Have you ever seen one of those Japanese Zen paintings? You know the ones I mean- there are three heavy black ink lines and somehow from those three lines the artist has captured a ship with ten guys lugging bales of silk down a gangplank while the sail fills with a warm wind and a beautiful woman with her child stand by and watch. They've captured on the paper the very essence of what the image is.

Writing is similar- we don't want to know the footpath is made from concrete- this is what we know with our day-to-day mind. We want to know what the very essence of the concrete footpath is, a stained and dirty strip of gray scattered with the remains of the night and lonely as the beggars cup. This is actually the street outside my flat at present.

The reader wants to feel the writers pen slip below the surface of the subject and into the meaning of the subject.

How do we do this best? Well, I find the easiest way to make the page sing to the reader is metaphor and analogy- give your reader something to make a comparison to. If someone looks lonely don't say, "Bob looked lonely," give the reader something more, tell them, "Bob looked like a man spinning plates for an empty and dark auditorium," give them the feeling of how lonely Bob looked.

Imagine your reader has no concept of what you're talking about and in your words you have to capture that essence, delve into the truth of the feeling- for this is treating your readers with great respect and love.

The blank page can be terrifying when we try to write a sensory experience- we fear we won't do honor to the emotion or the sensation- ignore that, fear will engage all the wrong parts of your brain and you'll find yourself blocked. Just write and let the page fill with your experience. Don't worry if you feel silly with the way you describe it, don't feel afraid of telling the page how you felt something in your heart and the things you compare it to, don't be concerned about the cleverness of your comparisons- a mouth can gape like a shadows black heart, a tree can rest strangling a boulder, a bird can sing like a fire fed full.

We've all got a perception of reality and writing is about sharing that perception- you'll be surprised how readers will relate- be bold, be daring and see beyond the surface into the very essence of the matter.

Learn more about this author, BT Cassidy.
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