Linsey Lanier
Sally Kilpatrick
Sia Huff
Romily Bernard
Darcy Crowder
Marilyn Baron
Tami Brothers
Sandra Elzie
Carol Burnside
Debbie Kaufman
Maxine Davis
Tammy Schubert
Susan Carlisle
Pam Asberry
Lindy Chaffin Start10,000 Hours of Craft
By Michelle Newcome
This month Linsey Lanier asked us to talk about craft – what we’re good at, what we want to improve, and any books that have helped along the way. Because I’m a poet I think in lines and use devices more common to poetry. I tend to favor books and writers who use imagery – writers like Alice Hoffman, Luis Alberto Urrea and Paulo Coelho – and deep devices. I like recurring symbolism. I usually insert hidden symbols in everything I write. I try to never use an image that is not part of a grander scheme. This comes from poetry – every symbol must advance the theme and metaphors should be of the world of the poem. For instance, one of my poems is about a carpenter with a sick child so every symbol and metaphor is from wood or a tool. I’ve been told that my writing is very rich and descriptive (maybe too much so at times). Because I’m getting the kind of rejections I’m getting I’ve spent the past year really going deep into the world of craft and trying to figure out how to continue to grow in mastery and skill. So far my favorite craft books have been those written by Noah Lukeman – The First Five Pages, A Dash of Style, and The Plot Thickens. Since I’ve begun playing around with omniscient POV I’ve picked up a great book by Alicia Rasley, The Power of Point of View.
This week in my current work in progress, There’s No Goodbye, (magical florist must save the doomed soul of her dead husband), I’m using a device that’s pretty obscure called Chiasmus. Basically, it’s from the Greek letter Chi and is represented by an X. The concept when used thematically is that the low are brought high and the high are brought low – Chiasmus figured prominently in The Scarlet Letter. Chiasmus, when used as a sentence-level device, is the reversing of grammatical structure in a sentence to create an ABBA pattern. In the chapter I’m working on Chiasmus is both the thematic structure – one of the main characters is revealed as having fallen upon very hard times from a former position of strength while my main character, the florist Marchand Boniquet, has risen to a position of power. The Chiasmus is triggered by searchlights over a theatre making a big X in the sky. On a sentence level at least one sentence in each paragraph of the opening scene is written in the criss-cross world of Chiasmus. This is the kind of thing I get off on. Here’s an example:
She felt the hidden water below her feet rise, the tempest growing as the rain moved against her. As above, below also.
Here’s an example from an official source:
- “By day the frolic, and the dance by night“. Samuel Johnson The Vanity of Human Wishes.
(prepositional phrases and gerunds in reverse order)
Aside from all the literary gobbledygook I adore, my biggest realization about craft came from the Malcolm Gladwell book, Outliers. His theory is that in order to be an expert at something you must spend 10,000 hours working at it. If I were to add up all the time spent in the MFA program and writing manuals and manuscripts I would have to say I’m only about 500 hours away. So, there’s my goal for the remainder of this year! How many hours do you have left?
Tags: Michelle Newcome, writing craft
About the author
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Michelle Newcome | Michelle divides her time in many little slices and on any given day might be holding a Girl Scout meeting, writing operational procedures, painting her house, or actually doing her writing-writing. She's ever hopeful that the pie chart of her life will some week hold a giant-sized slice of writing.
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March 2nd, 2010 at 8:18 am
Loved this post Michelle. Your so deep, and I mean that as a truely inspired compliment. I’ve never heard of Chiasmus…how compelling.
It’s funny, I write poetry too sometimes. As a high school student I won a few nice scholarships. A few years ago I wrote a 100 wd poem for the Leanne BBanks (Why I love my favorite shoes)contest and won five pairs of Nine West shoes. Really Cool!! What’s funny to me is my poetry is the easy, kids and rappers can do it sort. I’m not an intellectual poet at all. I wish, wish I could do what you do. I’m jealous. I bet your writing is so lovely.
