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About This Author
My name is Joy, and I love to write. Why poetry, here? Because poetry uplifts its writer, and if she is lucky enough, her readers, too. Around us, so many objects abound to write about. Once a poet starts with a smallest, most trivial object, he shall discover that his pen will spill out what is most delicate or most majestic hidden inside him. Since the classics sometimes dealt with lofty subjects with a lofty language, a person with poetry in his soul may incline to emulate that. That is understandable. Poetry does that to a person: it enlarges the soul and gives it wings. Yet, to really soar, a poet needs to take off from the ground. Kiya's gift. I love it!
Off the Cuff / My Other Journal
#699340 added June 15, 2010 at 7:31pm
Restrictions: None
Fiction Writer's Mantra
I was looking at the article “Make Your Sad Story a Universal One” by Jessica Handler in July 2010 Writer, the monthly magazine. Inside it is advice most of us already know, but when I saw the page as a visual, I noticed the bolded lines. I think they can easily be considered a fiction writer’s mantra.
They are:
Plot is the reader’s lifeline.
Character not caricature
The right word in the right place (meaning precision)
Getting your hands dirty (meaning research)
Reader Reward (meaning what your work can give to the reader)

I like mantras, even though I don’t practice any of the mantra-using religions. Mantras as conduits instill a precise concentration inside the devotees. Since writers are devotees of the written word why not have a mantra for fiction writers? To remind ourselves as writers to what is important, we need not say “Om Mani Padme Hum” or any other mystically vibrating verbiage. Instead, because the bolded parts from the article are too long to memorize, I am going to shorten them to what I can recall more easily as:
Plot, Character, Precision, Research, Offering.

Still, it would benefit a writer to read the article since it explains all those bolded lines very well. *Smile*

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