The middle of the week is here! It’s hump day!
Did you see how observant I was just there?
If that isn’t a great segue, I don’t know what is. That’s right, today’s writing prompt is all about observations. I know we have talked about this before, but I feel it is something that is important to all aspects of your writing.
People watching is a great practice when you are looking to fill out your character notebook. You also want to pay attention to the world around you so that you can bring your observations into the story.
If you remember a previous post, we know that a scene has 7 sides (top, bottom, 4 walls and outside the walls). But what makes your observations even more important is on your own words.
During the editing phase you need to be more observant than when you are writing. You have to look at your own words as though you have never seen them before.
This is a challenge that many writers face, and is the primary reason editing your won work is so difficult. Pride and ego aside, you want your work to be perfect. However, as a creative, you want that perfection the first time around. Having to edit shows you all the mistakes you made and no one really likes knowing they made mistakes.
So for today’s writing prompt, we are going to learn how to be more observant while writing to help the editing phase that comes later.
May 12
Pick a scene for your current project to rewrite, or write a new one. While writing look at each sentence you write as though you are an editor standing over the shoulder of the author.
As a writer, we wear many hats. Author and editor are two of the biggest.
However, wearing them at the same time isn’t something we normally do. It is a tricky thing to pull off, but if you can do it, it becomes magical.
What I want you to do is to write a sentence at a time for a scene. Then reread the sentence out loud to yourself and see if you notice anything wrong with it. Write the second sentence and then read both out loud. Write the third, read all three, and so on.
What you are looking for is continuity, flow, readability, etc. All of the things you look for while editing you rwork, but as you write.
This is a time consuming project, which is why a single scene is enough.
Once you get the idea of it, it will go much faster.
If you practice it often enough, your natural observation skills will kick in, it becomes habit and you can write while mentally editing without having to stop and reread everything.
Let me know in the comments how it goes for you.
