FaithWriters.com-Christian Writers Forum

What other reasons can you come up with for adding symbolism to your stories or poems? If I understand the subtle differences between symbolism and metaphor, symbolism can give a deeper meaning to your story through metaphors. For example (and this only applies IF I understand the terms), here is a...

Jan, would it be too much of a generalization to say that one difference between surprize and suspense is that surprize is often led up to by suspense? Even when the mass murderer or pathalogical preditor is about to appear, the sound track turns to "watch out" mode and the camera angles turn to "is...

I wrote about suspense in children's literature when this lesson was posted and it got so long, my computer crashed. Really. So this time I will keep it shorter. I was thinking about how every GOOD children's writing (Saturday cartoons, children's books, puppet plays, etc) is loaded with suspense. N...

Writetrack wrote:Oh, man, Deb. I thought I got an honorable mention because we're friends, not because the writing was good.

Believe me... Deb is not the only one who knows how good you write. I don't think anyone would doubt any award you ever get. I know, at least, that I wouldn't.

If a poet has the words that would make the PERFECT slant rhyme poem or the words for a traditional rhyme that would be just as PERFECT... would publishers have a preference if the poem was the same in every other way?

By the way, what is the technique for making the name of a story be the link (like Gerald and Allison did) instead of just having the link show up as the url (like I did)? Here is one way to do it. In the comment box do this: Type your title and highlight it. I am using my story "Tick Tock" Click t...

This is a favorite topic for me because I usually try to come up with some logical unexpected surprize before I ever start writing the story or poem. Then everything I write just has to lead up to the surprize. Sometimes I get yellow box comments like: "Wow, I never saw that coming." or "That last l...

Can you tell us, please, what appeals to you about this form of writing? Any hints from you on how to do it well? Since I had never heard of this type of writing before this class, I can only tell you why I wrote the way I did. In "You Buried Me Today", all I was trying to do was get out of the box...

Here's my tidbit: Now who’s at the door? Those fool nurses should know by now not to knock. What’s a woman in a coma gonna do? Jump up and answer the door? Fool nurses! Oh, that sounds like Jill’s voice. How long has it been? I have no idea. Too long. Yep, that’s Jill alright. Only she would come in...

Before I do my assignment, I have a question. My attempt will be a person in a coma that hears visitors that think she doesn't hear anything. Her thoughts, by the end of the story, would reveal a lot about her AND her visitors. Would that be stream of thought, or just a story?

You realize, don't you, that I pick these topics specifically to make you root through your old stories? My next topic will be "Stories that use the word "the" too frequently", and you'll have to pore through them all, counting the "the"s. Muahhhhaaaaahaaaaahaaaaa. One thing these classes have taug...

Question: Except for true Epic poems, wouldn't most standard poetry fall into a "slice of life" tag? I've been looking at most of my own poetry and it seems to fit the bill fairly often.

I have a couple of entries that I have always considered to be slice of life. The first takes place in the few moments it takes to watch a butterfly in a garden. I was trying to show how the butterfly's struggle mirrored our own lives and how we could be better humans by learning a lesson from the b...

I don't use as much slant rhyming as perhaps I should. It's so easy rhyming and I write poetry at a grade school level (intentionally, to avoid the need to learn new words :roll: :roll: ) so I don't have many examples of my own. I did find slant rhyme in the 4th and 5th verses of Things Found Along ...

I slide into a corner, in awe of the talent represented by these entries. There is no shame for me in not placing because the ones who did place are FAR more deserving. Congratulations all! And special congrats to the five who placed without being in Masters... you did a super job. Jan, should you p...