Narrative Poetry

A narrative poem, like narrative prose, tells a story. The earliest narratives were poetic recitations sung or told by bards about heroes and gods, and all delivered in specific rhythms and measured lines to aid the memory. Later—after these narratives were written down—they began to morph into different types.

The earliest narratives are epics: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil’s Aeneid, and Dante’s Divine Comedy. They follow particular rules, such as a call upon the muse to help the poet recite or write. Usually a chief character struggles against foes, sometimes the gods, but who is also helped by the gods. The actions of the hero often have great consequences for a people or a nation. For example, in the Iliad, Achilles’ refusal to go into battle causes great harm for the Greek army.

Other forms of narrative poetry include legends, tales, and fables, which may or may not follow specific formulaic rhythms. Legends are a mixture of fact and fiction, tales are purely fictional, and fables employ animals or inanimate objects to present moral truths. In addition, narratives are usually told by an unidentified third person, yet some, like Dante’s Divine Comedy, are told in the first person. Of course, legends, tales, and fables are also forms of prose.

Ballads and cowboy poems employ the narrative and are sometimes put to music. If they are long, they may be considered narrative poems, but the shorter ones are often listed as lyric because they contain strong emotional qualities. The division between poetry types can be murky, as will be seen when we discuss lyric and dramatic poems.

L. Luis Lopez has written three books of poetry: Musings of a Barrio Sack Boy, winner of an Honorable Mention in the 2000 Writer’s Digest poetry competition; A Painting of Sand; and Each Month I Sing, which was granted the American Book Award 2008 and the CIPA EVVY first place in poetry award 2008. Luis teaches Latin, Ancient Greek, and Mythology at Mesa State College in Grand Junction, Colorado. He offers workshops in reading and writing poetry. In addition, he and his wife, Maggie, are owners of Farolito Press. Visit his Web site at www.lluislopez.com.

What is Poetry?

It has been said that it is much easier to appreciate poetry than to define it. I believe that is true, but I will try to point out the distinctive elements of each.

Perhaps it is best to first consider the reader’s point of view. The reader must realize that someone with great imagination (the poet) wants to communicate with him or her. The poet is attempting to reveal the world in new ways, to give the reader a fresh view, perhaps an unexpected view. To do this, the poet carefully selects his words, uses them in unique ways, and arranges them in subtle and complex manners.

The words and their arrangement take on new qualities through rhythm, rhyme, symbol, repetition, meter, and image—all appealing to and revealing the five senses. This means the poem will look different from prose on the page. Its appearance is important, for the arrangement often relates to its meaning. The reader may have to work hard to find that meaning—but once he or she discovers it, wow!

There are three types of poetry: narrative, lyric, and dramatic. The narrative tells a story; the lyric (it has many forms) expresses emotion; and the dramatic, similar to the narrative, makes more extensive use of dialogue. The finer points of these types will appear in separate articles.

L. Luis Lopez has written three books of poetry: Musings of a Barrio Sack Boy, winner of an Honorable Mention in the 2000 Writer’s Digest poetry competition; A Painting of Sand; and Each Month I Sing, which was granted the American Book Award 2008 and the CIPA (Colorado Independent Publishers Association) EVVY first place in poetry award 2008. Luis teaches Latin, Ancient Greek, and Mythology at Mesa State College in Grand Junction, Colorado. He offers workshops in reading and writing poetry. In addition, he and his wife, Maggie, are owners of Farolito Press. Visit his Web site at http://www.lluislopez.com/.

Writing for Wikipedia – Writing the Lead

So far, we’ve talked a lot about what Wikipedia is and is not, and about Wikipedia’s views on biographies. It’s time to address some of the mechanics of actually creating an article.

If you’ve been following the author links each day, you know all the articles have a similar look and feel. That’s because Wikipedia has a defined style for each type of article, including biographies.

Let’s take a look at today’s links: Steven Saylor, Andrew Vachss, and Amy Tan.

Each of these articles has a title and the title is the name by which we know the author. If you look back at the Sunday and Monday links, you’ll see all our sample biographies use the author’s name as a title.

The articles begin with leads – information that appears above the table of contents. The first sentence of the first paragraph in the lead section:

· Contains the article title (the author’s name) in bold, the date of birth, and date of death if appropriate–remember, verifiable facts not forecasts–and any titles (e.g. Poet Lauriat) bestowed on the author.

