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Writing advice for small business

How to Explain Your Ideas Clearly: The Zoom-In-Zoom-Out Technique

by Henneke | 100 enchanting opinions, add yours? :)

Do readers jump up to implement your advice?

Let’s be honest, writing a good explanation is tougher than it seems.

Explanations often turn out to be a tad dry and uninspiring—and when we fail to captivate our readers, we fail to communicate our ideas, too.

So, what can you do to explain with clarity and zing?

The Zoom-In-Zoom-Out technique

You know it from photography, don’t you?

Zoom out, and you display the big picture. Zoom in, and you show details.

Writing works the same.

The best writing combines satellite-style zooming out with telephoto-like zooming in.

When zooming in, you see the mother lion licking her young; you see the bee gathering honey from a clover; you see the withering petals of a tulip. You see one specific situation—one flower, one person, or one animal doing one specific thing.

Satellite photography is the complete opposite. Instead of tiny details, you see patterns. You see the colorful fields with millions of tulips in the Netherlands. You see how the roads and fields are flooded after months of rain. You see sprawling suburbs surrounding the skyscrapers in downtown Houston.

In photography, you have all sorts of lenses and you create pictures with different levels of zoom. But in writing, you alternate mostly between the extremes:

• Captivate readers by using the telephoto lens—tell the story of one person in one specific situation.
• Describe the satellite image to explain the wider picture, the trends, the lessons, the statistics.
• As much as possible, skip the half-zoomed scenes.

The Zoom-In-Zoom-Out technique helps you explain anything to anyone; it helps you captivate readers, even with the most boring topics.

Shall I show you?

How the masters of explanation use this technique

Chip and Dan Heath apply the Zoom-In-Zoom-Out technique in all their books to educate business readers.

Below follows an example from their book The Power of Moments . The story shows how important praise is, and it starts when a student, called Sloop, has been told to mouth words because her voice doesn’t blend with the rest of the choir. Then another teacher asks her to stay after practice:

Sloop was hesitant at first but eventually lowered her guard. She said, “We sang scale after scale, song after song, harmonizing and improving, until we were hoarse.” Then the teacher took Sloop’s face in her hands and looked her in the eyes and said: “You have a distinctive, expressive, and beautiful voice. You could have been the love child of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez.” As she left the room that day, she felt as if she’d shed a ton of weight. “I was on top of the world,” she said. Then she went to the library to find out who Joan Baez was.

Sensory details —the singing of scale after scale and becoming hoarse; and how the teacher took her face in her hands—make this scene come alive. I can sense the impact the praise had on Sloop, and I imagine her walking to the library with a spring in her step.

Once the story has demonstrated the impact of praise, the authors zoom out to share the big picture:

The importance of recognition to employees is inarguable. But here’s the problem: While recognition is a universal expectation, it’s not a universal practice. (…) “More than 80 per cent of supervisors claim they frequently express appreciation to their subordinates, while less than 20 per cent of the employees report that their supervisors express appreciation more than occasionally.” Call it the recognition gap.

Zoomed-out statements—facts, figures, trends and big pictures—only become powerful when the zoomed-in stories give them meaning.

Facts give stories substance. Stories give facts meaning. Substance and meaning are two of the most powerful factors in any explanation. ~ Lee LeFever (From: The Art of Explanation)

Another example of the Zoom-In-Zoom-Out technique

The Year of Magical Thinking is a memoir by Joan Didion, in which she describes her journey of grieving for her husband.

But she doesn’t tell only her own story, she also comments on theories around loss and grieving. For instance:

From Bereavement: Reactions, Consequences, and Care, compiled in 1984 by the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine, I learned for example that the most frequent immediate responses to death were shock, numbness, and a sense of disbelief: “Subjectively, survivors may feel like they are wrapped in a cocoon or blanket; to others, they may look as though they are holding up well. Because the reality of death has not yet penetrated awareness, survivors can appear to be quite accepting of the loss.”

The statement above about bereavement is abstract, and Didion paints a clear picture with the details of her own grieving process:

I could not give away the rest of his shoes. I stood there for a moment, then realized why: he would need shoes if he was to return.

Feel that, too?

It’s the personal story that connects and adds meaning to dry advice and bare facts.

A powerful mix of authority and authenticity

The stories you share can be about yourself, but also about clients or friends, or they can be stories you’ve heard or read.

For instance, in a blog post about finding your passion , Mark Manson explains his general view:

Today, I received approximately the 11,504th email this year from a person telling me that they don’t know what to do with their life. (…) The common complaint among a lot of these people is that they need to “find their passion.” I call bullshit. You already found your passion, you’re just ignoring it. Seriously, you’re awake 16 hours a day, what the fuck do you do with your time?

To be honest, as I was reading that, I didn’t quite get it. What does Manson really mean? Why would people ignore their passion?

But then he zooms into a miniature story about a friend, and I understand:

I have a friend who, for the last three years, has been trying to build an online business selling whatever. It hasn’t been working. And by not working, I mean he’s not even launching anything. Despite years of “work” and saying he’s going to do this or that, nothing actually ever gets done. What does get done is when one of his former co-workers comes to him with a design job to create a logo or design some promotional material for an event. Holy shit, he’s all over that like flies on fresh cow shit. And he does a great job! He stays up to 4:00 AM losing himself working on it and loving every second of it. But then two days later it’s back to, “Man, I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” I meet so many people like him. He doesn’t need to find his passion. His passion already found him. He’s just ignoring it. He just refuses to believe it’s viable. He is just afraid of giving it an honest-to-god try.

The story about Manson’s friend is vivid and emotional, and it adds authenticity and meaning to the general advice that you don’t need to find your passion.

So, whenever you want to share a lesson or explain a trend, share a specific story and use vivid details to captivate and inspire readers.

How to explain better

You can use this Zoom-In-Zoom-Out technique for any type of writing:

• In a case study, explain the key benefits of your service by relating how it worked for one specific client.
• In a blog post, teach a lesson by giving a specific example.
• In journalism, weave sociological trends with the stories of how it affects specific families.
• In a memoir, tell your personal story and relate it to a bigger lesson.
• In a historical novel, tell the story of your protagonist to open a doorway to a historical era.

The foundation of explanatory writing is simple: Zoom in. Zoom out.

PS Thank you to Amy Peacock for inspiring this blog post.

Recommended course:

Stories in miniature, learn how to captivate your audience with stories in blog posts, books, social media, web pages, and emails.

“The biggest gift from taking Henneke’s class is finding my voice to tell stories throughout my book. I am not so worried about what people will think anymore. I can choose to be more vulnerable, and I feel so much more confident in my business writing.” ~ Irene Yam

I very much appreciate the personalised support Henneke gives in this course. I never felt left alone, and the companion emails motivated me to keep going. I also love Henrietta’s drawings, they help me remember concepts easily and I think they really spice up the course.” ~ Laura

“Even if you know something (“Show, don’t tell”, for example), Henneke’s way to teach helps you understand better what you already know.” ~ Maurizio

I feel more confident in my story skills. With more practice I now believe that I can become one of those people that can tell an engaging story. Henneke always exceeds my expectations.” ~ Susan

Learn more >>

Further reading on good explanations:

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Reader Interactions

Leave a comment and join the conversation cancel reply.

April 23, 2024 at 5:46 pm

Hi Henneke! Thanks for sharing this important knowledge with us. I’v always felt at home with the technique you brought to our attention. It has further reinforced the need to continue to use it.

April 23, 2024 at 6:02 pm

Great that you feel at home with this technique already, Michael. And thank you for stopping by. Happy writing!

April 23, 2024 at 5:11 pm

This post is so timely. Perfect.Perfect.Perfect. I’m in the middle of a writing a series of blog posts (actually the foundation for a book). It came out an invitation to write a post for an organization I belong to. It expanded to over twice the word limit in no time… Now as I am organizing it to be shorter pieces, I see how zooming in & zooming out would be vital for improving the quality & effectiveness of the info. Thank You again for your brilliance in bringing these valuable tidbits to all of us in your posts.

April 23, 2024 at 5:34 pm

Thank you, Bamboo. Your comment makes my day. There’s no bigger compliment to me than someone suggesting they’re going to use my tips to improve their writing. It sounds like you’re creating something special!

April 23, 2024 at 3:05 pm

Like a fine wine, your advice gets better and better, Henneke.

Your examples make the Zoom-in / Zoom-out technique memorable. I can’t wait to try them out on my own writing.

