Doc Hensley on Writing

Most poets convey more of a message in 250 words than most prose writers do in 1,250 words. That’s because poets select words for their maximum impact.

Poets are concerned about how a word sounds; how it meets the eye when read or the ear when spoken aloud; how its rhythm assists the flow of the rest of the sentence; what its connotative as well as denotative meanings are. If you want to make your prose more vibrant and less wooden, try adapting some poetic techniques to your writing. Here are some suggestions:

1. Begin by using alliteration. By repeating a specific consonant, you can create a “sound effect” to mimic the object or scene you are describing. Without alliteration you might write, “A lot of water can hit the beach during autumn.” Notice, however, that with the repetition of eight “s” sounds in one sentence, you can actually create the sound of the ocean by writing, “The salty seas washed waves of spray onto the shores.” It’s impossible to read that sentence without hearing the whoosh and hiss of ocean waves rolling in and receding. That sound helps to put the reader into the setting.

2. Experiment with vivid word pictures. When poet Percy Shelley wrote: “I fall on the thorns of life, I bleed,” he was using graphic images to put the reader’s senses on edge. In Chapter 10 of The Red Badge of Courage, novelist Stephen Crane achieved the same effect (with prose) when he wrote, “[H]e could not keep his crime concealed in his bosom. It was sure to be brought plain by one of those arrows which cloud the air and are constantly pricking, discovering, proclaiming those things which are willed to be forever hidden.” The image of Crane’s arrows is as stark as the image of Shelley’s thorns.

3. Try using homonyms in a series. Homonyms are words that sound exactly alike when pronounced, even though they have different spellings and meanings (rein, reign, rain . . . so, sew, sow). You can have fun creating homonym-linked sentences. In one of my romance novels I once had a pirate say, “Aye, I eyed ‘em on yonder dock.” I received several letters from readers who caught that play on words and enjoyed it.

Attempt to create some words that can have two meanings in one sentence. In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night one character says, “The clock hath tolled twelve.” When you hear that spoken by an actor, it can have three different meanings: (1) the clock clanged (tolled) twelve times; or (2) the clock, by chiming, “told” you it was twelve o’clock; or (3) the clock counted out twelve chimes, like a bank teller counts or “tolls” money. This gives extra mileage to the meaning of a word.

4. Make use of similes. A simile relates one thing to something else and usually uses the word “like” or “as” to compare the two. In his novel Sanctuary, William Faulkner writes in chapter 8, “Temple’s head began to move . . . like one of those papier-mâché Easter toys filled with candy.” If you’ve ever seen a Mexican piñata suspended from a string, slowly turning in a dangling twist, you immediately understand the movement Faulkner is referring to. Sentences of descriptive words could never explain that precise movement, but one comparison to the piñata enables the reader to see it right away. The next time you are at a loss for words in trying to explain something, try using a simile to liken your object to something the reader is already familiar with. It works . . . like clockwork. (See?)

Many of the world’s most popular prose writers—Edgar Allan Poe, Thomas Hardy, Robert Louis Stevenson, Stephen Crane, William Shakespeare, James Dickey—have also been talented poets. We can learn a lesson from them. If a prose writer can select words with the same accuracy as a poet and can make use of some of the literary devices used by the poet, prose can then be as three-dimensional and as vivid as poetry.

So, give that latest manuscript of yours a bit more revision. Add the “poet’s touch.”

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Dennis E. Hensley, PhD, has been a reporter for The Muncie Star, a combat sergeant in Vietnam with the U S Army, a distinguished visiting professor at Oxford University, the keynote speaker at more than 100 writers’ conferences, and the author of 53 books, the latest of which is Jesus in the 9 to 5 (September 2013, AMG Publishers). © 2013 by Dennis E. Hensley. All rights reserved.

Conclusion of the series, “Advice for the Tortured Novelist”

These four tips will help you break through writer’s block.