Examples from Wikipedia articles:

Tony Hillerman (May 27, 1925 - October 26, 2008[1][2]) was an award-winning American author of detective novels and non-fiction works best known for his Navajo Tribal Police mystery novels.

Dame Agatha Christie DBE (15 September 1890 – 12 January 1976), was an English crime writer of novels, short stories and plays.

· Provides any other names by which a person might be known,

Examples from Wikipedia articles:

Amy Tan (Chinese: 譚恩美; pinyin: Tán Enmei) (born February 19, 1952) is an American writer of Chinese descent whose works explore mother-daughter relationships.

Janet Evanovich (born Janet Schneider, April 22, 1943, in South River, New Jersey) is an American writer.

· Might provide the person’s nationality
· Clearly tells why the person is notable

The rest of the lead paragraph should state the most notable facts about the author and be written in a way that makes the reader want to read more.

Have you selected an author and drafted a lead? Are you proud of your lead sentence? Would you like some feedback? Use the comments link below to show us what you’ve written.

For today’s reference articles, I searched for Steven Saylor, Andrew Vachss, Amy Tan, William G. Tapply, and Rosemary Poole-Carter. I managed to find Amy Tan right away, but none of the others. Luckily, they are all authors and we have handy online book stores to assist with correct spelling of authors’ names. When I changed Stephen to Steven and Vachs to Vachss, those pages came right up. After verifying the spelling for William G. Tapply, and Rosemary Poole-Carter, I searched again, but came up empty. Perhaps those two fine authors do not yet have pages, although it’s hard to believe that of Mr. Tapply who has published more than forty novels and a respectable number of non-fiction titles since 1984.

William G. Tapply holds a special place in my heart. He provided the first blurb for my first novel. I never met him in person, just exchanged a few email messages and the manuscript for Hacksaw. My experience was not unusual. By all accounts, he was an incredibly generous man who mentored many young authors. Wikipedia doesn’t have a place for biographies for those earning the title of Great Human Being, so I plan to write an article about Mr. Tapply’s writing career, and will use that article in my examples. My lead for William G. Tapply:

William G. Tapply (1940 - July 28, 2009), an American author also known as Bill Tapply, and best know for his Brady Coyne mystery novels, penned more than forty books during his twenty-five year novel writing career and nearly a thousand
magazine articles during his lifetime. He was a Contributing Editor for Field
& Stream and a columnist for American Angler. With his wife, author Vicki
Stiefel, he ran The Writers Studio at Chickadee Farm from which they mentored young writers.

Notice, I haven’t yet found his date of birth, but I provided the information I did have. Will I publish the article like this? Yes, if I don’t find the missing date. One of the great features of Wikipedia is that anyone can edit an existing article. So, if I write what I know and get it out there, others can fill in the missing pieces, expand the article to include knew sub-topics, correct any errors.

Are you ready to begin inside Wikipedia? No? Wikipedia provides a user-friendly tutorial and recommends new contributors practice by editing a few articles before creating their own. In addition, an article wizard is provided to assist with those first few articles. We’ll use the wizard to create our author articles.

But first, a few edits. When searching for a favorite author who does needs a wiki page, you’re likely to find several who already have pages. These are good places to try your hand at a few edits. Are the publication lists up to date? Are links missing? (E.g. If an author has won an award, is there a link to the award page?) Are sources sited?

After you’ve read the tutorial, practiced in the sandbox, and edited a few live articles, you’re ready to try your hand at creating your first new article. Chances are, you’ll make mistakes, most new contributors do. However, you can avoid a few of the more common errors. For example, before beginning a new article, search Wikipedia to make sure that article does not already exist. If you expect to find an article, and don’t, check your spelling or try different forms of the name.

Next Friday we finish our drafts. For more ideas on the kinds of information to include, check out these examples:

Mark Twain, Truman Capote, and Stephen Hawking

Other articles in this series include:
• January 15 – Wikipedia Registration
• January 22 – Background on Biographies
• February 5 – The Rest of the Story
• February 12 – Creating an Article in Draft
• February 19 – Benefits
• February 26 – Odd and Ends




----------------------------------------
Charlotte Phillips is the co-author of the Eva Baum Detective Series, 2009 President for The Final Twist Writers Group and contributor to multiple blogs. Learn more about Charlotte and her books at:

MarkandCharlottePhillips.com

News, Views and Reviews Blog

The Pull to Write

Recently, a fan of CLG Entertainment and The Write Life for You articles I write contacted me. The fan, a writer, asked, "How do you know if you have the talent to pursue writing? Words have always had a powerful pull on me, but I don't know if I can actually write ... Do you have medicine for my affliction?"