April 23, 2024 at 4:41 pm

Thank you, Bill. That’s a lovely compliment. I like a fine wine 🙂

April 23, 2024 at 1:22 pm

Wonderful examples. I’ll be reading this one a few more times!

April 23, 2024 at 1:34 pm

Thank you, Christy. I love these examples, too.

April 23, 2024 at 12:00 pm

Thank you, Henneke. I really found this post inspiring. I would really like to join your courses. Please keep me posted.

April 23, 2024 at 12:05 pm

Thank you, Jasmine. My courses are open for enrollment all year so you can jump in anytime!

April 23, 2024 at 11:58 am

Brilliant: perfect examples. Sadly, most people will not take the time to understand how to apply your know how to their writing. Thank you for sharing.

April 23, 2024 at 12:04 pm

Well, I’m writing for the people who do take the time to implement my tips. I think there are enough of them 🙂

April 23, 2024 at 11:35 am

Love this play between zoom-in and zoom out for writing! Thanks for sharing, Henneke 🙂

April 23, 2024 at 11:40 am

Thank you, Sampada. I find it such a useful way to think about writing and storytelling.

June 20, 2023 at 11:04 pm

Once again, your enchanting words create inspiration. Henneke, Thank you,

June 21, 2023 at 9:17 am

I’m glad you enjoyed this, Helene. Happy storytelling!

May 26, 2023 at 3:27 pm

Just a quick thank you for all your outstanding teaching. You are such a talent! Trying to find the time to take one of your courses.

May 26, 2023 at 5:06 pm

Thank you for your lovely compliment, Pamela. 🙂

January 4, 2023 at 12:39 am

would I be able to do two zoom-ins in one essay like have my first primary source be the intro-zoom? but then zoom in on another primary later on in the essay

January 4, 2023 at 9:50 am

Yes, you can zoom in more often.

March 14, 2024 at 1:42 pm

Well 😅🔥 will work on it

March 14, 2024 at 1:50 pm

Hope you’ll have fun with this!

August 11, 2022 at 7:15 pm

Exhilarating. The way you have stressed metaphor to zoom in and out and the points below “You can use this technique for any type of writing:” is very engaging.

Kudos for those ideas.

August 11, 2022 at 9:20 pm

Thank you, Indranil. Happy writing!

January 11, 2021 at 12:21 pm

Great advice! I can’t wait to use it. I’m like the thousands of other writers who like Henneke’s articles.

January 11, 2021 at 2:07 pm

Thank you, Wally. This is one of my favorite posts 🙂

December 8, 2020 at 3:49 pm

First off, great explanation of the technique. I’m trying to practice my writing and was wondering if you have any additional examples for the zoom in and out technique, other than the ones given in the article? Thank you!

December 8, 2020 at 6:26 pm

You’ll find many more examples in any of the books by Chip and Dan Heath, or check out good-quality long-form journalism, and see where they share stats or trends, and when they share stories about specific people in specific situations.

November 5, 2020 at 7:49 pm

BEST explanation of this technique!

November 6, 2020 at 10:59 am

Thank you, Jan. Happy writing!

June 7, 2020 at 3:15 pm

Wow! This technique just blew my mind. It is simple as it sounds, but so powerful to improve my writing skill. Thanks for sharing!!!!!

June 7, 2020 at 4:31 pm

I’m glad you enjoyed it, Nhan. Happy writing!

July 18, 2019 at 5:59 pm

It finally makes sense. Zoom in and zoom out. For sure personal experience helps with writing because it’s emotional.Thanks am ready to try it

July 19, 2019 at 10:45 am

I’m glad this post makes sense 🙂 Happy writing, Lubosi, and thank you for stopping by. .

April 2, 2019 at 4:09 pm

Your tips are on point, simple and relevant.

I’m been struggling with extracting the ideas from my head and put them in writing. They are like bees,buzzing in and out,but poorly materialize into actual words on paper.

Any words of advice?

Your articles are great. Thanks for sharing!

April 2, 2019 at 4:50 pm

It’s very common that ideas are buzzing around our minds, but somehow when we try to commit them to paper, it’s not working. It takes time to untangle our thoughts. You may find this blog post useful: https://www.enchantingmarketing.com/writing-strategies/

October 9, 2018 at 12:15 pm

This is a good technique. Very helpful.

October 9, 2018 at 12:16 pm

Happy zooming in and out! 😉

September 7, 2018 at 10:45 am

Hello, The world of better writing sketched by you is a vast one to travel to a beginner like me. But the world is enticing and enchanting and inspires one to traverse.

September 7, 2018 at 4:27 pm

Thank you for your compliment. 🙂 Happy writing!

August 25, 2018 at 5:24 am

More insightful ideas to share with my writing group and our followers on facebook. Thank you.

August 26, 2018 at 6:08 pm

Thank you for sharing, Susan. I appreciate it 🙂

August 18, 2018 at 6:15 pm

Thank you again for writing this Henneke. Its a gem! I felt like I was crouched down panning in a cool stream for weeks and finally found a nugget of gold. 🙂

August 18, 2018 at 6:54 pm

What a great metaphor! 🙂

August 9, 2018 at 9:45 pm

All good points for blogs and journalism, and I rate Lee LeFever’s book highly too.

In my niche, technical writing, there’s a need for minimalism and non-emotive content. But you can still use stories – weave them into examples to give the reader more context.

August 10, 2018 at 3:41 pm

I agree – there’s still space for using mini-stories as examples. Even in technical writing, describing specific situations can be useful. As you suggest, minimalism doesn’t need to exclude zooming in, and zooming in doesn’t mean a scene has to be emotional; it can be a specific user case, too.

Thank you for stopping by to add your thoughts, Craig.

August 9, 2018 at 11:53 am

Hi Henneke – Thank you so much for recommending Lee LeFever’s The Art of Explanation. I bought it, spent the last two days reading it and was not disappointed. Lee’s concepts for creating clear explanations are outstanding. Framing the audience or reader on the “explanation scale” before putting pen to paper fixes the need to think about relevant context before hitting the details. Although it deals more with video instruction than writing a book, I recommend this book to anyone writing a how-to book. Wish I had it years ago.

I also bought the Heath brothers’ Power of Moments and I find it complements LeFever’s book in how to express human experiences meaningfully.

Thanks again Henneke for your insight into writers’ needs – from sunny Sydney. But we now need rain.

August 9, 2018 at 9:00 pm

Hi Paul – I’m so glad you enjoyed The Art of Explanation. Like you say, it’s written for making videos, but equally applies to writing. There’s so much similarity between making educational videos and writing (and public speaking, too).

We had some welcome rain yesterday!

August 9, 2018 at 12:44 am

The title of this writing style – Zoom-in/Zoom-out – makes this lesson so much easier to remember. I love your bee graphic. A picture speaks a thousand words, and while your images are inspirational, your words would be just as complete without them!

I love your blog – and thanks for this lesson!

August 9, 2018 at 8:57 pm

Wow, what a lovely compliment. Thank you, Brylee 🙂 Happy writing, and happy zooming! 🙂

August 8, 2018 at 5:41 pm

Thank you, Henneke. Your advice are very useful for blogging and for posting in social network.

I will follow you advice to get my writing better. And… to study how some (bad) Italian politicians can engage readers with their racist messages… 😉

August 8, 2018 at 8:00 pm

I’ve found that there’s a lot to learn from how politicians communicate and connect with people’s emotions—even if they use their communication techniques for purposes we disagree with. But I don’t really enjoy studying their words—I rather read something that pleases me than something that upsets me. 😉

August 8, 2018 at 5:14 pm

Hi Henneke, Love this and so many of your posts! I can’t add anything brilliant but – yes – what they said!! You SO rock this writing thing. Thank you.

August 8, 2018 at 7:57 pm

Thank you for your lovely compliment, Cecelia. You put a smile on my face 🙂

Happy writing!

August 8, 2018 at 3:23 pm

Hello Henneke, It is absolutely an engaging and informative blog to learn the essential elements in terms of style and effectiveness to engage the reader’s attention particular to the circumstances. One thing that I want to know from you is: how to write a good “case study?” REGARDS,

Richard Padgett and Jonathan Tee have both written good blog posts about writing case studies ( here and here ).

August 8, 2018 at 12:51 pm

“Once upon a time I discovered a talented woman from the Netherlands writing and living in the UK. She riveted my attention with logical and engaging writing ideas. She also made it her mantra to reply quickly and personally to my comments. I thought then and there, I wanted to be a part of her community and to adopt her ideas for my new following. “Zoom out with me for ‘the rest of the story’, I double dare you. Thanks, Henneke, you rock.

