3 Tasty Techniques for Food Writing

By Melanie Faith

Prefer pickles to relish? Love to nosh kugel? Find Frito pie a comfort food but loathe mac and cheese? Appreciate the aromas of veggie chili or a tart rhubarb pie wafting your kitchen with tantalizing odors? You're speaking our language! Let's take a look at three traits common to food writing across genres, from fiction to poetry to essays and more.

1. Include sensory imagery.

Great food descriptions are specific. They don't just include smells, but also tease us with tastes and textures. Include an adjective or two--so it's not just a sandwich, but an ooey-gooey pb&j on homemade, whole wheat toast. Can't you just see the sandwich cut into diamond halves and placed on a plain, porcelain plate in the second description? Doesn't the second description make you anticipate the salty and sweet in the first bite, waiting for it to stick to the roof of your mouth?

2. Dynamic verbs are a do.

Consider how this snack or meal was crafted. Did you lovingly crimp the crusts or hastily thumb-pinch a scallop-pattern? Consider adding visual and/or tactile imagery that create word-pictures in your readers' minds. Instead of plain old "made," what about "whipped up," "whisked," "poured," "concocted," or "fricassee?"

3. Highlight a main theme or idea in your scene, poem, essay, or chapter.

Food carries potent cultural symbols, from how we prepare it for ourselves or others to how we eat or share it to who cleans up after the feast. For some, meals are a communal time of day to gather with friends or family and share stories of the day. Does food equate to connection and/or community for you or your protagonist? Safety, even? Or does food equate to loneliness, shame, or even sorrow? Does your protagonist eat alone recently? Why or why not? Consider not just what the food looks, smells, and tastes like, but also how it makes your character feel--about self, family, friends, or community. Food can serve as symbols of our greatest time constraints (perhaps your protagonist feels overwhelmed by grocery shopping and cooking many meals, especially at the holidays) and remind us of our greatest hopes and fears. Underscore conflicts or mixed emotions that food sparks within your protagonist.

Try This! Exercise:
Jot a list of five foods. Beside each food, briefly describe the food, pairing an adjective with a strong verb. Then, for each food, write down an emotion or two that spring(s) to mind. How might you explore the symbolism of the food in your character's life? What about his/her hopes and fears? Pick one food and write 250 words detailing your protagonist either preparing or eating the food. Include a line of internal dialogue/self-talk or body language to show the emotions the food elicits.

***

Melanie Faith holds an MFA from Queens University of Charlotte, NC. Her writing has been nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize. Her full-length, historical poetry collection set in the 1918 flu epidemic, This Passing Fever, was published by Future Cycle Press in October 2017. Vine Leaves Press published her craft books about writing and editing flash fiction and nonfiction and her craft book about writing poetry (both 2018). In December 2019, her craft book, Photography for Writers, was also published by Vine Leaves Press. Most recently, her shorter pieces appeared in After the Pause, Contemporary Haibun Online, The Sandy River Review, The Writer’s Monthly Review Magazine, and Embodied Effigies. Her flash fiction, “The Slades,” placed honorable mention in the 2014 Bevel Summers Prize for the Short Short Story and was published in Shenandoah (Washington and Lee University). In addition to numerous photography publications, her art made the cover of both OVS Magazine and Chantwood Review in 2017. Her instructional articles about creative writing techniques have appeared in The Writer and Writers’ Journal, among others. To learn more about Melanie’s writing, teaching, and photography, please visit: www.melaniedfaith.com/blog/.

Melanie is also a WOW! Women on Writing instructor. Check out her upcoming workshops, Food Writing for Fun and Profit: Blogs, Restaurant Reviews, Recipes, Fiction, Memoir, and More and In a Flash: Writing and Publishing Dynamic Flash Prose. More information about our classes can be found on our classroom page.

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2 comments food writing, food writing class, Melanie Faith, writing exercise

What is Your Character's Internal Struggle?

