March 31, 2013
Pif! Paf! Which is the elephant and which is the mouse? There's no real link between the sound of most words and what they mean (with the exception of onomatopoeias such as 'buzz'), but that doesn't prevent people from making sound associations. Writers can use this tendency to advantage, especially in poetry. You can use sound association to create a mood, or to subvert it. If you've used 'm' to create associations with 'mother', 'milk' and 'mild', subsequently using 'murder', 'mayhem' or 'mischief' has extra shock value.
As Alexander Pope puts it in his 'An Essay on Criticism' (lines 362-374):
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offence,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense...
Back to the elephant and the mouse. Here's a clue: one's small, quick and light, the other is big, heavy and slow. What do they sound like to you?
Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Linguistics
March 24, 2013
How hard it must be for Olympic athletes to get all the way to the final only to be pipped at the post by less than a nose! There are no prizes for coming fourth, so all the training, self-discipline and (possibly) neglect of loved ones have been for nothing. On another day, they might have left the blocks a fraction faster or felt fresher, their competitors might not have been as focussed or have eaten one too many Shredded Wheat. Another day they might have won–they were so close. It can ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Competitions
March 18, 2013
Do you grind your teeth when you hear someone say they were 'sat' or they were 'stood' somewhere? Me too! I always want to ask who sat or stood them there, or did they really mean they were sitting or standing? The increasing tendency to use a passive instead of the past imperfect or a gerund is the result of dialect creep. I have no objection to dialects being used instead of standard English when appropriate, but this construction is not only replacing standard English, it's taking over oth...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Linguistics
March 11, 2013
Writers are usually advised to target their work at a particular market. Up to a point this makes sense. If a magazine only accepts certain genres or lengths, or has a dislike of present tense narrative, it's usually wasting your time and theirs sending them things that don't fit. Most competitions have strict rules and often have a theme, but are more flexible with regard to style. How far should you go in adapting what you write to fit the requirements of editors and competition organisers/...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
March 3, 2013
Yesterday, I received the latest issue of Salopeot, which was a great treat and not only because it has one of my poems in it. The magazine is packed with more than 60 poems, so I'll be able to spend today reading some thought-provoking and beautiful work. Isn't that what Sundays are for–taking time to think about what really matters?
I'm not going to review any particular poems, and some people might query why, as I review films in this blog which they might consider have less to do with...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Reviews
February 24, 2013
Flight is one of those films that I felt I ought to see rather than one I felt particularly attracted to. I knew little about it other than that it featured the somewhat miraculous landing of a damaged aeroplane by the pilot, who is later accused of being under the influence of drink and drugs. Denzel Washington plays the pilot and has been nominated for an academy award. That doesn't surprise me, as it's the stature of his performance that makes the film worth watching.
It's a strange fil...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Reviews
February 17, 2013
I don't usually do this, but this week's blog doesn't have much to do with writing. Correction, it has everything to do with putting off getting on with it, but sometimes real life doesn't want to let go of your thoughts and you can't get the imagination started to travel to the far-off land where you left your characters. For this piece of procrastination I can thank my brother-in-law who posted this link
www.youtube.com/JustJesse197 on Facebook.
People who don't like dogs probably won't...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Inspiration
February 10, 2013
Otherwhere and Elsewhen, featuring my science fiction story, 'Heavy Air', is now available from
Bridge House Publishing. You can either find it on their website or at Amazon, priced £3.80 plus VAT. Edited by Gill James, the anthology is a collection of 12 stories with a loose theme of another 'time and another space, light years from here'. As well as 'Heavy Air', you'll find stories by Philip T. Brewster, Julie-Ann Corrigan, Phil Hodgkiss, Dawn Knox, Jeff Laurents, Shirley Percy, A. J. S...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley. Posted In : Reviews
February 3, 2013
Last week, I wrote about the joys or otherwise of being asked to critique someone else's work as a favour, and offered some suggestions as to how to survive the process with all your friendships intact. This week, I want to share some of the pluses that linger after feeling flattered has worn off.
Editing or proofing someone else's work makes you more aware of how you write yourself and of any bad habits you might have drifted into. It teaches you to take an objective look at what you do, a...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
January 28, 2013
Sooner or later it's bound to happen. Someone discovers that you're a writer and presents you with your manuscript asking for your opinion. It would be easy to see this as an imposition. After all, you have your own work to get on with and someone else's project is yet another reason to procrastinate. Instead, take it as the compliment it is.
How you tackle the task you've been given depends on how experienced the writer is, how long or complicated the manuscript is and how well you know the ...
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Posted by K. S. Dearsley.