August 8, 2018 at 7:55 pm

Hey Stephen, how lovely to see your name pop up again.

Thank you for your lovely compliment and for your story … I’m glad the story is still continuing. Right? I’m happy to have you as part of my community. Thank you.

August 8, 2018 at 12:30 pm

Hi, Henneke… I read all your posts I receive, but I do not make any comment, or reply on them. Because I still have fear to write something in English….! I fear about sentence structure, choosing right words etc. I assume, my expression will not be much worthy to anyone, even to you. But I have a deep desire to write blogs. By reading your posts, I feel, I am a bit inspired to write. The above term Zoom in and Zoom out is very interesting, very important for me to use in my writing. I’ll try to start writing now and use this term in it… Thank you for inspiring me as mentor through your posts.

August 8, 2018 at 7:50 pm

Thank you for overcoming your resistance to writing a comment in English. I much appreciate it! 🙂

August 8, 2018 at 11:04 am

If a day someone asks me “How did you learn to write so well and vividly?” ever comes, your name will be the first to roll off my tongue. 🙂 

August 8, 2018 at 6:36 pm

Thank you so much, Maya. I appreciate your generous compliment 🙂

August 8, 2018 at 10:06 am

Awesome. This is so well explained. Thank you Henneke.

I have a desire to start writing and is learning up the techniques. Have to start writing as practice makes perfect.

Thank you, Christina, for your lovely compliment. Be careful that you don’t aim for perfection, and enjoy your writing!

August 8, 2018 at 8:29 am

Dear Henneke, I visit your blog only now and then, but follow you on Twitter regularly. Coming here (and reading the comments in addition to the article) is like stopping at a warm, friendly coffee house where all is safe and where reigns kindness and good will. Thank you for instilling this ambiance. Enjoy the rest of the Summer up in the lovely North of England.

August 8, 2018 at 6:35 pm

What a lovely compliment, Doris. Thank you. It’s exactly how I’d like my blog to be, and I appreciate everyone stopping by to ask questions, share their opinions, and provide encouragement. I’m enjoying the good company here!

August 7, 2018 at 11:24 pm

I can understand how the woman mentioned in your email left a bit confused. Even in your post here the examples are a bit opaque.

Your examples are clear, but don’t give a direct relation to each other. Even the bereavement examples don’t show a continuance of the story between the two paragraphs — as in, the second paragraph obviously didn’t come immediately after the first. There is more in between that apparently is a transition between the zooming.

I’m probably just a knuckle-headed noob. You said that the in-between transitions should be left out, but reading the bereavement paragraphs one after the other it’s obvious that more of the story has been edited out.

Please enlighten those of us that are still wandering in the dark.

August 8, 2018 at 6:33 pm

Hi Randy —

I’m sorry if my guidance and explanations weren’t clear enough. It’s always the fault of the teacher!

You do need transitions to move from the one to the other so the relations between paragraphs are are clear. But you want to avoid the half-zoomed scenes as much as possible. Most writers don’t zoom in enough, so the writing feels too abstract. It lacks vividness.

The examples are quoted are snippets from the books, that I felt best demonstrated the zoomed in and zoomed out paragraphs, but they’re text in between. It’s tricky to start quoting whole pages of books in short blog posts. I would highly recommend reading the book “The Power of Moments” as it’s one of the best examples for the zoom in zoom out technique I’ve come across. When you read it pay attention to the vivid stories Chip and Dan Heath share. You can also see how they then move on to explain the big picture—the trends, the research and the lessons they suggest.

Also, for people who read your comment and haven’t seen the email … The writer I mentioned was confused after attending a paid writing workshop (which was not by me). My explanation helped her apply the zoom in zoom out technique — and this post expanded from my explanation to her.

August 7, 2018 at 8:09 pm

Excellent advice Henneke.

August 7, 2018 at 8:35 pm

Thank you, David

August 7, 2018 at 5:39 pm

This is centainly the best piece of advice one may need to improve writing. Thank you so much. I share Shirley Pordominsky’s suggestion. You should publish books with your terrific ideas. Wish you the best.

August 7, 2018 at 7:21 pm

Thank you, Tarcisio. I appreciate your vote for Shirley’s suggestion to publish a collection of my blog posts as books. I’ll look into it soon. 🙂

August 7, 2018 at 3:59 pm

Thank you for sharing this. Here is what I gleaned from this post in my own words:

My readers definitely want to know if the ideas that I’m sharing have impacted me personally. They want to know whether I have gone through similar experiences or similar situations as theirs. They want to know how I got myself out. They want working solutions not just abstract ideas. They want to know I’m human. By relating my experience and offering solutions intermittently within my story I will be able to capture their attention and win their hearts and probably make a sale.

August 7, 2018 at 7:19 pm

Yep, that’s a good summary. It may not always possible to share a personal experience, so it’s also okay to share a story about a client or a story you’ve read somewhere—as long as sometimes you do share a personal experience.

Happy writing, Martin. Thank you for your comment. 🙂

August 7, 2018 at 3:19 pm

Thank you so much! Within seconds of digesting this zoom in-zoom out approach, I was able to write an opening line to ‘sell’ a new family centered event. Five minutes later, I had a jingle-like poem to set the mood for the activity. I focused in on the action steps a single kid would complete while participating and presto! things just fell into place. Taking the why it’s important, educational stuff out of the picture–at first–was the solution. Thank you, Henneke!

August 7, 2018 at 7:17 pm

Wow, that makes me happy, Jeannette. Isn’t it lovely when things just fall into place?

Thank you so much for sharing 🙂

August 7, 2018 at 2:24 pm

Hi Henneke, its time for you to sell the collection of your articles, by theme or the kind of writing advise. you decide. Volume One and Two are already ready – and at the end of each year one more book. I can see translations in many languages. I’m always learning from you. Thank you

August 7, 2018 at 7:16 pm

Good idea! Someone mentioned that same idea a few years ago, but I couldn’t get my head around it at that time. Maybe now the time is right as it’s easier to collect a series of blog posts around different themes. I’ll look into it.

Thank you, Shirley.

August 26, 2018 at 7:44 pm

I also vote with my hands and feet for such collections. I’ve already opened my wallet to buy several such books 🙂

This technique is priceless! As it turned out, I intuitively used the Zoom-In-Zoom-Out in my articles.

August 28, 2018 at 7:22 pm

Thank you for another vote, Michael! I need to get some other stuff of my plate first, and then I’ll look into getting this organized 🙂

August 7, 2018 at 2:09 pm

Excellent use of examples to illustrate the zoom in zoom out concept. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Dave

August 7, 2018 at 7:15 pm

Thank you, David. I’m glad you like the examples, too.

This technique is amazing and your explanation and examples are clear and eloquent. Your blog is a treasure trove. Zoom in. Zoom out. 🙂 Thank you!

August 7, 2018 at 7:14 pm

I love it when I find good examples to illustrate the point I want to make in a blog post. The quality of the examples can make or break a blog post.

Thank you for your comment, Nata. Happy writing!

August 7, 2018 at 1:54 pm

Thank you for your posts Henneke, I am now an avid follower. The thing about your writings is that it gears one to make a conscious effort to make writing beautiful, not to leave it to chance or to experiments upon experiments.

The things we know, sit at the back of our minds, but you bring them to fore and guide us in using those tools effectively. Thank you.

August 7, 2018 at 7:12 pm

Thank you for your lovely comment, Boladale. I appreciate it. Happy writing!

August 7, 2018 at 1:31 pm

So very helpful – thank you!

August 7, 2018 at 7:11 pm

My pleasure, Lisa. Happy writing!

August 7, 2018 at 1:13 pm

?? Zoom in, zoom out is such a masterful metaphor for this, Henneke! Once I’d read the article, I realised it encapsulates everything from your post in a single, memorable phrase. That alone is such a great technique because as a reader I can remember and apply your advice so easily.

I love the intimate zoomed-in moments in people’s writing. But sometimes I get to the end of a post and realise I’ve been engaged all the way through, but haven’t got the overall idea of what they were wanting to say/teach.

That’s where the Zoom-Out is so essential. And now i have the words to describe it when I see it/ use it or miss it.

Thank you. I’ll definitely be applying this tip to my writing in future.

I love the intimate zoomed-in moments, too. They make writing worth reading, even if I know “the lesson” already. This is especially true for me when people share personal experiences because those are the stories only they can tell.

