What Others Are Saying About This Book…

"Billie Williams employees a unique, down-to-earth way of word association to teach writing skills. By using vivid picturesque tricks, her work is designed to help any beginning writer remember the basic rules of storytelling, and how and when to use them." JoEllen Conger, Author

“I just finished reading a delightful little book called ‘Writing Wide: Exercises in Creative Writing’ by Billie A. Williams. Writers and teachers of writing alike will find this book an invaluable resource. ‘Writing Wide’ is a short book but it is jam-packed with useful information. The book makes a wonderfuladdition to any writer's (or writing teacher's) collection.” Karen Mueller Bryson, playwright, novelist, and educator

"As the title suggests, WRITING WIDE covers a wide range of ideas for the new writer as well as reminders for those more seasoned. A good book and a good read, chock full of suggestions to inspire any writer's imagination." Peggy P. Parsons w/a Evanell

"Billie Williams' Writing Wide, Exercises in Creative Writing, is itself a literal and fun manifestation of creative writing.  Williams uses everything from blowing bubblegum through a tooth gap to the late winter sun melting snowy shoeprints, to guide the novice writer through the creative process.  Her thought provoking and original imagery will prod you through the teaching text and writing exercises.  Enjoy and start writing!" Karen Rinehart, www.KarenReinhart.com

"In Writing Wide, Billie A. Williams writes with clarity, simplicity and wisdom. Each chapter talks to the novice writer and leads her towards action. Williams talks of a writer's words contained by 'the wide picket fence of teeth', of 'marinating the story in your mind', of approaching the first draft with 'mind wide open.'

My advice: Do a quick read of Writing Wide the first time, and then go back to the beginning and indulge yourself." Shery Ma Belle Arrieta, Author http://ewritersplace.com   

"Ms. Williams in Writing Wide: Exercises in Creative Writing provides a fascinating primer that can be incorporated into any student's writing program…. The author uses a 'writing wide' motif and vivid colorful images to illustrate 14 imaginative elements (chapters) applicable to writing stories.  You will take a significant step towards finding meaning in self-expression, writing, and discovery activities. I highly recommend Writing Wide to you." David L. Johnson, Ph.D.

"I really like Writing Wide --  Williams has a gift for painting pictures that make sense.  Your words create mental images that are easy to remember.  At the same time they paint a picture on how to paint a better picture with words."  Karen Saari Secore, L & K Associates

"Billie Williams's book Writing Wide gives you the tools you need to expand your creative thinking, to see your writing in a new light and then, use that vision to take it to the next level. It's a fun, interactive look at writing and life that provides ideas real people can use every day." Shirley Jump, author

Writing Wide

Exercises in Creative Writing

Billie A Williams

First Edition

Filbert Publishing *  Kandiyohi, Minnesota

Copyright © 2003 Billie A. Williams

All Rights Reserved

First Printing 2003

Second Printing 2006

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

Published by Filbert Publishing, Box 326, Kandiyohi, Mn, 56251, USA. FilbertPublishing.com

ISBN 0-9710796-3-3

LCCN: 2003110449

Contents: 

1. Wide Space - Between The Teeth- Page 13

Compares secret keeping and the effects of a space between your teeth… meaning you can't keep a secret. In addition, this chapter explores how to write while holding your secret, letting the secret loose a little at a time.

2. Wide Lines – Wide rule note paper– Page 16

Learning all the rules so you can break them to write your own truth and expand your knowledge, imagination, and interpretation of the life around you.

3. Wide Angle - Lens Camera– Page 20

Compares the wide angle lens of a camera shooting a panoramic shot and the panoramic view of your story idea before you pull out to focus on a close up portrait.

4. Wide Shoe – leave a wide footprint. Page 24

This is used for comparison in the choosing of clues to follow your characters in your story, enlarging on their connection to the story.

5. Wide Mouth - Jar - Page 27

Compares canning and freezing produce to story design, plotting and fitting it together at the proper moment.

