“Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.” - Orson Scott Card
“A metaphor is like a simile.” - Anonymous
“When I can’t talk sense, I talk metaphor.” - John Philpot Curran
“The metaphor is perhaps one of man’s most fruitful potentialities. Its efficacy verges on magic.” - Jose Ortega y Gasset
“The reason my stories have been so successful is that I have a strong sense of metaphor.” - Ray Bradbury
Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past five years, I’ve helped more than 125 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I'm also the author of the 7 Minutes a Day... writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.
09/09/2018
5 Great Quotations about Metaphors
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05/21/2018
Hint at story’s theme in opening lines
Even the most action-packed, blood-and-gore story has some message or point. A proposition that is argued or an aspect of human experience that is examined in your story is its theme. For example, the theme of the novel “Moby Dick” is revenge and obsession. Those dual passions and their costs are explored as Captain Ahab hunts and tries to destroy the great white whale that bit off his leg.
You want to hint at your theme on your opening page. This doesn’t mean you overtly state the story’s message or moral. Rather, as you know what the story’s message will be, you include underlying values that allow your theme to be revealed.
All stories convey underlying values. Like hues added as accent colors in a painting, they aren’t at the forefront of your story but subtly guide your reader.
The opening lines of your story ought to suggest these underlying values. This can be done in a variety of ways.
The simplest method is to pit the worldviews of your protagonist and antagonist against one another. As they attempt to top the other, their personalities manifest the values of their competing worldviews. For example, a hero might stop to help someone in need even though it means the antagonist gets away while the villain will show no remorse at being cruel because he believes the ends justifies the means. During your opening lines, you contrast these characters’ worldviews in the way the antagonist upsets the status quo and how the protagonist feels that this problem must be corrected.
Another way is through character development. In this case, the protagonist’s viewpoint changes to one reflecting the theme. For example, a soldier may start the story by believing force is necessary to bring peace to a country, but by story’s end he realizes that violence only begets more violence and that cooperation is the only way to bring about peace. If your story is told this way, the opening lines should show the protagonist expressing a worldview that contrasts with the theme.
A third way to suggest underlying values is symbolism. For example, suppose your protagonist is an unhappy person, never able to achieve perfection in anything despite being a high achiever; the theme of the story is that seeking perfection to achieve happiness is fool’s errand. Now add the symbol of chrysanthemums, which traditionally represent perfection. During the opening lines of the story, that character could be shown fussing with a bouquet of chrysanthemums on her dining room table, trying to make it just right but never being able to do so.
Whichever way you reveal the story’s theme, don’t use a “You see, Timmy.” This technique is named after a line in a popular TV show of the 1950s-60s, in which an adult explains to a child character the lesson learned in that episode. In short, the author directly states the theme in the narrative. While that may be fine in a children’s show, it’s insulting to adult readers, who are intelligent and sophisticated enough to infer your story’s theme. Just as you wouldn’t end your story with this Aesop-styled reveal, so you shouldn’t begin it by revealing the theme in the opening lines by stating it, such as It’s a truth well known that those who do not embrace hard work ultimately suffer or Those who aspire to govern must first learn to govern themselves and then set out to prove the premise through dramatic action.
Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
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04/30/2018
How to Write a Bestselling Novel: In 7 Minutes a Day to Your Bestseller, writers receive expert advice on topics like motivating yourself to write, starting your story with exciting opening lines, creating intriguing characters, mastering the craft of writing to elevate your style, and pitching your story to potential publishers.
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04/01/2018
5 Great Quotations about Theme
“All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.” - E.B. White
“Throughout the ages, stories with certian basic themes have recurred over and over, in widely disparate culutres; emerging like the goddess Venus from the sea of our unconscious.” - Joan D. Vinge
“Words are guns. If you feel strongly about something, aim your guns and shoot.” - James N. Frey
“An idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all.” - Oscar Wilde
“My pen shall heal, not hurt.” - L.M. Montgomery
Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
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02/05/2018
7 Things Writers Should Know About Theme
• Never be afraid to write what you believe. If the message speaks the truth, others will fear you.
• Don't burden us with a self-indulgent digression
• Utilize milepost character to critique concepts
• Layer story's imagery with symbolic meaning
• Place Easter egg to reward careful readers
• Include clever in-jokes by tuckerizing
• Challenge yourself to write ‘dramables’
• BONUS: "A great writer reveals the truth even when he or she does not wish to."
Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
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12/17/2017
5 Great Quotations about Theme
“If you can’t annoy somebody, there is little point in writing.” - Kingsley Amis
“It’s the job of intellectuals and writers to cast doubt on perfection.” - Antonio Tabucchi
“The best we can do is write words from which a kind of truth emerges.” - Muriel Spark
“Appearance blinds, whereas words reveal.” - Oscar Wilde
“Writing is both mask and unveiling.” - E.B. White
Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
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02/19/2017
Five Great Quotations about Theme
“If there is good to be said, the writer should say it. If there is bad to be said, he should say it in a way that reflects the truth that, though we see the evil, we choose to continue among the living.” - John Gardner
“There are no ‘great’ subjects for the creative writer; there are only the singular details of a single human life.” - Richard Selzer
“Write if you will: but write about the world as it is and as you think it ought to be and must be - if there is to be a world.” - Lorraine Hansberry
“The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.” - Anaïs Nin
“If you are killed because you are a writer, that’s the maximum expression of respect, you know.” - Mario Vargas Llosa
Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
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12/05/2016
Utilize literary dream device with caution
The purpose of our nightly dreams remains unclear, for they appear to be void of any consistent meaning. In literature, however, dreams are quite the opposite. Chock full of symbolism, they can help define the character and advance the plot by foreshadowing events. This device in fiction is known as a literary dream.
For a literary dream to work, the often surreal images seen by a character must be meaningful and metaphorical. For example, in the novel Wuthering Heights, Catherine accepts a marriage proposal after linking their union to her dream about going to heaven.
The literary dream can benefit a story in a variety of ways. First, it can help define a character, such as by showing his fears or desires. For example, if a character dreams of being caught up in floodwaters, this could symbolize that he feels a lack of control over his life. Literary dreams also can help advance a plot by being prophetic. Suppose that your character dreams of sacrificing a lamb at an altar and when turning over the beast sees the face of a close friend in the book; in the climax, the protagonist’s friend might lose his life to ensure the central problem is resolved. Third, literary dreams can provide clues to the reader about the meaning of symbols used elsewhere in a story. If the letter “A” is used in the novel to represent superiority and grandeur, the character may dream that he is an emperor in his throne room with the letter “A” on his chest. Finally, a literary dream can add element of exotic or the whimsical to the story. Since dreams in real life can take us anywhere without the limitations of rational thinking, so literary dreams can be surreal and imaginative, providing relief in a dark story.
Still, writers should be wary of using the literary dream. Most importantly, it doesn’t advance story in an action-oriented way. While the dream may be a roller coaster ride of activity, the character comes to his revelation of how to solve the problem driving the plot through an imagined state of being rather than by experiencing the world and making decisions. This solution feels like cheat, as if the author is saying, “I don’t know how my character can fix this problem, so I’ll just have him dream the solution.” In addition, literary dreams are overused as a plot device. They’re an easy fallback position for when writers are uncertain how to resolve the story’s central problem or when they need to add something exotic or surreal to an otherwise vanilla plot.
Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
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09/24/2016
Good writing asks good questions
Good stories often raise questions – questions that reveal the ignorance underneath accepted wisdom…questions that doubt the popular yet inhumane view…questions that rip the veneer off norms to show their underlying contradictions.
These are the questions that need to be asked. Whenever political power shifts, as new technologies propel us into new worlds, as a culture’s values evolve, people find themselves in a gray void. Questions about whether the old beliefs are still valid or if the new way endangers the very principles that hold together our civilization and humanity illuminate then color the road and signposts through the fog-laden journey.
The questions need not be the “big ones” examining why we are here or the meaning of it all. Sometimes just looking at the little ones like “How do I teach my child to share?” or “How do I deal with a pet’s passing?” can cast the most brilliant light on our beliefs and the path we might take.
A story doesn’t necessarily answer the questions raised. It probably shouldn’t. Anything more than inferring that a viewpoint doesn’t stand up to scrutiny amounts to preaching and risks making your story sound contrived. You don’t need to state that the death penalty is wrong, after all. Merely question the position that it is the right view.
Asking questions in literature marks a thought experiment. The story is a sealed environment in which we determine the consequences of our ideas in action, in which we test our solutions and views in a safe environment. If the author has thoroughly worked through the problem and deftly handles the craftsmanship of his art, the result will be an enriched world.
Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
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09/11/2016
Five Great Quotations about the Power of Writing
“A word is dead/When it is said,/Some say./I say it just begins/to live that day.” - Emily Dickinson
“We need stories to live, all of us. We live by story. Yours enlarges the circle.” - Richard Rhodes
“What I don’t write is as important as what I write.” - Jamaica Kincaid
“The true artist...gets his sense of worth and honor from his conviction that art is powerful.” - John Gardner
“Language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought; words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.” - W.H. Auden
Professional Book Editor: Having your novel, short story or nonfiction manuscript proofread or edited before submitting it can prove invaluable. In an economic climate where you face heavy competition, your writing needs a second eye to give you the edge. I can provide that second eye.
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