1. Do a timed writing session. Set an alarm clock for ten minutes. Attack your writing with a vengeance. Type out whatever comes to mind, whether dialogue or setting or back story. Don’t be concerned with writing mechanics, just churn out as many words as possible before that alarm sounds. Once the dinger goes off, relax, take a deep breath, refill your coffee cup. Now that the right side of your brain has had a chance to vent, take time to allow the left side to check for grammar, spelling, syntax, and punctuation errors. Let it insert smoother transitions, better choices of vocabulary, and more natural conversations. This method works because you are using both sides of the brain as each was created to function.

2. Prepare an outline. If your notes and research materials are scattered around you, impose some discipline on that chaos. Make an outline of what you want to present. What needs to go into the lead to make it grab the reader? Which statistics or quotations or breakthrough announcements need to be presented early to hold the reader’s interest? What factors could be pulled together to make a satisfying and compelling close to the piece? Assemble these sections of your research and add this meat to the skeleton you’ve formulated.

3. Create a regimen. Try to report to the same place at the same time each day for your writing. If you create a pattern, it will become a stimulus and response procedure for you. Just as your saliva and stomach acids increase when you sit for dinner, your memory and instinct and imagination will “kick in” when you sit to do your writing if you are conditioned to know that this is where and when it “happens.”

4. Enlist a cohort. If you have a writing partner or buddy, give him or her a call and say, “Let me read you something and you tell me how this can be improved.” Similarly, you might want to email one or two pages of a work in progress and ask your writing friend to put it up on Track Changes and offer some feedback. Sometimes a different perspective can provide fresh ideas to what is becoming drudgery to you.

Staring at a flashing cursor is not productive. Yes, you must report to your writing desk. However, if nothing is coming naturally, then you should use the techniques in this series to kick your brain into gear. Nobody calls you “creative” until you’ve created something.

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Dennis E. Hensley, PhD, is head scriptwriter for the daily devotional program “Fresh Perspectives” on WBCL Radio (Fort Wayne, IN) and a columnist for the Advanced Christian Writer. He has been a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Oxford University, Regent University, and Moody Bible Institute. © 2013 Dennis E. Hensley. All rights reserved.

Part 2 in the series, “Advice for the Tortured Novelist”

Try these four methods for ramping up your creativity:

1. Consider the audience first. Pick up a notepad and jot down responses to such key questions as, “Who, specifically, am I writing to? Which periodicals or publishers are most likely to want this variety of manuscript? What sort of takeaway value will they expect from my material? How can I best meet those expectations?” Once you are clear on who you are writing for and what you want to say and how you want to say it, the words will come more naturally.

2. Brainstorm format options. Consider three to five different ways you could write your article or story. Would a Q & A format be functional? Would a series of anecdotes strung together engage the reader? Would quotations from a variety of interviews provide insights and surprises? Would bullet points be eye-appealing? Should some of the material be segregated into a sidebar or hot box or banner? Could you devise a reading list or some quizzes or a compilation of supportive Bible verses? By allowing yourself the freedom to visualize the manuscript in an array of presentations, you open possibilities for how to begin, continue, and conclude your piece.

3. Write out-of-sequence. Don’t feel locked into a linear pattern of writing. When composing novels, I very often will write the opening chapter, and then I’ll write the closing chapter. In this way, I know for sure what the problem is that will drive the plot, and I also know that I can successfully bring it to a satisfying conclusion. The rest of the book is a series of action scenes, blind alleys, red herrings, comic relief, and dramatic exchanges of dialogue. Those scenes I write as I think of them, whether they are in chapter two or chapter nine.

4. Put the brain in overdrive. Lie on the couch, lean your head back toward the floor, and let oxygen-filled blood flow into your brain for a few minutes. Take ten minutes to work a crossword puzzle, decipher an anagram, or solve a section of Sudoku. Get on your knees and pray.

Next week, “Conquering the Blank Page.”