In a novel or short story, most of the time, the protagonist has an external struggle that he is working through until the resolution. An external struggle could be anything, really: the most powerful evil wizard who wants to kill you, a wicked witch who wants the very shoes off your feet, or even Mother Nature who can create the perfect storm. 

When readers discuss novels or talk about a short story, the external struggle is usually the first thing mentioned. For example: "It's about this man whose wife and child were killed by a serial killer; and while seeking revenge, he uses his keen people reading skills to solve crimes." 

But all of the stories on your nightstand or in draft on your computer or saved on your DVR should (and probably do) have a protagonist that has an internal struggle. An internal struggle is just as important as the external one. Does your protagonist lack self-confidence, suffer from greedy tendencies, or fear falling in love? What does your character struggle with in the middle of the night, when alone and looking in?

Think about your own internal struggles--most of us have more than one and most of them come from something in our past that has happened externally. Think about how you act in certain situations where you feel uncomfortable or how you go about making an important decision--most likely how you behave stems from your internal struggle. The characters in the fiction you are writing need to have an internal struggle that you as the writer know and understand AND that affects most of the decisions in your story.

So before writing any more on your work-in-progress, here's an exercise you can do to be certain you have thought through these two struggles. Write down or type out the following:

1. My protagonist's external struggle (s) is _______________________________. 

2. He/she solves this external struggle (or problem) by _____________________________________.

3. My protagonist's internal struggle (s) is _________________________________________.

4. Throughout the novel, this internal struggle will cause problems because __________________.

5. In the end of the novel, the internal struggle will _______________________________. (example: not be solved, but cause my protagonist to take a chance on love he normally would not have)

Once you have these five points clear in your head, I believe your writing will be stronger for the reader and easier for you. If you're having trouble filling out those five sentences, then try the exercise on a couple of your favorite novels or TV shows before you tackle your own work-in-progress. 

Just remember, of course, everyone loves a hero who slays the dragon and saves the princess. But everyone really adores the hero who overcomes his fear of facing a dragon, then slays it, and saves the princess. 

Margo L. Dill teaches novel writing and children's and YA writing in the WOW! classroom. To find out more about her and her books, please check out her website: http://www.margodill.com .   

keyboard photo above by orangeacid on Flickr.com 

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8 comments character traits, inner conflict, Margo L. Dill, novel writing, outer conflict, writing exercise

Writing for Problem Solving and Conflict Management

picture from Idea Connection

When I was getting my master’s degree in creative writing, I had a teacher who told us that if we were having a problem in real life, we should work it into our story. Not only does it add depth to the story, it often serves as a remarkable problem-solving tool.

Below is an activity that I use in many capacities to elicit stories from myself and students. One way you can use it is as a problem-solving exercise.

1) Create a Character based on yourself, a person with whom you’re having a conflict, or a completely fictional character.

• What is this person’s name, age, gender?
• Describe this person’s eyes, hair, hands, body shape, scars, voice, walk.
• What is this person’s favorite food, song, activity?
• What is something the person often says?
• What is a goal this person has in life?
• Describe this person’s best friend.
• Describe this person’s enemy.
• What else to you know about this person that you want to write down?

2) Create a Setting

• Where are you most likely to find this character? Favorite place?
• Describe what it looks, smells, sounds, feels, tastes like...

3) Create a Conflict or, ideally, insert the conflict or problem you’re having.

• What is something that prevents the person from reaching his or her goal?
• What is something that confuses or frustrates this person?
• How does this person interact with his or her enemy? Why does that person have an enemy?

4) Put It Together

• Create a story through writing or drawing that includes your character in the setting you created and one of your conflicts.
• What does the character think? How does he or she act? What’s the outcome?

5) Share Your Story with at least one other person. This is a way to get an alternative perspective on the problem you hope to solve.

• Ask your reader: What do you like about the story? What interested or surprised you the most?
• Ask yourself: What do you like about your own story? What interested or surprised you the most?

I’ll often journal my thoughts and feelings on a difficult issue, but this activity makes me think even deeper about it. And who knows, maybe one day it’ll lead to a publishable work of art!

