
	9:30 PM	Classic Poetry Group	Angmar
SATURDAY	Noon	You Can't Read That! or Paul's Book Reviews	pwoodford
	9:00 PM	Books So Bad They’re Good	Ellid