Nicole Bianchi

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How to Use Close Reading to Improve Your Writing (Video)

Published August 15, 2021 | Last Updated August 20, 2021 By Nicole Bianchi Leave a Comment

I’m excited to share a new video with you today! 

Many famous writers have stressed the importance of reading to become a better writer. Stephen King once observed, “If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that. Reading is the creative center of a writer’s life.”

But how can you get the most out of the books you read?

In this video, I look at a strategy called “close reading”. Close reading is a form of literary analysis that helps you get more out of the books you read. With close reading, you dive into a passage of a well-written novel or a poem and identify the techniques and themes that make the writing so powerful.

This active reading strategy will help you take your own writing to the next level as you discover powerful writing techniques that you can use to make your own writing more memorable and meaningful to your readers.

1. Read the Entire Piece

The first step is to make sure that you read the entire book or poem that you’re going to be close reading. 

If you don’t know the entire plot of the book, it’s going to be harder to identify certain techniques that the author is using. For example, if there’s a character that dies later on in the story, and the author is using foreshadowing at the beginning of the book to hint at that death, you wouldn’t pick up that technique because you don’t know that character is going to die. 

Usually when I do a close reading, it’s after I have already read the entire book, depending on how deep of a close reading I’m doing. 

2. Understand the Context

The second step is to understand the context of the piece of literature that you’re examining. Just as you want to understand the entire plot of the piece, it’s also really important to understand the context of the author. Who were they? Why were they writing this piece? Did they ever discuss their philosophy or inspiration? What was going on in history at the time the piece was written? How did that influence the author?

3. Summarize the Obvious

The third step is to summarize the paragraph or the passage that you’re going to be close reading. Poems are often short so you might close read an entire poem. But usually if you’re close reading a book, you would just pick out a passage that really strikes you and that you want to examine on a deeper level. At this stage, look for the most obvious things and jot them down. Maybe a character states that they are jealous of someone. Maybe the author is describing a character’s loneliness. This gives you clues for the themes of the piece which leads to step number four.

4. Pinpoint the Central Ideas and Themes

The fourth step is to identify the central ideas and themes in the passage. I’ve found this is very helpful when I am writing my own fiction, and I want to see how an author wove a certain theme into a piece. After you identify the obvious themes, you can examine how the author conveys them in the passage. How does he or she convey a sense of isolation or anger or fear? This leads into steps number five and six which examine the point of view and language and syntax of the piece.

5. Identify the Point of View

The fifth step is to analyze the point of view of the passage. Who is the narrator? Is it written in first person, second person, third person? Is it an omniscient narrator? Some books have an unreliable narrator, and that’s really interesting to examine. You can consider, “Is the author here putting forth their own opinion or is it an opinion of the characters?” 

6. Dive Deep into the Language and Syntax

The sixth step is to look at the language and syntax. If you’re examining a poem, you would look at the rhyme scheme and the rhythm and how that affects the feel of the piece. You can also do that when you’re looking at a book. Does the author use long sentences or short sentences? Why? How do they vary their tempo? What synonyms and metaphors do they use? How does that contribute to the theme of the piece and the big ideas of the piece? Is there a secondary theme that wasn’t obvious at first but now becomes more apparent?

This last step is my favorite because it allows you to discover techniques that you can use to make your own writing more powerful.

When I am reading a book, I might come across a passage that strikes me. This has probably happened to you too where you say, “Wow, this is a beautifully written passage!” Now you can use close reading to break down what makes that passage so powerful.

Is the author varying their sentences? What similes do they use? What metaphors? Or maybe other types of figurative language? Look for techniques that you can use for your own writing.

Want to see close reading in action? 

Check out the YouTube video where I examine the first verse from the first stanza of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven (and discover a writing technique that will take your writing to the next level).

I hope you enjoy the video! It would be awesome if you could give it a thumbs up and leave a comment. How will you use close reading?

Also make sure to subscribe to my channel if you haven’t already. I really appreciate your support and hope the video inspires you with your writing. Thanks for watching! 

**RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO**:

📚 Christopher Lee (The Raven): https://youtu.be/BefliMlEzZ8

📚 How to Vividly Describe Emotions (Video): https://youtu.be/-UG8StLBiek

📚 My email newsletter, The Inkwell: https://nicolebianchi.com/newsletter/

📚 Bonus Resource: Article from Harvard College on Close Reading: https://writingcenter.fas.harvard.edu/pages/how-do-close-reading

Filed Under: creativity, featured, inspiration, video, writing

How to Start A Story: “The Ordinary World” Technique (Video)

Published July 10, 2021 | Last Updated September 12, 2021 By Nicole Bianchi Leave a Comment

I’m excited to share a new video with you today! 

How can you write a compelling opening that captivates readers? In this video, I dive into how to hook readers with the concept of “The Ordinary World” from Joseph Campbell’s story structure “The Hero’s Journey”. Discover five ingredients for powerful openings whether you’re writing a fiction or nonfiction book, a screenplay, or a short story.

I hope you enjoy the video! It would be awesome if you could give it a thumbs up and leave a comment. Do you have any other story opening tips to add to my list?

Also make sure to subscribe to my channel if you haven’t already!

I’ve just started making YouTube videos and really appreciate your support. I hope the video inspires you with your writing. Thanks for watching! 

**RECOMMENDED RESOURCES**:

  • 📚 The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler: https://amzn.to/3jY8LLH
  • 📚 My video on The Hero’s Journey: https://youtu.be/yYSTz1H6buc
  • 📚 My email newsletter: https://nicolebianchi.com/newsletter/

Some of the above links might be affiliate links. Thank you for helping to support the blog!

Filed Under: creativity, featured, fiction, inspiration, video, writing

How to Turn an Idea into a Story (Video)

Published March 11, 2021 | Last Updated September 12, 2021 By Nicole Bianchi Leave a Comment

I’m excited to share a new video with you today!

As you may know, this past year I wrote a novel. I wanted to make a series of videos sharing the storytelling tips that helped me write the novel from beginning to end and not get overwhelmed by the process. I thought you might find them helpful as well.

In this first video, I go back to the very beginning and look at the four elements you need to turn an idea into a story.

I hope you enjoy the video! It would be awesome if you could give it a thumbs up and leave a comment because this encourages YouTube to show the video to more writers on the platform. Also make sure to subscribe if you haven’t already!

I’ve just started making YouTube videos and really appreciate your support. I hope the video inspires you with your writing. Thanks for watching! 

—

In his book Creating Short Fiction, award winning sci-fi writer Damon Knight observes, 

“Even when you begin with an abstract idea, you must follow it to a character, a setting, a situation, and an emotion before there can be a story.” 

This fantastic quote gives us the four different categories that story ideas can fall into. Once you have all four of those categories, you have a solid foundation to begin telling a gripping story.

Do you have a story idea in your head right now? Let’s break it down and see which of the categories it fits into: character, setting, situation, or emotion.

First, for example, you might have an idea for a character. You’ve written down this character’s backstory. You know their family tree. You know their personality. Maybe you’ve even drawn a picture of them or found a photo on Google. Or maybe you’ve used one of the character development exercises in my article here.

But you don’t have a story yet. You just know this character really well, and you think that it would be a character that your readers would care about.

Second, you might have an idea for a setting. Maybe you are like J.R.R Tolkien, and you’ve come up with this really detailed fantasy world with different peoples and creatures and even languages. Maybe you have a Pinterest board of your story’s aesthetic. But that’s also not a story yet, even though it might be a captivating setting that readers would love to become immersed in.

Third, you might have an idea for a situation. This would be where you might think, “Oh, I’d like to write a story about somebody who finds a million dollars.” It’s an intriguing premise, but you still need to have a character and a setting. Your story would be very different if it was sci-fi, for example, versus historical fiction. (My short story “The Lost Diamond” was first inspired by an idea for a situation: “What would happen if someone lost a diamond ring?”)

Fourth, you could have an idea that is an emotion. Maybe you say, “I really want to write a story where the character feels revenge. I want to explore that emotion in my story.” The Count of Monte Cristo, for example, is a book all about a character seeking vengeance. Or maybe you want to explore jealousy or love. You say to yourself, “I really just want to write a love story.” You have a scene in your head of a character experiencing that emotion, but you don’t know who the protagonist is or the villain or the setting or the situation.

