Coined by the Immortal Bard: Popular Words and Phrases

Posted by Madd_Fictional on August 4, 2013

Many of the words and phrases we casually toss about in our everyday conversations can be traced back to a man who is considered the greatest writer of the English language, William Shakespeare. He boldly toyed with the language–as any good writer should–turning nouns into verbs, verbs into adjectives, adding prefixes and suffixes, and joining unrelated words to create new definitions. Below is a list of a few of the phrases and words coined by the immortal bard:

Phrases:

All that glitters is not gold (The Merchant of Venice)(“glisters”)

All’s well that ends well (title)

As good luck would have it (The Merry Wives of Windsor)

As merry as the day is long (Much Ado About Nothing / King John)

Bated breath (The Merchant of Venice)

Bear a charmed life (Macbeth)

Be-all and the end-all (Macbeth)

Better foot before (“best foot forward”) (King John)

The better part of valor is discretion (I Henry IV; possibly already a known saying)

In a better world than this (As You Like It)

Brave new world (The Tempest)

Break the ice (The Taming of the Shrew)

Breathed his last (3 Henry VI)

Brevity is the soul of wit (Hamlet)

Refuse to budge an inch (Measure for Measure / Taming of the Shrew)

Cold comfort (The Taming of the Shrew / King John)

Come what come may (“come what may”) (Macbeth)

Dead as a doornail (2 Henry VI)

A dish fit for the gods (Julius Caesar)

Dog will have his day (Hamlet; quoted earlier by Erasmus and Queen Elizabeth)

Devil incarnate (Titus Andronicus / Henry V)

Eaten me out of house and home (2 Henry IV)

Elbow room (King John; first attested 1540 according to Merriam-Webster)

Faint hearted (I Henry VI)

Fancy-free (Midsummer Night’s Dream)

Fight till the last gasp (I Henry VI)

Flaming youth (Hamlet)

Forever and a day (As You Like It)

For goodness’ sake (Henry VIII)

Foregone conclusion (Othello)

Full circle (King Lear)

The game is afoot (I Henry IV)

The game is up (Cymbeline)

Give the devil his due (I Henry IV)

Good riddance (Troilus and Cressida)

Jealousy is the green-eyed monster (Othello)

It was Greek to me (Julius Caesar)

Heart of gold (Henry V)

‘Tis high time (The Comedy of Errors)

Hoist with his own petard (Hamlet)

Household words (Henry V)

Improbable fiction (Twelfth Night)

In a pickle (The Tempest)

In my heart of hearts (Hamlet)

In my mind’s eye (Hamlet)

Infinite space (Hamlet)

Infirm of purpose (Macbeth)

It is but so-so(As You Like It)

It smells to heaven (Hamlet)

Itching palm (Julius Caesar)

Kill with kindness (Taming of the Shrew)

Killing frost (Henry VIII)

Knit brow (The Rape of Lucrece)

Knock knock! Who’s there? (Macbeth)

Laid on with a trowel (As You Like It)

Laughing stock (The Merry Wives of Windsor)

Laugh yourself into stitches (Twelfth Night)

Lean and hungry look (Julius Caesar)

Lie low (Much Ado about Nothing)

Live long day (Julius Caesar)

Love is blind (Merchant of Venice)

Melted into thin air (The Tempest)

Though this be madness, yet there is method in it (“There’s a method to my madness”) (Hamlet)

Make a virtue of necessity (The Two Gentlemen of Verona)

Milk of human kindness (Macbeth)

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows (The Tempest)

Much Ado About Nothing (title)

Murder most foul (Hamlet)

Naked truth (Love’s Labours Lost)

Neither rhyme nor reason (As You Like It)

Not slept one wink (Cymbeline)

[Obvious] as a nose on a man’s face (The Two Gentlemen of Verona)

One fell swoop (Macbeth)

Time is out of joint (Hamlet)

Out of the jaws of death (Twelfth Night)

Own flesh and blood (Hamlet)

Star-crossed lovers (Romeo and Juliet)

Parting is such sweet sorrow (Romeo and Juliet)

What’s past is prologue (The Tempest)

[What] a piece of work [is man] (Hamlet)

Pitched battle (Taming of the Shrew)

Play fast and loose (King John)

Pomp and circumstance (Othello)

Primrose path (Hamlet)

Quality of mercy is not strained (The Merchant of Venice)

Salad days (Antony and Cleopatra)

Seen better days (As You Like It? Timon of Athens?)

