THE EXPERT FAKIST ™

"Very soon, all my secrets will be exposed". My mother will say: I told you so. [Room 402] / Blooming Director/ Writer

[uncloses]

[sfmoma]

[neoafrican-deactivated20190922]

Paintings by Boscoe Holder

[wordsnstuff]

[nevver]

It felt as if one’s entire world was one, long Sunday afternoon. Nothing to do. Nowhere to go. Francine Van Hove

[wordsnstuff]

[shakysmiles]

[nevver]

The Last Days of Disco, The Antonio Archives

[distantvoices]

Saly, Senegal by @sebagilmiranda on Instagram

[wordsnstuff]

As a writer, I have a really bad habit of beginning all of my sentences with ‘I walked across the room… I looked around… I grabbed this… I breathe deeply…’ and so on. My entire story begins to become very monotonous. Any suggestions on how to break this habit? Thanks!

I think a lot of writers feel this way sometimes, especially because there are only so many ways you can begin a sentence when writing first person point of view. However, I would suggest trying to describe the events of the scene by starting more sentences with “the vase felt heavy in my hand when I lifted it” instead of “I picked up the vase” or “The room was dingy and dark with no hint of there being a living person there in ages” rather than “I looked around”. 

This is really more of a showing vs. telling issue, I assume, because if you’re describing everything in the form of “I did this, I saw that” you are probably missing a lot of opportunities to use imagery, which helps break up those uniform sentences so that they don’t sound as monotonous. 

So a few suggestions:

Vary sentence length, structure, and rhythm

Try using the “Only start a sentence with a certain word once in a paragraph” for a while until you don’t need to force the variation in sentence style anymore

Describe what the person is doing or seeing or hearing etc. without actually telling the reader that the character is using their senses, as that is usually assumed by the reader once the first person P.O.V. has been established.

Break up “I did this” and “I saw that” with imagery

If you enjoy my blog and wish for it to continue being updated frequently and for me to continue putting my energy toward answering your questions, please consider Buying Me A Coffee.

I’d also really appreciate it if you would check out my separate blog dedicated to my current work in progress.

[itstheenglishkid]

write to tell yourself the story

edit to tell others the story

[timotaychalamet]

“Just look like you like me. That’s all I want. Just look like you like me.”

Buffalo ‘66 (1998) dir. Vincent Gallo

[lianasmack-blog1-deactivated201]

Chiaki Kuriyama in Shinwa-Shoujo (“Girl of Myth”), photographed by Kishin Shinoyama

[nevver]

“Was his memory failing or had he so disciplined it in the repression of unpleasant facts that he had damaged his sense of the truth?” - The Swimmer, Klaus Kremmerz illustrated

[nevver]

Bookclub

[ozu-teapot]

Daisies (Sedmikrásky) | Vera Chytilova | 1966

[trashicorn]

Credit: @josefinehj