Crafting Compelling Sentences: 3 Exercises to Improve Your Writing
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- čas přidán 7. 09. 2023
- ✅ Get our Scene Writing Checklist → storygrid.com/checklist
Unlock the secrets to captivating storytelling with Tim Grahl of Story Grid. In this comprehensive masterclass, we delve into the art and science of crafting compelling sentences and creating unforgettable characters.
✍️ Join our next Scene Writing Workshop: storygrid.com/training
☎️ Stuck with your writing? Book a free call with Tim: storygrid.com/help/
🔑 What You'll Learn:
• The power of "Valence" in language
• Crafting compelling sentences for reader engagement
• The concept of "Objects of Desire" in character development
• The importance of feedback and deliberate practice in writing
🛠️ Interactive Exercises:
• Live audience participation
• Homework assignments with real-time feedback
• Daily exercises to level up your writing skills
📚 Who Should Watch:
• Aspiring authors
• Experienced writers looking to refine their craft
• Storytellers interested in the mechanics of compelling narratives
🎓 Bonus: Live Writing Workshop
• Learn about our upcoming 6-week live writing workshop focusing on dialogue.
• Limited spots available, so act fast!
👉 For more resources and upcoming workshops, visit storygrid.com.
🙋♀️ Have a question or topic for a future episode? storygrid.com/youtube-questions - Jak na to + styl
I sat in on this call. It was really fun, a fast-moving 90 minutes. Tim Grahl knows his stuff.
Of the countless writing videos I have viewed, this has been one of the most useful and practical.
I was listening to this while I was sleeping in the afternoon yesterday. I could hear Tim’s lecture in my dream as if someone was carrying it with him on his phone as we walked. I heard Tim say the word, “Neanderthal”, and the words, “the man sat in a chair”. In my dream I could see a neanderthal sitting in a chair in a dark room. Then, still dreaming, I thought of something like this: “The man sat in the chair. And when they came back into the room they were startled because they’d never seen a Neanderthal before, much less, one sitting in their living room”. I woke up and had to listen to it all over again to hear what was actually said. ‘Took lots of notes. Good stuff!
😂 You win the award for best comment of the day! 🏆 - Tim
LOL.. I’m so flattered! Thank you, Tim.
I do "sleep-learning", too, though like you, I usually replay after I wake. Amazing what we can process in our brain while we're sleeping.
Just signed up. Now listening /viewing and taking lots of notes. Wrote what I thought was the end of a piece I was working on. After this, I'll definitely have to go back and do it again. Thanks, Tim.
Not quite done the video but I LOVED this exercise. Why did I feel the need to write a whole story in my head based only off the line “the man sat in the chair”
The bloody guard finally collapsed into the wobbly wooden chair which creaked in protest under the weight of what he had done.
Listened to this twice today. You’re solid, a real helpful dude my dude.
Anymore there really are only so few things that I can hear about writing advice that I’ve never heard some form of, so the stuff that sinks in always depends on who’s saying and how they’re saying it. One thing you said in this, that is something we all kind of intuitively know yet we may not realize we’re doing wrong, was how no two characters can have the same goal for the same reason and go about it the same way. For some reason that sunk in today and I immediately realized how to make a pair of sisters in my manuscript more interesting, because low and behold, up to this point they did want the same thing, they are going about it the same way for the same reason, but the older one has been primed and ready this whole time to be the tough untrusting one and the younger sister to be the fun and fancy free one, where they can both learn truths from the other to fill in the voids in themself. Its so obvious but I wasn’t emphasizing it, and now I’m going to. THANKS MATEY
Even not on live, playing those first few games and shouting out my answers like I was there was really fun and useful 😂🎉Thanks for uploading!
Thanks so much!
Just caught myself doing the same. 🤣
I don't know if you read this, but just in case: you say that you should focus on a single reader and aim to solve a problem for them. Can you say more about this solving the problem part?
We talk about this as part of the Narrative Device and I’ll do a video on that in the future.
You are good at laying out standards, litmus tests, clear rules.
Much appreciation.
Thanks so much!
I missed this class, thank you Tim for posting this on CZcams
Fantastic lesson! Thank you so much!!!! You delivered on your promise and more. Wonderful examples, interaction, and exercises to deepen our understanding. Nice pace. Could not attend live. So happy for the recording!
Thanks so much! Glad it was helpful!
