Interview :)

Great news! I was interviewed by writer Annalisa Crawford. We dish on writing, new projects, and more. Check it out: interview.

Enjoy Annalisa’s amazing book: Grace and Serenity.

Also, check out Photography for Writers and my other writing craft books to get that inspiration flowing: Books.

Image by Nacho Capelo on unsplash.com.

My Article Published: "4 Photo Hacks to Inspire Your Writing"

Great news! My article was published today. If you like writing & photography, then this one’s for you. Enjoy the writing exercise at the end.

“4 Photo Hacks to Inspire Your Writing”
By: Melanie Faith

Last week, I shot my first roll of film in over a decade.

Up to this point my photos, like a lot of my writing drafts, were entirely digital and screen-manipulated. This analog film process was nothing like that computerized process, refreshingly; it shook up the way I thought about crafting my work.

That first roll of film last week was also a lot of other firsts: first roll of black-and- white film, first time loading 120 film (I used to shoot 110 and 35 mm), first time shooting medium-format square negatives, first time using a cute, plastic Diana F+ camera.

120 film has just 12 negatives per roll. Unheard of in the digital world of endless do-overs and deletes. I still love digital, but practicing image-making on film is teaching me to approach my making creatively.

What can photography lend to our writing process?

• Renew your beginner’s mind.
I’ve been photographing since I was a teen, and yet here I was, trying several new photographic styles that were entirely fresh to me.

Many of us have been writing creatively for years, yet we, too, can capture that beginner’s mind and use it to create innovative drafts.

If you normally write prose, give poetry a shot. If you often write novels, try a short story or two.

Or pick a genre you’ve never practiced: perhaps flash memoir or writing a graphic novel or jokes for a stand-up routine.

Or switching POV from your standby third-person to first-person or second-person.

Or it could be as simple as writing a first draft longhand.

These changes won’t necessarily be permanent; they will, however, bring out new ideas and imagery that will surprise and motivate.

• Add a few restrictions to your art and watch it flourish.

In both photography and writing, sometimes if you put obstacles or limitations in your path, you can create something remarkable.

I know: paradoxical.

When shooting with film, I had just 12 clicks of the shutter. I also couldn’t preview it after taking the shots; the Diana F+ camera has a tiny viewfinder, but it’s not entirely accurate to what the lens will capture—it’s more like playing pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey than aiming at a dartboard. It’s a machine made for teaching how to approach and then let go of expectations.

I had my film for four days before I took that first roll for a spin; four days of narrowing down possible subject matter “worthy” of my twelve little compositions. Seven turned out well enough to submit to a literary magazine. I certainly don’t approach my digital photography that way. 

• Approach your writing with more of your full attention.

Because the camera and the shutter-release (on the side of the plastic lens!) and pretty much everything else about the camera was new to me, I had to slow down… and then slow down again… and then a third time. I watched a YouTube tutorial on loading the film about 12 times; no joke.

I quickly learned to trust my instincts more and to rule out certain subject matter in favor of other options, because I knew that I was paying $7.50 for the roll of film and almost $20 for developing.

Even though the cost isn’t exorbitant to practice film photography (especially getting third-hand cameras at an auction site like I did), that it COST me something made each shot precious.

What does your writing cost you? Sleeping in? Time out with family or friends? We value our art more when we sacrifice something for it.

• Think thematically.
Just like writers begin a novel, short story collection, poetry manuscript, or series of essays that surround the same theme or characters, photographers often challenge themselves to create a series based on the same subject, setting, or motif.

The other day, I took a twenty-minute walk with my new camera and then found, in storage, two lawn chairs that had almost been thrown out several times—their worn green webbing and silver metal bases redolent of my parents’ youth and endless picnics and fireworks displays. Yet they’d been stored away.

Gleefully, I dug them out from behind the staircase and arranged them in various configurations on the lawn. Six of out my twelve shots became a mini-series about the chairs.

If I’d had limitless shots would I have found the chairs as compelling, especially for a series? Maybe. But probably not.

It’s very common for writers, like photographers, to take part in creativity challenges that encourage such project-based thinking. Practicing your art with a group of like-minded people for consecutive days will more likely yield workable results.