Have you ever used writing for problem solving or conflict management?

Written by Anne Greenawalt, writer and writing instructor

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A New Look at the Old Adage: Show, Don't Tell

I know you have heard this before, and not just once, but a million times: show, don't tell. But when you are writing fiction (or another creative genre), it is a good practice to SHOW the scene and the action to evoke emotion; don’t just TELL about it. I want to re-explore this common writing “rule” for several reasons:

1. Most of my college writing students have a very difficult time with this concept, even if they have heard of it before, so I assume others have difficulty with it, too...
2. ...myself included! I am guilty of ignoring this rule. I get on a roll when I’m drafting and I don’t want to lose any of my ideas, so sometimes it’s easier to get everything down by telling it. Then in the revision process, I can expand the telling into showing the action and scenes with beautiful, carefully-crafted writing.
3. Repetition helps us to remember concepts better – so if you have already heard this rule, I’m helping to reinforce it :-)

   

   courtesy of UNC Admissions blog

Show, Don't Tell: A Mini-Writing Lesson

Here’s a mini-lesson on showing vs. telling. Consider the following sentence:

The boy ate his lunch.

What do you know about the boy and his lunch based on this sentence? You can probably fill in the gaps by making inferences and assumptions based on your own life experiences. But overall, this sentence doesn’t show you much.

Now consider this sentence:

The boy hungrily ate his lunch. It tasted very good to him.

OK, this gives us more information. Sort of. But what does “hungrily” look like? Is he shoving it into his face with both hands? Or does he just look hungry because he’s super skinny? We don’t know. Same with “tasted very good.” Also, we still don’t know what he’s eating.

Lastly, consider this sentence:

The Syrian refugee savored the crust of bread as if it were a gourmet meal.

Now what do you know about this boy? A lot more than before! “Syrian refugee” gives us a context for the boy and his lunch, and could give us a partial visual image. “Savored” lets us know he enjoyed his meal but ate it slowly. “Crust of bread” shows us what he’s eating, and this is important because wouldn’t you get a completely different feeling from this sentence if he were eating a slice of chocolate cake or a rack of BBQ ribs?

Well-crafted sentences with clear and poignant word choices not only SHOW the scene (characters, setting, and action), they help the reader to relate to that scene and feel some kind of emotion.

Show, Don't Tell: A Writing Exercise:

Try showing rather than telling. Write a short scene, 3-5 sentences, about a person who is either

• Excited
• Frustrated
• Curious
• Or Generous

...and do this without using that word (or related words)

Feel free to share your creations in the comments! Good luck, have fun, and happy writing!

Writing Lesson by: Anne Greenawalt, writer and writing instructor

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3 comments Anne Greenawalt, mini-writing lesson, show vs tell, writing exercise

Something or Nothing? A Writing Exercise

I regularly watch an ESPN program called Pardon the Interruption. (Yeah, I’m a bit of a sports fanatic.) One of my favorite segments is when the hosts debate topics on “Something or Nothing?” Like if losing three games in a row is a big deal? Or is this epic fail nothing to worry about?

And then I realized “Something or Nothing?” could work for my writing—and that maybe it can work for you. So today, I shall illustrate this exercise using zombies because really, what’s more fun than zombies? (Except maybe my teams winning.)


PREMISE: Is it Different Enough?

You have come up with a brilliant premise: Zombie invasion! The world is under siege, the zombie virus spreading, and your protagonist is going to save the day!

But now you must ask yourself if your zombie concept stands out, if there is something in your idea that differentiates it from all the other thousands of zombie invasion stories out there.

If you can somehow get Brad Pitt to star in your story, you may have something. But as your idea stands now, you have nothing. Either move on to the next idea, or consider another element. Like your characters.


CHARACTERS: Do You Have a Unique Character or Characters?

Your zombies are pouring over the wall and your protagonist has just stepped into the scene and it’s…Bob Smith, the bookish, reference librarian. And hold on! He’s brought along his friend, Sarah, the spunky girl who loves to read, with an imagination big as all outdoors! This team of unlikely heroes will save the day!