Send packing (I Henry IV)

Make short shrift (Richard III)

Sick at heart (Hamlet)

Snail paced (Troilus and Cressida)

Something in the wind (The Comedy of Errors)

Something wicked this way comes (Macbeth)

A sorry sight (Macbeth)

Sound and fury (Macbeth)

Spotless reputation (Richard II)

Stony hearted (I Henry IV)

Such stuff as dreams are made on (The Tempest)

Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep (“Still waters run deep”) (2 Henry VI)

The short and the long of it (The Merry Wives of Windsor)

Sweets to the sweet (Hamlet)

Swift as a shadow (A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Set my teeth on edge (I Henry IV)

Tell truth and shame the devil (1 Henry IV)

There’s no such thing (?) (Macbeth)

There’s the rub (Hamlet)

This mortal coil (Hamlet)

To gild refined gold, to pain the lily (“to gild the lily”) (King John)

To thine own self be true (Hamlet)

Too much of a good thing (As You Like It)

Tower of strength (Richard III)

Towering passion (Hamlet)

Trippingly on the tongue (Hamlet)

Wear my heart upon my sleeve (Othello)

What’s done is done (Macbeth)

What the dickens (The Merry Wives of Windsor)

Wild-goose chase (Romeo and Juliet)

Working-day world (As You Like It)

The world’s my oyster (Merry Wives of Windsor)

Words:

accommodation (Othello)

accused (n.) (Richard II — first known use as a noun, meaning person accused of a crime)

addiction (Henry V / Othello)

admirable (several; seems unlikely)

advertising (adj.)(Measure for Measure; in context, means “being attentive”; the noun was already in use)

aerial (Othello)

alligator (Romeo and Juliet; Spanish “aligarto” was already in use in English)

amazement (13 instances; first known use as a noun)

anchovy (I Henry IV; first attestation in English of the Spanish word for dried edible fish)

apostrophe (“apostrophas”)(Love’s Labour’s Lost; seems to be a well-known word already)

arch-villain (Measure for Measure / Timon of Athens)

to arouse (2 Henry VI / Hamlet; “rouse” was the usual form)

assassination (Macbeth; “assassin” was already in use and derives from “hashish eater”)

auspicious (several; “auspice” was a Roman practice of fortune-telling by bird flight)

backing (I Henry VI; this is just a pun on a known word)

bandit (II Henry VI, actually “bandetto”, the first attestation in English of a familiar Italian word for people “banned”, i.e., outlaws)

barefaced (in the sense of “barefaced power”) (Macbeth)

baseless (in the sense of fantasy without grounding in fact) (The Tempest)

beached (several, merely means “possessing a beach”)

bedazzled (The Taming of the Shrew)

bedroom (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, merely means a place to sleep on the ground)

belongings (Measure for Measure)

to besmirch (Henry V)

birthplace (Coriolanus; first attestation)

to blanket (King Lear; first use as a verb)

bloodstained (I Henry IV)

blusterer (A Lover’s Complaint)

bold-faced (I Henry VI)

bottled (Richard III)

bump (Romeo and Juliet; first attestation of onomopoeic word)

buzzer (Hamlet; means gossipper)

to cake (Timon of Athens, first attestation as a verb)

to castigate (Timon of Athens)

to cater (As You Like It; from coetous, a buyer of provisions)

clangor (3 Henry VI / 2 Henry IV)

to champion (Macbeth; first attestation as a verb, and in an older sense of “to challenge”; though the noun was familiar as someone who would fight for another)

circumstantial (As You Like It / Cymbeline; first attestation in the sense of “indirect”)

cold-blooded (King John; first use to mean “lack of emotion”)

coldhearted (Antony and Cleopatra)

compact (several; seems to have been a common word)

to comply (Othello)

to compromise (The Merchant of Venice, several of the histories; seems to have been already in use)

to cow (Macbeth; first use in English of a Scandinavian verb)

consanguineous (Twelfth Night; “consanguinity” was already in use)

control (n.) (Twelfth Night)

countless (Titus Andronicus / Pericles)

courtship (several, seems unikely)

critic (Love’s Labour’s Lost; Latin term)

critical (not in today’s sense) (Othello, A Midsummer Night’s Dream)

cruelhearted (The Two Gentlemen of Verona)

Dalmatians (Cymbeline)

dauntless (Macbeth)

dawn (I Henry IV, King John; first use as a noun, the standard had been “dawning”)

day’s work (several, must have been a common expression)

deafening (II Henry IV; in the sense of a noise that is loud but does not produce real deafness)

to denote (several; already a word in Latin)

depository

discontent (Richard III / Titus Andronicus; the verb was in use but this is the first attestation as a noun)

design (several, seems unlikely)

dexterously (Twelfth Night)

dialogue (several, seems already familiar)

disgraceful (I Henry VI; means “not graceful”)

dishearten (Henry V)

to dislocate (King Lear, refers to anatomy)

distasteful (Timon of Athens)

distracted (Hamlet / Measure for Measure; seems possible)

divest (Henry V / King Lear; probably already in use as referring to a royal title)

domineering (Love’s Labour’s Lost; from a Dutch word)

downstairs (I Henry IV, supposedly first use as an adjective)

droplet (Timon of Athens)

to drug (Macbeth; first use as a verb)

to dwindle (I Henry IV / Macbeth, seems already familiar as a term for body wasting)

