Show Me the Way

 

                                                                                           Photo credit: Rafael Pires via Pexels

"Description begins in the writer's imagination, but should finish in the reader's." – Stephen King

"Show, don’t tell" is advice often given to aspiring writers. It certainly makes sense, as the writer wants to paint a picture in her readers' minds. But when you sit down to write, to tell your story, it's easy to fall into just that—telling.

What's an aspiring writer to do? Learn from the pros. I've mentioned Master Class in this space before, and am still of the opinion that it's worth every penny. I just finished David Baldacci's class on writing mysteries and thrillers, and am once again walking the line between being incredibly inspired and convinced I have no idea what I'm doing. At least I'm consistent.

I do take some solace in the fact that even my favorite author, Robert Crais, often faces a blank page with uncertainty. I recently reread an interview in which he said that every time he sits down to write a new book he thinks, "Can I pull this off?" And that's after numerous awards and more than twenty novels. Some days I wonder if I can pull off a blog post.

But back to showing. In his class, Baldacci walks would-be thriller writers through his outlining process—emphasizing that it's ever-evolving, creating compelling characters, crafting dialogue, writing action scenes, and much more. Good stuff. His readers definitely see his stories unfold. And while it's clear how hard he works at his craft, it's also clear how much he enjoys it, simply stating that "he can't not write."

So where does that leave me? Starting to play with an idea for a new story, coming up with new ways to summon my muse, and knowing I'm not alone when I think I can't possibly write another book. But I think I can. I'll show you.

In the Pocket

 

                                                              Image by Pixabay via Pexels   

I'm late to the party on this one, but I just found out about kangaroo words. According to dictionary.com, a kangaroo word is a "word that contains its own synonym, with the letters to spell that synonym already placed in the correct order." WHAT?? Maybe it's a side effect of it being month eleventy-five of the pandemic, but I think this is so cool!

The letters can be consecutive, like act within action, or spread out, like male in masculine. And to continue with the word play, those shorter synonyms inside of a kangaroo word are called joey words. Methinks Kanga and Roo would be pleased.

I'm a bit dismayed that I didn't learn about kangaroo words in grade school. Had I been made aware of this bit of language nerdiness around the time I discovered The Phantom Tollbooth, my eight-year-old head surely would have exploded (in a good way). Kangaroo words were popularized as a word game in the 1950s, in The American Magazine, and later appeared in Reader's Digest. Then, I suppose, they just faded away.

For you serious word geeks out there, a twin kangaroo contains two joey words, such as container, in which both tin and can appear. Want more? An anti-kangaroo (is it just me, or does that sound like a political party that would appear in a Monty Python sketch?) contains its own antonym, like overt in covert. And the finale? A grand kangaroo contains two joey words, one of which is in the "pouch" of the other, such as alone, which contains lone, which contains one. Mind. Blown.

Word play will always be fun for a certain segment of the population. I just hope that enough of us are passing that sense of play along to future generations. Wouldn't Kanga want us to?