Thank you for your lovely comment, Alison 🙂

August 8, 2018 at 10:55 am

“They make writing worth reading, even if I know “the lesson” already. This is especially true for me when people share personal experiences”

Yes, I agree. Even when I know ‘the lesson’ those personal stories are such a source of connection and also help me deepen my insights.

August 7, 2018 at 1:10 pm

Good catchphrase, Henneke! You are like a fly 😉

(with those multi-faceted eyes that look at the same things in 100 different ways)

August 7, 2018 at 1:16 pm

I could not agree more, Kitty!

I love the way Henneke draws in knowledge and information from all over the place, extracts writing and life wisdom from it and shares with us ?

August 7, 2018 at 7:05 pm

Now, there’s another idea for a blog post! ??

August 7, 2018 at 8:39 pm

Darn. And you’ll draw those eyes, too. I have to start keeping my metaphors to mahself! ?

August 7, 2018 at 9:10 pm

Go for it! I’d love to read your post about the fly’s eyes. I’ve just been reading about them. So fascinating … they have an almost 360-degree view but they can’t focus on an image.

August 7, 2018 at 12:28 pm

I had just published the first version of a blog post on “Love till the end of my life”. The title was personal, but there was not much more where I zoomed in.

In fact, I’m quite a zoomed-out writer, who sees and paints the big picture. Because it is through abstractions that I personally can understand life, the world, and everything.

About an hour later, this blogpost landed in my inbox. It was a revelation. I recognized how true and important it is what Henneke writes here. But it had never been explained to me this clearly.

I went back to my blogpost and started it with a zoomed-in scene.

Our texts are often good in content, but fail to engage to the max. We need reminders as engaging as Hennekes to improve our writing.

August 7, 2018 at 7:04 pm

Thank you so much for sharing your story, Ton. It makes me happy when people can instantly implement my advice.

In my experience, most writers are good at zooming out, but forget to zoom in. That zoomed-in scene can make a big difference 🙂

August 7, 2018 at 12:00 pm

This is good technique…

Drawing in the readers and then spilling the beans – to help them understand is a solid idea.

Zoom in..zoom out – my new catchphrase for this week.

Thank you. Stay Awesome.

August 7, 2018 at 7:02 pm

That’s it. Zoom in. Zoom out.

Happy zooming, Rohan! 🙂

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Plain Writing

Zoom in, zoom out

An exercise in changing our perspective.

Advice is great, but advice on its own won’t make you a better writer. We become better writers by writing and it’s always easier to write when we’re inspired. To that end, a creative prompt using an ordinary item.

Changing our perspective is one technique that can be helpful in our writing, creativity, and even our overall life.

Stuck in a rut? Zoom in.

Caught up in the minutiae? Zoom out.

Let’s practice.

We’ll start with a zoomed-out view

What do you see when you look at this picture? Take a few minutes to explain the scene, create a little commentary in your mind.

Don’t move on until you’ve come up with your perspective. When you’re ready, scroll down…

Now, let’s zoom in to a specific part of the scene

What do you see when you look from this perspective? Take a few minutes to explain the scene, create a little commentary in your mind.

Did you notice the boy before? How does he change now that he’s the only face in the picture? What other details are you noticing? How does the scene or the story change?

Let’s zoom in even farther to a specific part of the scene

Now that this is the only part of the image you see, what has changed. What do you see now that you didn’t see before?

Did you notice the way he’s holding his hands?

What about the coffee cup?

The single blue block?

The flowering pillow behind him?

The pocket on his shirt?

What new story can you tell?

Now, let’s zoom back out to a different part of the picture

Did you remember there was a guitar in the room? What changes about the guitar now that there are no people in the scene? What story can you tell?

Let’s go crazy and zoom in even farther to a very specific detail

There’s a single sticker on the guitar case. It appears to be an upright bass or cello. If this was the only part of the picture you could see, what story would you tell? What else do you know about the case from this hyper zoomed-in perspective?

Let’s do one more ultra zoom in on one other detail

A single train car was on the table the whole time. Did you notice that? It’s the only train for the entire track. But it’s slightly off the track and perhaps about to fall off the table. How does this change your perspective? What story can you tell now?

Lastly, let’s zoom back out to the original perspective.

What’s changed in your mind? Does the scene feel any different? Are there other things you notice? Go back and look at your original story - would you change anything about it?

Changing our perspective can be a very helpful tool to bring us new inspiration, break us out of ruts, and shake up the ordinary.

What did you think? How did you like this exercise? Share your thoughts and stories by clicking the “Leave a comment,” button below.

P.S. Special thanks to HiveBoxx for the photo (did you notice their boxes during the exercise?)

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5 ways to teach the link between grammar and imagination for better creative writing

PhD Student, School of Education, Curtin University

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Brett Healey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Curtin University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

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Fiction authors are pretty good at writing sentences with striking images, worded just the right way.

We might suppose the images are striking because the author has a striking imagination. But the words seem just right because the author also has a large repertoire of grammar.

Read more: Writing needs to be taught and practised. Australian schools are dropping the focus too early

As writing teachers, we often neglect one of these skills in favour of the other. If we inspire students to write creatively at length but don’t teach them how to use the necessary grammatical structures , they struggle to phrase their ideas well. If we teach students about grammar in isolation, they tend not to apply it to their stories .

But research shows it’s possible to teach grammar as a way to strengthen students’ writing.

My research with year 5 students examined one method of teaching grammar for writing. We can teach students how to imagine the scene they are creating, and then teach them which grammatical features help turn their imagination into text .

Read more: 4 ways to teach you're (sic) kids about grammar so they actually care

I found five effective ways to teach the link between imagination and grammar.

1. Set up the imaginative tripod

Most of the stories students brought to me lacked a clear sense of perspective. I taught students to imagine their scene like a film director – they had to decide exactly where their camera tripod should be set up to film their scene. Placing it above, close, far away from or beside the character creates different images and effects.

Then I showed them how careful use of adverbs, verbs and prepositions creates this perspective in writing.

This is done in Philip Pullman’s novel, Northern Lights , to place you right beside the character in the room.

“The only light in here came from the fireplace”

Read more: Why does grammar matter?

2. Zoom in on the details

Young writers often need help adding detail to their stories. A film director might zoom right in on a character’s hand pulling the trigger on a gun to intensify the action of shooting. A writer does the same. I taught students to imagine significant details up close, which helped them select specific nouns to place in the subject position of the sentence.

In Aquila , by Andrew Norriss, specific nouns of body parts are the actors in the sentence.

“As his feet searched for a foothold, his fingers gripped the grass.”

3. Track the movement

It is common for students to write about movement in rather static terms, such as “she ran home”. In a film, a director might choose to follow the movement by panning the camera, using a dolly, or filming multiple shots to allow us to experience the full path of movement.

I taught students to imagine watching the movement in their stories through a series of windows – first, second, third – and choose which parts they wanted to include. This helped them choose which verbs and prepositional phrases to use.

In The Fellowship of the Ring , by J.R.R. Tolkien, we watch Bill the pony galloping off through three windows, each with a prepositional phrase.

“Bill the pony gave a wild neigh of fear, and turned tail and dashed away along the lakeside into the darkness .”

I also taught students to describe how much space an object takes up using the same movement grammar, such as stretched along and rose from .

In The Graveyard Book , by Neil Gaiman, we pan across the perimeter of the cemetery.

“Spike-topped iron railings ran around part of the cemetery, a high brick wall around the rest of it.”

4. Focus the attention

When we read a novel, there is always something standing out in our attention: a thing, a description, a feeling, an action. I taught students to think about which part of their scene stands out in their mind, and then use “attention-seeking” grammar to focus on it.

Read more: To succeed in an AI world, students must learn the human traits of writing

One way to make things stand out is to use grammar that deviates from conventional use, like placing adjectives after nouns. Another way is to use repeated grammatical structures.

In Tolkien’s The Return of the King we get both of these at the same time to contrast the physical states of the orc and Sam.

“But the orc was in its own haunts, nimble and well-fed . Sam was a stranger, hungry and weary .”

5. Convey the energy of action

Many of the students wanted to create action scenes in their stories, which they did using the previous strategies. However, they lacked the energy felt in an action-packed novel. I showed them a sentence like this one from The Blackthorn Key by Kevin Sands.

“A musket ball tore at my hair as it punched into the window frame behind me, sending out a shower of splinters .”

The students could see how energy transfers across the clauses, like dominoes, from noun to noun. In this case, the energy starts with the musket ball , and transfers to hair , window frame and finally the shower of splinters , carried by the action verbs.

