link to original here |
But no one told me (maybe because it’s
such a no-brainer? I don’t know).
I’m telling you so you don’t have to
waste your time trying to figure it out like I did.
Here’s the tip:
Take some of your favorite authors –
ones you’d like your writing to look a little bit like, because somehow their
words sing to you – and type them out into whatever writing program you use. How
their writing looks on the page is often very different than how it looks in
Word or Open Office, etc.
Likewise, your writing will look very
different when (or if it already is) published versus when it’s staring you in
the eyes on your computer screen.
Three different genre examples:
Here’s an excerpt from Jane Austin’s
classic, Pride and Prejudice
The book |
Typed out in Word |
Here’s something a little more
up-to-date and literary from Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things
The book |
Typed out in Word |
The book |
Typed out in Word |
You see what I'm saying? The formatting looks very different when it's printed. It's more chunky, in general, so I used to think I needed to write these long, arduous passages of prose to get it to look like it needed to in a book. Not so much, as it turns out.
Now it's your turn -- if you haven't done this exercise already, go find a few of your favorite books and type out a page or two. Make sure to use pages where the writing varies, because dialogue will look different on the page than the more blocky-looking description and story-filler. (And just because I wonder, what are the books you've chosen? I'm a cat when it comes to curiosity.)
If you have done this before, what was your experience like? Was it helpful for you to do this, or no? I'd love to hear your thoughts.