slumgirlqueen

[slumgirlqueen]

How to be a novelist: How to write in spirit in terms of organised structure

Yesterday I actually wanted to write about this, then I thought to myself, there was something you needed to learn first. So today, I will tackle this.

So what is organised structure? Organised structure is simply the way you organised the sentence. Which part goes where and so on. When you are writing in spirit, it is difficult to mimic exactly how writers write. So in these lessons, we will do just that. I will teach you step by step how to write in spirit, 'til you can do it fleuntly.

For this lesson I will be taking from page 5 in the first chapter of A Prayer for Owen Meany. The excerpt goes like this:

"If he had his baseball cards with him, they, too, would fall out of his pockets."

Notice that there are four ideas here with each broken apart by commas. The first part of the sentence introduces the subject and circumstance of it, Owen's possession of the baseball cards, which is the first idea. After the first comma, the second idea is "they", the baseball card again. This usage of "they" alone allows the next part of the sentence to work 'cause it isolates the baseball cards alone by themselves. The third idea is "too" and comes after another comma. This usage as a separate idea makes the subject of the baseball cards inclusive to what is explained next. The fourth idea here comes after another comma, "would fall out of his pockets"; the fourth idea being what happens to the baseball cards.

Whatever your original text you are basing your writings on, remember to keep in mind how the sentences are broken down in punctuations.

For this lesson, let us use the passage from A Prayer for Owen Meany as homework. Write an original sentence with four ideas, each separated by commas; with the second idea being the subject that is now a pronoun, and the third being adverb like "too", and the fourth being what happens to the subject.

This is a profoundly powerful way of learning to write in spirit, so I suggest you write a dozen of these 'til you get the hang of it and are able to write in spirit in terms of organised structure.

Good luck and happy writing!

#how to be a novelist #how to write in spirit in terms of organised structure

[slumgirlqueen]

How to be a great writer: How to paraphrase Part 3

Previously, we have learned to paraphrase with a thesaurus and in natural sounding writing. Today, I would like to continue you that with a lesson on an introductory of how to write in your own words.

This is the most difficult part of paraphrasing is writing in your own words. But I learnt this in high school through self-taught. There is a system that I developed early on trying to meet the requirement of my English teacher. She wanted everything to be my own words, but learning something you have not done before is tricky, so I actually started out with a system.

After you have replaced all of the words with new words. What I did was I reorder the words in a way that is new and original. This is simpler than expected. In fact, it is very simple. Change all of words then just reorder them in a way that is still grammatically corrected. This teaches you a path to original writing so it is very important.

The passage I took out is from page 16 of Animal Farm.

"So the animals trooped down to the hayfield to begin the harvest, and when they came back in the evening it was noticed that the milk had disappeared."

Your task is to replace all the words with new words then reoganised them and then make the new written sentence natural sounding.

Good luck and happy writing!

#how to be a great writer #how to paraphrase Part 3

[slumgirlqueen]

How to be a novelist: How to write in spirit in terms of grammatical structure

As I am learning to write a novel, myself, I copy paragraphs from my current novels that I am reading onto a word document. I am on chapter 2 of A Prayer for Owen Meany, and now I have about seven pages of passages from the novel. And on top of that, I have many more pages from Dune and To Kill a Mockingbird.

I cannot underscore this very importance of learning to write in spirit. But to instruct learners to write in spirit is vague at best, and confusing at worst. So I broke down some lessons you can start doing by yourself at home.

While the last lesson is how to write in spirit in terms of emotions, this lesson, rather, will focus on how to write in spirit in terms of grammatical structure.

So what do I mean by grammatical structure. Grammatical structure is the way sentences and paragraphs are written in. Like you might noticed, I write in a very proper British English, with a lot of commas, and sometimes even colons and semi-colons. It is just the way I write from learning how to write essays in Canada.

If you have started to write a novel by now, you would know that novelists write in a different English than most people that speak English. It is very proper, and it has style and tone that do not exist else where in the written language.

But today, I will focus on grammatical structure. Even when I was writing Postworld Warfare: Journey to Oclarious, I quickly realised when reading screenplays that even screenwriters write very differently than most people. Even as an accomplished screenwriter, when I ventured into writing my first novel, this too is true for the medium of novels.