I wanted to share my response because I think it might be beneficial to those of you out there feeling, thinking the same thing.

You know, the need to pursue writing often comes before one even KNOWS if he or she has talent. It comes from a desire, a need to express something. The fact that you're pulled to write is BIG. For me, writing was always a NEED. Started writing when I was 10, and it was all about looking at the world and writing what interested me, and then that moved to what I didn't understand, and then that moved to what I hated, and then that moved to what I wanted to be made right, and on and on.

That pull to write is important because it will warm your heart when you're rejected, it will urge you on when you receive criticism, and it will move you to want to learn so that you can better your craft.

First and foremost, I think you need to KEEP the pull. Recognize it. Communicate with it. Nurture it.

Allow the pull to keep you writing.

As you write, think about what you seem "called" to write about. This calling isn't set in stone, but it's a great place to begin to think about who you are as a writer and what you hope to convey in your writing.

As you write, READ. Read works you deem "good," and be able to illustrate to yourself why they are good and what you can glean from these findings for your own writing.

As you write, READ. Read works you deem "bad," and be able to illustrate to yourself why they might be bad and what you can glean from these findings for your own writing.

As you write, READ. Read works about writing, especially those books that delve into the errors you find you make consistently in your work. You want your problems to become tools to fill your writer's toolbox.

Connect with other writers, especially those willing to read and critique your work. It's important to know what you want to get out of a critique group and what you can bring to that group; you do not just want to jump into a group and wallow within it. And be open to constructive criticism.

And almost as important as your writing these days is your platform - who you are, what you stand for, how your writing reflects this, who you connect with, network with, how you BRAND yourself.


But ultimately, I think it is about the PULL. If you don't feel moved to write, who will be compelled to read WHAT you write?



--------------------------------------------------------

Shon Bacon is an author, editor, and educator. She has published both creatively and academically, and her debut solo novel, Death at the Double Inkwell, will be released June 2010; you can read an excerpt here. Shon also interviews women writers on her popular blog ChickLitGurrl: high on LATTES & WRITING. You can learn more about Shon's writings at her official website, and you can get information about her editorial services at CLG Entertainment. Currently, Shon is busy editing, promoting her debut project, writing screenplays, and pursuing her Ph.D. in Technical Communication and Rhetoric at Texas Tech University.

Just For Fun

For those of you who were following the plotting tips from Dud, I thought you might like an update on how he is doing with his book. Dud is the creation of humor columnist and author, Slim Randles, but he has become very real for the many followers of Slim's column, Home Country. I, for one, had to know if the truck driver and the duchess were ever going to get together....

“You know what we forgot to do?” Anita asked. Dud shook his head. “We forgot to dig out those promises we made to ourselves on New Years last year.”

“Right,” Dud said. He was trying to remember what he’d written down as a promise to himself. Right after dinner is a bad time to be disappointed. “I can’t remember where we put them,” he said, picking up the Weekly Valley Miracle.

“They’re in my desk, silly,” Anita said, brightly. “I’ll go get them.”

Dud put the paper down and looked out the window at the snow where the lawn should be. He felt a little dread coming on. Not a big one, just a regular shrug-of-the-shoulders kinda dread. Do we always promise ourselves the moon and deliver a light bulb?

“Here we go,” Anita said, tossing Dud’s envelope in his lap. “You want me to read mine first?”

“You mean out loud?”

“Of course.”

He grimaced and watched as she opened hers.

“Okay,” she said. “I promised I’d learn to bake sourdough bread this year and I did. And I promised I’d join the Ladies Literary League and I did that. In May I think. And I promised I’d straighten out the filing system down at the office. Took me until August, but I got that, too, Honey. Okay. Your turn.”

Dud opened the envelope. He unfolded the paper carefully.

“Do I have to read all of them? You sure? Well, I promised to memorize the Julida Polka on my accordion.”

“And you did.”

“Yes. Yes I did. And I promised to build that birdhouse by the window.”

“Yep. There’s number two.”