I asked the students to imagine how a chain of action might appear in their stories and select the appropriate nouns and verbs to do the job.

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September 19, 2015

Narrative Writing: Zooming into Small Moments

Watermelon vs. seed moments.

At the beginning of the week, we started with the hands-on. So often in writing we forget to start with the concrete and move to the representational. It’s best practice in math (and we totally do that) but for writing we somehow always jump to the pencil.

So, we cut into the watermelon to make it more manageable. (Then, #teacherfail – I BOUGHT A SEEDLESS WATERMELON. <insert every face palm emoji here> Thankfully there were still white seed, so our metaphor continued. Students decided that the cut watermelon was definitely more manageable to eat and talk about.

We then made the connection that the HUGE watermelon was just like our “List Stories”. I went to the park, then I played on the slide. Then I went on the swim. Finally it was dark. I went home. We talked that knowing what happened is very different than knowing all the details.

Relating it to Ourselves

We went back to our writing journals and brought them back to the carpet. Students shared “ Watermelon Stories ” in their journals that they may need to revisit. (Note – this totally wasn’t a shaming lesson and totally voluntary. I love pulling examples from our own writing because it makes it much more real. ( Snag this organizer for your classroom here. )

As students shared one of their watermelon stories, I asked – “So ___________, instead of writing about the WHOLE __________, what part can you go back and describe?” When students picked specific parts (hitting the piñata, riding the roller coaster), we called these ‘Seed Moments’.

Finally, it was writing time! As students worked, I delivered plates of watermelon as a motivator and reminder to think small. Then, I started conferencing with my habitual list-story writers. 😉

Using Mentor Texts

Putting it into action, shared writing.

This friend is sharing about his recent trip to the zoo, seeing tigers. My favorite line – “One did not look fun. He was lame.” Hahahaha – classic and perfect 1st grade writing. (Note – he does go on to explain the lame tiger behavior.)

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Reader Interactions

September 19, 2015 at 2:58 pm

Such wonderful lessons! I am wondering what type of writing journals you use. I really like the wider lines and the area to put a picture at the top of the page. Thank you for sharing more inspirational ideas!

September 19, 2015 at 10:08 pm

Hi Mandy! I actually picked up some Primary Writing journals from Dollar Tree (just for my struggle . I haven't seen them since. I know you can order them on Amazon and Lakeshore, too…but they are really expensive. I actually prefer real composition notebooks but know that my struggling writers need the extra support!

September 20, 2015 at 12:50 pm

Order from Dollar Tree online:)

September 20, 2015 at 12:52 pm

Unforuntaley, this is one product they aren't selling online. So, you have to luck out that your store is selling them!

September 19, 2015 at 7:32 pm

I LOVE the anchor chart!!!

September 19, 2015 at 8:21 pm

I absolutely love your posts about Writing Workshop! I am definitely going to try this lesson, watermelon, binoculars, and all with my kinders later in the year! Thanks so much for sharing, Catherine!

September 20, 2015 at 2:29 am

Another amazing post about Writing Workshop! Thank you so much for sharing. We are working on small moments this week. Thank you!

September 20, 2015 at 8:55 am

What a fantastic post! I love that you point out how many times in writing we just quickly jump to the pencil and don't take time to "build up." These are fantastic mini lessons. Thank you so much for sharing!

Kelly Lattes and Lunchrooms

September 20, 2015 at 10:50 am

A really useful post. Thank you. I would be interested to know which mentor texts you use for other skills – both reading and writing.

September 26, 2015 at 2:20 pm

It did this "seed moments" lesson with my kiddos this week. My husband and I had a long discussion about whether or not you can still buy watermelons with seeds!!?? I should have just gone for it like you did…I'm sure your kids will remember it for a long time :0) Great post! I'm trying hard to incorporate more writing. Keep the ideas coming!!

October 9, 2015 at 1:15 am

Night of the veggie monster is a great mentor text!

November 18, 2015 at 11:30 pm

Thank you so much! This helps me explain what a small moment is to my son in 2nd grade with out having to email his teacher!

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Richard Marriott English

English Lecturing and Tutoring

Improve descriptive writing

15th May 2020

How can we improve descriptive writing? Part 3

Pan and zoom.

A common technique in descriptive writing is panning and zooming . Look out for it, especially at the start of a piece of writing. What happens is that the writer, like a film camera, pans across the scene noticing detail after detail, until zooming in, to focus on one particular detail. It doesn’t have to be visual detail. Here’s an example where the writer surveys the soundscape of the scene.

Pan and Zoom example:

• Amid the cacophony of traders haggling , babies crying , pigs squealing , roosters crowing , and butchers’ machetes thumping , I heard the terrified screams of an infant black mangabey monkey tied atop the a bundle of charred flesh that probably included its mother.

                                             From ‘Zaire’, National Geographic magazine

In this example notice that the present participles (~ing words) all present sounds. Notice too that they make the scene dynamic; it’s a scene of on-going movement. The main focus of the sentence, the screams of the monkey, comes at the end – with lots of pre- and post- modification  (see the first post in this series). And finally notice the emotive language – infant and mother . In other words, there’s a lot for the examiner to reward in just this one sentence.

We can practise this by recalling the sounds of a familiar scene – or a place we are in now. And begin by copying the structure of the example, learn that and vary it. (Amid the cacophony/hubbub/silence . . .)

Notice where the panning ends and the zooming begins in the following examples

 . . .  and notice how the detail that is zoomed in on contrasts with the what has gone before, as if the panning camera has been arrested in its movement by something different. Pattern and contrast are essential to writing.

• Amid the whispered symphony of domestic appliances, the whirring of the washing machine, sloshing of the dish-washer, hissing of the steam iron, hum of the refrigerator I heard the desperate pleading in Philippine of the aproned maid muttering into her mobile to a husband thousands of miles away.
• Amid the silence of nibs gliding over paper, fans whirring, pages turning, lips mouthing words, you might hear – perhaps once every century – the booming of a massy tome dropping onto the time-worn surface of an oak table, its ancient graffiti varnished over, from the gnarled hand of an aged reader that has finally lost the strength to live.

Now practise your own. You could:

• try panning across what you see, or hear waiting at an airport check-in;
• try panning across what you see or hear in a place of worship;
• try panning across the flavours of meal and zooming in on one of them;
• try the smells of a zoo or a perfume counter or bakers (think of the people, as well as the animals, perfumes, baked products).

Tip: before you begin writing, write a list of all the present participles, the ~ing words, you want to use: it will help you write and provide you with a more precise and interesting vocabulary in your writing.

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Zoom in and zoom out: virtual creative writing classroom pedagogy using zoom, number of pages, place of publication, full text url.

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Educator, Rhetor, Writer

Zoom In, Zoom Out: A Focus on Descriptive Writing and Storytelling

Young Writers’ Workshop: 1/07/2010

In this session we will step behind the camera of our mind’s eye and focus on two of the most important aspects of writing—descriptive details and creative storytelling. We will begin by exploring some fascinating pictures from the archives of LIFE magazine where we will find the perfect inspiration for our Zoom-In, Zoom-Out writing exercise. Concentrate on writing  rich details and descriptions of your selected photo, and then create your own story behind the scene. Time permitting, we will share our work with others. Join us as we focus on descriptive storytelling and zoom in on an image that captures your imagination.

LIFE Magazine

New Year’s Around the World

http://www.life.com/image/first/in-gallery/53581/new-years-around-the-world#index/0

Pictures of the Year 2010

http://www.life.com/image/first/in-gallery/52491/2010-pictures-of-the-year#index/0

At War: Photographers’ Best Shots

http://www.life.com/image/first/in-gallery/39632/at-war-photographers-best-shots#index/0

Wild Animal Photos of the Year

http://www.life.com/image/first/in-gallery/38012/wild-animal-photos-of-the-year#index/0

Nature’s Wrath and Its Aftermath

http://www.life.com/image/first/in-gallery/22945/natures-wrath-and-its-aftermath#index/0

Tim Gunn’s Favorite Fashion Photos

http://www.life.com/image/first/in-gallery/32232/tim-gunns-favorite-fashion-photos#index/0

Turn of the Century America 1900-1917

http://www.life.com/timeline/15351/turn-of-the-century-america-1900-1917#index/0

Life in the Fast Lane

http://www.life.com/image/first/in-gallery/25811/life-in-the-fast-lane#index/0

http://www.life.com/image/first/in-gallery/41552/coachella-killer-shots#index/0

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How to Use the Query Builder

Teachers and docents find that writing with art is an exciting, productive activity. Whether you are in a museum or a classroom, the following ideas and prompts can be springboards to writing for many purposes.  