6. Wide Screen - Television – Page 30

This chapter explores the wide screen, surround sound, and how to capture your novel or story’s with intensely vivid prose.

7. Wide Berth - to creativity – Page 34

Letters with tails that flow… the letters with flowing tails are used to give the reader an eye into how to relax and alleviate writer’’s block or the work stoppage associated with fatigue.

8. Wide Trailer - Double -Wide - Page 38

The double wide trailer or mobile home is used as an example of what your novel or stories parts and pieces are, how they are arranged, and how and where to place them inside the four walls of your story.

9. Wide Open Imagination – Page 41

“ Wide Open” is how to write your first draft. In this chapter, we compare it to the volcano’s eruption, hot molten lava and the cooling of that lava to form rock. Then in that same hard, black lava, we explore the emergence of new green shoots of life from the rock hard soil as it relates to the craft of writing.

10. Wide Leg - of the Gray Elephant– Page 45

The fable of the three blind men and the elephant serve as an example of how your reader sees your story if you do not use concrete description, narration and characterization to help them visualize what your story is showing him. It is the writer’s job to create a vision for the reader.

11. Wide Leaf Plant - Page 49

The Croton is used to compare a story to the total plant. How to feed, grow, and nurture a healthy specimen, be it plant or story.

12. Wide Shadow – Page 53

Wide Shadow uses the different intensity of daylight occurring in the morning, at noon and in the afternoon. Light sources are also brushed upon as sunlight; moon glow and artificial light play a part as point of view creators. This section compares writing and point of view to the way shadows are displayed different times of day.

13. Wide Receiver – about the synopsis - Page 58

What to include and how to look at your whole picture in terms of what the editor is looking for. It compares the synopsis to a football team and its key players. 

14. Wide Writing - Corralling the wild stallion. Page 62

Here we examine six ways to tighten up your writing. Comparing it to the horses in a corral, we look at wimpy verbs the nags of the literary world; locoweed prepositions; over weight adverbs; twin horse redundancies; and appaloosa similes and metaphors.

Chapter One

The Wide Space Between Teeth

“It was the secrets of heaven & earth that I desired to learn.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, English Poet

I noticed that he had a wide space between his teeth. Rather like a younger Rip Torn of the television series “Topper”. Mother used to say that having a wide space between your teeth meant you could not keep a secret.

As a child, I pictured a fat bubble gum pink secret squirting out from between those wide apart teeth and splatting against the secret receiver’s ear. That would effectively plug the receiver’s ear and block the message. Secret teased but not given.

Writing is like that. When you write you try to keep the secret of the whole story contained, but it is anxious to ooze out between the barriers and splat against the listener /reader’s ear. It dares them to listen harder, dig deeper, pay attention; a secret is about to be revealed. A great pink, sweet, sticky secret is about to be given away.

Our words are contained by the white picket fence rows of teeth, except for that space. We really do want our story to leak out, escape through that gap in a measured fashion. Chapter by chapter, beginning, middle, and end the book leaks onto the page.

Did you ever notice when you chew bubble gum that as the bubble gum is warmed you want, almost have to, blow bubbles? Think about what it is that you do when you blow a bubble. First, you push your tongue into the gum and stretch and try to force it between your teeth all the while you try to hold it back. Then you blow, slowly and carefully. As the bubble grows –you blow slower and eventually pinch it off, before it bursts or deliberately waiting for it to burst.

That is how it is with writing too. All your story’s secrets are contained in that bubble. You held them with out letting them explode for your reader, until you were ready. The reader gets the pleasure of seeing the bubble develop as he turns the pages, breath (chapter) by breath (chapter). The bubble (your story) gets bigger and the edges start getting thinner so that the reader begins to see through the bubble to the wide space in those teeth that can’t keep a secret.

When enough air (facts or details) have been forced into the bubble (story), it bursts with a loud bang and all the air (details) rush out in the climax of your story. The bubble collapses in on itself (denouement) and the narrator sucks the gum (story) into his mouth to begin yet another story. The reader, meanwhile, has had a sharp surprise. He felt the rush of air and little spatters of gum (story facts) spurt into his face when the story burst full-blown into its finish. Aha! You say.

