25 Things You Should Know About Word Choice. 1. A Series Of Word Choices Here’s why this matters: because both writing and storytelling comprise, at the most basic level, a series of word choices. Words are the building blocks of what we do. They are the atoms of our elements. They are the eggs in our omelets. They are the shots of liquor in our cocktails. Get it right? 2. Words are like LEGO bricks: the more we add, the more we define the reality of our playset. 3. You know that game — “Oh, you’re cold, colder, colder — oh! 4. Think of it like a different game, perhaps: you’re trying to say as much as possible with as few words as you can muster. 5.
Finding the perfect word is as likely as finding a downy-soft unicorn with a pearlescent horn riding a skateboard made from the bones of your many enemies. 6. For every right word, you have an infinity of wrong ones. 7. You might use a word that either oversteps or fails to meet the idea you hope to present. 8. 9. Incorrect word choice means you’re using the wrong damn word. 10. 11. Breaking The Fifth Wall: A Visual Essay On Human Perception—In GIF Form. Mixed media artist Yovcho Gorchev compiles mind-blowing images using that classic digital image format, the almighty GIF. In his series Breaking The Fifth Wall, Gorchev posits new theories of human perception, the diminishing value of physical space, and sensory experiments of a metaphysical nature. When going through these images, keep the following in mind: Before you assume that you are sensing in real-time, and that it is your own body looking at this page, let science reframe your conception of self.
Through experiments such as Botvinick & Cohen’s, over the past two decades, neuroscientists have discovered that our senses are not necessarily confined to our own bodies. See the entire series in the Gallery. Nieman Storyboard - A project of the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. 36 Writing Essays by Chuck Palahniuk. 1: Establishing Your Authority Chuck teaches two principal methods for building a narrative voice your readers will believe in. Discover the Heart Method and the Head Method and how to employ each to greatest effect. 2: Developing a Theme At the core of Minimalism is focusing any piece of writing to support one or two major themes. 3: Using “On-The-Body” Physical Sensation Great writing must reach both the mind and the heart of your reader, but to effectively suspend reality in favor of the fictional world, you must communicate on a physical level, as well. 4: Submerging the “I” First-person narration, for all its immediacy and power, becomes a liability if your reader can't identify with your narrator. 5: Nuts and Bolts: Hiding a Gun Sometimes called "plants and payoffs" in the language of screenwriters, Hiding a Gun is an essential skill to the writer's arsenal that university writing courses almost never touch upon. 6: Nuts and Bolts: “Thought” Verbs 8: Nuts and Bolts: Using Choruses.
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