to educate (Love’s Labour’s Lost)

to elbow (King Lear; first use as a verb)

embrace (I Henry VI; first use as a noun)

employer (Much Ado about Nothing)

employment (several, obviously familiar)

engagement (several, seems simply the first attestation)

to enmesh (Othello)

to ensnare (Othello)

enrapt (Troilus and Cressida)

enthroned (Antony and Cleopatra)

epileptic (King Lear; first use as an adjective, though the noun was old)

equivocal (Othello / All’s Well that Ends Well; first use as adjective, though the verb “to equivocate” was familiar)

eventful (As You Like It)

excitement (Hamlet / Troilus and Cressida; both times as plural; first use as a noun)

expedience (several, supposedly first use as noun)

exposure (several, supposedly first use as noun)

eyeball (The Tempest)

eyedrops (II Henry IV; means “tears”)

eyesore (The Taming of the Shrew)

fanged (Hamlet, first attestation)

farmhouse (The Merry Wives of Windsor; first known use of the compound)

far-off (several, seems already familiar)

fashionable (Timon of Athens / Troilus and Cressida)

fathomless (not today’s sense) (Troilus and Cressida)

fitful (Macbeth)

fixture (not current sense) (Merry Wives of Windsor / Winter’s Tale)

flawed (King Lear; first use as an adjective)

flowery (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)

foppish (King Lear)

fortune-teller (The Comedy of Errors)

to forward (I Henry IV; first use as a verb)

foul-mouthed (several, seems already familiar)

freezing (Cymbeline)

frugal (several; “frugality” was already in common use)

full-grown (Pericles)

gallantry (Troilus and Cressida)

generous (several, obviously already known)

gloomy (several, “to gloom” was a verb)

glow (several; the word had originally meant red-and-warm)

gnarled (Measure for Measure; alteration of knurled which was a standard word for bumpy)

go-between (several, seems familiar)

to gossip (The Comedy of Errors; first use as a verb; “gossip” was one’s familiar friends)

gust (III Henry VI, seems already familiar and was an Old Norse word)

half-blooded (King Lear)

hint (Othello, first use in today’s sense)

hob-nails (I Henry IV, alleged; seems already familiar)

hobnob (Twelfth Night; older term was “hab, nab”, and not in today’s sense)

homely (several, seems already familiar)

honey-tongued (Love’s Labour’s Lost)

hoodwinked (already known from falconry)

hostile (several, seems like a word that is already familiar)

hot-blooded (The Merry Wives of Windsor / King Lear)

housekeeping (The Taming of the Shrew; seems unlikely)

howl (several, clearly familiar)

to humor (Love’s Labour’s Lost, first attestation as a verb)

hunchbacked (can’t find)

to hurry (Comedy of Errors, first attestation as verb)

ill-tempered (can’t find)

immediacy (King Lear, first use as noun)

impartial (2 Henry IV)

to impede (Macbeth, first use as verb, though “impediment” was already widely used)

import (several, and not used in the modern sense)

immediacy (King Lear, first attestation as a noun)

importantly (Cymbeline, first attestation as an adverb)

inaudible (All’s Well that Ends Well; “audible” was already in use)

inauspicious (Romeo and Juliet)

indistinguishable (not in today’s sense)(Troilus and Cressida)

inducement (several, seems unlikely)

investment (II Henry IV, not in present sense)

invitation (The Merry Wives of Windsor; signifies “flirting”)

invulnerable King John / Hamlet / The Tempest; first attestation for the negative; Coriolanus has unvulnerable)

jaded (several, seems already a term of contempt)

Judgement Day (I Henry VI; usual term had been “Day of Judgement”)

juiced (Merry Wives of Windsor; first attestation as an adjective)

kissing (several, first attestation of the participle, though surely not its first use)

lackluster (As You Like It)

ladybird (Romeo and Juliet)

to lament (several, seems already familiare)

to lapse (several, first attestation as a verb, though already familiar as a noun)

to launder (first use as a verb; “laundress” was in common use)

laughable (The Merchant of Venice)

leaky (Antony and Cleopatra / The Tempest)

leapfrog (Henry V; first attestation but seems unlikely as a coinage)

lonely (several, seems unlikely)

long-legged (can’t find)

love letter (can’t find)

to lower (several, seems already known)

luggage (first use as noun)

lustrous (Twelfth Night / All’s Well that Ends Well)

madcap (several, attestation as adjective; the noun had become popular just before)

majestic (several, first use as adjective)

majestically (I Henry IV; first attestation as adverb)

malignancy (Twelfth Night, seems possible)

manager (Love’s Labour’s Lost / Midsummer Night’s Dream; first attestation as noun)

marketable (As You Like It; first use as adjective)

militarist (All’s Well that Ends Well)

mimic (Midsummer Night’s Dream)

misgiving (Julius Caesar; first use as noun, though “to misgive” was in common use)