Engagement Strategies:

How many of you like to take photos? What makes a good photo? Sometimes we take pictures of large scenes, like the grand canyon, and sometimes we like to “zoom in” on single people or objects in a scene. Photographers are like writers and painters in the way they take a snapshot of life. Writers have a built in camera with a zoom lens. Let’s practice using ours. Demonstrate with an actual camera or phone. 

Questions / Activities:

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Set the Scene: Panorama

When you describe a scene of a novel or story, it is important to think about the focal length. Taking a cue from filming, you can think of a couple ways of describing a scene: zoom, pan, scan.

A panorama is the wide-angle view. Think of a football game and you’re sitting on the top of the bleachers with the view of the field and parking lot laid out in front of you. You see the pageantry of the blue and red teams, the yellow school buses, the bustling food stand. It’s an overview, a view from a distance, from overhead.

A zoom , however, focuses in on tiny details. The pencil stub the coach is using to put check marks by player’s names on his clip board, the taped thumb of the quarterback, the aching toe of the head cheerleader. Usually, you’ll need to include sharp sensory details: what the character sees, hears, touches, tastes and feels (not emotions, but temperature and texture). Avoid the cliched details and include interesting and different, but telling details.

A scan is a way to show a crowd scene economically, yet in an interesting way. It involves a series of small zooms: the quarterback’s mother is taping the game with a new video camera that she borrowed money to buy; the coach’s pencil is hovering over two names, trying to decide if he’ll start the injured quarterback or his backup; the head cheerleader is trying to shake off a headache and wondering if that red pill the quarterback gave her would help or not. In a short paragraph, you get the complexities of the crowd!

For the next three days, we’ll focus on one of these ideas. Today, try writing a scene using a Panorama. Tomorrow, write a scene using a Zoom. And on the next day, write a Scan.

While you’re busy Thinking Like a Writer, when would you use each of these techniques? Leave me a suggestion!

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Apr. 22, 2024

Empowering voices: the future of creative writing at rice university.

Creative writing transcends conventional academic boundaries, serving as both a discipline and a practice that invites diverse perspectives and influences. According to Ian Schimmel, associate teaching professor of English at Rice University, creative writing is characterized by its openness to exploration and expression.

“It does not define the scope of what a thought project should be,” Schimmel said, adding that creative writing encompasses a wide range of forms and styles, from traditional genres like fiction, poetry, nonfiction and drama to emerging mediums that shape contemporary discourse. “It’s very permeable to other parts of the university that want to participate in it.”

Extending beyond mere poetic imagery or storytelling, creative writing delves into the depths of human experience, capturing the rhythm, themes and pauses that define individual narratives.

“We’re all an amalgamation of stories,” said Kiese Laymon, the Libbie Shearn Moody Professor of English. “The rigor of having to explore your imagination and memory with these tools we have is hard work. We try to make it enjoyable work, but it’s definitely hard work.”

Creative writing plays a pivotal role in understanding and interpreting societal narratives, Schimmel pointed out, highlighting the significance of studying hybrid forms that blend elements of journalism, memoir and personal reflection, reflecting the multifaceted nature of contemporary storytelling.

“I prefer the term ‘imaginative writing’ or ‘public writing,’” said Justin Cronin, writer-in-residence in English. “‘Creative writing’ pays less attention to the idea that this is a discipline. It really is a very particular kind of discipline that you need to learn to do.”

At its core, creative writing is about having something to say — a point of view or an urgency that compels expression.

“We are equipping students with the tools to say what they feel is most important and urgent,” Schimmel said. “That’s where the fulfillment comes from.”

For Cronin, teaching creative writing is a dynamic process of self-discovery and exploration.

“Anyone who teaches creative writing is teaching themselves, full stop,” Cronin said. “We are doing both all the time.”

He emphasized the interdisciplinary nature of the discipline, drawing connections between literature, film and societal trends. Cronin’s spring 2024 course titled “The End of the World as We Know It: Writing (and Reading) Apocalypse” exemplifies this interdisciplinary approach, blending literary analysis with creative expression to explore existential themes.

“There is a lot to learn about craft, about how to make a good sentence, how essays really work, how stories or novels work,” Cronin said. “But then there are also the broader questions: Why do we do this? Where does it come from, and where does it go?”

‘It feels like home’

It’s worth reflecting on the latter question in relation to Rice’s creative writing program. Of the current faculty, Cronin has the longest institutional knowledge. He came to Rice in 2003, effectively doubling the program’s full-time faculty.

“It was just me teaching fiction and one poetry professor,” Cronin said. “That was creative writing in 2003.”

A couple of years later when he sold a partial manuscript of what evolved into his trilogy “The Passage,” Cronin stepped down from his full-time teaching role to focus on the series.

Schimmel later joined Rice during a two-year fellowship starting in 2011. After his first year, the two other creative writing faculty members retired.

“I was one of only one or two other people teaching creative writing at Rice in 2012,” Schimmel said.

Associate professor Amber Dermont joined the faculty followed by assistant professor Paul Otremba then Lacy Johnson in 2016, which is when Cronin returned to teach at Rice.

“We made a strategic plan that involved investing in creative writing, trying to make Rice the best undergraduate creative writing program in the country,” said Lacy Johnson, associate professor of creative writing and director of undergraduate studies in English. “We proposed hiring a few more writers so that we could continue to grow.”

And they did, adding Laymon, professor in the practice Andrea Bajani, assistant professor Bryan Washington and associate professor Tomás Q. Morín.

“When I saw the job posting at Rice, every writer I knew was applying for the job,” Morín said. “Every writer I knew wanted to work at Rice because it was a dream job.”

Morin said his desire to join the faculty only grew after visiting the campus during the interview process when he got to meet the people he’d be working with and the students he’d be teaching.

“I felt like this job could be my last stop in terms of my academic career,” Morín said. “This is a place where I could retire. Once I actually did start teaching here, all of that was affirmed. I don’t want to ever teach anywhere else again. This doesn’t feel like a job. It feels like home.”

“With Lacy Johnson, Ian Schimmel, Kiese Laymon, Bryan Washington, Tomás Morín, Amber Dermont, Andrea Bajani and Justin Cronin, Rice boasts some of the most significant writers in the United States,” said Kathleen Canning, dean of the School of Humanities, in sharing her assessment of the creative writing faculty she calls “amazing.”

“Spectacular” is the word Cronin choses to describe his colleagues.

“The amount of raw achievement in so many areas is unparalleled,” Cronin said, pointing to Laymon’s selection as a MacArthur Fellow and Johnson’s creation of the Houston Flood Museum. “We have short story writers, essayists, novelists, poets, screenwriters. We have it all.”

Laymon, who started teaching at Rice in January 2022, expressed that he’s been impressed by how dynamic and thoughtful his colleagues are.

“Our ability to work together is one of the reasons why the creative writing program is growing at such an incredible rate,” Laymon said.

"The learning and the doing"

The program’s not growing just in terms of faculty; the academic powerhouse has captured the imagination and enthusiasm of students, sparking a surge of interest that far exceeds available capacity. Most creative writing classes have waitlists at least 20 students deep, while the waitlists for intro workshops are closer to 75.

“I’ve never worked anywhere where there was such a tremendous curiosity, passion and interest in creative writing at the undergraduate level,” Morín said.

“The desire on the part of these students to use creativity to explore critically and intellectually, I’ve never seen anything like this in my life,” Laymon said, adding that he believes the interest is connected to the strength of the faculty. “You don’t find creative writing programs with any sort of growth unless the students are being taught well.”

Laymon suggested the program’s success also lies in its ability to attract students from diverse disciplines, including computer science, biology and engineering.

“There is such a hunger on our campus to make things and to take what you learned in the classroom and apply it,” Schimmel said. “There’s often a gulf between the theoretical and the practical in an education setting. What’s powerful about creative writing, and the arts in general, is the connectivity between the learning and the doing.”

Faculty members say they appreciate the diverse perspectives and interdisciplinary collaborations that emerge from such a dynamic student body.

“There are so many different kinds of expertise for students to use Rice and Houston as a laboratory to think about the issues that are facing us today,” Johnson said. “Thinking about climate, about science, about community, about culture, where better than Houston to come to learn to write about those things?”