We writers have NaNoWriMo in November and NaPoWriMo each April. Photographers have challenges like the 365 Project and monthly challenges, such as at Instagram where photographers post themed lists of ideas.

These challenges are often informal but incredibly liberating.

Both writing and photography rely on intuition and self-exploration. A mixture of knowing some things and making up the rest. Both arts often include elements of self-doubt or curiosity that are assuaged with practicing your craft on a regular basis.

Try this exercise: Make a list of five themes you could explore as a series in prose or photography.

Want to learn more? Try my May 2020 online Imagery Power: Photography for Writers class.

Take a perusal of Photography for Writers, my exercise-packed, creativity-fueling book. Signed copies also available at my Etsy: WritePathProductions.

Courtesy of Women on Writing https://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/classroom/MelanieFaith_Photography.php

New Year, New Writing: I've Got the Inspiration Station for You

This is your year! Invest in your writing dreams in 2020!

• Write poetry? Try Poetry Power! for signed copies or Poetry Power for print and ebook copies via Amazon.

What writers are saying about Poetry Power: “After reading Poetry Power, I feel confident that yes! I could be a poet. Melanie takes her readers by the hand and walks them through the whole process of writing, publishing, editing and loving poetry. Little personal vignettes scattered throughout Poetry Power made me feel like Melanie was a friend. It was as if we were in a writing group together and she was sharing her writing secrets. Each chapter ends with a Try this Prompt that are easy and exciting to try.” —Tricia L. McDonald, Writer and CEO Splattered Ink Press

• Write fiction or nonfiction? Try In a Flash for signed copies or In a Flash for print and ebook copies via Amazon.

What writers are saying about In a Flash: “Written in lively prose, and full of terrific prompts and great examples of the form, this book captures all the potential of flash prose pieces and crystallizes it expertly for the reader, whether novice or advanced.” Fred G. Leebron, director of writing programs in Charlotte, Roanoke, Gettysburg and Latin America, and Pushcart Prize and O.Henry Award recipient

• Love photography AND writing? Try Photography for Writers for signed copies or Photography for Writers for print and ebook copies via Amazon.

  What writers are saying about Photography for Writers: “If you’re a writer (or photographer!) that’s tired of the same old how-to books, then you’re in luck. Melanie’s advice takes you on a delightful tour of the creative world in a way you haven’t seen yet. Her voice and ideas will spark ideas - you’ll be laughing and learning but also producing! This book is a treat!"
  –Kandace Chapple, publisher and writer of Grand Traverse Woman magazine

• Signed book bundles available at: WritePath Productions.

Welcome to the World, Photography for Writers!

At long last, it’s release day for my new book, Photography for Writers!

Buy your copy today at Vine Leaves Press. Signed copies also available, via my WritePathProduction Etsy Shop or via pm.

Photo by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash .

Like Writing down the Bones and The Artist's Way?

Just in time for NaNoWriMo! If you liked Bird by Bird and other craft books, check out In a Flash and these nifty videos my awesome publisher created.

Writing down the Bones style

Writing coach and publishing advisor style

Invest in your writing today. All three titles in my Flash Writing series are now available, including the pre-order for Photography for Writers.

"Four Tips for Writing Fantastic Flash"

My article about flash-writing was published today. Ta-da! Give the writing exercise a spin.

“Four Tips for Writing Fantastic Flash”

by: Melanie Faith

Good things come in small packages. Chocolate truffles. Earrings. Me—okay, that last one is wishful thinking since I round my height up to 5’2”, but you get the picture.

            Flash is the mighty genre that could and no exception to the small-packages rule of thumb. In both fiction and nonfiction, flash stories tell a narrative, develop a character and setting, craft conflict and tension to a surprising ending, and more—all in just 1,000 words or less. Pretty impressive!

            Use these four tips and the accompanying exercise to craft some stellar flash.

·         Set two characters against each other.  Ever lived in a dorm? Then you know that very rarely do even two people (much less a whole group) view similar experiences the same way. Such conflict is a key component of good flash. Whether your characters compete for the same person, place, or thing or just have opposing personal, political, or ideological views, one sure way to maintain conflict within a flash is to pair two characters in a clash of goals. When I judge flash contests, one of the key disappointments is when a good flash character or concept doesn’t have enough tension to sustain the flash, so the prose falls flat.