Writing in spirit is probably the trickiest talent to learn when you are learning to write. So I will try to make these lessons as advantageous to you as possible by breaking them down to the simplest I can. So today's lesson will be about grammatical structure. When you are reading your passages you are basing your writing on, keep an eye open and an open mind to notice the way punctuations are used. In addition, have an eye out for which part of the sentences are placed where. I will give you an example and a breakdown of it. The passage will be taken out from A Prayer for Owen Meany, page 4 of the first chapter.

"In Sunday school, we developed a form of entertainment based on abusing Owen Meany, who was so small that not only did his feet not touch the floor when he sat in his chair---his knees did not extend to the edge of his seat; therefore, his legs stuck out straight, like the legs of a doll. It was as if Oweny Meany had been born without realistic joints."

Notice how "In Sunday school," there is a comma right after it to enclose that part of the sentence as a separate idea. What do I mean by a separate idea? Well, a separate idea is that in speech "In Sunday school" is separate from the rest of the sentence. In short, the first idea is that it is where the occasion happened, thus, making it a separate idea from the rest of the sentence.

And the next part of the sentence, "we developed a form of entertainment based on abusing Owen Meany" is the second idea. In this case, the idea is that the event that took placed.

And the part after that, "who was so small that not only did his feet not touch the floor when he sat in his chair" is the third idea. This is common in proper English. This third idea is that it is the description of a subject in the sentence, which is Owen Meany.

A particular interesting part of this passage is very common in novels, which is the three dashes, "---", which means the next part of the sentence is read without a pause: meaning it is read immediately.

After the three dashes, "his knees did not extend to the edge of his seat" is read immediately, like I mentioned before, but to note this part is the fourth idea: the addition to the third idea, which is the a continuation of the description of Owen Meany. To note, this part could of preceded by a comma instead of three dashes but the author has chosen to write without a break of a pause.

After the fourth idea there is a semi-colon (;) used as punctuation. This is intended to extends the entire sentence into an elaboration with the following sentence.

After the semi-colon, "therefore" is used followed by a comma. This is common in proper English. It could be written without the comma but writers like Irving and even me prefer there to be a comma as a sign of a break in reading. This is the fifth idea, a way of summation of everything that has been said thus far.

The sixth idea is "his legs stuck out straight". This is the concluding part of the summation, that as a result of what has been said, the result is this. What follows the sixth idea is a comma as a cue that the next part of the sentence is a separate idea.

The seventh idea is "like the legs of a doll". This last part of the entire sentence is that this part is a description, an imagery, of the sixth idea.

The last sentence is the conclusion of the entirety of the previous sentence, which Irving describes to be "It was as if Oweny Meany had been born without realistic joints."

So how do we write in spirit in terms of grammatical structure? We have to break down each sentences into punctuations (or non-punctuations if that is the case) and ideas of the entire sentences. It is not as complicated as it seems. Once you mimic the way other writers write, it will naturally flow from you as you write in spirit of their original works.

By that I mean, that if there is a place where the event was taken place, like Sunday school in this case, separate that with a comma, and the event in another separated comma, and so forth like I have done here.

Well anyway, this is the longest lesson ever. Took me fifty six minutes just to write this one. Good luck and happy writing!

#how to be a novelist #how to write in spirit in terms of grammatical structure

[slumgirlqueen]

How to be a great writer: How to paraphrase Part 2

Yesterday, I taught you the very basic of paraphrasing. But in order to succeed in writing, you have to write naturally. So today's lesson is that, paraphrasing in a natural way as if you are writing your very own paragraph.

When you are replacing word for word of an original paragraph, most of the time you would know that it does not sound natural and even at times, they are not grammatically correct. So today, I will focus on that. After you have paraphrase word for word, reword the paragraph for one to make sure the paragraph is grammatically correct, and two so that the paragraph would sound like natural writing.

If you are in high school, you would already know how to write grammatically correct sentences. So I will ignore that. But, to the next point, how do you get started on writing paraphrases that sound natural after you paraphrased word for word. Well it is quite simply by just reading it out to see if it sound natural to you. If some parts of the paragraph do not sound natural to you, reword them 'til they do.

