Sophia Bonnie Wodin

Recently, I was struggling to write about an incident, a pivotal incident, in my life. I had already offered up a (very) rough version to one of my Writer’s Circles. It had been decisively rejected. “Sophia, you can write better than this! If this is a ‘magical’ piece, use magical language! Let your lyrical style to amaze us!”” Was the response. I had to admit that it was a very rough draft. Just get the main points down on the page. Get the flow of events. You’ll fill it in later, I had told myself. But when later came, I continued to struggle, not with the memory, but with the language.  As I wrote, filling in the details of my, admittedly sketchy draft, my mind continued to stray into the mundane character of each aspect of the story. Humph, I thought, this wants ordinary language. Grandiose language won’t make it any more important, it’ll just distract from the actual magic of the story. Describe it simply and the story will amaze by itself… ‘Sometimes magic done well l...