Learning a trade | Previous Challenge Entry

how it works

TITLE: Learning a trade | Previous Challenge Entry
By Tom Rinkes
04/24/10
LEAVE COMMENT ON ARTICLE
SEND A PRIVATE COMMENT
ADD TO MY FAVORITES

To pen a line, a thought, an emotion that the reader will read—and then read again—takes skill. To do this year after year means the writer has crafted that mastery in their own right. The majority of us have to seek higher learning to write effectively, so we do, and the more we write the better we become. Whether we know it or not, we are learning a skill, and new words and phrases come to us daily, until someone refers to us as a “Wordsmith” or a “Grammarian”. If I shoed horses, I'd be called a blacksmith, wouldn't I? I'll take that over what I've been called in the past.

Who among us writes just for the fun of it? I know I say I might be at the time—like when I started this article—but the further I get it becomes...work that I enjoy. I do my best to craft each word carefully, avoid the cliches and use the skills I've learned so far to make sentences crisp and sensible. Luck has nothing to do with it, so writing has to be a learned behavior.

Take some of the writers in the Bible for instance. I'd say that the two that have influenced me the most are Moses and the Apostle Paul. We know that Paul was an educated man because he was a member of the Sanhedrin, or at the very least took orders from them. To obtain that position he must have been a Rabbi first, and that took years of study. So he thought carefully every word he wrote, and designed each thought to blend into the next. This is what good writers do in B.C. or B.C.E or A.D. Paul had to use the same techniques then as we do now.

Moses on the other hand was raised in the House of Pharaoh, so he would've had the benefit of the finest education. I believe that the Torah (first five books) were dictated to him by God or the Angel of the Presence (Jesus?) Still, he had to fall back on his writing skills taught to him by Egyptian scribes, and write down God's Word, word for word. Gonzo journalism, on that mountain, would just never do.

My favorite authors are Truman Capote, Agatha Christie, Steven King and Nelson Demille. When Capote wrote that the people of Holcomb, Kansas locked their doors at night after the gruesome murders of the Clutter family, he phrased it:
“...they were afraid...afraid it could happen again” I felt what they felt through his cleverly CRAFTED words.

When King wrote “The Storm of the Century” and why the town's sins of the past had came back to haunt them because of Delores Claiborne, I went back and re-read his early book about her. If he did that intentionally, then he's a SKILLful writer, even if he is a little sick in the head.

Hercule Poirot is a fruitcake—a genius—but a fruitcake nonetheless. I find it hard to believe that Christie just made him up. Good writers obtain keen powers of observation, so she must've known someone like the detective, then studied him. If so, she made a concerted effort, and that's practicing her chosen CRAFT.

Nelson Demille is a real-life retired N.Y.P.D. Detective who writes crime novels and mysteries. He put his years of service and the forced study of human nature's seamier side to use in his characters. He applied his SKILL at observing people to put it to some very good plots that I have always enjoyed.

All good writers have the skill of connecting with the reader, or else they'd be anything but. I only wish that the forty years I abused alcohol and played reckless with the Lord didn't happen, and maybe I would've started writing a whole lot sooner.

PREVIOUS ENTRY | NEXT ENTRY
SUBMIT YOUR ENTRY FOR THIS WEEK'S CHALLENGE

The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.

If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be right now. CLICK HERE

JOIN US at FaithWriters for Free. Grow as a Writer and Spread the Gospel.