This month I'm offering golden advice about the craft of writing. I'm diving into the depths of imagery. Imagery is not description, mere stage stuff that literally paints the picture of story but does nothing to propel it forward. Imagery is high-octane description, multi-purpose scenery, and the magic behind the mental images. Imagery engages readers by moving forward your plot and characters. It is the emotional woof or welt weaving in and out the warp of your story.
One way to create fab imagery is by substitution. Yes, you can engage the senses with specific word choices -- crisp nouns and lively verbs, but you can do so much more. For example: She swam in a green lake. Now I will use more specific word choice and slide in substitution: With each stroke, she sliced through the Coke-bottle colored mirror without cracking the surface.
"She swam" tells us nothing about "she". It gives us no sense of what this character is about. "With every stroke, she sliced ..." The writing gives a sense of control the woman is exhibiting; she 's moving forward and hardly disturbing the reflective world around her. The substitution of mirror for water sharpens the experience for the reader. The substitution adds depth and flavor to your story. It is a seasoning so use it sparingly.
A good way to improve you imagery skill is to rewrite an crucial scene in you work without dialogue. Use the sensory descriptions of the scene to convey all the emotion and depth of your scene. Ditch all the linking verbs. Engage every sense. Here's the common: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Here are the uncommon: perception of temperature, the kinesthetic sense or the sense of where you are in relation to rest of the world, the perception of pain/pleasure, the sense of balance and finally the sense of acceleration.
Yes, weave every sense into this important scene and communicate your story. Be sure to season with substitution. Make it all work to reveal your literary dream world. Infuse your writing with the dark matter of perception. Use imagery to bring your story dreams to life.
I will be back next week with more golden advice. Thank you for dropping by.
This week's doodle, it's from my son Jesse Blaisdell. I pulled this one out of a box in the closet: "Lighthouse".
Here is your quote for the week. Let it soak in your soul.
“The sun had become a light yellow yolk and was walking with red legs across the sky.”
― Zora Neale Hurston, Seraph on the Suwanee
