Celebrating Independent Authors
All right. This is not an essay from an expert telling everybody about better writing technique. This is a writer complaining about all the dratted self-styled experts who have nothing better to do than find arbitrary ways to complain about our work.
Case in Point.
I write, “Her eyes dropped to the floor.” And my smart-*ss editor comments, “I hope she picked them up afterwards.” Continue reading “Cast Your Eyes Over This and Other Writing Flubs?”
His hand grabbed the door handle, and he burst into the bedroom. She was lying on the bed…his eyes flew across the room and landed on her heaving bosoms.
I haven’t actually come across those exact words; it’s not a direct quote, but I have come across many, many autonomous body parts, such as: Continue reading “When body parts go travelling…”
“Smooth and smiling faces everywhere, but ruin in their eyes.” – Jean-Paul Sartre
I did not plan on starting this week’s post about eyes. Eyes may be the windows of the soul, but how do you describe your character’s eyes or facial expression without being cliché? A book I recently finished repeated the same phrase over and over again – “his smile never reached his eyes”. Yes, we can figure out that this person is not genuine. But, what other body parts can we use to gain insight into our character’s motivation, career opportunities, pride or self-esteem? Let’s start with a story about feet.
When we moved to Florida from New Jersey I was disappointed to realize that I could no longer indulge my habit of checking out what kind of shoes people were wearing. I love shoes. Many people in Florida don’t wear shoes – they wear flip-flops. It can be 35 degrees, and they’ll be in flip-flops. And, sadly, for some of them it doesn’t matter to them what their feet look like. Continue reading “Body Parts”