misplaced (several, seems unlikely)

to misquote (1 Henry IV; not in the present sense)

money’s worth (Love’s Labours Lost)

monumental (several, seems unlikely)

moonbeam (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)

mortifying (Merchant of Venice / Much Ado About Nothing )

motionless (Henry V)

mountaineer (Cymbeline; the sense is “hillbilly”)

multitudinous (Macbeth)

neglect (several, obviously already known)

to negotiate (Much Ado about Nothing / Twelfth Night; verb from the Latin)

new-fallen (Venus and Adonis / I Henry IV)

new-fangled (Love’s Labour’s Lost / As You Like It)

nimble-footed (several, seems already a familiar expression)

noiseless (King Lear / All’s Well that Ends Well)

to numb (King Lear, first attestation as a transitive verb)

obscene (several; straight from Latin)

obsequiously (first use of the adverb; comes from “obsequies”, or funeral rites)

outbreak (Hamlet, first attestation as a noun)

to outdare (I Henry IV)

to outgrow (can’t find)

to outweigh (can’t find)

over-cool (II Henry IV)

overgrowth (can’t find)

over-ripened (II Henry VI ;first-use of the familiar compound)

over-weathered The Merchant of Venice)

overview (can’t find)

pageantry (Pericles Prince of Tyre)

pale-faced (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)

to pander (several; was already a proverb)

pedant (several, seems already in common use for a stuffy teacher)

perplex (King John / Cymbeline)

perusal (Sonnets / Hamlet; first use as a noun)

to petition (Antony and Cleopatra / Coriolanus; first use as a verb)

pious (several, seems very unlikely)

posture (several, seems known)

premeditated (several; first attestation of the adjective, though the noun was in use)

priceless

Promethean (Othello / Love’s Labour’s Lost)

protester (not today’s sense) (Julius Caesar)

published (2 Henry VI)

puking (As You Like It)

puppy-dog (King John / Henry V)

on purpose (several; seems very unlikely)

quarrelsome (As You Like It / Taming of the Shrew)

questing (As You Like It; first use of the gerund)

in question (several, seems already in use)

radiance (several; first use as noun)

to rant (The Merry Wives of Windsor / Hamlet; loan-word from Dutch or previously-unattested English word?)

rancorous (2 Henry VI, Comedy of Errors, Richard III, all early plays, seems unlikely)

raw-boned (I Henry VI)

reclusive (Much Ado about Nothing; first use as adjective)

reinforcement (Troilus and Cressida / Coriolanus; seems already in use)

reliance

remorseless (several, first attestation of this form)

reprieve (several, obviously already in use)

resolve (several, obviously already in use)

restoration (King Lear)

restraint (several, seems already familiar)

retirement (II Henry IV; refers to military retreat; first use as noun)

revolting (several, obviously already familiar)

to rival (King Lear; first attestation as verb; noun was well-known)

rival (Midsummer Night’s Dream; first attestation as adjective, noun was well-known)

roadway (II Henry IV; first attestation of the compound)

rumination (As You Like It; first use as noun)

sacrificial (Timon of Athens; not today’s usage)

sanctimonious (Measure for Measure / Tempest)

satisfying (Othello / Cymbeline)

savage (several; the word was obviously already in use)

savagery (King John / Henry V; first use as this form)

schoolboy (Julius Caesar / Much Ado about Nothing)

scrubbed (The Merchant of Venice)

scuffle (Antony and Cleopatra; first use as noun, though the verb was familiar)

seamy-side (Othello)

to secure (II Henry VI; first use as a verb; the adjective was well-known)

shipwrecked (Pericles Prince of Tyre, seems unlikely)

shooting star (Richard II; first known use of the phrase)

shudder (Timon of Athens; first use as a noun; verb already well-known)

silk (alleged; obviously not Shakespeare’s)

stocking (obviously not Shakespeare’s)

silliness (Othello)

skim milk (I Henry IV; first use of the familiar term)

to sneak (Measure for Measure; supposed first use of the verb)

soft-hearted (2 Henry VI / 3 Henry VI; first use of the familiar phrase)

spectacled (Coriolanus; not in today’s sense)

splitting (II Henry VI; first use as adjective)

sportive (Richard III / Comedy of Errors / All’s Well that Ends Well; supposed first use)

to squabble (Othello; supposed first use, as with “to swagger”)

stealthy (Macbeth; first use as adjective)

stillborn (can’t find, obviously not Shakespeare’s)

to submerge (Antony and Cleopatra)

successful (Titus Andronicus, seems dubious)

suffocating (Othello; supposed first use as a descriptor)

to sully (I Henry VI)

superscript (Love’s Labour’s Lost)

to supervise (Love’s Labour’s Lost; also Hamlet but not in today’s sense)

to swagger (II Henry IV, others; in context this seems to be already a well-known word)

switch (first use to mean “twig”)

