“Make me see.”
— Henry Belk, blind editor
Connolly's thoughts-I would add, "make me also hear, smell, tasete and feel." Readers want to feel like they are part of a scene, but if you are like me, your writing process usually begins with a lot of telling. Take, for example the first two paragraphs of and early draft of one of my pieces:It’s time for my mother to sell out. She is selling the house that finally brought structure and safety to my childhood. She is trading this piece of our family’s past for her comfortable future in retirement.
My parents met while running from what they felt to be intolerable homes. They took their adolescent angst (as we call it now) to the extreme and ran away to late sixties California. My mother came from a formal socialite structure of debutantes and doctors’ wives, and my father ran as fast as he could from a deeply rooted Irish Catholic family. They both arrived, penniless and desperately needy, on a California beach.
In my mind, I had written this part of the story well because I had made sense out of what I wanted to say, but then an evil writing teacher forced us to go into our writing and find a place where we did a lot of "telling" and not much showing. I realized that that described these two paragraphs.I therefore did a "snapshot"- This is a place where you zoom in create a scene with vivid sensory details that allows the reader to look around your story and see what you did.Sensory description and dialogue are the best way to accomplish this.Here is what the beginning of my piece looked like after I stuck in a thought shot that helps the reader see the house as I did.It’s time for my mother to sell out. She is selling the house that finally brought structure and safety to my childhood. She is trading this piece of our family’s past for her comfortable future in retirement.
Twenty-four years ago the home became a landing for our family which was definitely drifting.
-Snapshot-
I was ten when I walked into the huge formal living room for the first time. The creeks of the old wood floors echoed off the empty plaster walls as my parents paced about.
“Where are we going to get furniture to fill all this space,” my mother wondered gleefully.
“We could do it hippie style. All we need then is a stereo and some pillows,” replied my father.
My mother playfully punched him in the arm and slid in close as he snaked his arm around her waist.
“The hippie days are over baby. Thank God,” she said softly and then kissed him on the cheek.
The confused look on his face when she said this should have been a warning. The hippie days would never really be over for my father.
Even at that perfect moment, with his beautiful wife cooing on his shoulder and his four children madly exploring the cavernous home, he wasn’t really with us. For him, buying in to this would be selling out.
-End Snapshot-
My parents met while running from what they felt to be intolerable homes. They took their adolescent angst (as we call it now) to the extreme and ran away to late sixties California. My mother came from a formal socialite structure of debutantes and doctors’ wives, and my father ran as fast as he could from a deeply rooted Irish Catholic family. They both arrived, penniless and desperately needy, on a California beach.
TRY IT
Find a spot in something you have written that would benefit from a snapshot. Write a snapshot full of details and possibly dialogue, and post it to your blog.
Post Title - "Sanpshot"