·         Ready, set, action!  Your protagonist or speaker must DO something. Flashes aren’t as dynamic if the character is inert or has things done to her or him. Detail your protagonist’s physical actions and responses. Many promising flash drafts I’ve read go off the rails when they include a character reflecting on something that has occurred—which is fine for a sentence or two, maybe, but for a flash to really zing off of the page, the character must push back in deed. In real life, I need a fair amount of reflection time, but in my flash writing, I avoid it. Wind those characters up and let them move on the page! Which brings us to our next tip:

·         When in doubt, include (a little) body language. Sometimes, jokingly, I’ve referred to dialogue without any speaker tags or visual imagery for several paragraphs as “floating heads,” because the characters seem to exist in outer space, without a clear physical presence. Readers don’t need to know every single cough, sneeze, or hand on the hip, but if your readers can’t imagine how characters are reacting to each other—whether through vocal tone, rolled eyes, tapping toes or shifting uncomfortably- then they probably won’t have as deep an investment in characters’ struggles. Much of what real people communicate in everyday life is demonstrated through body language; sprinkle a few well-placed images between the dialogue to show the conflict between what the character says and how the character or others physically react.

·         Contradictions make better flash characters. In other words: we’re all a mess, so why not mine it? Another problem in some flash I see are characters who are one-sided, with a single personality trait that is not-so-awesome for flash: they are too agreeable. Something bad happens, and they accept it as the way things are or they make a decision to ignore it entirely. Strong writing brings us characters who have a main trait—kindness, enthusiasm, anger—and an opposing trait that rears its head now and again—selfishness, mercurial moods, humor at the wrong moment. As F. Scott Fitzgerald once said: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” Guess what—we all have these two opposing sides and must function, which creates the kind of exhaustion and frustration that doesn’t always make life easy but which makes for fantastic conflict, tension, and character development in flash.

