Marinated Manuscripts

photo from http://ninjinsushi.com/

Korean cooking involves A LOT of marinating of meat and vegetables. I've never seen them eat meat plain. A little soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, onions, ginger, and sometimes spices are added for flavor. Then the meat must marinate in order to get the best results. Well, I realized it's the same with my stories!

This past week I revised a manuscript after getting some great comments from a writing friend. She suggested adding a little metaphor, more descriptive language, etc... to really make my story sing. So I did. And the results were stunning! Now I'm letting this baby marinate longer so that when I return to it, I can enjoy the freshness and flavor even more. I have also learned to wait after my critique groups have edited my manuscripts before revising. I used to jump right on the targeted issues in my stories. But if I let the story sit longer, when I return to the critiques, their comments make more sense.

The past two weeks my daughter has been learning about figurative language and adding to her interactive notebook. I'm going to use her list as a sort of mini-checklist for my stories to add more flavor to the marinade. Granted, you don't need all of these, but a sprinkling of some can make a difference!

Figurative Language Mini-Checklist

___ similes

___ metaphors

___hyperboles

___personification

___idioms

___alliteration

___allusion

___onomatopoeia

And just for fun, the above photo is a Korean meat called Bulgogi, a marinated sweet beef, that I make a couple times a month :) Below is a recipe that I got off the Internet somewhere. The photo comes from a restaurant in CA.

Bulgogi

Ingredients:
1 pound beef sirloin (thinly sliced, paper thin)
5 cloves garlic (grated)
¼-1/2 inch ginger (grated)
1 small onion (grated)
1  Asian pear (grated) 
1 Fuji apple (grated)
1/2 cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon sugar
2 green onions (chopped)
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Mix it all together and pour over the meat. I use either the pear or apple, not both. You can use the American pear, too. Let the meat marinate for at least an hour or even overnight. Stir fry. Mat-shi-gae-deu-sayo or Enjoy in Korean.

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