Writers' Corner

Writing with Pizzazz!

Writing with Pizzazz  

by Marie E. Bast

 

Writing is like baking a cake it requires the right recipe. Without a good recipe, the cake will fail and so will your story. But if you mix all the right ingredients and bake it, the cake will rise to success.

However, like any good cake, it needs a delicious topping or decoration to attract the buyers’ eye. Humans are visual people and we judge the package first by sight and sample. Will yours pass the taste test?

 

Prepping

Writing, like baking, demands practice.

 I’d send out manuscript after manuscript, sometimes an article, devotion or short story, and they would return rejected. I read craft books, attended writers conferences, workshops, practiced my skills, but still rejection.

My biggest problem was beginning and ending, or sometimes the middle. My leads weren’t catchy and didn’t engage the taste buds of the reader. They wanted a flavorful bite that melted in their mouth so they couldn’t put the fork down. Sometimes the endings went flat—no emotional satisfaction.

Ask yourself, is it pleasing, interesting, informative, thrilling, delightful, mysterious, or romantic. Read and sample. Did it engage and leave you wanting more? If it doesn’t taste good to you, your reader won’t like it either.

Here’s the recipe…

 

The right ingredients

           I was slow to incorporate one essential ingredient—becoming a well-read person. Well-read writers read newspapers, magazines, and books…both fiction and nonfiction. They read drama, humor, suspense, thrillers, action-adventure, romance, and historical books. They read everything and anything to increase knowledge, learn multiple techniques, and enhance skill.

The bestseller listing becomes a type of cookbook; it’s full of delicious offerings from expert cooks. How do we become successful like them? By paying attention to how they glaze or frost their work with such things as new trends. Study the market and take notice—what’s hot this season—cowboy stories, fantasy, action, mystery, thriller or romance.

From the time the sun squeezes through the blinds, I’m planning, looking for new ideas, and writing. I turn newspaper pages, looking for incidents to tuck away for just the right time. Sometimes I awake at 2:00 a.m., remembering a dream I need to capture, or something cute my grandson said, and I run and enter it in my journal.

 

 Mix it  

             Pick the freshest ingredients, mix well, and bake to produce a new culinary delight.

As writers, we often hear we need to mix it: write every day with focus and discipline then write tight and edit.

Many workshops and craft books dwell on editing out all unnecessary words. Be careful. Don’t eliminate so much salt that the soup goes flat, or leave off the whip cream, a necessary part of the cobbler. Whoever heard of pie a la mode without the a la mode? Sometimes that happens when we peel away too much of the fluff…we lose too much of the good stuff. When we throw away the skin of the apple, we lose the best part of the apple, the good stuff—the nutrients.

If you read a manuscript and don’t laugh, cry, crave more, or feel satisfied, then your writing has lost its flavor. It needs spicing, a glaze, sprinkle of almonds, or topping with a delectable wine sauce.

How do cooks discover the secret flavoring for their signature dish? They sample. When trying new cuisine, they keep stirring, adding and tasting until its perfecto.

 Reread and reedit as many times as it takes. Most recipes developed in the kitchen never had success with the first try. To coax a robust flavor, usually adding more salt, pepper, or a spice improves the taste for a great read.

 

Bake it 

But there are lots of different taste buds out there. Some like sweets, some like spicy foods, and others are into vegetarian, vegan, or ethnic food. Not everyone is going to like the pot of chili you created so don’t be offended at that.

One writing instructor once told me that not every idea makes a good article. I disagree. It’s all in how you cook and flavor it, and in writing that also includes research. Tell the reader something they don’t know. Wrap it in humor, simmer it with mystery, cook it slow all day, or stir-fry and give it action. You have to determine the correct way to present your dish. Is it going to be finger food, bib and napkin, formal with three forks and two spoons, or first, -second, or -third person?

 

Revising the recipe 

Don’t serve what you know isn’t your best recipe. Good cooks practice and so do good writers. Have someone else read your work aloud while you listen. One time my husband started reading one of my manuscripts aloud and I didn’t let him finish, it had flaws. He stumbled through the words like he’d bitten into lumpy gravy, or stringy meat. The words waded up in his mouth and didn’t flow smoothly.

I decided to look at my writing objectively and asked myself, “Would I buy this book?”

“No.” It was flat as a pancake. Looked like a cake that didn’t rise, or breakfast roll too tired to get up.

When I mentioned this to a fellow writer, she said, “Your writing needs Pizzazz.”

Here’s how I corrected my writing recipe.

I had deflated the fluff, stripped-off the icing, basically, made diet food that was tasteless and unappealing to serve. We all want to digest something that tastes fantastic and gives us satisfaction, makes us feel good, a reward for our efforts of reading it and tasting it. We want excitement.

My husband once told me it was my cooking and baking that first attracted him to me, like a mouse to crumbs. He loves to eat…and read.

 

Frost it 

Self-edit or hire an editor, but polish the writing for grammar, story, and plotting. However, that requires a keen eye and ear (for read-back). Decorate it to add fine details, like adding red food coloring to make a red velvet cake or sculpting it into an exciting football scene, romantic heart-shape, knife dripping with blood for an intriguing thriller…then frost.

An author who had published more than one hundred books once told me she edits her manuscripts between thirty and fifty times, sculpting the rough surface little by little until the beauty of the new form shows through. It’s about understanding the recipe and practicing continually.

Folk lore always said the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. The way to a reader’s library shelf is the same way—by cooking up a storm.

So don’t be afraid to flavor, to smother the dish in a rich sauce, or give it a new refreshing taste. The world is your sampler and there is a variety of taste buds out there.

Anyone can bake, and anyone can write—if you have the right recipe. Cook, bake, and try new writing creations. Sample and taste.

 

Writing, like baking, is a smorgasbord of adventure…enjoy it. Write it!