tardily (All’s Well that Ends Well; first use of adverb)

tardiness (King Lear; “tardy” as adjective was well-known)

threateningly (All’s Well that Ends Well; first use of the adverb)

tightly (The Merry Wives of Windsor; first use as an adverb)

time-honored (Richard II)

title page (can’t find; seems unlikely)

to torture (several; first use as a verb)

traditional (Richard III; first use as adjective)

tranquil (Othello; “tranquility” was an old word)

transcendence (All’s Well that Ends Well; first attestation of the noun)

tongue-tied (III Henry VI / Julius Caesar / Troilus and Cressida; seems first attestation of a phrase already in use)

unaccommodated (King Lear)

unaware (Venus and Adonis; first use as an adverb; the adjective was not yet in use)

to unclog (Coriolanus, first use as a negative)

unappeased (Titus Andronicus)

unchanging (The Merchant of Venice)

unclaimed (As You Like It; not in today’s sense)

uncomfortable (Romeo and Juliet)

to uncurl

to undervalue (The Merchant of Venice)

to undress (The Taming of the Shrew; seems unlikely)

unearthly (Winter’s Tale)

uneducated (Love’s Labour’s Lost, seems possible)

ungoverned (Richard III / King Lear)

to unhand (Hamlet)

unmitigated (Much Ado about Nothing)

unpublished (King Lear; in the sense of “still unknown”)

unreal (Macbeth, first use of the negative)

unsolicited (Titus Andronicus / Henry VIII; supposed first use of the form)

unswayed (Richard III; not in today’s sense, but “is the sword unswung?”)

unwillingness (Richard III / Richard II)

upstairs (I Henry IV; supposedly first use as an adjective)

urging (Richard III / Comedy of Errors; first attestation as a noun

useful (several, seems already familiar)

varied (Love’s Labour’s Lost, others)

vastly (Rape of Lucrece, not present sense)

viewless (Measure for Measure; means “invisible”)

vulnerable (Macbeth; used in today’s sense)

watchdog (The Tempest; first use of the phrase)

well-behaved (The Merry Wives of Windsor; first known use of the compound)

well-bred (II Henry IV; first use of the familiar compound)

well-read (I Henry IV)

whirligig (Twelfth Night)

to widen

widowed (Sonnet 97 / Coriolanus; first use as an adjective)

worn out (Romeo and Juliet / 2 Henry IV; seems unlikely)

worthless (III Henry VI, several others; seems just a first attestation)

yelping (I Henry VI; first attestation of this adjectival form)

zany (Love’s Labour Lost; simply a loan-word from Italian commedia dell’arte)

Writing Joke of the Day: Change a light bulb

Posted by Madd_Fictional on August 4, 2013

How many screenwriters does it take to change a light bulb?

Answer: Ten.

1st draft: Hero changes light bulb.
2nd draft: Villain changes light bulb.
3rd draft: Hero stops villain from changing light bulb. Villain falls to death.
4th draft: Lose the light bulb.
5th draft: Light bulb back in. Fluorescent instead of tungsten.
6th draft: Villain breaks bulb, uses it to kill hero’s mentor.
7th draft: Fluorescent not working. Back to tungsten.
8th draft: Hero forces villain to eat light bulb.
9th draft: Hero laments loss of light bulb. Doesn’t change it.
10th draft: Hero changes light bulb.

How many science fiction writers does it take to change a light bulb?

Two, but it’s actually the same person doing it. He went back in time and met himself in the doorway and then the first one sat on the other one’s shoulder so that they were able to reach it. Then a major time paradox occurred and the entire room, light bulb, changer and all was blown out of existence. They co-existed in a parallel universe, though.

How many publishers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Three. One to screw it in. Two to hold down the author.

How many mystery writers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Two. One to screw it almost all the way in, and the other to give it a surprising twist at the end.

How many screenwriters does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Why does it *have* to be changed?

How many cover blurb writers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A VAST AND TEEMING HORDE STRETCHING FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA!!!!

Famous Authors Reveal Their Writing Secrets (go on, you know you wanna look)

Posted by Madd_Fictional on August 3, 2013

1. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.” — Mark Twain

2. “People on the outside think there’s something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn’t like that. You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that’s all there is to it.” — Harlan Ellison

3. “The secret is to start a story near the ending.” — Chris Offut

4. “The secret of successful fiction is a continual slight novelty.” — Edmund Gosse

5. “The big secret is the ability to stay in the room.” — Ron Carlson

6. “The secret to being a writer is that you have to write. It’s not enough to think about writing or to study literature or plan a future life as an author. You really have to lock yourself away, alone, and get to work.” — Augusten Burroughs

7. “It’s hard to explain how much one can love writing. If people knew how happy it can make you, we would all be writing all the time. It’s the greatest secret of the world.” — Andrea Barrett