Thanks also for the craft book ideas. I’m going to check those out!
Have a great morning and a productive week,
Tamara
March 2nd, 2010 at 8:20 am
As you can see, I’m not very deep. Right off the bat, second sentence of my post I spell the word YOU’RE…your.
Uggg…to be intellectual. I can only dream.
Tamara
March 2nd, 2010 at 8:58 am
I enjoyed your post. I also love Alice Hoffman’s writing.
I’ve never heard of the Chiasmus device either, so that was interesting.
I wrote poetry when I was younger but haven’t written any lately.
As far as 10,000 hours, I’m not counting but I must be getting pretty close.
Marilyn
March 2nd, 2010 at 10:34 am
Michelle,
I wish I thought and wrote more like you. My stuff seems so plain Jane compared to your material. Thanks for sharing.
March 2nd, 2010 at 11:18 am
Thanks guys. And Tamara – I can’t spell or punctuate worth a crap. If Linsey had asked, “what part of craft do you suck at?” my answer would have been even longer. The problem with loving all the literary devices is that I can’t just ever WRITE. Susan, I like things that are plain – plain is powerful because when you strip away all the descriptive writing and the devices – you have to really get down to story. Hemingway was pretty plain jane, after all!
March 2nd, 2010 at 2:14 pm
Awesome post. I’m not a poet, but I am an unrepentent grammar geek and loved my class on rhetorical devices because we got to talk about chiasmus and all sorts of other fun devices.
Thanks, Michelle, and good luck–I was just thinking about how many more hours I have to go before hitting that 10,000 mark. Please tell me high school writing counts.
March 2nd, 2010 at 3:13 pm
Gotta say that as a poet, I never excelled, although I am a fan of many. I was always more of an essayist and particularly liked the literary devices of Bacon, Donne, Jonson, and Eliot. Still, I find using these devices does not come naturally to me in fiction.
March 2nd, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Love your writing, Michelle! I wish I’d have gotten my degree in English instead of Economics! But at the point I was at when I decided to become a writer, it would have taken infinitely more years to finish.
I’m going to look up those craft books you mentioned. I figure I’m way over that 10,000 hours!
Thanks for your eloquent post!
Ana
March 2nd, 2010 at 8:09 pm
Oh, Sally! I am not a grammar geek. Maybe we make a complete English major when smashed together? I had to help my daughter identify helping verbs in her homework today and struggled with it. Anna – economics is probably more practical and you’re a beautiful writer now so those 10,000 hours are showing! Debbie, I love Donne. Eliot? Not so much. Although I’m studying some stuff about the grail mysteries, which is making The Waste Land make more sense.
March 2nd, 2010 at 9:36 pm
Gorgeous post, Michelle. Thanks for taking my challenge and spinning it into gold. I read your words this morning and was impressed and inspired. I love the idea of Chiasmus. “There’s No Goodbye” sounds like a wonderful story. Hope I see it in print some day soon!
March 3rd, 2010 at 6:19 am
Hey Michelle!!! Sorry I’m late.
Great post. I will definitely have to find some of those books. I had heard about the 10,000 hours thing and I agree. I haven’t gotten into poetry much. Had a really bad experience with a snooty instructor in my early college years. Having grown up on Baxter Black and Silverstein, I tried to use some of their examples and ended up getting made fun of. I’ll have to look deeper into it now that I’m a bit older. I might actually enjoy some of it now.
Thanks for a great post, Michelle!
Tami
March 3rd, 2010 at 12:00 pm
I took a course through Margie Lawson and learned a lot about rhetorical devices. They’re fun!
March 3rd, 2010 at 5:50 pm
Holy moly, I hope you’re hawking your writing as literary. Actually, I’ve been hoping that since I first read your samples on the blog.
March 3rd, 2010 at 9:35 pm
I have 9,999 hours more to write and miles to go before I sleep. The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep. I figured a little Frost was more fitting than my usual snarky comments. Thanks for sharing.