Or not. It’s true that unlikely heroes can be interesting. But the characters themselves must be interesting, and you must capture their unique voice. Readers want more than stereotypical, cardboard cutouts that you’ve propped up trying to do the job of carrying the story.

Think Johnny Depp, sashaying about in an outlandish piratical get-up, chasing the undead. He’s something quite different. But if your characters are ho-hum, you have nothing. Move on to the next idea or try the next element.

SETTING: Is It Out of the Ordinary?

Watch out! Your zombies are running amok in the…suburbs.

The suburbs? Really? That’s not saying that you can’t take an ordinary setting and use it; Stephen King is the master of this technique. But if you want your setting to be something, you have to think of it as a character in your story. Give it special significance to the plot, like a Civil War zombie infestation (Though you may still end up with nothing.) Time to move on again.


TWIST: Do You Have a Surprising Element?

So, you have zombies invading a suburban neighborhood. Your protagonist is a regular Joe, an unlikely hero, who runs down to the local bar whereupon he makes his stand.

It would appear that you have come up with a big fat nothing of a story. But wait! What if you add humor, dry, British wit, in the most unexpected places? Then you might have something. Specifically, you have Shaun of the Dead, which just happens to be one of my favorite zombie movies, when the comedic twist makes all the difference between something or nothing.

So that’s it, class. Have a little fun with “Something or Nothing?” the next time you start to write a story and go from boring to brilliant!


~ Cathy C. Hall (Shout out to the Atlanta Braves!)

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8 comments Cathy C. Hall, creating characters, elements of a story, plot, Shaun of the Dead, story premise, story setting, story twist, writing exercise, zombies

Fright Factors: Regenerate Decrepit Imagery

There was a summer storm brewing last night. Although the rain never came the thunderheads gathered across the sunset turning the sky an ominous shade of orange. Visibility was low and as I gazed across the street I thought of sinister plots and London fog. Why is it, I thought, that so many writers still use fog to build atmosphere? Surely creepy things can happen in dust storms as well. An apt conversation as this is the time to be writing Halloween tales.

Part of the charm of the Halloween tale is the nostalgia, a traditional telling of a tale set in autumn. But tradition can border on boredom if we refuse to see it through new eyes and refresh the imagery. The dark and stormy night with the dilapidated old mansion in a heavily wooded middle-of-nowhere place doesn’t reflect our current day experience. What about that creepy foreclosure at the end of the street though? You know, the one that keeps changing hands—people move in, people move out—they’re gone before you can make an introduction.

What are some of the elements we usually use to build a frightening tale? We touched on a couple, abandoned houses and, of course, the fog. What are some other images that might be over used? What can we substitute for them?

A fun exercise is to take your favorite traditional tale and re-work it. What substitutions can you make to bring this tale into modern times? Can you change the elements around so that the story takes place in a different part of the country without loosing the fright factor?

As my mother once told me, “There is nothing there in the dark that wasn’t there when the lights were on.” Which leads me to my next question… what is that standing next to you?

photos and text by Robyn Chausse

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2 comments children's fiction, craft of writing, Fright Factors: Regenerate Decrepit Imagery, halloween, horror writing tips, imagery, Robyn Chausse, writing exercise

Conquering the Blank Page

What do you do? The page is blank. Or, if you prefer, the cursor is blinking against a sea of white screen.
You don't know what to write. Writer's block seems to have entered into your brain and decided to take up an unpaid residency.
Here are a few of my tricks that have worked in the past:

- Pick up a pen and start doodling. I look at old notebooks and notice many of my margins are elaborate doodles with a retraced letter I've drawn. After those doodles, my writing flowed.
- Take out the scissors and glue and have a craft moment. What or who is the story about? Make a collage of the furnishings from a character's house. Clip words from magazines or newspapers that might represent the themes or ideas from your work.
- Go for a walk or work-out. Creativity appreciates a work-out every once in a while and so do you. Sometimes, walking away from a blank page helps bring the ideas back to your fingertips.
- Be still. Find a spot outside and just breath. Don't think about the blank page. Don't think about writing. Just take some time for yourself and keep a notebook close by. Nothing like stepping away from a problem to help return you to solving the issue, especially one of a blank page.
- Pull out a writing book. They are on your shelf for a reason! Dust off and use a writing book. Find a writing exercise that has nothing to do with what you want to spill out. Use that to re-connect to the writing at hand.