8. “Composition is a discipline; it forces us to think. If you want to “get in touch with your feelings,” fine—talk to yourself; we all do. But, if you want to communicate with another thinking human being, get in touch with your thoughts. Put them in order; give them a purpose; use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce. The secret way to do this is to write it down and then cut out the confusing parts.” — William Safire

9. “The secret of it all, is to write in the gush, the throb, the flood, of the moment – to put things down without deliberation – without worrying about their style – without waiting for a fit time or place. I always worked that way. I took the first scrap of paper, the first doorstep, the first desk, and wrote – wrote, wrote…By writing at the instant the very heartbeat of life is caught.” — Walt Whitman

10. “If there is a secret to writing, I haven’t found it yet. All I know is you need to sit down, clear your mind, and hang in there.” — Mary McGrory

Stop making that face. Did you really think you were going to uncover some magical shortcut to get you through the sometimes torturous process of writing? Ain’t I done learnt y’all better’n that? You go on now, here? And enjoy your weekend.

Sally forth and be secretly writeful.

— Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

Writing Joke of the Day: Ode to the Spell Check

Posted by Madd_Fictional on August 3, 2013

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It cam with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew!

The Short and Short of Flash Fiction

Posted by Madd_Fictional on August 2, 2013

Flash fiction is defined as a style of fictional literature or fiction of extreme brevity. And while there’s no widely accepted rule as to the proper length of a flash fiction piece, I’ve seen word counts cap between three hundred and a thousand words. Although usually containing standard story elements such as a protagonist, conflict, obstacles, complications, and resolution, the limited word length can result in some of these elements to be merely hinted at or implied in the storyline.

David Gaffney wrote an interesting article for The Guardian entitled, Stories in your pocket: how to write flash fiction, which included the following six steps:

1. Start in the middle. You don’t have time in this very short form to set scenes and build character.

2. Don’t use too many characters. You won’t have time to describe your characters when you’re writing ultra-short. Even a name may not be useful in a micro-story unless it conveys a lot of additional story information or saves you words elsewhere.

3. Make sure the ending isn’t at the end. In micro-fiction there’s a danger that much of the engagement with the story takes place when the reader has stopped reading. To avoid this, place the denouement in the middle of the story, allowing us time, as the rest of the text spins out, to consider the situation along with the narrator, and ruminate on the decisions his characters have taken. If you’re not careful, micro-stories can lean towards punchline-based or “pull back to reveal” endings which have a one-note, gag-a-minute feel – the drum roll and cymbal crash. Avoid this by giving us almost all the information we need in the first few lines, using the next few paragraphs to take us on a journey below the surface.

4. Sweat your title. Make it work for a living.

5. Make your last line ring like a bell. The last line is not the ending – we had that in the middle, remember – but it should leave the reader with something which will continue to sound after the story has finished. It should not complete the story but rather take us into a new place; a place where we can continue to think about the ideas in the story and wonder what it all meant. A story that gives itself up in the last line is no story at all, and after reading a piece of good micro-fiction we should be struggling to understand it, and, in this way, will grow to love it as a beautiful enigma. And this is also another of the dangers of micro-fiction; micro-stories can be too rich and offer too much emotion in a powerful one-off injection, overwhelming the reader, flooding the mind. A few micro-shorts now and again will amaze and delight – one after another and you feel like you’ve been run over by a lorry full of fridges.

6. Write long, then go short. Create a lump of stone from which you chip out your story sculpture. Stories can live much more cheaply than you realise, with little deterioration in lifestyle. But do beware: writing micro-fiction is for some like holidaying in a caravan – the grill may well fold out to become an extra bed, but you wouldn’t sleep in a fold-out grill for the rest of your life.

And if I might add a few tips to Mr. Gaffney’s list:

Do your homework and read a ton of flash fiction stories. Stop groaning, they’re ultra-short.
Pay close attention to story settings and character development
Tell a proper story. Having a character deliver a monolog or go off on a diatribe, or spending the word count describing a setting, doesn’t help you hone your brevity writing skills.
Do not toss away your story if it happens to be too big and you just can’t whittle it down to size. Instead, pat yourself on the back for creating a short story. Every cloud, right?
If you’re using a word processing program, make use of the built-in word count feature.

For the record, extremely short fiction isn’t a brand spanking new concept. In fact, Ernest Hemingway once wrote the following six-word story:

“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

According to sources, the author considered it to be the finest prose he had ever written. Even more remarkable, it comes in under the stringent 140 character count of Twitter’s tweet fiction (see: To Make A Long Story Shortest). Way to go, Hemmy!

Sally forth and be flash writeful.

— Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

Writing Joke of the Day: Punctuation Parable

Posted by Madd_Fictional on August 2, 2013

Dear John,

I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I can be forever happy – will you let me be yours?

Gloria

Dear John,

I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?

