How To Lead A Creative Life [Infographic] | Fast Company. [Close Window] By Jason Feifer Our complete guide to making your inner genius your greatest on-the-job asset. Back to article >> Infographic by Pop Chart Lab. Howstuffworks "How Knights Work" When you think of knights, you might envision King Arthur, Sir Lancelot or the Black Knight. We often think of heroic knights in shining armor fighting each other with swords or riding their horses on noble quests. Our images of knights have been influenced over centuries by romance authors (like T.H. White and Sir Walter Scott) and by movies like "Ivanhoe," "Excalibur," "A Knight's Tale," "Camelot" and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail. " But what were knights really like? Did they slay dragons and rescue damsels in distress?
What were battles and tournaments like? Did they woo ladies at court? Medieval knights were, first and foremost, warriors. Knights were most noted for fighting on horseback, but they also battled on foot. In this article, we'll examine the lives of knights. Writing Meaningful Description. To the reader? The world of your book is a black box. Devoid of all sensation—no sights, sounds, tastes, smells, or aural pleasantries beyond dialogue. It is up to you and your prowess of description to fill that world out—to let the reader experience it as you would have it experienced. Such power! Such responsibility. If you do it right, you can grant readers the ultimate experience: the immersive feeling of actually being in another world. And trust me when I say readers will re-read the same book over and over again just to get that sensation, if you get it right. So—what goes into writing evocative descriptions? Show Don’t Tell I know, I know! For example: “The evil trees were scary and dumb looking.”
While certainly opinionated, this description of trees somehow manages to avoid telling us anything about how the trees actually looked—it fails to paint even the smallest picture. So, what does one do? Metaphors, Similes, and Other Comparisons The trees were white as snow. Be Specific. Tension. Hook Your Readers With Tension By Laura Backes, Write4Kids.com Tension. Without it, life would be—let's face it—boring.
So would fiction. Tension works with conflict to raise the emotional level of the text to a boiling point. "Tension" is a loaded word, and can be misleading. Tension is what hooks readers of any age and keeps them turning the pages. . * The ticking clock. . * Dialogue. . * Pacing. . * Sentence structure. Each story requires a different kind of tension. Laura Backes is the author of Best Books for Kids Who (Think They) Hate to Read from Prima/Random House.
Copyright © 2002, Children's Book Insider, LLC.