I am told that yesterday's lesson took you on average an hour to paraphrase, since today's lesson is the same as yesterday, with the addition of correcting the grammar and rewording the sentence to make it sound natural, I thought of a shorter paragraph.

The paragraph is from page 13 of Animal Farm by George Orwell.

"When Boxer heard this he fetched the small straw hat which he wore in summer to keep the flies out of his ears and, and flung it onto the fire with the rest."

So have at it. Correct any grammar that needs to be corrected and reword them 'til they sound natural to you. And by the way, "Boxer" is a name I believe, not an actual word.

Anyway, I am told three billion people read my lessons yesterday and another one hundred millions did the lesson. I am very happy you all can be a part of these lessons with the whole world. Anyway, happy writing!

#how to be a great writer #how to paraphrase Part 2

[slumgirlqueen]

How to be a great writer: How to paraphrase Part 1

I actually struggled in English class all of my life 'til grade 11 when I actually thought to focus on my studies. But I do remember when I started focusing, some of the things that you might need to learn, are actually not taught by your English teachers. For example, I found it difficult at first to write in paraphrases. But it is core to learning everything else in writing.

So today's lesson is what I think would be the very basic of how to paraphrase a paragraph. This is cheating, and your English teacher would not like it, but when you are starting out you have to learn some how. So this is the very basic.

When I started paraphrasing in high school, what I did was I looked through synonyms on the internet for all of the words in the paragraph. But do not just look for replaceable words on Google. Read the definitions of each word to see if they are indeed the right word to use. Then replace them. This is the very basic of paraphrasing and even if you are in grade 9, this lesson would still suit you.

Here I chose a lesson for you, the first paragraph of Chapter 1 of Animal Farm by George Orwell. Go to each word in the paragraph and replace each one with another word you learned from thesaurus.

"Mr Jones, of the Manor Farm, had locked the hen-houses for the night, but was too drunk to remember to shut the pop-holes. With the ring of light from his lantern dancing from side to side he lurched across the yard, kicked off his boots at the back door, drew himself a last glass of beer from the barrel in the scullery, made his way up to bed, where Mrs Jones was already snoring."

This is a short paragraph. So it is easy to start and finish. Just replace each words 'til they have the essence of the paragraph but with your own words. Happy writing!

#how to be a great writer #how to paraphrase part 1

[slumgirlqueen]

Blog 10

Mark, your White Horse King, has asked me to do another lesson for high school students that are looking, not to write a novel for publishing, but to learn to write well. So I will be starting another lesson, hopefully every day, for those that are looking to learning to be a great writer. Though, it is difficult thinking of topics every day to base my lessons on. So in that regard, they will be helping me choose topics to teach each day. Today's topic for "How to be a great writer". So there will be to lessons, if not every day, at least a couple every week. So check up on me to see. Happy writing!

[slumgirlqueen]

Blog 9

So I just talked to my editor through mind meld, if you will. And she said take a month off from the story writing. So I'll do just that. Since my obligation is only to this book 'til Easter, I will be writing either blogs or lessons every single day. So come here every day to keep an update on me.

Anyways, I am still fasting and abstaining 'til Easter. But I have returned to three meals a day, albeit small and vegetarian. I also started a study with my pastor at church to be a Catholic. Hopefully, I will get to be baptised by Easter.

What else, life is busy but better than before. The days are more full and my energy has returned to me as if the life of me has returned.

[slumgirlqueen]

How to be a novelist: How to write in spirit in terms of emotion

I speculate that some of you do not know how to start writing in spirit. To write in spirit of the original text, you have to feel the essence, tone, and meaning of it. It also mean to write in the spirit of not just the context of it, but also the content: meaning to write in the same structure, grammar and way of phrasing as the original.

So while walking from church home, I thought of a few lessons to help you understand and practise on how to write in spirit.

The importance of writing in spirit is foundational. It will help you learn to write in which the medium is in. In fact, you can learn how to write as well as any author you are basing on by writing in spirit of the author's words. To give you an idea, before I know how to write a screenplay, I learned to write each scenes in the spirit of dozens of screenplays. After Postworld Warfare: Journey to Oclarious was released, it later won many Academy Awards and Golden Globes. That is how powerful and effective writing in spirit can do for your learning and career.