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Dennis E. Hensley, PhD, is head scriptwriter for the daily devotional program “Fresh Perspectives” on WBCL Radio (Fort Wayne, IN) and a columnist for the Advanced Christian Writer. He has been a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Oxford University, Regent University, and Moody Bible Institute. © 2013 Dennis E. Hensley. All rights reserved.

Part 1 in the series, “Advice for the Tortured Novelist”

Forget all of those stupid scenes in old-time movies wherein the tortured novelist is seated in front of his manual typewriter staring at a blank piece of paper. He takes a swallow of booze, pulls a long drag on his cigarette, runs a hand over his three-day-old growth of beard, and then furiously begins to pound the keys.

Likewise, forget all those stupid scenes in modern day movies, such as Limitless, in which the tortured novelist sits in front of his word processor, swallows a magic pill, runs a hand over his three-day-old growth of beard, and then furiously begins to pound the keys. There are no elixirs or stimulants that can be swallowed as a way of writing a best-seller. That’s fiction, folks, and bad fiction at that. (Although I confess that I keep a can of Diet Coke close at hand whenever I’m writing.)

So, what does work? I mean, let’s be honest, we don’t always arrive at the keyboard with a smile on our face, bursting with brilliant concepts and ideas just waiting to be birthed. More often than not, we wonder why we didn’t take up a safe profession, such as alligator wrestling or being shot out of a cannon. We need ways to force our brilliance to come forth.

Next week, “Kicking Your Brain into Gear.”

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Dennis E. Hensley, PhD, is head scriptwriter for the daily devotional program “Fresh Perspectives” on WBCL Radio (Fort Wayne, IN) and a columnist for the Advanced Christian Writer. He has been a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Oxford University, Regent University, and Moody Bible Institute. © 2013 Dennis E. Hensley. All rights reserved.

Conclusion of the series, “Increasing Your Level of Creativity”

My literary hero, Jack London, once said, “Don’t wait for inspiration. Light out after it with a club. If you don’t get it, you’ll get something remarkably like it.” This advice comes from the man who was the first person ever to earn a million dollars strictly from professional writing. Jack wrote 1,000 words per day, whether it took him just an hour or it took all day. He was dedicated to his craft and thoroughly disciplined. Though he died in 1916, he is still my role model. I keep a poster of him in my office. He lived the phrase “just do it” long before Nike came along. I’ve seen copies of his manuscripts in the Henry Huntington Library in California. I’ve seen where he wrote 1,000 words one day, then came back the next day with a different color ink and edited the previous day’s work and the went on to write a new 1,000 words.

No one would say Jack London wasn’t creative. However, The Call of the Wild and White Fang and “To Build a Fire” didn’t write themselves. Between the ages of 22 and 40, London produced 190 published short stories and 26 novels. He was living proof that creative ideas aren’t hard to come by, but finished manuscripts are.

So, do you want to be more creative? Okay, begin by keeping that wonderful mind of yours open to all those great ideas flowing through it, but then carve out the time to get those ideas down on paper.

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Dennis E. Hensley, PhD, has been a reporter for The Muncie Star, a combat sergeant in Vietnam with the U S Army, a distinguished visiting professor at Oxford University, the keynote speaker at more than 100 writers’ conferences, and the author of 53 books, the latest of which is Jesus in the 9 to 5 (AMG Publishers). © 2013 by Dennis E. Hensley. All rights reserved.

Part 3 in the series, “Increasing Your Level of Creativity”

My success as a short story writer and novelist can be reduced to a three-step procedure: come up with a fascinating plot; bang out the first draft of the story as soon as possible; and spend serious time editing, proofreading, and revising that lame initial effort.

I learned a long time ago that most people are really very creative. If, like me, most folks watch TV, go to the movies, read books, listen to sermons, do some traveling, and talk to interesting people, they are bound to come up with some clever ideas for stories, inventions, games, products, recipes, and businesses. However, that’s as far as most folks go. They think of the ideas, but they never engage in the experimentation, development, revision, and production required to make the ideas become tangible realities.