Try this exercise:  Your speaker or protagonist has always reacted to injustice by ________________, but today, a different side of their personality is going to shine. Instead, they will _________________. Include inner thoughts of the character or speaker right before they decided what to do, during, and after. Include at least a line of dialogue in your flash where a person with a different opinion or view tries to stop your speaker or protagonist. What happens next? Go!

~~~~~~~~

Looking for a fun online writing class? Still a few spots in my Flash writing class that starts on Oct. 25th. :) In a Flash Details.

I’ll also be teaching a novel class in January. Outlining Your Novel with Ease Details.

Photography for Writers-- Holding the First Print Copy :)

Super excited for my next book, Photography for Writers, which will be published this November. Stay tuned!

That holding the first author copy feeling! 💕🔥📝📷😭😍💡

My MFA-Themed Article Published Today

Ever wonder when to apply for the MFA? Wonder about my before-MFA journey?

Excellent news: my article, “When’s the Right Time to Pursue an MFA?” was published this morning at NUNUM. Ta-da! :)

Photo: part of my Artifact Series. :)

Amazing New Cover, Same Fantastic Writing Text, Part One :)

Check out this fabulous new cover for my In a Flash! book.

It’s the same inspiring, prompt-packed text with a razzle-dazzle, new-and-even-more-glorious cover by the super-talented Jessica Bell.

It’s the perfect time to snag a copy for your bookshelf if you haven’t already AND some gift copies for your writing group, class, favorite beta reader, and creative pals. ;)

"How Sweet it is: Writing Resonant Flash Prose"

My craft article was published as a spotlight today at Women on Writing. If you’re interested in writing more flash, check out my online class that starts on November 2nd. :) In a Flash

“How Sweet it Is: Writing Resonant Flash Prose”

By: Melanie Faith

 

            When I was a kid, my dad used to stop on the way home from work each night to get the newspaper for my mom and a candy treat for me and my sister. One of our favorite treats was wrapped in a long, thin piece of see-through cellophane. Inside, was a string of thick white floss that had elasticity, and strung along this floss were shiny, bright candies. These circular gems, in popping pastel shades of yellow, pink, orange, and blue, were vaguely-sweetened like fruit and floral flavors (the yellow was slightly tart yet banana-ish and the blue, I recall, tasted like a cross between raspberry and the way a rose smelled).

Each candy bead had the kind of brittle crunch that a child relishes—chomp-chomp!—but which would make my adult teeth weep. The hues of the candies melted with each chomp until the string was bare and vaguely pinkish-whitish-yellowish-blue-orange by the time the last candy was presto-change-oed. After just a few moments, the candy dye bled onto fingertips, tongue, and face, revealing opaque-white candies’ underbellies.  

            A vivid sense memory I repeat is the internal debate—holding the cellophane-wrapped treat, after a hug from my dad: should I rip into the cellophane immediately and wear the candy-pretty necklace (sometimes I doubled it around my wrist like a fancy lady’s bracelet)? Yet, there was the candy, so tantalizing, that who could resist just a tiny bite? On the other hand, once bitten into, the string was sticky and not really conducive to wearing—destroyed, in a sense, for displaying.

It was a catch-22, albeit one of the best kinds, and the tension between knowing when to hold onto something and when to begin was the kind of life lesson that doesn’t have a perfect answer and yet which gets repeated, unbeknownst to the child’s mind, again and again in life. Timing— whether strung on a string or not, whether involving choosing a major or a love interest or a house or a car or another job or having a child— is an infinite loop of weighing pros and cons and, eventually, just diving in. A lesson, as a Type A elder daughter, I struggled with endless times, weighing the sour against the sweet, second-guessing myself:  Was it too soon? But could there be a too late? Even after the satisfying crunch, the soggy, lone string.

           

            In the above flash nonfiction, I began with a simple note I’d jotted this morning in my writer’s notebook while still half-asleep and making my to-do list for the day. Idea: candy necklaces we ate as kids.  Hours of student correspondence, errands, lunch, and dishes passed before I sat down again, opened my notebook on my desk and commenced to write the above passages.

            Clocking in at just under 400 words, my creative process and this piece highlight some of the best facets of the flash genre. Let’s examine them:

·         Flash begins with—well, a flash! Ever used a writing prompt? Sure, most of us have encountered them in writing classes, writing groups, and in books. The genius of a prompt is that it revolves around one idea. Good flash starts with a kernel of a topic which the reader then writes into in discovery. In the case of my candy-necklace flash, my random memory (which popped into my head after seeing a necklace online of white beads) became the prompt I explored.

·         Flashes are focused. Notice above how I say “one idea?” In flash, there’s not room for asides or diversions. Any details about the rest of my childhood—the scented dolls I adored, the children’s jokes I loved to tell and invariably flubbed the punch lines of, have no place in this piece—they need to be moved to their own flashes. One is plenty in developing flash.

·         Flashes are about what they are about, and they are also about something bigger than their subject, too. In other words: readers learn about you and your characters but they also learn something resonant about humanity. Sure, this is a flash centered on a personal memory, but it also has a theme that readers can connect with their own experiences: timing. How do we know when it is the right, or the wrong, time to do anything? The reader should walk away asking and connect to circumstances in their own past or present.  Consider universal themes.

·         It’s all about the imagery, baby! Without hitting readers over the head by spelling out theme, how can we explore themes and other literary language? One of the easiest ways is to develop imagery. Just like in poetry, another condensed form, flash nonfiction and flash fiction often employ plenty of sensory images to get the job done (as does this flash with taste, smell, auditory/sound, and visual imagery).

·         Flashes include tension. Without the final paragraph of my flash, there wouldn’t be a lot of resonance or conflict in my piece. Most of the other paragraphs are a nice memory involving candy—perhaps interesting for my nieces to read or some other Gen Xer or Baby Boomer who remembers this type of candy, but not the stuff of literature per say. The final two paragraphs introduce the pressure of both leaning on one’s own internal judgment and the suggestion (without spelling it out) of external conflict/judgment over choosing something too soon or being too late to spoil the fun.

 

Try this exercise: Set a timer and write for fifteen minutes without stopping about a food associated with your own childhood. Incorporate at least three of the five elements of successful flash either as you write or when you return to edit your piece after writing.