A mighty vision

I FOUND THIS SENTENCE today in Louis L'Amour's Hopalong Cassidy book "The Trail to Seven Pines":

"The crests of the mighty clouds were glorious with sunlight, but the flat undersides were sullen with impending rain."

It's a simple enough sentence, but I can easily see the glorious topside and the sullen underside of the clouds. Always give the reader something he can see, touch, taste, hear or feel.

By the way, Louis L'Amour didn't "invent" Hopalong Cassidy. Clarence Mulford did. L'Amour wrote four Hoppy books early in his career as he was transitioning from short stories to novels.

Contact: Reach me at tgilli52@gmail.com or nc3022@yahoo.com.

More EDITOR@WORK blog entries

• You really DO need an editor

• Reminders for would-be novelists

• What I do when I'm editing

• What I charge (it's a deal) and what I edit

• Slogging through the Internet

• J-school: More eyes on your stories

• J-school: Go out and learn

• Rookie mistakes for magazine writers

Entries from The Dog Blog

• Katie cried

• Growl and pull

• 10 years with Lady

• ... said the spider to ...

• The Dog Diary (2014)

• YIP! YIP! The stereo-sound huskies

• What Lady and Michael Jackson had in common

Blog entries from The Auto Racing Journal

• Angel in Black: Remembering Dale Earnhardt Sr.

(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)

• Then Junior Said to Jeff...

(the book of great NASCAR stories)

• My best day as a sports writer

• Jeff Gordon's milk toast to Dale Earnhardt

• Wayne Auton: A life in racing

More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

• Resume for a writer and editor

• An editor's views on powerful writing

• Advice for be and would-be novelists

• Links to TG's stories online

• Favorite quotes

• What I do when I'm editing

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie

• Wipeout at Death Valley

• Days with rainbows

• A desperate writer working in the dark

• Yer outta there!