At first, this used to annoy me. I remember when I wrote my novel The Gift (Harvest House), about a man who could transfuse time from one person to another. I would be at a bookstore or a writers’ conference autographing copies of my book, and at least a dozen people each night would say to me, “I had this idea before you did. I came up with this plot years ago. I already thought up this whole story back when I was in high school/college/the navy/prison.”

I was tempted to say, “Yeah, well, if you’re so much smarter than I am, how come I’ve got this novel out and you’re in line to pay money to me for your story?” But I held my tongue, because it dawned on me that, yeah, maybe some of them did come up with a similar idea. Totally possible. But, who cares? I’m the guy who spent weeks upon weeks dreaming up the specific elements of the story that would make it work (characters, settings, plot tension, subplot interaction, boffo closing), and I’m the guy who spent six months pounding out the rough draft of the 15 chapters, and I’m the guy who spent another four months rewriting the first draft and then selling it to a publisher.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. Published, successful books are rare. It takes work, real work.

Next week, “What If I’m Not Feeling Creative?”

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Dennis E. Hensley, PhD, has been a reporter for The Muncie Star, a combat sergeant in Vietnam with the US Army, a distinguished visiting professor at Oxford University, the keynote speaker at more than 100 writers’ conferences, and the author of 53 books, the latest of which is Jesus in the 9 to 5 (AMG Publishers). © 2013 by Dennis E. Hensley. All rights reserved.

Part 2 in the series, “Increasing Your Level of Creativity”

When facing a creative challenge as an author – outlining a novel, drafting a keynote address for a writers’ conference, crafting a short story – professionals engage in a four-stage development process.

First, they conduct research by gathering facts, quotes, data, references, and background on the topic they wish to write about.

Second, they incubate this material by reading it, organizing it into sequential patterns, jotting down questions about unsolved areas, and just mulling about problem points. Grampa used to call this “sleeping on it.”

Third, as creative insights or bursts of inspiration arise, authors quickly jot them down without prejudging whether they are practical or not. These are the breakthrough moments that will provide unique, fascinating, unusual potential solutions to the challenges at hand.

Then, fourth, it will become time to apply the discipline of analyzing how to formulate these “ah-ha” epiphanies into material that is coherent, captivating, and insightful.

Next week, “Turning Plots into Published Stories”

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Dennis E. Hensley, PhD, has been a reporter for The Muncie Star, a combat sergeant in Vietnam with the U S Army, a distinguished visiting professor at Oxford University, the keynote speaker at more than 100 writers’ conferences, and the author of 53 books, the latest of which is Jesus in the 9 to 5 (AMG Publishers). © 2013 by Dennis E. Hensley. All rights reserved.

Part 1 in the series, “Increasing Your Level of Creativity”

I know two things for sure about creativity. First, no one creates out of a void or vacuum. Until you put something in, you can’t get something out. Second, you cannot edit a blank page. Creative or not, you still have to pound out a certain number of words each day, which means that creativity is useless without discipline.

Our brains are divided into two functional spheres. The right side is La-La Land, where we daydream, experiment with patterns, form bizarre images, create random color combinations, engage in humorous word play, and delve into the abstract and ambiguous. The left side is Boot Camp, where we are disciplined with numbers, sequential in organization, logical in analysis, and precise with vocabulary usage.

Unfortunately, these two spheres are often at odds with each other. The right side is like the joystick on an airplane, pulled all the way back, zooming us into sky-high realms of imagination and exploration. The left side is like the autopilot switch that forces the ailerons into a downward dive while applying the airbrakes. We need both creativity and critical thinking, but how do we get these divergent gifts to work in tandem?

Next week, “Coordinating Creativity’s Four Phases”

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Dennis E. Hensley, PhD, has been a reporter for The Muncie Star, a combat sergeant in Vietnam with the U S Army, a distinguished visiting professor at Oxford University, the keynote speaker at more than 100 writers’ conferences, and the author of 53 books, the latest of which is Jesus in the 9 to 5 (AMG Publishers). © 2013 by Dennis E. Hensley. All rights reserved.