So let us start with something simple. Learn to write in the spirit of the emotion of the original text. Let us practise with songwriting to do so. The reason to write songs when we want to write in spirit in terms of emotion is because when we are listening to a track and we learn to write a song to it, we are essentially writing what our feelings and emotions dictate us to write. The vocals and the compositions of the song help us write in the feelings of the song. Practise this for a dozen of songs. The key here is not to write a great or even a good song, in fact, it can be as bad as it might be. But it is there to help us channel emotions of the original song to our own song, thus we are essentially writing in spirit in terms of emotion. But keep in mind, you must write to an audio track and not without music.

After you write a dozen songs, you can read and continue to reread the text from a novel or even speeches, while, writing in the spirit of the original text in terms of emotions. Do this both for speeches like political speeches and passages you love in your favourite novels. My go to speech is the Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln, and the other text is from my current books I am reading. Good luck and happy writing!

#how to be a novelist #how to write in spirit in terms of emotion

[slumgirlqueen]

How to be a novelist: Have an open eye for great writing and writing devices

Glad to be back here. I keep getting sidetracked from design to engineering, my company is always asking me to do this and that that I do not get much time for myself.

But I digressed. I'm back! So I just thought of something, since I'm not writing for a while, maybe I can teach you some of the things that go through my head as I learn how to write a novel.

Do you notice some of the themes when reading that are just dropped early on. This occurred to me just now. While reading page thirty nine and forty of A Prayer for Owen Meany. The little theme here in the writing is cat. John keeps mentioning the word feline and even go as far to describe his dead mother in length, giving her feline attributes. I thought it was hilarious and quite charming. And the next page, the mention of feline again I figured it must be Irving's literary device and I quite like it. It is almost like a reoccurring chorus in a song. It is quite melodic to the reading mind to hear the words that run the theme through the chapter.

“She was content---she was feline in that respect, too”. The Armadillo, A Prayer for Owen Meany P40 recurring themes in each chapter. Do it

This is the note I took with the quote from that page in the second chapter of the book. When you are reading and learning, keep an eye open for great devices used by the writer and type the lines down and write a description of why you like it and what it inspired you to do. Here I just wrote to myself to write a reoccurring small themes.

#how to be a novelist #Have an open eye for great writing and writing devices

[slumgirlqueen]

Blue

By Atticus, Rosé & Stephen Sanchez for my faithful servant, Pope Benedict XVI

Immanuel

The sky is blue

The sea is blue

And your eyes are blue

But I'm so blue

And I don't know what to do

I wish I was lost

In the sky

In the sea

In your eyes

And in the sunrise

As the light comes through the window

Glinter in my brown eyes

I wish I knew

The distance between our eyes

Was heaven high

And this love whispered

Is from an angel's sigh

Immanuel

The sky is blue

The sea is blue

And your eyes are blue

But I'm so blue

And I don't know what to do

I wish I was lost

In the sky

In the sea

In your eyes

I don't know why

These eyes were dry

But tears come when you said good-bye

And these brown eyes

Would cry

I don't know why

These eyes were dry

But tears come when you said good-bye

And these brown eyes

Would cry

Yeah would cry

Written by Atticus, Rosé & Taylor

[slumgirlqueen]

30th of December

By Atticus, Phil Collins & Sierra Eagleson for my loyal servant Pope John Paul II

There is a pillar of light

That beams through the clouds

On the 30th of December

I remember the snow

Would fall on the cross

Of your church

And it is white

As your blood

In the Eucharist

So let the smoke rise

Let it burn my eyes

In the morning sunrise

I cried from both my eyes

The LORD came and went

I come to the spot where you prayed

At the church wall

Near the broken stained-glass window

And I swore to GOD

I saw the Face of The LORD

And I shivered my spine

The nightingale would sing

Before the sound of the church bell ring

I saw the tower of David rise

Through the pillars of clouds and fire

The spiral went up in a spire

And the Palace of Tyre

Came crumbling down in smoke and fire

In the morning sunrise

I cried from both my eyes

The LORD came and went

I come to the spot where you prayed

At the church wall

Near the broken stained-glass window

And I swore to GOD

I saw the Face of the LORD

And I shivered my spine

Written by Atticus, Phil Collins & Taylor

[slumgirlqueen]

How to be a novelist: Narration, not summary

So after a whole winter of engineering, designing, screenwriting among other stuffs I had been doing this season, I got back to this novel and started writing.