Excellent and very helpful video on writing
I don't think my feed's ever unearthed a more useful video about writing. I'll make sure to internalize these tips for future writing sessions! Much thanks to you, and the lad unhappily cemented to his seat. XD
Yes, you did deliver Tim! I loved the lesson.
Your list of "walk" verbs cracked me up because of a passage I have in my WiP. The word choice doesn't even have to necessarily reflect a change in the walker's pace; it may reflect the PoV character's attitude. Group is in and around a pool. The object of disinterest (so she says; he has other ideas) walks past; another woman is drooling over him. MC (PoV character throughout) wrongly thinks he is showing off for the drooling woman and first describes him as sauntering, then parading, and finally strutting. His walk has not changed; her attitude has the drooler continues to make comments about him.
I paused the video and wrote all that before you got to the "kill" list. So I laughed out loud when you got to "butchered" and said "I like 'butchered'. Maybe that says something more about me," which just proved my point above.
Thank you for this! Very helpful.
Thank you for this. Highly informative. I love how you hone in on the critical detail in such an easy to understand way.
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you for this vid. I've been struggling to find reliable guides online to improve my craft, and this vid alone, highlights where I was lacking.
28:00 amazing advice
This is GREAT training btw - I am speechless - ha! :) Loving it, learning a lot, only 20 mins in so far, thank you!!!
Thank you soo much man I got a lot out of this, even though it's a little long
thnx again from Algeria 💗🇩🇿
Very helpful.
love your interactions with chat
Great video
Awesome video. I do my best to write this way.
That was great Tim, very practical. Ever since I came across SAM I’ve been struggling to understand how it works when writing fiction. An entertaining short story can be written with any target reader in mind right? How would I apply a SAM? Eg who is the SAM in Pride and Prejudice? Or, if I wrote the short story of the 12 hour drive with the mum dad and kid with the conflicting OODs, who might the SAM be? Thanks so much! MJ
SAM applies to all fiction including short stories. I’ll do a video on that soon.
That would be amazing! Would love to see SG techniques applied to shorter stories and how to condense it all to make them equally compelling a novels, thanks
Critical skills. Way t' be. Even if many writers employ these tactics intuitively, having them concretized in a formal way will result in more consistent and deliberate usage.
This is a great lesson. Interestingnly I can see it as a big aid to the "5 Commandments of Stroy telling." All these lessons are blending to gether.
A good example is the car ride to the wedding in the video. Lets say is is a chapter or scene in a book. Without varying objects of desire, it would make for one boring scene, a narrative from 'point A' to 'point B'. A scene where nothing happens and you wonder - why it was there? Now you can have an inciting incident, a turning point or two, crisis, climax and resolution. I never really realized this type of conflict before.
My opinion - Anyone liking these videos should take the class or seek info on the "5 Commandmnts of Story Telling" and really apply yourself to it.
You are pretty cavalier with the use of the word valence
Thanks! - Tim
I wish I could join but your program is for writing in English and I really want to write in my mother language.
Are we to create a different narrative device - Author, SAM, and problem - for each scene or one for the entire book? I'm thinking each scene gets its own - with an overall direction for all?
Yes, with the knowledge that I have a lot of rework to do, I feel like I'm a much better writer. Good luck to me.
now I like you even more because the dead weather
The man sat in the chair.
versus
Banished to the sidelines, Richmond High’s gifted but rebellious star quarterback rode the bench for the entire second half of the game. 😂😂😂😂
Or
Smiling, the newborn’s father locked eyes with his daughter and carefully lowered himself onto the edge of the oversized antique rocker, perching there to stabilize it before he slid all the way back to rock his child to sleep for the first time - lamenting that it would also be the last.
This is a draft of the all-important first sentence so I cheated the length and tried to get it all in 😂😂😂
What does "valence" mean?
Positive or negative things going on in the scene.
19:31 "The man sat in the chair."
"The man slumped onto his comfy recliner."
"The lanky gentlemen slowly lowered himself on the edge of a fine wooden chair too small to comfortably hold him."
"Don't Let Anyone Tell You How To Play Your Guitar, Jack" - Prince's Advice For Jack White
"The man sat in the chair."
John sat but leaned forward, his elbows braced on the armrests.
What a great episode!
