“A picture is worth a thousand words” – true or false?

The best answer is probably “sometimes.” Twice in recent months, pictures of young children suffering the ravages of war have awakened a tidal wave of emotion that no newspaper editorial or political speech could create. At other times pictures won’t do the job: It takes words – lots of them – to present a concept or support a controversial point.

Today I want to look at the pictures vs. words issue from a different angle. I just finished making an instructional video that will be part of a large writing project that’s due in October. The process was both challenging and fun.

I started with a PowerPoint (the fun part). Then I inserted the slides into video software (all the time thinking @*#$%! because the software is hard to work with), and added a narration I’d recorded.

While I was selecting pictures for my video, I started thinking about a remarkable article I’d read in the New York Times Magazine. It’s about a professional couple and Owen, their autistic son. Owen is now in his twenties, and he’s gradually learned how to talk and connect emotionally with other people – a remarkable achievement. The article chronicles years of therapy, parental love, and special education classes that eventually opened a whole new world for Owen.

And there was one more thing: A VCR and a pile of animated Disney videos, including The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Dumbo, and The Jungle Book. From the time Owen was a toddler, he was fascinated by Disney’s animated films, watching them over and over in the family basement. His parents worried about Owen’s obsession with Disney – there was a whole world outside that basement, and Owen wasn’t interested.

But as the years went by, Owen used those videos to teach himself about language, emotions, and life. Animation was the key that unlocked an important door for him. In the New York Times Magazine article, Owen’s father, Ron Suskind, notes that Walt Disney used to tell his film makers that “the characters and the scenes should be so vivid and clear that they could be understood with the sound turned off.”

That principle – the pictures should do most of the work – needs to take center stage if you’re creating a PowerPoint or an instructional video. If you try it yourself, you’ll see how challenging it is: How do you depict, say, defeat, or leadership, or intelligence? The hunt is on!

I’ve sat through PowerPoint presentations that were nothing more than big blocks of text on a projection screen. Why even bother making a PowerPoint? You might as well just read your paper.

OK, I’ve given you some advice about PowerPoints and videos. But what about plain old writing, like I’m doing here? The picture of Pinocchio below really doesn’t tell you anything about what I’m trying to say. I’ve already written half-a-thousand words, and I’m not finished.

But Walt Disney has something useful to teach those of us who usually stick to words. What do you and I think about when we’re writing: topic statements? adverbial clauses? transitions? Or do we think about unlocking a door for readers who are waiting for what we have to say to them? 

Regretfully, many writing courses skip over the most important aspect of writing: having something to say to someone who needs to hear it.

Owen found a whole new life during the hours he spent with Mowgli, Ariel, and the other Disney characters. What are you creating for your readers?

Last October I was listening to my car radio on the way to a dance lesson. I heard an intriguing teaser for an upcoming broadcast of the Diane Rehm Show: A panel of readers would be discussing a classic horror novel. “Please, PLEASE,” I said to the radio. “Let it be The Haunting of Hill House.”

It was.

The Haunting of Hill House belongs to a genre I don’t usually read. But it also belongs to a genre (if you can call it that) I always read: books by Shirley Jackson. When I was in high school I read and reread her hilarious reminiscences about her family: Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons.

But here’s the thing. No one I know (except my older sister, who first brought Life Among the Savages home from the library) has ever mentioned reading anything of Jackson’s except her shocking short story “The Lottery,” which I read for the first time in high school. Not long after that I read The Haunting of Hill House and was absolutely terrified – the most frightened I’ve ever been by a book. But nobody else I know has ever mentioned it (not even the aforementioned sister).

So hearing that Diane Rehm was devoting an entire hour to Shirley Jackson was a delightful surprise. And then there was another one. A librarian friend saves discarded New York Times Book Reviews for me (I can’t afford to buy the Times because all my spare cash goes into dance lessons).

As I was leafing through an issue from last year, I found an enthusiastic article about Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons called “Household Words.” The author, Ruth Franklin, will be publishing a new biography of Jackson in September: Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life. (I’m so excited about the forthcoming book that I’m not even going to gripe about seeing “rather” – a word I hate – in the title.)

So it’s finally happened: People are talking about Shirley Jackson! (Life Among the Savages was published in 1953. She died in 1965 at the age of 45.)

Sometimes I feel so alone in my reading habits. I like Louisa May Alcott and James Hillman (talk about an odd couple!). I think Liberace’s autobiography was a wonderful book. My favorite mystery is The Hatter’s Phantoms by Georges Simenon. He was one of the world’s best-selling authors, but I’ve met very few people who’ve read his books.

I’m sorry to tell you that despite a sincere effort, I disliked all three volumes in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, etc.).

Listen: I love John Grisham’s books. Does that count for something? Is there a club I can join?

I’ve read almost everything that C.S. Lewis ever published. He probably had more influence on my thinking than any other writer. Who reads Lewis today? Only a small number of evangelical Christians, and I don’t include myself in that group.

Maybe you sometimes have that same feeling of living in a weird universe where you’re the sole inhabitant.