Unleashing one's creativity and filling a page sometimes means taking a counter-intuitive move. Because creativity gets some of its fuel from the unexpected, doing the unusual or unintended action will dislodge the non-paying lodger out of your brain.
What are some of the tricks you use to shake loose your ideas and get them flowing onto the page?

Elizabeth King Humphrey is a creativity coach and writer who blogs at The Write Elizabeth, unless she's unleashing a summer bout of writer's block.

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It's time for some exercises!

While interviewing an author recently, she mentioned she had enjoyed Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott so much that she tries to read it each year. That sounded like a wonderful suggestion so, I went to work to find my copy of Lamott's book. Along the way, I found a couple interesting writing books I thought I'd recommend:
One of my favorite books for fiction writing prompts is "What If?: Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers" by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter. Published in 1990, they released a revised edition in 2009. I like the book mainly because it was one of my first fiction writing exercise books, which I then recommended to my writing students. I've continued to enjoy it because of the approach of the authors as they lead the reader through 83 different exercises ranging from beginnings to mechanics to plot. The book sets out the objective of the exercise and uses examples from either a published writer or from a student. If you are a beginning or an advanced writer, there are element that will keep you busy. Often these exercises seem to serve the author who is writing a story.
Another book that I've started relying on when I feel the need for a fiction exercise is "The 3 A.M. Epiphany" by Brian Kiteley (2005). In Kitely's introduction, he explains that when he uses exercises in his workshops "to derange student stories, find new possibilities, and foster strangeness, irregularity, and non-linearity as much as to encourage revision and cleaning up after yourself." Kitely's 201 exercises guide his students and readers to have a better understanding of why you're writing what you are writing. These exercises--or pairing them up--can be used in the service of a story or not.
Sometimes doing an exercise without having a goal in mind is the best way to release your creativity.

Elizabeth King Humphrey is a writer and creativity coach, who is still looking for her copy of Bird-by-Bird. Besides contributing to AOL's ParentDish, she blogs at The Write Elizabeth, delving into creativity in everyday places.

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Five's the Charm

By Jill Earl

While checking out Erika Dreifus' Practicing Writing blog a couple of days ago, I came across an interesting exercise, which you may have seen out on the blogosphere. Called an exercise in fives, it’s easy and can be used to get your creativity going. I've listed my responses to two of topics that particularly reasonated with me below:

What were you doing five years ago (December 2003)?
1. Working as an employment & training counselor with a county agency providing outplacement services for displaced steel workers
2. Packing for a missions conference in Illinois
3. Experiencing my first Christmas with my first tree.
4. Working as a voice artist, writer and editor for an Internet radio drama
5. Looking forward to holiday vacation time

What are five jobs you've had?
1. See #1 under ‘What were you doing five years ago?’
2. Kennel and bird technician at a pet store
3. Staff writer at a media production company
4. Orientation program assistant at a local university
5. Reading tutor

Five years doesn't seem that long ago, and it really isn't, but I was amazed that I had forgotten some of the things I did back then. And while working at the pet store, I was reminded of the adventures I had with the animals there. Puppies and hamsters and parrots, oh my!

To see the rest of the list, and see how others answered, here's the link to the post:
<http://practicing-writing.blogspot.com/2008/12/tagged-on-tuesday.html#links>

Give it a try. Who knows, you might discover a story or article idea hidden among your memories!

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1 comment exercise in fives, Jill Earl, writing, writing exercise, writing inspiration