Exercise 1: "The swag-star shimmed down the chair"
😀😀
The man lowered himself into the chair
The man climbed up into the armchair, and sat cross-legged.
(I paused the video and came up with that, and then I hit play and you said to do it again but with a man who is really small. I guess I already did that, so now I’ll try the really big man.)
The man sank onto the chair, and squeezed into it.
The man leaned forward, tense, in the chair.
The eager man was on the edge of his seat.
Mom: She wants to just get the trip over with, because she’s really only comfortable socially with her husband and son.
Dad: He wants to see his friends, including his ex-girlfriend who he’s still friends with, and to get his wife to get over her social anxiety.
Son: He wants to spend as much time engaged in his new favorite book series as possible.
The dad insists on doing all the driving.
The son complains a little, but then he just starts singing annoying songs really loudly.
The mom insists on stopping for lunch, at a restaurant next to an outlet mall. There, she asks if her son can charge his game, while they eat. They can, and she reaches under the table and secretly unplugs it. When they are done eating, she has no idea how it got unplugged, but she plugs it back in. She suggest that they wait for it to charge, and maybe she can check out the outlet mall while they are waiting.
The dad unplugs it, saying they don’t have time for he. He points out that, when they get there, they can charge the game and they’ll be time for shopping. He promises his son that, if he’s good for the trip, he’ll buy him a new video game.
To son
Exclude: the fun of the party and drinking
Include: the fact that he drank alcohol, waking up in a dumpster, being hungover, other people’s reactions
Embellish: the stupidity, the fear, the embarrassment, the feeling/sickness of the hangover
Moral: drinking is bad
Language: cautionary
To old friend
Exclude: the fear, the feeling/sickness of the hangover
Include: the fun of the party and drinking
Embellish: the fun, how much alcohol he drank
Moral: drinking if fun
Language: enthusiastic, bragging
To prist
Exclude: wearing a dress and heels
Include: drinking, waking up in a dumpster
Embellish: regret, guilt
Moral: drinking is a sin for a reason
Language: remorseful, sad
My friends were all drinking, so I stupidly decided to try some too.
I drank more beer than anyone else.
I um… well I tried a little beer.
Yes. You did a great job! Thank you.
Yes.
The snowboarder rocked on the beanbag.
The suit slouched on the barstool.
The fat one leaned forward on the office chair.
The old man perched on the stump.
The officer fell back on the lawn chair.
The drunkard curled on the wingback.
The Argentinian flopped on the porch swing.
The man lounged on the sofa
Anybody got a verb for two boys walking down a deserted railroad but the ties don’t match their stride, kinda interrupting their heartfelt chat.
The boy wants to play with new friends
The man reclined in the armchair
He caseohd into the chair
1.5 x play speed your welcome
There was only one path to follow and the man filled the chair in front of it
Heinz fifty-seven mut
What if the character just walked down the street . . .
Then that line should prob be cut - Tim
I’m a Neanderthal, too😅
Isn't line-by-line like the LAST thing to look at, not the first? My story has structural problems. All the "perfect sentences" in the world won't help that.
It depends on how you look at it.
Are you confident your line-by-line writing is generally very strong? Then yeah, waiting until the end to clean it up makes the most sense.
If you aren't a strong line-by-line writer, then writing an entire book is a horrible idea because then you have thousands of poorly written sentences and a book that definitely doesn't work.
- Tim
@@StoryGrid
So last night I went through a series of "change questions". How does my protagonist change from the beginning of this chapter to the end? How do I want him to change?
By the time I was done, I had a new chapter 1, severely edited chapter 2 combined w severely edited chapter 3. I just cut 15 PAGES out of 2 chapters. I don't think crafting perfect sentences are the problem.
Once I have the plot progression paced properly balanced w the flat character arc, then I can go through each scene to ensure each paragraph & sentence is pulling their own weight.
@@StoryGrid
A sentence is only strong when it bridges the necessary gap between where you were to where you want to be.
There are x keys on the piano. Each is perfectly tuned. There are NO bad notes. Only the wrong note played at the wrong time.
@@StoryGrid
From Story Grid 101 page 2
"Although its important for writers to look carefully at each beat in certain critical scenes, most of us shouldn't get distracted by the beats until we've produced a well-crafted manuscript in all other respects."
Is it too harsh to say "The road to hell is paved with Stephen King books"? 😅
Not what I was looking for…
I’m so sorry - Tim