I think Shirley Jackson would say that you’re not really alone. Maybe the world is trying to catch up with you. Ruth Franklin, writing in the New York Times Book Review, says that Jackson’s family-themed pieces “feel surprisingly modern.” And – truth to tell – I shouldn’t have given you the impression that people didn’t like her writing. She made more money through those family stories (which were published in women’s magazines) than her husband did as a professor and literary critic.

But nobody – least of all Jackson herself – expected people to be reading Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons more than 60 years later. And now they’re out in new editions, waiting for you to enjoy them…and to be inspired (when you can stop laughing – they’re really funny) to use your writing to connect with people who are waiting to hear from someone as special as you are.

In the US, copyright laws protect authors, artists, and composers. That means other people can’t make money from something you’ve created. You can copy snippets of another person’s work without permission (it’s called “fair use”). But anything larger than a snippet requires written permission and – in many cases – payment. The usual rule of thumb is 5% or 450 words – whichever is smaller. Be aware, though, that “fair use” has never been defined in any legal statute, so it’s wise to consult an attorney if you’re unsure about copyright protection in a particular situation.

I’ve used copyrighted materials in a number of books I’ve written. I always contacted the author to obtain permission (called a “license”). Usually the author will request a payment. I’ve also received payments myself from authors and editors who wanted permission to copy something I’ve written.

Copyright laws vary from country to country, causing additional complications. If you’re self-publishing, the best advice is to limit yourself to fair use content. In a previous post I listed some resources for royalty-free images.

(Here’s a link where you can read about an unusual experience I had while seeking copyright permission from a person whose name you’ll probably recognize.)

I include a picture or image in most of my posts. Finding those visual features can be challenging because of copyright issues. If you’re going to post a graphic publicly, you need to make sure you’re not violating copyright laws.

Today I’m going to offer you some free and low-cost resources for pictures and other graphic elements.

Jing: by far my favorite resource. I use Jing almost every day to capture pictures on my desktop or the Web. Here’s how it works: I find something I want to copy – put a box around it – click – and then save it as a .png.
Because I don’t own the rights to most of those pictures, they’re only for my personal use. But Jing is a great tool for creating my own graphics.
So I sometimes use the formatting features in Word to make my own graphics. I can make letters glow or add shadows, for example.
Here’s how: I make a Word document, play with it to get the effect I want, and then use Jing to convert the graphic into a .png, ready to upload.
You can also use Jing to turn PowerPoints into videos. If you have a headset, you can add narration. www.techsmith.com/jing.html

Google: the Image search is another tool I use almost daily. Most images are protected by copyright law, but there’s a way to find images you can use without paying a royalty fee.
Here’s how: Go to www.Google.com and click Images. Then click Search tools. Then click Usage rights and Labeled for Noncommercial reuse.
Most of the images that show up fall into the “fair use” category – meaning you’re free to use them. But the search process isn’t infallible, so you should check the page where the image originally appeared to see if it is indeed copyright-free.

WikiCommons: if you need a picture of a historical event, a famous person. or a real place, you can probably find a royalty-free picture at WikiCommons (https://commons.wikimedia.org). Many other pictures are available as well. I even found a royalty-free .mp3 of a performance of the “Maple Leaf Rag” to use in a video.

Wikipedia: most of the pictures posted at Wikipedia entries are free. Click the picture to make sure – Wikipedia always posts guidelines for reusing a picture. www.wikipedia.org

Wordle.net: you can make eye-catching “word clouds” to illustrate a concept. You need to have the latest version of Java installed. I made the word cloud below. www.Wordle.net

Stock.Adobe.com: a great source for professional quality pictures: https://stock.adobe.com. This is the only resource in this list that isn’t free. My paid subscription entitles me to use up to 10 pictures a month. Unused pictures carry over to the next month. The website has a good search tool to help me find what I’m looking for. 

My theme today is “Build it, and they will come” – meaning that if you write with your ideal audience in mind, readers will show up. (The actual line from the movie Field of Dreams is “If you build it, he will come,” referring to baseball legend Shoeless Joe Jackson. But we’re not talking about baseball today.)

My previous post offered you an unconventional approach to a writer’s audience: I told you that writers often invent their readers. Today I’m going to give you another example of what that means, and then I’m going to offer you some writing tips.

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When I was growing up, “made in Japan” meant cheap novelty items. But beginning in the 1980s it meant innovative and advanced automobile technology.

Here’s what happened, according to a Japanese automobile executive: American manufacturers were committed to giving consumers what they wanted. But the Japanese philosophy was to build a better car and then convince consumers that they wanted it. When consumers experienced the high quality of Japanese cars, American car manufacturers almost went out of business.

To put it differently: Japanese manufacturers invented the customers (“audience”) they wanted. Those prospective car buyers liked their new role as savvy consumers of excellent automobiles so much that they were no longer interested in American-made cars.

Build it, and they will come.

But how do writers accomplish that? Let’s take a memoir as an example. What writers typically do is choose a memorable story and then recount it from start to finish…only to find that none of their loved ones want to read it.

