Denise E Lindquist
Bio
I am married with 7 children, 28 grands, and 13 great-grandchildren. I am a culture consultant part-time. I write A Poem a Day in February for 8 years now. I wrote 4 - 50,000 word stories in NaNoWriMo. I write on Vocal/Medium daily.
Stories (1228)
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Poetry In A Sandwich Form
Author's Note: The first and last stanzas are the same, representing slices of bread. In between are couplets of any format you like or any number of stanzas you like, as if you were making a sandwich. I took the poem format literally.
By Denise E Lindquist4 months ago in Poets
Sounding Real When Writing Fiction
Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter — What if? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers prompts — The Exercise — Observe how the speech fragments below convey a sense of accent or national, regional, race, class, or cultural distinctions mainly through word choice and arrangement. Easily understood foreign words or names can help, too. What do these fragments suggest about the individual speakers by conveying the flavor of their speech? The Objective — In this case, it is threefold: to help reveal character, to convince your reader by making your dialogue sound credible, and to add variety. Differences in speech aren’t just realistic; they’re interesting and provocative, and they can give vitality to your story. Speech without flavor is like food without savor.
By Denise E Lindquist4 months ago in Writers
A Self-Deceiving Portrait
Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter — What if? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers prompts — The Exercise — Using the first person, write a self-deceiving portrait in which the narrator is not the person she thinks she is - either more or less admirable. You must give your readers clues that your narrator is skewing the truth. The Objective -- To create a narrator who unwittingly reveals - through subtle signals of language, details, contradictions, and biases - that his or her judgment of events and people is too subjective to be trusted. The reader must thus discount the version of the story offered by the narrator and try to re-create a more objective one for himself.
By Denise E Lindquist4 months ago in Writers
Grandchildren Overnight Again
Okay, my grandchildren are probably a year or so younger than the photo, being at eleven and twelve years old. It isn’t all bad! Much of our time together was fun. I am just feeling my age, with very little patience for the morning scramble, “Grandma, can we go to our house before school. I didn’t bring clean pants.” We don’t have time. I will quickly wash them.
By Denise E Lindquist4 months ago in Families
My Tonsils Were Removed When I Was Five Years Old
Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter — What if? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers prompts — The Exercise: In no more than two pages, use the incident of "An Early Memory, Part One" and tell it from the vantage point of who you are today, that is, inject it with adult vocabulary, insight; subtlety, and comprehension. For instance, "My father was obviously confused" replaces funny look." You should change the way the incident is told without altering its structure or meaning. Use the past tense but keep it a first-person narrative. As in the first part of this exercise, try to let the material speak for itself. The Objective: As in a good many of these exercises, the idea is to empower the writer with the knowledge that he controls the material and not the other way around. There are countless ways to tell the same story, and each way says something a little different, not only about what happened, but also about how the teller feels about it. You're the first and last authority: your power - at least in this realm - is unlimited.
By Denise E Lindquist4 months ago in Writers
Having My Tonsils Removed
Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter — What if? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers prompts — The Exercise: Using the present tense, write an early memory in the first person. This should be something that happened before you were seven. Use only those words and perceptions appropriate to a young child. "My father looks confused" won't do because a five-year-old is incapable of this articulation. "My father has a funny look on his face" is fine. The memory should be encapsulated in a short period of time -no more than an hour or so - and should happen in one place. Don't interpret or analyze; simply report it as you would a dream. When you can't remember details, make them up; you may heighten the narrative so long as you remain faithful to the meaning of the memory - the reason you recalled it in the first place. Limit: 550 words. The Objective: A fiction writer should be able to present a narrative without nudging the reader or in any way explaining what she has written. The narrative should speak for itself. In using a child's voice you are forced not to analyze but merely to tell the story, unembellished.
By Denise E Lindquist4 months ago in Writers
