WRITING JOURNEY TOURNIQUET - Simple and Understated

Okay, I had to do it. I decided to use the Royal Wedding in a post. I'm sure some of you are probably sick over the constant coverage of the wedding between Prince William and the now, Princess Catherine, but please bare with me, I do have a point.

The young girls in my life were so excited to view this historical event that I recorded it and we watched it together. From my mother in her seventies down to the youngest, Fallon, who is four years of age, the group of young ... er... older ... middle aged ... um ... ladies, were swept away into the fairytale. We were quite pleased that the wedding was done in a simple, understated fashion.

So, you might ask, "What does this have to do with writing, Brenda?" Well, just like the perfectly simple wedding of the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (in royal standards, anyway), we as writers should keep things simple in our writing. I used to think I had to embellish my writing with adjectives  to get an image in the head of someone reading my manuscript. I would add so many of them, that the visual was lost by the third word. An over written story is like an over the top wedding--a chaotic mess. (Yes, I'm thinking of Princess Diana and Prince Charles' wedding.)

What I've learned is that just enough description will evoke memories from your reader and will let the reader experience your places, characters, and objects from their own point of reference. Something that they've seen, heard, touched, smelled, and tasted before. By putting faith in your reader's ability to visual from their past, you open the world you've created to them with enough reality from their experiences to make it truly believable. Take a moment and think of how you can bring about an image in as few words as possible. That is how you'll truly pull the reader into your story.

That's it, until next time.

You can find Brenda on her blog: http://brenleedrake@blogspot.com 
or on twitter:
http://twitter.com/#!/brendadrake