There’s a better way. (Build it, and they will come.) Visualize the readers readers you want, and write for them.

Do you want your family to be amused? impressed? touched? amazed? indignant? fascinated? Experiment until you find the feeling you want (it might not be obvious at first), and then write your piece accordingly.

I can’t guarantee that your teenagers are going to lay down their devices to devour your story. But somebody, sometime will enjoy reading it. By contrast, the “first-this-happened, then-that-happened” accounts I read so often are never going to find an enthusiastic readership.

Here are some possibilities to try:

• Make an emotional connection by sharing your version of a universal experience (such as an embarrassing mistake, a love story, a defeat, a triumph, a doubt, or a fear).
• Aim for a conversational tone that foregrounds your voice so that readers can hear you tell your story.
• Begin with a teaser (“That was the night that I stepped up to my role as Katie’s big brother”).
• Keep picturing your readers and their reactions. If you’re having trouble picturing them, that’s often a warning sign that your piece is wandering away from your goal.

Build it, and they will come!

If you enjoy listening to the radio, you’re probably familiar with NPR’s Saturday evening show A Prairie Home Companion. For 42 years host Garrison Keillor has been transporting listeners to the imaginary Midwestern town of Lake Woebegone.

Here’s what happens if you’re part of his regular audience: It doesn’t matter if you’re Jewish, or Baha’i, or a Floridian (like me), or a New Yorker who does most of your shopping at the Macy’s flagship store (as I did years ago). You start pretending that you’ve eaten many potluck dinners in the basement of a Lutheran church, endured endless Midwestern winters, and made frequent trips to Bertha’s Kitty Boutique for last-minute gifts.

Last Saturday was Keillor’s last appearance as host of the show. Chris Niles will be taking over, and he faces a big challenge: Making loyal listeners feel that they’re still connected to Lake Woebegone.

Today’s topic is a writer’s audience. I used to find it a hard concept to teach because – ironically – it seems so simple: You should shape your writing so that you connect with your readers. Easy. Obvious. Why even talk about it?

But when you start digging into the concept of audience, it becomes much harder to understand – and even harder to explain. Here’s what makes it so difficult: Good writers invent their readers.

Egad. What does that mean?

Garrison Keillor to the rescue! When A Prairie Home Companion came along, many people (including me) enjoyed the show because it was fun to pretend we lived in Lake Woebegone. I would argue that this phenomenon often happens when we read.

Let me use this blog as an example. Online visitors come here because they want help with English usage. (My most popular post – by far – is about using a comma with although). But visitors who stick around and start reading my regular postings become (at least in their imagination) people who want to delve into the deeper mysteries of writing. (I know this is true because I hear about it from some of you.)

We have a partnership going: I address you as a serious writer, and you forget for a moment that all you wanted was an answer to a @#$%! question about apostrophes or capital letters.

Many forms of writing invent their audiences.

There are people who avidly read cookbooks even though they never so much as fry an egg. They enjoy pretending to be culinary experts. Others do the same thing with travel guides. They’re armchair travelers with no desire to spend hours in an airplane so that they can sleep in a strange bed in an unfamiliar city – but they love pretending to be tourists.

And then there are novels. Do you ever find yourself completely losing touch with your everyday life when we pick up a good novel? It happens to me all the time. (In three weeks I’ll be making a for-real trip to Norway to step inside a stave church in the hope of experiencing – for just a moment – the long-ago world of one of my favorite novels.)

If you’re an English major, very likely you’ve read a classic article that started many writers (including me) thinking more deeply about audience: “The Writer’s Audience Is Always a Fiction” by Walter Ong. (It’s sometimes available online, and you can access it through your local library’s databases.) 

I always encourage writers to read at least the beginning of this essay, where he talks about the strategies Hemingway uses to establish intimacy with him and his imaginary characters. (When you think about it, Garrison Keillor has been doing the same thing for 42 years.)

I was – frankly – puzzled when I first read Ong’s article. Thinking about it over the years (and those frequent visits to Lake Woebegone) helped me start to figure out what he was saying.

In my next post I’ll have some practical ideas about capturing the imagination of your readers – or, as Walter Ong would say – “fictionalizing” them.

                        A Prairie Home Companion

“Gentle on My Mind” is the second song I’m asking you to listen to today. One line has a theme in common with “More than Words,” today’s other song. I’ll be exploring that theme in my next post on July 4.

Although most people associate “Gentle on My Mind” with Glen Campbell – it made him famous – the song was written by John Hartford, who won a Grammy for his version.

I used to play this song for my literature classes as an example of one of the best love poems ever written – and for my writing classes as an example of vivid language.

“Gentle on My Mind” is also a good starting point for a discussion of the differences between art and life. I have been married to the same man for 43 years – and no, he doesn’t keep a sleeping bag here: Ours is a permanent and stable arrangement. (How dreary that sounds! It isn’t.) And yet my soul is stirred by this song about a man walking along the train tracks and thinking about that special woman….