Wednesday, January 20, 2010

I'll knock some Sense into you!

Matt.17: 20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
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Senses...the sweet sensation

When we walk through the pages of life it is our senses that bring us from one place to the other. Without the senses, life would be an empty abyss shaped as a bowl full of nothing. A senseless bowl that sits there with nothing in it. Even if it was full of mashed potatoes and gravy smothered on top, if you didn’t have your senses, it would just be a bowl.

How would you know it was a bowl if you didn’t touch it to feel the shape? How would you know the bowl held mashed potatoes with gravy without the smell? Even without sight, you can tell that it is mashed potatoes. The texture, the taste, the smell, even the sound of the plopping onto the plate would give you an idea that you are about to dive into a bowl of something.

You see what I’m getting at? Our senses will spell out a world of imagination and vibrant life. When one sense is lost, the others stand at attention waiting for direction but really they need no direction because they are there just quietly activating without you even knowing it.

This is what we need to do when writing. We need to allow our senses to guide us through the words. Don’t think about what you’re going to write, allow your senses to lead the way into a tale of glory.

I read one girls post in f2k. She said she wrote the dialog and then went back to fill in the tags. What? When you’re writing, the flow of dialog should come as natural as the flow of senses. You can’t go back and recapture what you wanted to smell or taste or say or do; writing needs a natural flow.

Your writing with the senses is a lot like faith. You either trust in it fully or you have doubts in your thoughts. There is no room for doubts where faith is concerned. Faith is diving off a bridge, arms flung wide open, and out of nowhere you are caught by a feather that places you in the water. A boat might come by to save you but faith is trusting that a boat will come by.

You have senses to carry you through life. Taste,touch, sight, smell, sound, faith is the sixth sense, the unknown, space and time. These are the senses that you will write with. These are the senses that will propel your writing to new heights. Be sure you have faith in your writing as the senses haul you from one place to the other and your reader will thank you for taking the extra time to touch them in ways no other has ever reached.

Come alive with your senses, they’re there for a reason, so use them to the very best of your ability.

Hebews 5:14 says: But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

Is he telling us to exercise our senses? Darned tootin, he is! For when our senses diminish, like the morning mist, we will also.

12 comments:

Steven said...

Still, everyone has their own way of doing things, and I say if it works for you, go for it!

joni said...

Faith does work for me.
And you're right, everyone has to find out things their own way, most definitely. I'm not a, 'do as I say' kinda person, but I can show from example and you can all learn from me, or you can pretty much learn on your own, that's the fun way.

Essay Writer said...

To me being not "do as I say" kind of a person, you have to be doing everything on your own. You cannot feel comfortable by following someones instruction.

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joni said...

Thanks Essay Writer for visiting,
I'm comfortable in giving instruction and following guidelines.
I use the term 'do as I say' loosely as I don't for a minute want to force feed my readers into thinking that it is my way or no way.
I don't think one ever really stops learning and growing in life. And if someone gives me great advice? I'm going to follow.
I'm comfortable with that. :-)

Joni

Essay Writer said...

Well, its quality of leaders

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Anonymous said...

Aristotle once said that 99% of masses consist of dumb and only 1% are genius, and this 1% lead 99%. So, according to this its good to be the part of 1%.

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Charity Tahmaseb said...

She said she wrote the dialog and then went back to fill in the tags. What? When you’re writing, the flow of dialog should come as natural as the flow of senses. You can’t go back and recapture what you wanted to smell or taste or say or do; writing needs a natural flow.

Joni, I’m going to respectfully disagree. Of course you can go back. Revision is re-dreaming the fictional dream. If I’m in the middle of a heated dialogue exchange (on paper, that is) I will write straight dialogue. I may not even stop for he said/she said.

I can and do go back and weave in other aspects of the story, move narrative around, delete it, change it, ensure there’s subtext and so on.

I can’t do that all in a rough draft. I can’t do all that in several drafts. There are a limited number of things I can do in any single draft. So if the mashed potatoes (yum, I love mashed potatoes) don’t make it into the scene until draft three, I don’t sweat it.

joni said...

Good point Charity!
I understand what you're saying because actually, I do the same thing. Maybe my character doesn't do something in the draft, and I want to go back and have her/him doing something to move the story along.
Point taken.
This person made it sound as if she/he was writing it out and as an after thought placed, in my opinion,to much into the tags, continuously.

When our dialog is flowing, do we really need long drawn out tags on every line? I think we lose sight of the conversation between two characters if we do that.

Koontz did exceptionally well with Odd Thomas. We always knew who was speaking even without the extra imagery of tags.

Thanks for visiting! :-)

Joni

Unknown said...

What kind of faith does work for you? Is it faith on yourself?

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joni said...

Yes Easy I do have faith in myself but first and foremost I place my faith in my Living God.
I say, my God, because He may or my not be your God. I'm not here to judge anyone, I'm here to write and that is what He has gifted me with.

Thanks for visiting!

Joni

Unknown said...

My question may not be appropriate of the post, but I would like to ask here that what is your theory of your God?


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joni said...

It is the wrong place for this but for some reason I feel compelled to reply.

I don't have a 'theory'. I have a Holy Bible that I believe was God inspired,and written by man.
But my faith is in a God who lives in me and manifests himself through me.

My faith carries me. He leads and I follow.