"Experimenting with words"

The creative writing program is a catalyst for that exploration and discovery, empowering students to engage with a myriad of topics and formats while honing their skills as storytellers.

For example, on the nonfiction side, Laymon’s spring 2024 course titled "Verses/Versus: Miseducation of Lauryn Hill v. good kid m.A.A.d. city (or 1998 vs. 2012)” allows students to reflect on how music influences their lives, whether through personal experiences or the albums discussed in class. “Nonfiction Nature Writing,” taught by Johnson, merges writing and environmental philosophy.

“We’re giving consideration to the ways that we think about and talk about the environment as well as practicing writing about our relationship to the environment,” Johnson said. “Students often come to that class from the sciences. I have a lot of students from environmental sciences, geology, physics, ecology and evolutionary biology.”

The class is a different application of science, Johnson added, explaining that it provides students an opportunity to apply and translate what they’ve learned in their other classes in creative ways.

Schimmel, meanwhile, teaches podcasting courses, challenging students to report on stories beyond the hedges of Rice. By interviewing real-life characters and crafting compelling narratives, students gain valuable storytelling skills while exploring the power of audio storytelling.

“We deconstruct the narrative structures of radio storytelling to understand how a large amount of material can be condensed into something that is manageable, enjoyable and informative for an audience,” Schimmel said.

Central to the creative writing experience at Rice is the workshop. Through peer critique and experimentation, students refine their writing and gain insights into audience engagement and narrative structure.

“A workshop environment helps you compare your intentions with the realities of your audience,” Schimmel said. “It pulls you out of yourself. It makes you conscious of how form and technique affect your reader’s desire to interact with your work.”

Laymon underscored the importance of experimentation in creative writing. By encouraging students to explore literary traditions and experiment with language, the program fosters a culture of innovation and self-expression.

“We all have these 26 letters. How do we create a story with them?” Laymon said. “We need young people out there experimenting with words and to be encouraged to do that.”

"A unique opportunity"

As Rice’s creative writing program has evolved, its faculty have remained dedicated to fostering a culture of creativity, expression and intellectual inquiry, shaping the next generation of writers and thinkers.

“One of our goals is to broaden the public’s understanding of what creative writing is and how it can serve as a public utility for all,” Schimmel said.

The next step for the program, according to Cronin, is to elevate from a strong program to a national leader in undergraduate creative writing education.

“We want to be the best undergraduate creative writing program in the country, which means students come to Rice specifically for that,” Cronin said. “We want to build the kind of program that people deliberately seek out. Students apply to a university for a thing, and we want to be that thing.”

Faculty members are exploring the possibility of establishing a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in creative writing, which reflects the program’s commitment to furthering its impact and engaging with a broader community of writers.

“There’s a lot of interest,” Johnson said. “We have a really unique opportunity at Rice to build something from scratch.”

“That feels incredibly exciting to me,” Morín said, explaining that the goal is to create a program that addresses the shortcomings of the traditional MFA model while offering a fresh and dynamic approach. “It gives me a lot of energy, because as a group, we can offer the kind of experience that a graduate student in creative writing can’t find anywhere else.”

For more information about Rice’s creative writing program, click here .

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Book News & Features

Ai is contentious among authors. so why are some feeding it their own writing.

Chloe Veltman

The vast majority of authors don't use artificial intelligence as part of their creative process — or at least won't admit to it.

Yet according to a recent poll from the writers' advocacy nonprofit The Authors Guild, 13% said they do use AI, for activities like brainstorming character ideas and creating outlines.

The technology is a vexed topic in the literary world. Many authors are concerned about the use of their copyrighted material in generative AI models. At the same time, some are actively using these technologies — even attempting to train AI models on their own works.

These experiments, though limited, are teaching their authors new things about creativity.

Best known as the author of technology and business-oriented non-fiction books like The Long Tail, lately Chris Anderson has been trying his hand at fiction. Anderson is working on his second novel, about drone warfare.

He says he wants to put generative AI technology to the test.

"I wanted to see whether in fact AI can do more than just help me organize my thoughts, but actually start injecting new thoughts," Anderson says.

Anderson says he fed parts of his first novel into an AI writing platform to help him write this new one. The system surprised him by moving his opening scene from a corporate meeting room to a karaoke bar.

Authors push back on the growing number of AI 'scam' books on Amazon

"And I was like, you know? That could work!" Anderson says. "I ended up writing the scene myself. But the idea was the AI's."

Anderson says he didn't use a single actual word the AI platform generated. The sentences were grammatically correct, he says, but fell way short in terms of replicating his writing style. Although he admits to being disappointed, Anderson says ultimately he's OK with having to do some of the heavy lifting himself: "Maybe that's just the universe telling me that writing actually involves the act of writing."

Training an AI model to imitate style

It's very hard for off-the-shelf AI models like GPT and Claude to emulate contemporary literary authors' styles.

The authors NPR talked with say that's because these models are predominantly trained on content scraped from the Internet like news articles, Wikipedia entries and how-to manuals — standard, non-literary prose.

But some authors, like Sasha Stiles , say they have been able to make these systems suit their stylistic needs.

"There are moments where I do ask my machine collaborator to write something and then I use what's come out verbatim," Stiles says.

The poet and AI researcher says she wanted to make the off-the-shelf AI models she'd been experimenting with for years more responsive to her own poetic voice.

So she started customizing them by inputting her finished poems, drafts, and research notes.

"All with the intention to sort of mentor a bespoke poetic alter ego," Stiles says.

She has collaborated with this bespoke poetic alter ego on a variety of projects, including Technelegy (2021), a volume of poetry published by Black Spring Press; and " Repetae: Again, Again ," a multimedia poem created last year for luxury fashion brand Gucci.

Stiles says working with her AI persona has led her to ask questions about whether what she's doing is in fact poetic, and where the line falls between the human and the machine.

read it again… pic.twitter.com/sAs2xhdufD — Sasha Stiles | AI alter ego Technelegy ✍️🤖 (@sashastiles) November 28, 2023

"It's been really a provocative thing to be able to use these tools to create poetry," she says.

Potential issues come with these experiments

These types of experiments are also provocative in another way. Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger says she's not opposed to authors training AI models on their own writing.

"If you're using AI to create derivative works of your own work, that is completely acceptable," Rasenberger says.

Thousands of authors urge AI companies to stop using work without permission

But building an AI system that responds fluently to user prompts requires vast amounts of training data. So the foundational AI models that underpin most of these investigations in literary style may contain copyrighted works.

Rasenberger pointed to the recent wave of lawsuits brought by authors alleging AI companies trained their models on unauthorized copies of articles and books.

"If the output does in fact contain other people's works, that creates real ethical concerns," she says. "Because that you should be getting permission for."

Circumventing ethical problems while being creative

Award-winning speculative fiction writer Ken Liu says he wanted to circumvent these ethical problems, while at the same time creating new aesthetic possibilities using AI.

So the former software engineer and lawyer attempted to train an AI model solely on his own output. He says he fed all of his short stories and novels into the system — and nothing else.

Liu says he knew this approach was doomed to fail.

That's because the entire life's work of any single writer simply doesn't contain enough words to produce a viable so-called large language model.

"I don't care how prolific you are," Liu says. "It's just not going to work."

Liu's AI system built only on his own writing produced predictable results.

"It barely generated any phrases, even," Liu says. "A lot of it was just gibberish."

Yet for Liu, that was the point. He put this gibberish to work in a short story. 50 Things Every AI Working With Humans Should Know , published in Uncanny Magazine in 2020, is a meditation on what it means to be human from the perspective of a machine.

"Dinoted concentration crusch the dead gods," is an example of one line in Liu's story generated by his custom-built AI model. "A man reached the torch for something darker perified it seemed the billboding," is another.

Liu continues to experiment with AI. He says the technology shows promise, but is still very limited. If anything, he says, his experiments have reaffirmed why human art matters.

"So what is the point of experimenting with AIs?" Liu says. "The point for me really is about pushing the boundaries of what is art."

Audio and digital stories edited by Meghan Collins Sullivan .

• large language model
• mary rasenberger
• chris anderson
• sasha stiles
• authors guild

Concentration Requirements

• Fifteen to 21 hours of ENGL 8030 - Fiction Writing    (must be completed while enrolled in degree program) *
• Fifteen to 21 hours of English and American and World literature, and/or Rhetoric and Composition, and/or folklore. Three hours of these 15 to 21 hours may be a Creative Writing workshop in a secondary genre. *
• ENGL 8160 - Form and Theory of Literary Craft    in Fiction (3)
• ENGL 8202 - Contemporary Fiction Craft    (3)
• At least six hours of ENGL 8999 - Thesis Research    
• Graduate assistants are required to enroll for a minimum of 12 credit hours each for the fall/spring semesters and 9 credit hours for the summer semester. These credit hours will consist of courses required for the prescribed program of study, as well as additional hours of thesis research and non-thesis individual research.