He sat quietly. “Well, Honey, I promised I’d finish writing that murder mystery. You know … ‘Murder in the Soggy Bottoms’?”

“The Duchess and the Truck Driver? Sure.”

“I’m nowhere near getting that thing done.”

“Some people take years to write books. I read the other day it took Max Evans more than 30 years to write ‘Bluefeather Fellini.’”

Dud smiled sadly, and nodded. “That’s true I guess.”

Yes, he thought, but this book of mine isn’t ‘Bluefeather Fellini.’

Maybe by next year.

------
Brought to you by “Sun Dog Days,” Slim’s latest novel. Available at Slim Randles Web site

Posted by Maryann Miller who is grateful to Slim for sharing his work with WinnsboroToday.com. Visit Maryann's Web site for information and pricing for her editing services, as well as information about her books. When she is not working, Maryann loves to play farmer on her little place in East Texas.

Squidoo Portals : SquidWho

Each Squidoo portal is another place for potentials readers to discover your books and you have nothing to lose by making use of as many angles as you can think of. Previously we looked at SquidLit which is specifically for books.

SquidWho, as the name suggests, is for people, and is ideal for creating a biography for yourself where your readers can learn more about the author behind the books you've written. As with SquidLit, a SquidWho page can also be "magic-built" on your behalf by searching the Internet for your name and including Amazon, Wikipedia, YouTube, Flickr, and Google information that comes up. You can then delete anything that doesn't apply and move items around, and personalise your page.

Your SquidWho lens can act as an index page if you have many books to promote. Categorise your books and link to each on its own SquidLit lens. I recommend the Featured Lenses module for this purpose, but note that this module only displays a maximum of five lenses so use a new Featured Lenses module for each category in order to list all your books in their SquidLit lenses. These additional modules are available under the "Add Modules, Browse All Modules" link in your workshop.

Here is an example of a SquidWho lens I created about horror author David Wellington.

---------------------------------------------
Elsa Neal was one of the early adopters of Squidoo after it came out of Beta and has been actively involved in the community as a Squid Angel and a Top 100 Giant Squid. She has more recently been experimenting with HubPages. She can also be found on her own website or sharing her writing insights at her Fictional Life Blog.

Resolution or Commitment?

New Year’s resolutions—no matter how well-intended—are made to be broken. Why so? Could it be that they are created on a whim and aren’t backed by the commitment that turns intentions into actions?

Before moving into a smaller place recently, I spent days going through old files and eliminating bags full of no-longer-necessary papers. I even found several rejection letters I received some years ago when I sent out my not-quite-ready-for-publication first novel. Most were form letters, but one agent sent a personal note, commenting that the manuscript needed revision. He was right. I later pared over 20,000 words off the story, some of which I dearly loved. Letting them go met with more reluctance than I care to admit.

What’s the point here? I had resolved to write a more compelling book than the ones I was reading, a story that kept the reader turning pages despite the missing sex and profanity. And I had indeed written a story—some 116,000 words of story. However, I hadn’t committed to polishing that story into a marketable manuscript. “But it was finished,” you might say. “Surely that took commitment.” Yes, it did, but not enough. My ordinary family tale needed to be transformed into an extraordinary family drama.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of writers thrust their creations into the marketplace. Because few have found homes in traditional publishing, the vast majority of their works are churned out by small presses and print-on-demand houses. This glut of reading material—much of it poorly edited or unedited altogether—overwhelms the most prolific readers and leaves many authors disillusioned about ever realizing their dreams of writing a bestseller.

What’s the commitment? Help writers to learn their craft. Don’t just edit their manuscripts—teach them to become better writers. Instruct them in the finer points of painting word pictures in a variety of colors and hues. Teach them the difference between “show” and “tell.” Take them down the path to writing great dialogue. Make a difference for those who, for whatever reason, choose to travel the non-traditional publishing road. And in the process, give readers excellent stories that will keep them coming back for more.

Owner of Pen and Sword Publishers, Linda Lane heads up an editing team committed to raising the bar on non-traditionally published works. She and another member of her team will be presenting a 50-minute program on editing at the annual seminar of the Colorado Independent Publishers Association in March. Linda offers writing workshops and is promoting the development of standards for editors that will assure writers that they are getting their money's worth when they hire a freelance editor. Visit her Web site at www.penandswordpublishers.com. (Site is under construction.)