Yours,

Gloria

The Versatile Blogger Award

Posted by Madd_Fictional on August 1, 2013

Hmmm, my very first blogger award nomination. What a pleasant surprise as I wasn’t aware something like this even existed. I’d like to thank Lara S. Chase over at In Progress: A New Author Navigates the World of Publishing for nominating me. It’s an honor to know that she not only occasionally enjoys my posts but also took the time to nominate my blog.

According to the rules:

Well, I’ve thanked Lara, so that’s sorted (check out her blog, it really is an interesting ride). Now I have to name:

My Nominees for The Versatile Blogger Award

http://chriskokoski.wordpress.com/

http://cicampbellblog.wordpress.com/

http://shareyourarticles.wordpress.com/

http://damyantiwrites.wordpress.com/

http://ellisnelson.com/

http://www.moneyequalslifestyle.com/

http://impossiblewords.wordpress.com/

http://writingsofamrs.wordpress.com/

http://insearchofmymuse.wordpress.com/

http://macabrebutsweet.wordpress.com/

http://khaulanazir.wordpress.com/

http://letmereach.com/

http://khmazzola.wordpress.com/

http://lachlancathy.com/

http://leonardostories.wordpress.com/

And finally:

Seven Things About Myself

Although I love to read, watch and write horror, I do not, even in the tiniest sense, believe in the paranormal, supernatural, or the occult. I do, however, believe in loonies, cultists and serial killers, so that should give me some sort of horror street cred.

I once owned a tom cat named Buster Crabbe Unit Active Missile Warhead, who met his untimely end doing battle with a boxer (the dog-type, not the Balboa-type, though that would’ve made for a better movie than Rocky V).

A former anime junkie, now I am tragically addicted to UK telly and in severe need of an intervention. I even watch Big Brother UK and the addiction has spread to Big Brother Australia. Don’t judge me!

I absolutely despise the use of CGI in movies, especially when used to animate humans in a live action setting.

Although the internet has made things digitally easier, I miss swapping videotaped TV programs with my friends, especially episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

I was once contacted by a man who claimed to own the licensing rights to Sybil Danning (an Austrian actress who starred in a lot of ’80s cult, science fiction, and action B movies) and he tried to rope me into a 5 year comic book deal (I was a comic book publisher at the time).

I firmly believe that despite how intelligent we are as a species, we are not clever enough to know our origins, nor that of the planet or the universe.

A Nickel’s Worth of Free Writing Advice: Fill Your Toolbox

Posted by Madd_Fictional on August 1, 2013

Is your writing toolbox looking a little empty? Fill it with the words you collect today from snippets of conversations you overhear, newspapers, magazines, books, or wherever you draw inspiration from. Create freestyle associations from these words to build sentences and keep adding more words and associations. Your notebook now represents personal snapshots of your style in the words you’ve chosen and associations you’ve made.

Sally forth and be writeful.

— Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

Writing Style Is the Dress of Thoughts

Posted by Madd_Fictional on July 31, 2013

Parsing prose. Syntactical structure. Conceptual framework. Your writing style is the voice you use to speak to your audience and is more than just diction and the words you choose, as it offers a glimpse at your true personality. It takes the literal and transforms it into a subjective expression that evokes an emotional response from the reader.

As to how you develop a writing style… you write. Write what comes natural to you. Write without worrying about acceptance or being published. Write without concentrating on influences. But you’ve heard me bang on about this already, so I invited a few friends to help get you into the proper frame of mind:

1. “A good style must, first of all, be clear. It must not be mean or above the dignity of the subject. It must be appropriate.” — Aristotle

2. “Don’t say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be tired. Be confused. Be depressed. Be annoyed. Don’t hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident.” — William Zinsser

3. “Carefully examined, a good–an interesting–style will be found to consist in a constant succession of tiny, unobservable surprises.” — Ford Maddox Ford

4. “A good style should show no sign of effort. What is written should seem a happy accident.” — W. Somerset Maugham

5. “A strict and succinct style is that, where you can take away nothing without loss, and that loss to be manifest.” — Ben Jonson

6. “The hardest thing about writing, in a sense, is not writing. I mean, the sentence is not intended to show you off, you know. It is not supposed to be “look at me!” “Look, no hands!” It’s supposed to be a pipeline between the reader and you. Once condition of the sentence is to write so well that no one notices that you’re writing.” — James Baldwin

7. “The greatest possible mint of style is to make the words absolutely disappear into the thought.” — Nathaniel Hawthorne

8. “When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair.” — E.B. White

9. “I am well aware that an addiction to silk underwear does not necessarily imply that one’s feet are dirty. Nonetheless, style, like sheer silk, too often hides eczema.” — Albert Camus

10. “It was from Handel that I learned that style consists in force of assertion. If you can say a thing with one stroke, unanswerably you have style; if not, you are at best a marchande de plaisir, a decorative litterateur, or a musical confectioner, or a painter of fans with cupids and coquettes. Handel had power.” — George Bernard Shaw

