Food and the idea of cooking can capture the imagination for some original, dramatic writing.
Since everyone loves and needs food, readers warm up to stories that mention food or build themselves around cooking.
Food is a very important part of our lives.
Not that a writer should be writing dull passages, but put food in the middle of a dull passage, it will reawaken the reader's attention right away.
Luckily, an abundance of books in different genres involving food exist in print.
Food can be a metaphor for love, lust, and relationships, as in Like Water for Chocolate.
Food can be the uniting factor of characters no matter how far apart they are, as in Harry Potter books when students and teachers sit together at a school banquet, eating made-up fantasy food.
Food can be used as a shaker upper of emotions like disgust, as in James Joyce's Ulysses where Leopold Bloom "liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.
" Food can make a foreign or international story feel closer to the reader by easing intercultural barriers and introducing ethnic food and the behavior of multicultural characters around food, as in Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones, and Passover by David Mamet.
A few suggestions for including food in fiction are: 1.
Use it as the subplot.
While your story may seemingly center the action around food, you can make the characters and their quests to become the central conflict, thus making the food and cooking a subplot.
In The Whole World Over, Julia Glass centers her story around a pastry chef and different tastes and settings that influence the personalities and lifestyles of all the characters in the novel, while in reality, she explores personal commitments, love, betrayal, forgiveness, and understanding.
In Cooking for Harry, Kay-Marie James, too, cooks a good argument for the battle of the sexes and romance.
2.
Make food important to the story even if its main character or important characters do not cook.
You might design food as a reward or a punishment; you might also gather characters around the table to eat, as they exchange insults, ideas, or flatteries.
The possibilities are endless.
In Playing for Pizza.
John Grisham puts a disgraced quarterback in another culture to play for the honor of the game and the reward of pizza, while he employs the themes of maturation and redemption of self.
3.
Make food magical or seem magical.
You might invent your very own magic food and recipes or you might use regular food items and dishes and the manner they are prepared to perform magic on the people eating it.
A good example to this can be the movie, Babette's Feast.
Shitra Banerjee Divakaruni, also, makes spices create their magic on people in the Mistress of Spices, using her main character Tilo who runs a spice shop in Oakland, California.
4.
Use the senses.
Even if you are not making food central to your story, you might mention dishes or recipes for reminiscing memories, family members, and backgrounds.
This way, using the senses of smell, sound, vision, taste and touch will add depth to your writing and to your characters.
5.
Use recipes.
An entire recipe can end up as a winner or as a disaster in a story, adding dramatic and comedic elements to your writing.
You might take a simple recipe and enhance its each step with emotion.
For example, if the recipe says 'add butter', your character may use an internal dialogue or mumbling something like this: "'Add butter', the recipe says.
He knew how to butter me up.
Actually he butters up anyone, so...
I'll add Canola oil instead.
" On balance, it is important to remember that using food is only a strategy in writing, but if it is mixed with other strategies, perspective, literary imagination, and narrative techniques, it will add an alluring element to a story.
Since everyone loves and needs food, readers warm up to stories that mention food or build themselves around cooking.
Food is a very important part of our lives.
Not that a writer should be writing dull passages, but put food in the middle of a dull passage, it will reawaken the reader's attention right away.
Luckily, an abundance of books in different genres involving food exist in print.
Food can be a metaphor for love, lust, and relationships, as in Like Water for Chocolate.
Food can be the uniting factor of characters no matter how far apart they are, as in Harry Potter books when students and teachers sit together at a school banquet, eating made-up fantasy food.
Food can be used as a shaker upper of emotions like disgust, as in James Joyce's Ulysses where Leopold Bloom "liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.
" Food can make a foreign or international story feel closer to the reader by easing intercultural barriers and introducing ethnic food and the behavior of multicultural characters around food, as in Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones, and Passover by David Mamet.
A few suggestions for including food in fiction are: 1.
Use it as the subplot.
While your story may seemingly center the action around food, you can make the characters and their quests to become the central conflict, thus making the food and cooking a subplot.
In The Whole World Over, Julia Glass centers her story around a pastry chef and different tastes and settings that influence the personalities and lifestyles of all the characters in the novel, while in reality, she explores personal commitments, love, betrayal, forgiveness, and understanding.
In Cooking for Harry, Kay-Marie James, too, cooks a good argument for the battle of the sexes and romance.
2.
Make food important to the story even if its main character or important characters do not cook.
You might design food as a reward or a punishment; you might also gather characters around the table to eat, as they exchange insults, ideas, or flatteries.
The possibilities are endless.
In Playing for Pizza.
John Grisham puts a disgraced quarterback in another culture to play for the honor of the game and the reward of pizza, while he employs the themes of maturation and redemption of self.
3.
Make food magical or seem magical.
You might invent your very own magic food and recipes or you might use regular food items and dishes and the manner they are prepared to perform magic on the people eating it.
A good example to this can be the movie, Babette's Feast.
Shitra Banerjee Divakaruni, also, makes spices create their magic on people in the Mistress of Spices, using her main character Tilo who runs a spice shop in Oakland, California.
4.
Use the senses.
Even if you are not making food central to your story, you might mention dishes or recipes for reminiscing memories, family members, and backgrounds.
This way, using the senses of smell, sound, vision, taste and touch will add depth to your writing and to your characters.
5.
Use recipes.
An entire recipe can end up as a winner or as a disaster in a story, adding dramatic and comedic elements to your writing.
You might take a simple recipe and enhance its each step with emotion.
For example, if the recipe says 'add butter', your character may use an internal dialogue or mumbling something like this: "'Add butter', the recipe says.
He knew how to butter me up.
Actually he butters up anyone, so...
I'll add Canola oil instead.
" On balance, it is important to remember that using food is only a strategy in writing, but if it is mixed with other strategies, perspective, literary imagination, and narrative techniques, it will add an alluring element to a story.
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