Demure Genre

This poem depicts the state of mind of the poet who's living the days she never thought she would. She's acquiring traits she hadn't thought of but does it seem awful or reveal her inner personality?

With each passing day I’m acquiring such trait,

Of gardening and living a life of mermaid.



When the people go out for a classy dine,

I stay in and bake brownies sprinkled with shine.



Oh! To be soft and feminine and gentle

Was never so nostalgic until this November.



The life of land and horses and farm,

Now makes my heart cheerful and warm.



Interiors, decor, crockery and vintage hall,

Sounds more interesting than a shopping mall.



The Victorian lifestyle fascinates me more,

Than the actual nine-to-five job.



But the idea of opening a little coffee shop, with a touch of vintage along with a bakery and a floral shop.

Will forever top my list no matter what’s the scope.



Oh! to live in the pages of literature,

Or to fly and build my castle,

Just like the Greek's- Athena and Odysseus.

Author's Note

Sometimes we reach a place where we feel like we're already in the middle of something we didn't realised when we started. Sometimes even the strange journeys lead to the destination where our heart finds peace and our soul finds home.

Reviews

[JayG]

Forgive me for being blunt, but there are problems getting in your way that are invisible to the author. And given that we’ll not address the problem we don’t see as being one, I thought you might want to know.

Basically, because you're still using the report-writing skills you learned in school, and have yet to dig into the skills developed for fiction and poetry over the years, you’re making all the expected new writer mistakes. It’s fixable, of course, because it’s not a matter of talent or writing skill. But to even begin fixing it you need to know the where’s and the why’s.

First poetry:

In this you’re tossing in rhymes, when convenient, and skipping it when it’s not. But metrical poetry is a LOT more than a few rhymes, and, the rhyming word must be the perfect one for the thought. We must never bend the meaning of the line to the needs of the rhyme. But take the line,

• “I stay in and bake brownies sprinkled with shine.”

Obviously, the word shine supplies the rhyming word, but not meaning. I’ve baked many pans of brownies, and have sprinkled on cinnamon, chocolate chips, and even chili. But shine? That’s a matter of butter and hot water mixing with the sugar.

My point is that any rhyming word must also be the perfect word for the thought being expressed.’’ And if you do rhyme, it needs to be consistent, not here and there, present in some stanzas but not others.

Two suggestions:

1. Jump over and read the excerpt from Stephen Fry’s, The Ode Less Traveled. It’s a wonderful introduction to the needs of metrical poetry.
2. Grab Mary Oliver’s, A Poetry Handbook. It’s a delight, and filled with gems.
https://dokumen.pub/a-poetry-handbook-0156724006.html

In the area of fiction, you’ve fallen into the trap of transcribing yourself as if telling the story to an audience. That cannot be made to work because in all the world only you know how to perform it. Only you know the emotion to place into the narrator’s voice, plus the gestures and visual activity that adds emotional content. And in the end, who wants a secondhand explanation of events in the life of a fictional character?

Think about it. They have been developing and refining the skills of the Fiction Writing profession for centuries. And we learn no professions as part of our school days. In fact, the only writing skill we’re given is the ability to write reports, letters, and other NONFICTION writing that employers need.

Write fiction with report-writing skills and it will read like a report. It has to, because nonfiction informs. But fiction and poetry’s goal is to entertain, which requires a VERY different approach: Emotion, not fact-based. But if you look at your fiction and poetry, it is 100% author-centric and fact-based. Have your computer read it to you and the problem will jump out at you.

For fiction, several options.

Debra Dixon’s, GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict is an excellent introduction to the skills of fiction.
https://dokumen.pub/qdownload/gmc-goal-motivation-and-conflict-9781611943184.html

A better, but more difficult book is Jack Bickham’s, Scene and Structure.
https://archive.org/details/scenestructurejackbickham

I suggest beginning with the first one, using the techniques for six months, to make them automatic, and then, do a “refresh” with the second, to learn as much more that second time.

And for an overview of the traps, gotchas, and misunderstandings, you might check a few of my articles and YouTube videos.

But whatever you do, don’t let this discourage you. Every successful writer faced and overcame the same problems. Why not you?

Jay Greenstein
Articles: https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/
Videos: https://www.youtube.com/@jaygreenstein3334

. . . . . .

“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”
~ E. L. Doctorow

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
~ Mark Twain

“In sum, if you want to improve your chances of publication, keep your story visible on stage and yourself mum.”
~ Sol Stein