Tuesday, August 30, 2011

From the Heart: Painting with Words by Andy Scheer

From the Heart: Painting with Words by Andy Scheer:
Painting with Words by Andy Scheer

Last week I made a plea for writers to put their name on their papers.

I wrote, “A title like ‘Full Proposal for Hartline Literary’ may help you identify that document, but in the computer of a Hartline agent, it sticks out like one more penguin on the iceberg.”

Afterward, several readers commented on that phrase, “one more penguin on the iceberg”—how it caught their attention and communicated the essence of the situation.

That's the power of a word picture. And it’s one of the elements I look for when I evaluate a piece of writing. Does the writer have the knack to pick a phrase, to craft a fresh bit of verbal shorthand to sum up a situation and communicate it memorably?


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