What Makes Writing Shine?
For me it is many things. I want to be brought right into the story, empathise with the main protagonist, have a strong antagonist, to be excited by the plot and to be held captive by what’s unfolding. Language is important to me. I want it to be descriptive without being boring, to have beautiful phrases without stopping the flow, to lift me intellectually without being too high-brow, to make my heart swell and leave me with a sense that the book is a treasure to be revisited.
Here is a sense of beautiful language that I enjoy from, ‘To the Lighthouse’ by Virginia Woolf…
‘And now in the heat of summer the wind sent its spies about the house again. Flies wove a web in the sunny rooms; weeds that had grown close to the glass in the night tapped methodically at the window pane. When darkness fell, the stroke of the Lighthouse, which had laid itself with such authority upon the carpet in the darkness, tracing its pattern, came now in the softer light of spring mixed with moonlight gliding gently as if it laid its caress and lingered stealthily and looked and came lovingly again. But in the very lull of this loving caress, as the long stroke leant upon the bed, the rock was rent asunder; another fold of the shawl loosened; there it hung, and swayed. Through the short summer nights and the long summer days, when the empty rooms seemed to murmur with the echoes of the fields and the hum of flies, the long streamer waved gently, swayed aimlessly; while the sun so striped and barred the rooms and filled them with yellow haze that Mrs. McNab, when she broke in and lurched about, dusting, sweeping, looked like a tropical fish oaring its way through sun-lanced waters.’
In this extract from, ‘Sons and Lovers’ by D.H. Lawrence there is beautiful descriptive writing but also the building of plot…
‘The front garden was a small square with a privet hedge. There she stood, trying to soothe herself with the scent of flowers and the fading, beautiful evening. Opposite her small gate was the stile that led uphill, under the tall hedge between the burning glow of the cut pastures. The sky overhead throbbed and pulsed with light. The glow sank quickly off the field; the earth and the hedges smoked dusk. As it grew dark, a ruddy glare came out on the hilltop, and out of the glare the diminished commotion of the fair.
Sometimes, down the trough of darkness formed by the path under the hedges, men came lurching home. One young man lapsed into a run down the steep bit that ended the hill, and went with a crash into the stile. Mrs. Morel shuddered. He picked himself up, swearing viciously, rather pathetically, as if he thought the stile had wanted to hurt him.
She went indoors, wondering if things were never going to alter. She was beginning by now to realise that they would not. She seemed so far away from her girlhood, she wondered if it were the same person walking heavily up the back garden at the Bottoms as had run so lightly up the breakwater at Sheerness ten years before.’
I studied ‘Jane Eyre’ by Charlotte Bronte for English Ordinary/ ‘O’ Level aged 15/16 and the built-up romantic tension between Jane and Mr Rochester still remains with me …
‘We were, as I have said, in the dining-room: the lustre, which had been lit for dinner, filled the room with a festal breadth of light; the large fire was all red and clear; the purple curtains hung rich and ample before the lofty window and loftier arch; everything was still, save the subdued chat of Adèle (she dared not speak loud), and, filling up each pause, the beating of winter rain against the panes.
Mr. Rochester, as he sat in his damask-covered chair, looked different to what I had seen him look before; not quite so stern—much less gloomy. There was a smile on his lips, and his eyes sparkled, whether with wine or not, I am not sure; but I think it very probable. He was, in short, in his after-dinner mood; more expanded and genial, and also more self-indulgent than the frigid and rigid temper of the morning; still he looked preciously grim, cushioning his massive head against the swelling back of his chair, and receiving the light of the fire on his granite-hewn features, and in his great, dark eyes; for he had great, dark eyes, and very fine eyes, too—not without a certain change in their depths sometimes, which, if it was not softness, reminded you, at least, of that feeling.
He had been looking two minutes at the fire, and I had been looking the same length of time at him, when, turning suddenly, he caught my gaze fastened on his physiognomy.
“You examine me, Miss Eyre,” said he: “do you think me handsome?”
I should, if I had deliberated, have replied to this question by something conventionally vague and polite; but the answer somehow slipped from my tongue before I was aware—“No, sir.”’
What also becomes very apparent from re-reading these extracts is the voice, tone and style.
How Can Writers Make Their Own Writing Sparkle?
It is good to read and find out what kind of writing we resonate with, but we each need to find our own authentic voice. We will definitely be influenced by the writers we love but we are not doing ourselves any favours by copying them.
It is important to know who your intended audience will be and what they might be looking for in a book, So research and communication with your intended audience is crucial.
Sharing your work with others helps you see the good points and not so good points in your writing.
Reading your work out loud will give you a sense of whether your writing flows and makes sense.
Self-editing helps you cut out the waste and find the treasure within it.
Attending classes and courses or having some mentoring can help your work to take shape and shine.
Happy Polishing!
Eileen Moynihan Author 