A Roar for Powerful Words
Julie of Virtual Journey kindly awarded me 'A Roar for Powerful Words', a blog award which began life on the Shameless Words Writing Circle.
Julie described my blog thus:
"My fifth award goes to CARLA NAYLAND, another historical writer, in recognition of her careful analysis and depth of understanding in her chosen genre"
Thank you, Julie. I'm honoured.
The recipient of the award has to set out three things that they believe are important to powerful writing, and nominate five more recipients of the award.
Here are my suggestions for three features that contribute to powerful writing:
- Clarity. This is a prerequisite. It's very difficult for writing to be powerful if no-one can understand what it says.
- Economy. Using the minimum of words to convey the idea clearly. This doesn't mean reducing everything to three-word soundbites, it means compact writing without waffle.
- Vivacity. Powerful writing is vivid and lively. It shows that the writer is interested in what they are writing about; which is a good first step to getting the reader interested too.
And my five suggested recipients:
- Rick of Rocketpunk Manifesto. Science fiction, with occasional forays into fantasy fiction, alternate history and invented history.
- Wordcarving, John Ahearn's poetry blog.
- Nan Hawthorne of the Blue Lady Tavern. Gossip, anecdote and tales from the daily life of a (fictional) tavern keeper in 8th-century England.
- Martin Rundqvist of Aardvarchaeology. Mostly Scandinavian archaeology, with occasional diversions (e.g. scroll down to Dec 16 for some eye-popping pics from a Swedish cabaret club).
- Shared between: Alianore of the Edward II blog, rehabilitating the reputation of an unfairly maligned king one blog post at a time, and Susan Higginbotham's Unromantic Richard III, devoted to an unfairly maligned king whose rehabilitation has perhaps gone just a little too far.
So, off you all go to Shameless Words (link above) to claim your psychedelic lion, and I shall look forward to seeing your choices!
