Writing an article or book can be a herculean task, particularly if you want to make a masterpiece of it. The steps showcased below with different arts and crafts could help anyone with the dream of being a bestselling author sometime in the future. For the few who already are, this could probably help with spotting the different elements that have sold their book to their audience – for the purpose of mastery.
With the illustration of these nine arts and crafts in relation to writing, you can really appreciate what goes into a masterpiece in any genre of writing and hopefully make an attempt at one – from start to finish.
1. Cooking
The daunting task of writing a masterpiece is perhaps best approached through reasoning’s “back door” – jotting down words, points and ideas as they come either in trickles or jets. When the store of jotting is filled to a level, bring it to the table and start the “cooking” process, outlining various key points (that make up the essence) of your intended piece as ingredients. The key points (and the sub-points under them) must be well drawn out to at least form a “recipe” with a level of sequence and order of progression that you can work on and form a draft.
2. Pottery
While some points in your draft may have been overstated, other key points may just have a sentence or two under them. Such uneven distribution cannot make a whole body of work. Two smoothing skills of pottery are required here: shrinking and fleshing. Shrinking (pore removal) helps to cut out replicas and irrelevances in your draft, while merging some complementary clauses and sentences for compactness. Fleshing helps build the scanty portions of your draft with instances and supports, and expressions of causes and effects.
3. Painting
Depicting scenery in an art painting usually requires that you first of all choose an eye view or perspective. That in writing terms will be the angle you want to tell your story from and the angle that you want your readers to connect with you from. At this point, a writing style should be determined (or start evolving) to set the desired tone. Also very important, creatively paint a good beginning for your piece that will make your readers want more, and cap it all with a good end that will give a fulfilling and satisfying feeling.
4. Tailoring
You will have to deal with your writing at the edges in order to prevent two adjoining parts (sentences, paragraphs, chapters) from being disconnected from one another. Sew the end of each sentence or paragraph to the next by expounding, corroborating, drawing contrasts or conclusions, or making clarifications on previous points. The seams must be hidden to make for a continuous read that will keep your readers engaged – finding it hard to pause or break – as they turn the pages.
5. Photography
To the studio for special effects! Your writing will not be anything near a masterpiece without the high visual stimulation created by capturing (rephrasing) words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs in light and shadows with the relevant use of figures, measures, proportions, facts, stats, humor and scenery. Call this photographic writing! It takes your piece completely away from the realm of boredom.
6. Music
Your writing ought to make music to your readers, so treat any hindrance to its rhythm and flow as an enemy. Put your writing to the simple test of a careful reading to find areas of clogging due to words or punctuations that do not allow for smooth and meaningful reading. Use pronouns, synonyms and antonyms to deal with monotony (that could arise) by repetition of proper and common nouns. Use figures and approximates (in words) in place of high numbers. A good flow is a must for masterpiece writing!
7. Gymnastics
Rid your piece of all context based excesses and misinterpretations that could spell doom for its authenticity, validity and correctness. You can add a clause or have a little explanation in brackets to further make things clear without disturbing the flow. Check for any incorrectly stated fact or figure. Like a gymnast would do anything to ensure balance and coordination, go to any lengths to rid your writing of such misinterpretations.
8. Woodwork
Your piece must be well structured so that your key points are not lost to your readers. As much as possible, introduce subheads as frames to break prose length. And as a good woodworker would ensure, don’t just make the frames as support, make them ornaments as well by connecting and relating the headings (even chapter titles and the whole table of contents) with the concept of the book. You can embellish further with preambles, captions, end summaries etc. This structuring ensures your piece is well strengthened and directed so that readers more easily get your arguments and justification for writing.
9. Baking
Give your piece the originality and wonderful uniqueness of a masterpiece by putting on the icing, which is concept. Make your book stand out among the thousands out there on the same topic with a uniquely crafted underlying idea that runs through its pages and showcases its essence. Work a concept from any of the titles, layouts, writing styles, related themes or content types so as to decorate your writing (without killing the essence) so much that the piece is irresistible to the reading audience all because of the colourful icing.
About the Author: Michael Omisore is a professional writer/editor and the author of Writing Masterpieces, Nine Steps to Giving Your Readers Sky-scraping Value for their Time and Money. Follow him on twitter @mdomisore or send him a mail mdomisore@yahoo.com.