* 36 hours are required for Areas 1 and 2 combined.

Students with an M.A. in English or Creative Writing

Students who enter the M.F.A. program with an M.A. in English or creative writing must satisfy a different set of course requirements totaling 36 hours:

• Fifteen to 18 hours of ENGL 8030 - Fiction Writing    (must be completed while enrolled in degree program) *
• Six to 9 hours of English and American and World literature, and/or Rhetoric and Composition, and/or folklore. Three hours of these 6 to 9 hours may be a Creative Writing workshop in a secondary genre. *
• ENGL 8160 - Form and Theory of Literary Craft    in fiction (3)
• At least 6 hours of ENGL 8999 - Thesis Research    
• Graduate assistants are required to enroll for a minimum of 12 credit hours each for the fall/spring semesters and 9 credit hours for the summer semester. These credit hours will consist of courses required for the prescribed program of study, as well as additional hours of thesis research and non-thesis individual research.

* 24 hours are required for Areas 1 and 2 combined.

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A new start after 60: after a decade of rejections, I got my first novel published. Now I’ve got my dream, I won’t stop!

After a successful career as a talent agent – representing Michael Parkinson, Ulrika Jonsson and Adam Ant – Melanie Cantor became disillusioned with TV. So she took up writing – and refused to give up on her passion.

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A t 61, after a decade writing four unpublished manuscripts and receiving hundreds of rejections from agents and publishers, Melanie Cantor got an email in 2019 from the literary agent Felicity Blunt. “It started off positively and I was just waiting for the ‘but’ to arrive, but it never did,” Cantor says. “She said she wanted to represent me.”

In 2020, Dorset-based Cantor’s debut novel Life and Other Happy Endings , about a woman with three months to live who spends her remaining time writing letters to those who have wronged her, came out. Its publication was the culmination of a lifelong fascination with writing.

“My father was an artist and even though I couldn’t draw for toffee, words were my creativity,” she says. “I used to write stories and poetry. When I was given a guitar at 15, I even wrote songs. I never thought being a writer was possible, though, since the only option if you were good at English in the 60s was to become a teacher.”

Rather than work in education, Cantor became a secretary for the theatre publicist Peter Thompson and developed her own roster of clients. In the 90s, she made the switch to talent management, founding her own agency that represented everyone from Michael Parkinson to Ulrika Jonsson and Adam Ant. Yet by 2008, she was becoming disillusioned and decided to take a new direction.

“The industry had moved towards reality TV and I just wasn’t as passionate about work any more,” she says. “I had just turned 50 and having spent so long working on other people’s interests, it was time to do something for me. I decided to get back to writing.”

Aside from a manuscript in 2001, after being inspired by the bestselling comedy novel The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing, Cantor hadn’t written anything long-form since she was a teenager. She decided to enrol on a writing course to hone her skills. “I spent five days in Oxford and it was eye-opening,” she says. “We had to read out the pages we wrote every day. It was so embarrassing when it got to me because mine wasn’t poetic like the others. But I did make everyone laugh.”

After meeting an agent through the course, Cantor was encouraged to write a manuscript that focused on the celebrity world she had worked in. “It almost got picked up by HarperCollins but failed in the sales and marketing tests and that was devastating,” she says. “I went out and got drunk and met someone who told me: ‘Rejection is what makes you a writer.’ I’d learn that over the next decade!”

Drawn to creating characters and plotlines, Cantor wrote every day, regardless of the rejections, with her dog Mabel by her side. “Writing brought me such pleasure,” she says. “Even if it was just for myself, I loved living with these characters and when I wrote it was so meditative, I would lose track of time. It’s only when I finished a draft and pressed send – to an agent – that it got scary.”

Cantor produced three more manuscripts before she began working with a freelance editor, who helped shape Life and Other Happy Endings. It was published, however, as the Covid pandemic hit and she was unable to attend any events to meet readers. Happily, her follow-up comic novel, The F**k It List, which recounts a new start for a 40-year-old single woman who decides to become a mother, is about to be published.

“I’m so excited to connect with the readers and keep telling these stories of powerful, independent women,” she says. “Not everyone will like your work but I’m so thrilled to be able to entertain the people who engage with it. It makes all that rejection worth it.”

Now 66, Cantor is working on her third novel and a screenplay adaptation of The F**k It List that she is hoping will get picked up. “Now that I’ve started, I won’t stop,” she says. “I want to show people that failure is simply part of the journey of life. If you keep going, time, luck and talent will combine in your favour.”

The F**K It List by Melanie Cantor is published by Penguin on 9 May (£8.99).

Tell us: has your life taken a new direction after the age of 60? Fill in the online form at theguardian.com/new-start-after-60

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EMCC STUDENTS PLACE IN STATEWIDE CREATIVE WRITING CONTEST

April 30, 2024

Two East Mississippi Community College students placed in the 2023-24 Mississippi Community College Creative Writing Association’s (MCCWA) annual workshop and contest.

Students from community colleges across Mississippi competed in categories that included Creative Nonfiction, Dramatic Writing, Literary Essay, Poetry and Short Fiction.

EMCC student Elizabythe McBeth took second place in the Short Fiction category for her piece titled “Faded Footprints.”

“It’s like me walking back through my grandparents’ house,” McBeth said. “I would stay with them, along with my two cousins. It was kind of reminiscing about that.”

Arin Franks poem, “Creating for You” earned second place in the Poetry category.

McBeth is a Columbus native who is taking general studies on EMCC’s Golden Triangle campus. She plans to enroll in the Mississippi University for Women’s Department of Baccalaureate Nursing once she graduates from EMCC.

Franks is a Springville, Alabama native who resides in Columbus. She graduated from EMCC last year with majors in political science and English. She is enrolled at Mississippi State University where she is studying pre-law, with an eye towards enrolling at a law school. The MCCWA contest includes entries written in 2023 and early 2024.

Submissions by McBeth and Franks were written while taking EMCC humanities instructor Marilyn Ford’s Creative Writing class.

“Arin is an absolute wonderful poet,” Ford said. “She is a very introspective young lady and her poems are oftentimes about the evolution of self and that transitory time when we begin to try to figure out who we are in our teens.

Works by Franks and McBeth were also featured in EMCC’s magazine of creativity titled “Syzygy.”

The magazine highlights the works of EMCC students in categories that include Ceramics, Creative Nonfiction, Design, Short Fiction, Drawing and Poetry. Faculty advisors and judges choose the winning entries to be included in the magazine.

Franks earned first place in Poetry in the 2023-24 edition of “Syzygy,” while McBeth took top honors in the Short Fiction category. McBeth was also named the recipient of the Betty Killebrew Literary Award, which recognizes the top submission amongst all entries.

Other winners include Haidi Salihaj, who earned first place in the Design category, and Breelyn Smith, who took top honors in the Drawing Category. The winners were honored April 23 during Awards Day on the Golden Triangle campus when instructors recognized their “outstanding students” for the past year. McBeth was also recognized as the “Outstanding Creative Writing Student.”

“I am always pleasantly surprised by the quality of the submissions to our ‘Syzygy’ magazine each year,” Ford said. “This year was no different. We have some very talented students and I am proud of what they have accomplished.”

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"Being a first-generation student at EMCC is not a limitation, it's an opportunity to rewrite my family's story. Every class I attend, every assignment I complete, is a step towards a brighter future. I am a pioneer, and my determination will light the way for those who follow." 

“I chose EMCC because it gave me the best opportunities coming out of high school. I got plenty of scholarships because the school offered so many. I would not have been able to do half of the things that I have done if i didn’t come here. First generation students are already at a disadvantage. If you are able to you should get an education to break the generational curse and create generational wealth for your family. Education is the most powerful tool.”

“As a first gen student, I feel that it is important to obtain a college education because it gives me the opportunity to break barriers for the next generation of my family. I choose EMCC because of the opportunity to get a great education and to make a difference on campus, in the community, and in my family.”

“EMCC has truly become my home!  From the scholarships offered, to the faculty & staff, and friends I have made, I am so thankful I chose to continue my education here!”

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