11. “Who cares what a man’s style is, so it is intelligible, as intelligible as his thought. Literally and really, the style is no more than the stylus, the pen he writes with; and it is not worth scraping and polishing, and gilding, unless it will write his thoughts the better for it. It is something for use, and not to look at.” — Henry David Thoreau

12. “People think that I can teach them style. What stuff it all is! Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style.” — Matthew Arnold

13. “Style is the dress of thoughts; and let them be ever so just, if your style is homely, coarse, and vulgar, they will appear to as much disadvantage.” — Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield

14. “A man’s style should be like his dress. It should be as unobtrusive and should attract as little attention as possible.” — C. E. M. Joad

15. “The style is the man himself.” — George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon

16. “The old saying of Buffon’s that style is the man himself is as near the truth as we can get–but then most men mistake grammar for style, as they mistake correct spelling for words or schooling for education.” — Samuel Butler

17. “When we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted; for we expected to see an author, and we find a man.” — Blaise Pascal

18. “Style is the hallmark of a temperament stamped upon the material at hand.” — Andre Maurois

19. “The essence of a sound style is that it cannot be reduced to rules–that it is a living and breathing thing with something of the devilish in it–that it fits its proprietor tightly yet ever so loosely, as his skin fits him. It is, in fact, quite as seriously an integral part of him as that skin is. . . . In brief, a style is always the outward and visible symbol of a man, and cannot be anything else.” — H.L. Mencken

20. “You do not create a style. You work, and develop yourself; your style is an emanation from your own being.” — Katherine Anne Porter

21. “Style is the perfection of a point of view.” — Richard Eberhart

22. “Where there is no style, there is in effect no point of view. There is, essentially, no anger, no conviction, no self. Style is opinion, hung washing, the caliber of a bullet, teething beads.” — Alexander Theroux

23. “Style is that which indicates how the writer takes himself and what he is saying. It is the mind skating circles around itself as it moves forward.” — Robert Frost

24. “What’s important is the way we say it. Art is all about craftsmanship. Others can interpret craftsmanship as style if they wish. Style is what unites memory or recollection, ideology, sentiment, nostalgia, presentiment, to the way we express all that. It’s not what we say but how we say it that matters.” — Federico Fellini

25. “Proper words in proper places, make the true definition of style.” — Jonathan Swift

26. “The web, then, or the pattern, a web at once sensuous and logical, an elegant and pregnant texture: that is style.” — Robert Louis Stevenson

27. “The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the most valuable investment a writer can make with his time. It pays off slowly, your agent will sneer at it, your publisher will misunderstand it, and it will take people you have never heard of to convince them by slow degrees that the writer who puts his individual mark on the way he writes will always pay off.” — Raymond Chandler

28. “The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise.” — Edward Gibbon

29. “One arrives at style only with atrocious effort, with fanatical and devoted stubbornness.” — Gustave Flaubert

30. “To me style is just the outside of content, and content the inside of style, like the outside and the inside of the human body. Both go together, they can’t be separated.” — Jean-Luc Godard

31. “Thought and speech are inseparable from each other. Matter and expression are parts of one; style is a thinking out into language.” — Cardinal John Henry Newman

32. “In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.” — Oscar Wilde

33. “Style, in its finest sense, is the last acquirement of the educated mind; it is also the most useful. It pervades the whole being.” — Alfred North Whitehead

34. “Style is not something applied. It is something that permeates. It is of the nature of that in which it is found, whether the poem, the manner of a god, the bearing of a man. It is not a dress.” — Wallace Stevens

35. “All my stories are webs of style and none seems at first blush to contain much kinetic matter. . . . For me ‘style’ is matter.” — Vladimir Nabokov

And if I may tack on a few extras pieces of advice: don’t forget to take risks, give voice to that quirkiness of thought that you possess, avoid clichés, if at all possible, be concise and precise, and develop a keen sense of word choice.

Oh, and be patient. Style is a thing that can’t be rushed and it might take a while for yours to become evident, but you’ll know when it finally arrives. Words will flow easier, you’ll feel more comfortable with the act of writing, and you’ll be able to recognize that identifiable cadence that belongs to only one person in the world… you.

Sally forth and be writeful… in style.

— Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

Neil Gaiman on Writing: From The Nerdist Podcast

Posted by Madd_Fictional on July 30, 2013

Neil Gaiman chats with the nerds about American Gods, describes scenes that were cut from his Doctor Who episode, The Doctor’s Wife and doles out phenomenal advice for aspiring writers.

If you’re interested in listening to the entire interview:

Nerdist Podcast: Neil Gaiman

Sally forth and be writeful.

— Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

MADD FICTIONAL

Welcome to the Worlds of Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys

Tag Archives: Inspiration

Famous Authors Reveal Their Writing Secrets (go on, you know you wanna look)

The Short and Short of Flash Fiction

A Nickel’s Worth of Free Writing Advice: Fill Your Toolbox

Writing Style Is the Dress of Thoughts