{"id":20555,"date":"2018-12-28T01:00:31","date_gmt":"2018-12-28T09:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/writersfunzone.com\/blog\/?p=20555"},"modified":"2019-01-01T20:30:51","modified_gmt":"2019-01-02T04:30:51","slug":"tips-on-food-writing-by-mj-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/writersfunzone.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/28\/tips-on-food-writing-by-mj-post\/","title":{"rendered":"Tips on Food Writing by MJ Post"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Today we welcome a new guest writer to Writer\u2019s Fun Zone, MJ Post who is giving us tips on food writing in our fiction. Enjoy!<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Thanks to Beth Barany for the chance to appear in the Writer\u2019s Fun Zone.<\/strong> Be sure to jump to the bottom for my book promotion. I\u2019ll stay on-topic till then, but I hope you\u2019ll love my novel Chef Showdown<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m MJ Post, a romance author known for a Brooklyn attitude — a Brooklyn high school teacher, a denizen of diverse Queens \u2013 a comics fan, social media junky, stuff like that.<\/p>\n

Nothing I just said suggests that I would turn out as a \u201cfood novelist.\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In fact I had already written a food novel before I even know that was a thing. A food novel is a novel which centers on the experience of cooking and eating. The Belly of Paris<\/em><\/a> by Emile Zola is one of the classic examples.<\/p>\n

The last winner (co-winner) of the \u201cNext Food Network Star,\u201d Jess Tom, wrote one currently gaining attention; it\u2019s called Food Whore: A Novel of Dining and Decei<\/a>t<\/em>.<\/p>\n

(I\u2019ll get around to reading them both soon enough.)<\/p>\n

So, what\u2019s the point of these?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Food can be a metaphor, or a symbol, or something else, right? Wuzzupwitdat? Well, let\u2019s start with some basics of writing about food. Because you just might want to write your own food novel!<\/p>\n

Food needs to be more than just your daily necessity — it needs to be an organizing principle of your . Your lifestyle needs to have food in it \u2013 beyond sustenance, food is your passion and your entertainment. We all eat, but I\u2019m talking about eating not just to get it over with — I mean eating as a special activity. I mean seeking out new foods, new places to buy them, and new places to eat.<\/p>\n

A GOURMAND<\/h2>\n

If this is a part of your life,<\/strong> it makes you what we call a GOURMAND (a lover of food.) Gourmands don\u2019t just get some takeout and stuff it in their faces. They keep track of what they ate and where, discuss it with friends and family, try new restaurants and food markets, share pictures and details in social media, read and write reviews and comment on the reviews of others, plan restaurants in advance at their intended vacation destinations.<\/p>\n

Well, you get the idea. (I could go on listing details all day — I\u2019m a detail monster, like most novelists.) So if you are going to write about food, then I imagine that food is already a big part of your day.<\/p>\n

Cooking also has to be important to you.<\/h2>\n

I personally can\u2019t cook well<\/strong> — I\u2019m messy in the kitchen, disorganized with ingredients, I don\u2019t season well, and I don\u2019t eat things that great cooks always eat, like fish and eggs. (Yeah, #MJiscrazy, yo.) However, because of \u201cFood TV,\u201d I watch established great chefs and up-and-coming greats at work all the time. In a way, I\u2019m an outlier because, thanks to TV, I can write about I can\u2019t do it myself.<\/p>\n

Ideally, as a food writer, you enjoy cooking, cook often, and like to improve your skills and incorporate new ingredients, tools, and techniques. My former (and maybe future) writing partner Mysti Parker pre-tested all the savory cupcakes in her food novel, Mann Cakes<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0 because her saintly husband Bryan made them all for the family. That\u2019s a good idea. Even if you don\u2019t try everything, you should know what kitchen work is really about. (if you don\u2019t, why would you want to write a food novel anyway?)<\/p>\n

Let me just say, I\u2019ve watched a bunch of Hallmark movies with chef characters, and they never, never, demonstrate that knowledge. Maybe the original source material adapted into the movie did, but the TV movies don\u2019t. Entertaining movies, but they aren\u2019t really about food. They\u2019re about the relationships between the characters.<\/p>\n

Okay, so you\u2019re a gourmand, and you value cooking<\/strong><\/h2>\n

— that\u2019s all the background. How do you progress to writing? The first thing to know is stories are always about character and conflict. So you need someone involved with food as your protagonist. A chef is an easy choice, but surely not the only one. I could have written Chef Showdown\u00a0<\/em><\/a>with anyone working at The Kitchen Network, my fictional TV studio, as a main character.<\/p>\n

For your story, you could choose anyone in the food industry, or anyone who values food as much as you do.<\/p>\n

Next, you need a conflict or situation which will require that person to eat or cook. It could be a restaurant business issue, or a food competition, or a rivalry between two food businesses, or just a gourmand who will involve others in lots of eating — so you can describe the food!<\/p>\n

This is the fiction writer\u2019s art in general: create a situation about your characters which will interest your target audience. Just make sure there will be cooking and eating involved in the plot.<\/p>\n

Now then — how do you handle writing about food itself?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

This is tough and will take practice. It sure did for me!<\/p>\n

First, read recipes and study ingredients, tools, and cooking methods and learn the vocabulary culinarians use. Then you can deploy all these as specific language in your descriptions. Authenticity in food writing, like in most writing, comes from specific nouns and strong verbs. Using the jargon of the food professional is an excellent idea — just be sure you explain it as you introduce it. You can educate your reader about cooking, recipes, and the food business as you go, just as writers in other genres establish the terminology of their own fiction (like who Lycans are in a horror novel, or what a gadget does in a techno-thriller, for two examples.)<\/p>\n

Besides the specific language,<\/strong> use the most precise adjectives you can to describe the food. Words for smell, taste, and texture are fewer in number than words for sight and sound, but if they don\u2019t come naturally to your mind, search for online lists, or even lists in books. Here are a few to start with:<\/p>\n