Month: May 2013

bookmark_borderWeaknesses, of a writing style

Posted on by Glenn

I have a few writing tendencies which are weaknesses. I’d like to understand their source so that I can figure out how to manage them.

One is the over use of the word “but”. One person that I mentioned this to suggested that I consider alternative words like ‘however’, but that’s not a good answer because I’m writing fiction, not a research paper and most alternatives to “but” are too formal.

Not only that, but it’s the way that I think and the way that I write that is generating too many instances and too many needs for the word. “But” implies a contrasting but related statement, and I do those all the time. (I’m not intentionally using more instances as I write, but I’m also not trying to avoid them to show how often it comes out naturally in my writing. I’ll highlight them after I’m done to see how often it shows up.)

Sometimes I could just leave the word out, and let the sentences or phrases stand against each other. Sometimes I could probably substitute the word “and” because the concepts are always related or connected; I’m just emphasizing the contrasting parts by using “but”. And maybe it’s my twisty way of thinking through things that leads me to constantly turn back with a “but”, or my desire to cover myself, or to cover multiple aspects as I work my way through something. Or a fear to commit myself by obfuscating my statement by including another aspect or viewpoint.

Here’s another issue: I tend to overuse words in close proximity. When people have conversations they often do the same thing, repeating words to make sure the topic is the same. And within the space of a paragraph or two my topic doesn’t change much, so concept repetition is highly likely, but because my mind is in the conversation between myself and the reader I tend to reuse the same word for the same concept. Hence I find the word “woman” three times in one paragraph, or I keep wanting to use “watched” as I revise a scene. If WordPerfect or some other grammar checker will point these out for me, then I can do something about them.

And a third issue: I have characters do a lot of smiling, grinning, turning to look, raising their eyebrows, ect. Small actions, mainly expressive actions, but they do a lot of them. But this is what I see when I try to visualize the scene. A lot of talking heads.

The source here maybe be at least two-fold: I sometimes tend to write detailed descriptions, so every gesture shows up, and, I think I don’t have enough action occurring while the characters are having their conversation, so all their actions are small facial changes.

Maybe it’s no accident when Richard Ford has the father polishing his boots while talking to his son, so that the act of polishing gives one character something to be doing. Maybe if my characters did more of this they wouldn’t have to pace as often as they do. Give one of the characters an activity, something common for them, something that helps solidify the impression that the reader gets about them, or something that will show a trait or facet that I haven’t yet focused on.

This all comes after realizing that I have already managed to escape one writing weakness, the overuse of adverbs. Somehow, some way, after thinking about that and highlighting “ly” words as a step during editing I’ve trained myself to not use them very often, even in first drafts. Maybe if I do the same kind of exercise with “but” (easy to do with a computer) I can minimize the effects of that issue as well.

bookmark_borderRichard Ford: Canada

Posted on by Glenn
I’m reading Richard Ford’s “Canada” atm, and noting how different this is as a reading experience for me, compared with “Rabbit Is Rich“, by John Updike, the last novel that I read. First off, I’ve read Updike before, and even read that Rabbit novel before, whereas I haven’t read any Richard Ford before, so I have to read for content, for the story, which I didn’t have to do with Rabbit. With Rabbit I could appreciate Updike’s writing ability and skim the content, or at least it stuck very easily in my brain.

Ford, at least in this novel, writes short, one phrase sentences one after another, and then sneaks in a two phrase sentence before the end of the paragraph. It’s very clear, mostly simple structures, just like my sentence expert book tells me. But as soon as I start paying attention to the style I start losing track of the story. Then maybe I start to pay attention to actions that surround dialogue, and then I lose the story again.

If I just read for story, I think I would find this very long and slow. Right at the beginning we know that the MC’s parents rob a bank, but it isn’t until 40% of the way through (book thickness-estimate) that the robbery actually takes place.

I’m not positive I’ll finish it; I’ve had it out for three weeks so it’s due back at the library next week, and in the meantime I’ve plowed through two Reacher novels for entertainment. Mind you, now I’m finding Lee Child’s use of sentence fragments annoying.  “Canada” just isn’t grabbing me to finish it, but the writing style is interesting.

bookmark_borderShow, don’t tell

Posted on by Glenn

One of the first aphorisms given to beginning writers is the old ‘show, don’t tell’ claim. Like any ‘rule’ of any endeavor, especially those of creative natures, it has as its basis some helpful advice, yet you also need to understand it, and then be able to understand when to break the rule.

Afaik, this rule has its source in the tendency amongst us writers to summarize or to inform the reader, to tell. The opposite, to show, is to describe the situation as it unfolds, to provide actions and dialogue and to let the reader get the story themselves. It’s often easier to tell than to show. To show takes more words, more detail, and normally is more work for the writer. But showing is real, it puts the reader more deeply into the story, encourages them to feel and to experience the story closer to first hand. It’s like the difference between listening to a talking head in a news broadcast, versus watching a documentary of the same event. When you show, you put the reader there, as opposed to them hearing about being there.

But there are times to break this rule. In my readings about writing (if I can remember where I’ll add it, but my mind is drawing a blank), the author pointed out how Alice Munro, the master of the short story, had summarized back story for her character, had told it rather than showing it. Now you could say, Wait, this is a short story, of course you have to speed things up. Not just to keep the word count down, but if you use too large a percentage of your words for back story, the back story had better be a good chunk of the story that you want to tell.

I also re-read John Updike’s “Rabbit Is Rich” recently. This is the third of four novels, each taking place ten years apart (and the last two winning Pulitzer prizes). Because I had read the earlier novels and because I had read this novel too some twenty-five years ago, this re-visit gave me the opportunity to better notice and to better appreciate how Updike offers backstory. And there’s a lot of it, from the two previous novels as well as from the ten years preceding this novel. How did he get here, what’s the history, what’s the connection? What do we need to know about what has happened between these characters? What is the memory that comes up for him? Skeeter? Who is Skeeter? Ruth? Why is Ruth important? What happened between him and Janice that caused them to separate? What does Nelson know, what is it that he’s holding against him? There are a huge number of things that the reader needs to learn (or remember, if it comes from one of the previous novels). This is all done through telling; through quick historical summaries to put things in context, but done naturally, at points when this information is needed.

And one of my writing projects is revising a sequel, the first one I’ve ever written. Rereading “Rabbit is Rich” has been a big help. In my first draft I thought, I’m writing a sequel, I’ve got to quickly dump a concise summary of the key points of the first novel so that the uninitiated reader gets up to speed right away so I can get underway. Maybe I was too influenced by television dramas and their “Previously, on LA Law …” type of rehash at the opening of episodes. But now I’ve distributed the backstory of the first novel throughout first half the second, rather than dumping it all in the first couple of chapters. The flavor of the story changes with this procedure. Now I just have some essentials in the first two chapters, enough to get the reader through the upcoming four or six chapters, and then the rest flows out in a couple later situations, when the information would naturally be coming to mind for the main character.

And, to be honest, it feels strange. I feel as if I’m hiding something from the reader, or I forgot to include my rehash at the beginning. And the second novel feels as if it were sewn into the fabric of the first, rather than created as a sequel like Robocop II or Rocky II or Karate Kid II.