Essentially, when you only have one of these four elements, it’s like having one puzzle piece, but you can’t complete the puzzle until you have all four. Once you have all four, you can develop your idea into a fully fleshed out story.

So let’s see this in action. 

Let’s say, for example, you came up with an idea that you wanted to write a story that was about an emotion. And the emotion is that the character is going to discover that their entire life is a lie. You want explore how this emotion changes them and their life, what they experience in their soul, and how they react. Of course, your story can take lots of different directions depending on what setting you choose, who you choose as your character, and what situation you choose. 

It could end up being a drama if your character is a woman and finds out, for example, that her husband’s been cheating on her. She thought she had a wonderful life and now she sees it was actually a lie. But maybe you don’t want to write a drama.

You decide that you want to write a futuristic, dystopian story. You develop a sci-fi setting and have fun creating that world. Then you decide for your character you want to choose a computer hacker. For your situation, you write that your character finds out that he is living in a computer simulation. But whoops! You’ve just written the basic plot of The Matrix. You’ll have to tweak each element to make sure its unique and not just copying that story.

So you can see that this exercise is also helpful at showing you whether you’re just copying the plot of a popular book or movie. You’ll be able to go back and spend time on each of the four categories to make them unique for your story. 

The exercise also helps you to see if you need to develop your character more or your setting. Or maybe you need to write a more compelling problem for your character to face in the situation.

Of course, there’s a lot more that goes into actually developing this idea further so you can turn it into a fleshed-out story, but this is the first step: to put all of these four different elements together.

At this point, it’s really helpful if you choose the genre of your story too. What kind of a story are you’re going to be writing: murder mystery, romance, fantasy? Think about the stories in those genres and what elements they usually include. For example, in a murder mystery, your detective might have a companion, like Sherlock Holmes’ Watson.

You can also decide whether you’re writing a short story or a novel. This will help you determine how long your story should be. A fantasy epic is going to be much longer than a middle grade novel.

But, of course, you don’t need to spend too much time thinking about all that just yet. You might decide to write a short story now, and it later turns into a novel.

What you really want to focus on first is making sure you have a character, a setting, a situation, and an emotion. 

Once you have all those, you’re ready to begin plotting. Then you can check out my video on ‘The Hero’s Journey’, a super-easy way to begin plotting a story.

Filed Under: creativity, featured, fiction, inspiration, motivation, video, writing

The Ladder of Abstraction: Make Your Writing Memorable (Video)

Published February 26, 2021 | Last Updated May 26, 2021 By Nicole Bianchi 3 Comments

I’m excited to share a new video with you today! It’s all about a fascinating writing concept that I discovered while reading Jack Hart’s book Storycraft. It will help you make your fiction and nonfiction writing more memorable and meaningful to your readers.

I hope you enjoy the video! It would be awesome if you could give it a thumbs up and leave a comment because this tells YouTube to show the video to more writers on the platform. Also make sure to subscribe if you haven’t already!

[Read more…]

Filed Under: creativity, editing, featured, fiction, inspiration, video, writing

A Powerful Productivity Tip To Help You Reach Your Writing Goals (Video)

Published January 31, 2021 | Last Updated January 31, 2021 By Nicole Bianchi Leave a Comment

I’m excited to share a new video with you today! It’s a productivity tip that I’ve found invaluable for reaching my personal writing goals.

This tip works best for writing projects or goals that don’t have a deadline attached (for example, creating a daily writing habit) or for projects where you can set your own deadlines. However, you can apply some of the strategies I mention in the video to other projects as well to make them easier to tackle.

I hope you find the tip helpful! I’d love to hear from you in the comments.

If you enjoy the video, it would be awesome if you could give it a thumbs up and leave a comment. And make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel if you’d like to see more videos like this one. Thanks for watching!

Filed Under: featured, motivation, productivity, video, writing

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Hi, I’m Nicole! I help creatives, business owners, and writers take their writing and copywriting to the next level and grow their online audience. I’m also a published writer of essays and short stories. As a Christian, I seek to follow in the tradition of artists like Johann Sebastian Bach, dedicating all my work Soli Deo gloria.
Find out more about me here.
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“My heart is stirred by a noble theme as I recite my verses for the king; my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer.”
– Psalm 45:1

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