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This article was first published on 12th September 2014
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Writing an article or book can be a herculean task, particularly if you want to make a masterpiece of it. The steps showcased below with different arts and crafts could help anyone with the dream of being a bestselling author sometime in the future. For the few who already are, this could probably help with spotting the different elements that have sold their book to their audience – for the purpose of mastery.
With the illustration of these nine arts and crafts in relation to writing, you can really appreciate what goes into a masterpiece in any genre of writing and hopefully make an attempt at one – from start to finish.
1. Cooking
The daunting task of writing a masterpiece is perhaps best approached through reasoning’s “back door” – jotting down words, points and ideas as they come either in trickles or jets. When the store of jotting is filled to a level, bring it to the table and start the “cooking” process, outlining various key points (that make up the essence) of your intended piece as ingredients. The key points (and the sub-points under them) must be well drawn out to at least form a “recipe” with a level of sequence and order of progression that you can work on and form a draft.
2. Pottery
While some points in your draft may have been overstated, other key points may just have a sentence or two under them. Such uneven distribution cannot make a whole body of work. Two smoothing skills of pottery are required here: shrinking and fleshing. Shrinking (pore removal) helps to cut out replicas and irrelevances in your draft, while merging some complementary clauses and sentences for compactness. Fleshing helps build the scanty portions of your draft with instances and supports, and expressions of causes and effects.
3. Painting
Depicting scenery in an art painting usually requires that you first of all choose an eye view or perspective. That in writing terms will be the angle you want to tell your story from and the angle that you want your readers to connect with you from. At this point, a writing style should be determined (or start evolving) to set the desired tone. Also very important, creatively paint a good beginning for your piece that will make your readers want more, and cap it all with a good end that will give a fulfilling and satisfying feeling.
4. Tailoring
You will have to deal with your writing at the edges in order to prevent two adjoining parts (sentences, paragraphs, chapters) from being disconnected from one another. Sew the end of each sentence or paragraph to the next by expounding, corroborating, drawing contrasts or conclusions, or making clarifications on previous points. The seams must be hidden to make for a continuous read that will keep your readers engaged – finding it hard to pause or break – as they turn the pages.
5. Photography
To the studio for special effects! Your writing will not be anything near a masterpiece without the high visual stimulation created by capturing (rephrasing) words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs in light and shadows with the relevant use of figures, measures, proportions, facts, stats, humor and scenery. Call this photographic writing! It takes your piece completely away from the realm of boredom.
6. Music
Your writing ought to make music to your readers, so treat any hindrance to its rhythm and flow as an enemy. Put your writing to the simple test of a careful reading to find areas of clogging due to words or punctuations that do not allow for smooth and meaningful reading. Use pronouns, synonyms and antonyms to deal with monotony (that could arise) by repetition of proper and common nouns. Use figures and approximates (in words) in place of high numbers. A good flow is a must for masterpiece writing!
7. Gymnastics
Rid your piece of all context based excesses and misinterpretations that could spell doom for its authenticity, validity and correctness. You can add a clause or have a little explanation in brackets to further make things clear without disturbing the flow. Check for any incorrectly stated fact or figure. Like a gymnast would do anything to ensure balance and coordination, go to any lengths to rid your writing of such misinterpretations.
8. Woodwork
Your piece must be well structured so that your key points are not lost to your readers. As much as possible, introduce subheads as frames to break prose length. And as a good woodworker would ensure, don’t just make the frames as support, make them ornaments as well by connecting and relating the headings (even chapter titles and the whole table of contents) with the concept of the book. You can embellish further with preambles, captions, end summaries etc. This structuring ensures your piece is well strengthened and directed so that readers more easily get your arguments and justification for writing.
9. Baking
Give your piece the originality and wonderful uniqueness of a masterpiece by putting on the icing, which is concept. Make your book stand out among the thousands out there on the same topic with a uniquely crafted underlying idea that runs through its pages and showcases its essence. Work a concept from any of the titles, layouts, writing styles, related themes or content types so as to decorate your writing (without killing the essence) so much that the piece is irresistible to the reading audience all because of the colourful icing.
About the Author: Michael Omisore is a professional writer/editor and the author of Writing Masterpieces, Nine Steps to Giving Your Readers Sky-scraping Value for their Time and Money. Follow him on twitter @mdomisore or send him a mail mdomisore@yahoo.com.
