Let me walk through the fields of paper
touching with my wand
dry stems and stunted
butterflies….
~Denise Levertov, “A Walk through the Notebooks”
One of my favorite words is evocative. Words,stories and poems can be evocative, bringing the reader into your world and evoking memory, pictures, stories. That’s why every reader gets something different from your work. They bring their own history to it. I may read someone’s work and be brought to tears while another reader may feel nothing. But if you don’t use any visuals in your work, your work will be flat. I have posted about flat writing before but I think it’s worth another post. As a chef I was taught to layer ingredients so the final product is balanced yet subtle layers can be tasted. I think that’s the trick with evocative writing. Is everything in the final product? Have you created word-pictures? Have you created a sense of place? Is there emotion behind the words? Or are your word choices flat. Nice words with no dimension.
Today, let’s do some editing after your daily writing. Take a piece of writing you think needs work and rework it will word-pictures and layers in mind.
If you’re committing to submitting. Submit. Now get back to work!
Lovingly,
The Writing Nag