Welcome to the blog here at Penmaster! My name is Evan Miller, and I’ve been a writer for over twenty years. You’ve probably already read the ‘about’ section on the website, so I’m not going to repeat that whole story. Rather, I wanted to use this blog to share examples of my written work, and offer various tips and tricks that I have picked up during my time developing my skills. Feel free to consider these posts free samples of my services.
Today I want to talk a little more about where and how I learned to write. The dirty truth is that I’m mostly self-taught. Sure, I’ve got stellar grades in my English classes, but I aced those classes because I already knew most of the principles to begin with. My earliest instruction in writing came from my mother, who used to read to us every night out of David Eddings’ “The Belgariad” and “The Malloreon” series, with different voices for each of the characters. Every now and then, as I was picturing what was happening, my mother wound up using a word I didn’t know and I had to immediately bring a stop to everything to ask what it meant in order to fit it into my vision of what was going on in the story.
This is probably what I have to thank for my extensive vocabulary. Like almost any accomplished writer out there will tell you, if you want to learn how to write, then read.
David Eddings’ writings had two particularly impressive traits in them that I try to mimic myself. The first is that he wrote simply. The words he used were so easy to understand that even a nine-year-old kid being read to by his mother followed what was going on in the book. He threw in a complicated word here or there for flavor, but not so frequent as to overwhelm the reader. This is where I learned one of my first lessons about writing: Using more words and using lots of complicated words does not necessarily translate into better writing. In fact, it often makes it worse. ‘Simple’ does not mean bland, boring, or uninspired. It only refers to using language that is easy to understand so that the reader can picture it in their mind’s eye. Allow me to show an example. Here is an example of some horribly bland writing.
“The man who approached them had red hair that came out from underneath his helmet. He was large and muscular, and he was wearing heavy armor. He was probably about six feet tall, and maybe two hundred and fifty pounds, but he wasn’t fat. His armor was dented and dirty, and his sword was all scratched up like he fought a lot and didn’t have time to clean it. The way he was approaching frightened me. He looked angry and ready to fight, and I was incredibly afraid of him.”
Now let me give you an example of rich writing, but still with simple language.
“The mountain of a man who approached was clearly neither friendly nor harmless. Each stride was brisk and purposeful, his posture menacing with the set of his muscular shoulders and the tight grip on his drawn sword. The massive blade was nicked and dirty, but still wickedly sharp, and his heavy plate mail, tarnished with dirt and scuffed with nicks and scratches, rattled ominously with every step. The armor so thoroughly encased this mysterious juggernaut that all I could see of his features was the fiery red hair streaming from beneath his visored helmet. I barely managed to swallow the stubborn lump in my throat, but I couldn’t stop my knees from quivering furiously, nor the icy tingle of fear which traced its way up and down my spine.
Now sure, the second post did use a handful more words, but were there any that sent you running to the dictionary to figure out what the hell I was saying? I imagine that most of us understood every single word in the post above. You don’t have to use words like ‘effervescent’, ‘garrulous’, or ‘vivisect’ in order to craft a piece of prose that can still hold your reader’s attention. Likewise, I didn’t need an utter ocean of words to accomplish the job.
The second lesson that David Eddings taught me took me a little longer to learn, but I realized it after some reflection. Don’t be afraid of cliches. A cliche is a concept found in writing, media, or some other form of entertainment that has been used very frequently. The Damsel in Distress, The Fiery Sidekick, The Bitter Rival, The Unusually Well-Adjusted Orphan, The Hero is Really a Prince…and so on. These get reused and reused until they fall out of fashion and become ‘cliche’. But we forget that the reason that they became cliches in the first place is because they were often examples of really impressive entertainment that everyone else wanted to mimic.
David Eddings wrote basically nothing but cliches in The Belgariad. To those who haven’t read it, the short version is that a young farm boy with a stable life that he doesn’t want to leave gets attacked by mysterious assailants hunting him for unknown reasons. He then gets whisked away by his aunt and grandfather who both happen to be sorcerers, in order to fulfill a destiny written in a prophecy. Along the way, he learns sorcery, marries a princess who happens to be a dryad, discovers he is the heir to the throne of an island kingdom that had lost its king centuries ago, seeks out an evil sorcerer to find a magic stone, fit that stone into the pommel of a sword that is remarkably intact after existing for centuries, and then using that sword to slay an evil god, before returning triumphantly to reign as a sorcerer-king forever.
What set David Eddings’ books apart was the brilliance in which the characters were conceived. The characters were all so fascinating, and their interactions so intriguing and genuine, that you never noticed that you were reading the mother of all cliches. After re-reading the series, I realized that cliches aren’t necessarily a bad thing. The important lesson is that they cannot stand on their own. If your characters and stories are bad, your cliches will be bad. If they are exceptional, then so too will be your cliched moments.
Once I understood these two tips, I noticed the skill of my writing reached entirely new levels. It became more attractive, less tiring to read, and I was less afraid of playing with whatever concept held my attention. If you’re just starting out, I encourage you to focus your energy on describing every detail going on in simple, but vivid, words. You’ll probably use way too many words to begin with, but as you get more practiced, you’ll find yourself able to say so much more with so much less.
I’m looking forward to sharing more of these writing tips with you in the future!