The narrator, with the wide space between his front teeth, finally told the story’’s secret.

EXERCISES:

1.) Write a story pretending you are teaching some one how to blow a bubble. Be sure to have a beginning, middle and end.

2.) Using one of the quotes below as a story starter, write a paragraph about secrets.

QUOTES:

“Journalists belong in the gutter because that is where the ruling classes throw their guilty secrets.” Gerald Priestland, English writer & journalist

“For secrets are edged tools, and must be kept from children and from fools.” John Dryden, English Poet & Playwright

Chapter Two

Wide Ruled Paper

“The moral life of man forms part of the subject matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium.”

Oscar Wilde, Anglo-Irish Dramatist & Poet

Wide lines on wide ruled paper is what you used when you first began to write so that you had room to make tall and short letters and still stay between the lines. Then when you mastered the letterform and size, you chose narrow ruled paper to show how controlled and grown-up you were. You were able to follow the rules and stay between the lines so well. Narrow thinking, following all the rules, staying with in the lines.

Then you went back to wide rule paper. While you still wrote narrow rule sized letters, you used wide rule because someone whispered, “Read between the lines”. So you wrote your narrow minded, according to the rules, alphabet perfect stories to please the teacher while you secretly wrote the real story between the lines.

The beginning is a nice polite thesis stating your premise in perfect, narrow, between the lines grammar, and sequential thinking.

Dick and Jane were brother and sister. They loved each other. They helped each other with chores every day. Mother was very happy with them. She hugged and kissed them and read them fairy tales at bedtime. Dick fed and cared for his dog Spot. He played with him every day. Jane fed and cared for her cat Puff. She played with her everyday.

Yada yada yada ad nauseam.

All the while the story between the lines developed. Bonnie and Clyde hated each other. Clyde hated having to drag his sister Bonnie to school every day. Moreover, he hated getting beat up trying to protect her from the bully she taunted until the bully threatened to kill her.

You present a mediocre middle where you enlarged on the premise. We have Dick and Jane with a new family member all cooing and sweet. Playing patty cake with the new baby Sally and helping mommy with all the chores Dick and Jane fully engage in the nicety of the day. Smiling all the while.

Meantime between the lines Bonnie and Clyde are terrorizing the neighborhood. They found, as a team, they could let modifiers dangle, split infinitives, and even toss in a fragment of a sentence to yell “danger!” or obscenities at the perfect sentence.

Then comes the stark and perfect ending. Dick and Jane, Spot and Puff, Mommy and Daddy and baby Sally live happily every after doing all the nice perfect sentence, perfect grammar, perfect penmanship, between the lines living a family can do.

While between the lines, you do your Martin Short impression of on the wild side. You burst at the seams and scribble maniacally, obliterating the fine lines between good and evil, right and wrong. You dare to write an unhappy ending; you dare to challenge the authority that said that you had to stay between the lines. The grammar was true and good. The sentence structure is terse and bright. The story was aflame with passion for the written words. You wrote between the lines, but in the bigger spaces where the real story lies.

Now you can use plain paper or your computer and have as much or as little white space on the page as you choose. You learned the rules so that you would know how to break them. No one would care, or even notice, because the story grabbed him or her, pulled h/her in, and held them captive until the story said “The End”.

EXERCISES:

1.) Rewrite a favorite fairy tale and be sure to change the ending. Find something that needs to be written between the lines as defined above.

2.) Tell a story about a lie either you or someone else told. Tell it as if it was necessary – how much white space you/they needed to surround it with to make it believable.  

QUOTES:

“A memory of yesterday’s pleasures, a fear of tomorrow’s dangers, a straw under my knee, a noise to mine ear, a light in mine eye, an anything, a nothing, a fancy, a chimera in my brain, troubles me in my prayers. So certainly is there nothing, nothing to spiritual things, perfect in this world.” John Donne, English Poet

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