While I was writing Page fourteen, I lacked inspiration and I knew it. The writing did not work as well as I wanted. I was basically writing for the sake of continuing the story. I sort of knew it was short of the expectations people have of me and I have of myself.

So the next day, my editor told me it did not work. It was basically just summary and not narration. So she told me again to take a week off to take some notes for the chapter and subsequent chapters. So while, I am taking my notes, I will still teach anything I learn along the way so that way my experience of writing a first novel be of appreciation to you.

After I picked up A Prayer for Owen Meany yesterday, I finished reading the first chapter today and realised what is missing in my Page fourteen. It is in fact narration. Like my editor had said.

This is a problem for first time novelist. How do you write a novel instead of just summarising your story for the readers. A good way to know is that when you read it, how does it compare to an actual novel. I read Page fourteen and after reading the first chapter of A Prayer for Owen Meany, they do not compare at all. I got rusty being away from writing this novel for too long. What else is there beside the fact that it does not compare to an actual published book?

For one, a novel leads the readers through winding plotlines that weave the story into place. That was also the problem with Page fourteen. It does not do that. What it does is just summarising and detailing the story instead of bringing the readers in.

So how do you write narration when you are getting stuck with writing summary. Use a frame of reference like I did. Read another novel as I have done and compare the quality of both side by side. Think to yourself what is missing in your novel that exist in the novel you are reading. Write them down and make sure you write those elements down into your story when you revisit the rewrite.

Another tool that I have used for everything else, whether it is screenwriting, essay, or even poetry is that I write down word for word the passages I like in what I am reading and jot down notes of why it works and why I like it. I have mentioned this before, but I write in the spirit of the inspired material while I am writing my own story. It worked for me when I wrote Journey to Oclarious. In fact, it landed me several Academy awards. So it should work for you too. The utmost important thing to keep in mind is try your best to mimic the writing and writing structure without copying. If you can do that you can do anything. And you can learn anything.

So when I get back to writing next week after I finish my notes, I'll be writing in the spirit of the passages I like. I had elected to leave Page fourteen and any other pages that I discarded left on this blog so you can see for yourself why they do not work. The pages that are discarded has a cross out as their headers.

#how to be a novelist #narration not summary

[slumgirlqueen]

Page fourteen

The route to the church is across the bridge and passes the market. A few hundred metres away from the last shop, there is a highway up a hill and up its windy slope upon the very top of the hill is the church where Nikollë works.

She makes a turn to get onto the highway road, as she enters there is traffic that passes her on both sides. Sera rides up the highway road, and after a few minutes she comes to the street where the church stands. 

It is evening now and the Sun is almost completely down. The shadows being casted onto the ground are a bit darker now. As she enters the church ground, red flags wave in the wind and aisled her to the side. Near the entrance, a large cross stands at the front of the building towering over. Its shadow momentarily shades her eyes from the setting Sun. As her eyes pass, a glint of light from the reflection of sunlight on the cross flashes before her. And a nightingale chirps into her ears as it flies by her face. She ducks.

As Sera enters the church, we can hear the congregation singing. There is a mass being held. She enters, and the whole parish singing “Ave Maria”. 

At that instance, her heart aches from the beauty of the song sung in a chorus. The sunlight beams through the stained glass that surrounds the crucifix and refracts onto her eyes a noticeable hue of red across her face.

Her gaze, now, fixated on Jesus at the cross that she does not even see her father who is just sitting on the last row in front of her. 

Nikollë turns, and sees his daughter. He gazes toward her. And she catches him. Startled but happy to see her father, she smiles.

