Method

Talking about how I write a poem today. I don’t mean as in line by line or how to rhyme.

I was having a conversation with Florence from LitWorldInterviews about my poem ‘Caught in the Deed’ and how the last line totally twisted the entire meaning of the poem and how I was getting some nice feedback for it. That has been a nice thing to have. If anyone who writes say they don’t care about feedback and compliments, I would question that a bit. And I say that simply for the fact that for the things I write there is often a lot of, and I mean a lot of emotion behind it so feelings evoke feelings and it’s nice to hear that those feelings came across. Of course I mean that in regards to other poems, not necessarily ‘Caught in the Deed’.

The truth of the matter is I had no idea what that last line was going to be. She asked what was the other possibilities, and I honestly said there were none. I seriously just had a thought of “I’m sneaking out to get something to fill my needs and I don’t want anyone to catch me.”

This turned into a conversation about how we both write. I am a go for it type. Some play it safe. Let me explain why I can be a go for it writer.

I can delete anything I write and not share it.

Interesting concept, eh?

One of my more popular poems is “Would you . . .” When I first started writing that day I was writing one of my more typical lame poems and I just was not feeling it, and I should not have been feeling it. So I hit enter a few times to space down to a clean area, closed my eyes, paused for a few moments to get that lame garbage out and just center on the first emotion that came to me, and then began to type.

I’ve told people before to just type with their eyes closed and don’t stop. When I say that I literally mean don’t stop for typos or anything. You are going to type words you never use and sentence structure that is completely outside of your normal style. One sentence may not make any sense in the stream of things but keep going. Nothing is wrong at this point, nothing is off limits.

Once you have exhausted it all, open your eyes and take a look.

Other than typos there are few things I change. I might change the length of a line because it ruins the flow of the poem, or I will change a word that is just a glaring horror to the rest of the poem.

What you accomplish when you use the no eyes technique is you rid yourself of all those outside visual distractions and you tap into inner images and emotions.

Another example of letting the worlds flow is the lyric poem “Look what you’ve done to me, oh oh”. To tap into a more primal/sensual feeling I had to close my eyes and just climb inside of my thoughts. For that one I had to ‘see’ what I was writing, but in order to ‘see’ I had to close my eyes to my humdrum surroundings and picture inspiration for those words.

Eventually you will be able to write without closing your eyes. I don’t. I actually play my laptop keys like a piano when writing at times. I even actually move my hands that way and groove to the feel. I know a real poem is happening if that is how I am writing.

Am I a professional or expert at poetry? Far from it, but I do enjoy it a great deal and use it to get a lot of feelings out that I need to get out. “Writing for Therapy’ is one of my things I say repeatedly. I guess if you look at those poems mentioned you’ll get a glimpse into what I need help with. Also, don’t look at my poetry as what poetry is suppose to be like, because as I said, I am not an expert. I am just a hack who has to get it out.

Much Respect

Ronovan

How Long Should Your Chapters Be?

by: Ronovan

Pick up any two books you have and you’ll likely find they vary in chapter length. Each author has their own style and preference.

To be honest this article isn’t about telling you which length is best. The story itself tells you where the cut off points are for a chapter. Don’t listen to a teacher or whoever about that. Sure an editor can help but when you are writing, get out of the way of the story.

I’ve written chapters 19 pages long and there wasn’t a place to break it up because everything needed to continue in order to flow properly. But then I’ve written chapters three pages long . . . maybe even less.

How do you pick a length? I mean there has to be some idea, right, some method?

As I’ve been writing for over 20 years now, I won’t mention that includes three different decades . . . uh oh, almost four, I’ve discovered methods are like opinions, and to paraphrase an old saying; “Methods are like belly buttons, everyone’s got one.” Okay, so there is another version of that old saying but I went with this one.

Let’s discuss briefly how you would approach determining chapter lengths before you begin writing.

The way I look at it, I would say this, if the action is fast, the short ‘em. If not and perhaps a lot of emotion and all that lovey-dovey stuff, then long ‘em.

The thing is, you’re going to have some of both in a novel. And that is what you really want. Chapter lengths that are uniform throughout a book can lead to boredom. It’s kind of like when you write an essay, or if you write a blog, keep the lengths varied, but not too long.

This doesn’t mean to intentionally alternate between the two, just let the story dictate it. That would be like sing-songing it. Don’t get pitchy dog. Word.

In conclusion?

Action-Short Chapters for me. This keeps the pace quick and exciting.

Suspense/Horror-Longer Chapters to bring in all the nuances that you need to pull a person into the scene. Chapters can be shorter once you’ve established character and made the reader comfortable.

Romance and Mystery-It all depends on what you have going on in the scene. Often times you may want to pull at the heartstrings with Romance more so you may need longer chapters at times. A good writer may not need to do it, but don’t short cut it. Mystery has a lot of examination involved thus longer chapters as well.

Ultimately, the story will tell me when to stop a chapter. It almost jumps on you and says STOP! You just have to learn how to listen.

What’s my personal preference? Good question. But the real question is this; What’s your belly button on the chapter length debate? Share.

ronovanwrites

Author, Poet, Blogger, Father, Reader And More

How to get in a poetry groove.

How Long Should Your Chapters Be?

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