Conclusion of the series, “Once Before a Time: Creating Prequels”

We’ve talked about motion-picture prequels and how to write prequels of works that are in the public domain. Obviously, it seems a bit audacious to assume that one would be on a level with Charles Dickens or Leo Tolstoy or Jack London or George Orwell or Mark Twain and could write a prequel to their works.

Well, then, be audacious. When Scarlett was published as the sequel to Gone with the Wind, half the critics loved it and were excited to see the continuation of the story, but the other half loathed it and said it was a pathetic, poor imitation of the Margaret Mitchell masterpiece. Any prequel or sequel you write of a classic will suffer the same fate. Don’t let that hamper your ambitions.

An actor who decides to play Hamlet cannot allow himself to be daunted by critics saying, “But that was already done to perfection by Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh and Richard Burton and Mel Gibson and Michael Redgrave.” The actor has to say, “And here, then, is my rendition of it.”

Prequel writers must have the same chutzpah.

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Dennis E. Hensley, PhD, is director of the professional writing department at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana. His 53 books include Jesus In the 9 to 5 (AMG Publishers) and The Power of Positive Productivity (Possibility Press). © 2013 by Dennis E. Hensley. All rights reserved.

Part 2 in the series, “Once Before a Time: Creating Prequels”

If you decide to write a prequel, you first need to make sure that the original work is now in public domain or is something that you personally wrote. For example, you could write the prequel to A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens but not to The Firm by John Grisham. You have a variety of options in brainstorming a prequel.

Consider a fleshing out of implied information. Using our previous example, what information could you draw upon to enhance and expand on what we already know of Ebenezer Scrooge’s early life, as alluded to during the visit by the Ghost of Christmas Past? Additionally, what could you make up about the courtship and marriage of Bob Cratchit and his wife, the birth of their children, and the earliest years of Tiny Tim, already knowing that the Cratchits are poor and Tim is disabled? Basically, you would be embellishing on provided information to formulate a back story for each character.

Look at the story from a new point of view. How would the prequel of A Christmas Carol be told if it were from the viewpoint of Scrooge’s young fiancée, whom he deserted in order to pursue money? How would it be told from the viewpoint of Scrooge’s sister, who died not long after giving birth to a son, Scrooge’s nephew and only remaining blood relative? Or, most intriguing of all, how would it be told from the viewpoint of Marley, the now-deceased business partner of Scrooge? The angles, nuances, viewpoints, opinions, judgments, and perspectives could be endless. And who says you couldn’t have a prequel told from multiple points of view?

Examine your “throw away” notes. If you’ve written a novel, you know that you’ve had to cut scenes, delete passages of dialogue, and pare several chapters. It hurts to do that. In fact, in writing my six novels, I couldn’t part with that material. By looking back at your “deletes” and “discards,” you might find foundational storylines for a prequel.

Interview the supporting characters. If you wish to tell a prequel from the omniscient point of view, that doesn’t mean you cannot draw material from myriad sources. Before writing the prequel to A Christmas Carol, you could make a list of all the secondary characters. Then, you could conduct imaginary interviews with them. There would be no wrong answers, for nobody really knows how Bob Cratchit was hired by Scrooge or when he first started working for him or what the range of his duties are or exactly how much his meager salary is or why Bob doesn’t seek employment elsewhere. By conducting five to ten in-depth interviews, you would have a wealth of material to use as the foundation of your prequel.

Next week: “Overcoming Intimidation in Prequel-Writing”

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Dennis E. Hensley, PhD, is director of the professional writing department at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana. His 53 books include Jesus In the 9 to 5 (AMG Publishers) and The Power of Positive Productivity (Possibility Press). © 2013 by Dennis E. Hensley. All rights reserved.