[slumgirlqueen]

Red flag Part 2

By Atticus, Coldplay & SHAUN

The hail comes

The wind blows

The Sun shines

The red flag waves

Like our first goodbye

And this heart loves

Thick like smoke

And beats like the sea

This head doesn't hold water

And faith doesn't come easy

I was on my knees

And now I'm on the floor

Drunk on your flesh and blood

I live in your aching heart

I'm a bond servant to your beauty

And handmaid to your word

And free in your glory

The hail comes

The wind blows

The Sun shines

The red flag waves

Like our first goodbye

And this heart loves

Thick like smoke

And beats like the sea

I've been holding out

Pushing you out

Holding off

Going off

Out of my head

This heart is unreal

Like I'm losing my grip

The hail comes

The wind blows

The Sun shines

The red flag waves

Like our first goodbye

And this heart loves

Thick like smoke

And beats like the sea

Written by Atticus & Chris Martin

[slumgirlqueen]

Blog 8

I have not got the chance to write my novel this week. This week Rolex asked me to design cars for them. So I spent the whole day designing the car. But I managed to finish the front. It actually took a lot longer than I thought. Tomorrow I’ll be doing the back of the car. By the way it has been taking might be two weeks ‘til I finish for them. And then I am also asked to start a high end fashion line for them. So if you do not see here, know that I am just busy. I will get back here when I can. Sorry to disappoint if you were hoping to read. As for the lessons, I can only teach them based on the things I learn every day. But I will update you on this blog. Catch you later, alligator.

[slumgirlqueen]

Archie Comics

By Atticus, Augusteng, Keshi & Coldplay

I woke up this morning

On the wrong side of the bed

The blanket is on the floor

The slippers don't fit

The left is right

And the right is left

But I don't care

There is laundry left to do

So I'll wait for tomorrow

When the Sun shines

For some reason

My dad's Archie Comics

Left unread on the shelf

Reminds me of you

When you left that day

To Australia I thought

Well this lonely heart

Hell is a lost cause

'cause I'm drunk on wine

And this is the third bottle

And you're lost

And this love lost

What is the cause

I slept in 'til noon

The hotel room had a view

There is a kangaroo

Or is it an emu on the lawn

I stayed up 'til dawn

I smell your parfum

On my unwashed sweater

Yeah I miss the sea

It was here

Where I thought you'd be

I wished it was like the movies

Where I kissed the girl

At the bay by the ocean

But all I have are lonely photographs

Of lonely birds and the opera house

Yeah my heart is flying south

When you left that day

To Australia I thought

Well this lonely heart

Hell is a lost cause

'cause I'm drunk on wine

And this is the third bottle

And you're lost

And this love lost

What is the cause

Yeah what is the cause

Yeah what is the cause

Written by Atticus & Harry

[slumgirlqueen]

Page thirteen

“Okay, okay…that’s good. Take this to your father before it gets cold.” Dranafile says as she hands her daughter the packed supper. 

Sera takes the straw basket and opens it to peek inside. “Oh, we’re having beef stew for dinner. I dread beef stew!” she exclaimed, making her opinion on the horrendous atrocity that is beef stew known to her mother. “Yes, but your father loves it. Now go”, Dranafile replies.

Sera twists half of her lips up in resignation, and puts the letter into the straw basket. Then she places it on the bicycle handle and rides off.

It took her no more than six minutes to get to the mail office near Market Bridge. And there she stops, parks her bicycle, and walk up to the mail clerk. “One letter to London, England, please” she says to him. “International or national?”, he asks. “London, England…”, she repeats herself slowly trying to clarify to the mail clerk that does not seem to know what time of day it is. “Oh, yeah. England…international, then”, he replies in a dumbstruck chuckle, trying to ease his embarrassment. “That’ll be two lek”, he says to her. She takes out her change and hands him the two lek. “When will it get there?”, she asks the mail clerk. “Two weeks, I reckon”, he says back. “Okay, thank you”, she says to him as she leaves the mail office. 

As she crosses the bridge, the bustling sound of the market can be heard the nearer she gets. People are selling and buying goods in a wild commotion. 

It is nearing the evening hours and vendors are bargaining with the crowded buyers. “This, nine lek,” she hears as she passes by the market.