Yesterday, I went to a store here in Denver that I've passed several times but never had a chance to visit: the Wizard's Chest.
You guys. Nerd heaven.
Everything from magic-trick equipment to costumes to board games (so. many. board games!) to dice to miniatures to roleplaying-game books (including ones I can almost never find anywhere else). Everything!
For the first few minutes of exploring just the first floor, I kept laughing from sheer little-kid-like delight.
It reminded me of another experience I had a few years ago, back when I was teaching sixth-grade world history. At that point, we were learning about the ancient Greeks. One of my students asked (sincerely, not in a snarky way), "Why do we have to learn this?"
I said something along the lines of, "People are still pretty much the same today as they were in the past. When we learn about how people did things in the past, we can decide if we want to do things the same way or if we want to change them." Not bad for an on-the-spot answer, I thought.
But later that day, I discovered an even better answer. As we checked a classwork packet about ancient Greek culture, I found myself saying, "We still use this today" over and over as we talked about the Socratic method, logic, geometry, Greek columns, the Hippocratic Oath, the Odyssey, and more. I'd never been able to make so many connections between history and modern life in one lesson, and I was getting that warm, euphoric, burst-of-energy feeling that runs through my upper body when I get excited about what I'm talking about and want to yell, "This is so cool!"
Another moment of sheer delight.
And that's what we want readers to experience when they read our work. Those moments of "This is amazing!" or "Wow, I did not see that coming" or "I hadn't thought about [insert issue] that way before. Maybe I need to revise my thinking."
So think about that. What gives you delight in your writing? Maybe it's a particular line of dialogue, a scene you're really proud of, a wild-but-true fact from your research, or a strong case you've built for your thesis.
Then think about how you can share that delight with your readers. A great story or a compelling argument doesn't do much good if readers are distracted by dry prose or cliché descriptions.
That's what I'm here to help you with. If you have a short piece that's finished and ready for editing, or if you have part of a longer piece that you know is missing something you just can't define, my keyboard and I are ready to help you realize your authorial potential. Click here to book a free discovery call with me so we can figure out exactly what you need!
Write on,
Candice
(Thanks to Sarah Wolfe for sharing their work on Unsplash.)
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