Advice on Being Specific: Susan Goldsmith Woolridge

 

 

Would you like to write something that reaches a reader directly? Try Goldsmith's exercise. Remember to go alone and not to forget your pen or pencil and notebook.

"Walk somewhere alone. Listen. Write about what's around you, using all of your senses. It's important to narrow everything down, make it as specific as you can, down to the tip of a blade of grass, or you'll leave the reader out. For emotion to arise, writing has to be very specific—describing a particular moment or experience in a particular place." —Susan Goldsmith Woolridge, Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words

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