Tag: D. H. Lawrence

bookmark_borderUsing alternatives for ‘said’

Posted on by Glenn

When you’re writing, do you use ‘said’ over and over, or do you go for variety by looking for alternatives?

I had an internet discussion with a fellow writer (who turned out to be fifteen years old, the relevance of which I’ll get to in a moment). He argued that ‘said’ is a bland, weak word and that I should be using stronger alternatives. I argued that ‘said’ and ‘asked’ are accepted as bland tags and that the overuse of colorful alternatives is not in fashion these days.

Later I brought up this discussion at the dinner table, and my partner suggested that the use of colorful alternatives is fostered by school teachers trying to get their students to liven up their creative writing assignments. For research we grabbed a bunch of books from our shelves.

I wanted to check out some YA to see if the use of alternatives is common, and in the Percy Jackson series I found some pretty heavy doses. The book that I looked at was the first in the series but I wanted to quote in here from something available on the internet, so here, from “The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 2)”, by Rick Riordan, page 11, an excerpt of which is available on Amazon:

“I…I am a freak?” he asked me.

“No,” I promised, gritting my teeth. “Matt Sloan is the freak.”

Tyson sniffed. “You are a good friend. Miss you next year if …if I can’t …”

His voice trembled. I realized he didn’t know if he’d be invited back next year for the community service project. I wondered if the headmaster had even bothered talking to him about it.

“Don’t worry, big guy,” I managed. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

Not the most extreme example, but even in this excerpt we go from asked to promised, followed by the action sniffed, to the most difficult one to swallow, “I managed.” That last one is pretty gross, imho. Even promised feels like a situation where someone has reviewed the novel with the specific objective of trying to replace every said with an alternative.

In a different extreme I have wondered whether D. H. Lawrence was allergic to attribution tags. The generally accepted rule is to not go more than five statements before clarifying for the reader who is speaking, but here from “Sons and Lovers” (available from the Gutenberg collection) the identities are kept clear by 1) having only two persons in the scene, 2) short statements, and most of all by 3) clear cut objectives and positions of each of the two; one constantly pushing away and the other constantly questioning:

“I have been thinking,” he said, “we ought to break off.”
“Why?” she cried in surprise.
“Because it’s no good going on.”
“Why is it no good?”
“It isn’t. I don’t want to marry. I don’t want ever to marry. And if we’re not going to marry, it’s no good going on.”
“But why do you say this now?”
“Because I’ve made up my mind.”
“And what about these last months, and the things you told me then?”
“I can’t help it! I don’t want to go on.”
“You don’t want any more of me?”
“I want us to break off—you be free of me, I free of you.”
“And what about these last months?”
“I don’t know. I’ve not told you anything but what I thought was true.”
“Then why are you different now?”
“I’m not—I’m the same—only I know it’s no good going on.”
“You haven’t told me why it’s no good.”
“Because I don’t want to go on—and I don’t want to marry.”
“How many times have you offered to marry me, and I wouldn’t?”
“I know; but I want us to break off.”

Or, this excerpt from later in the same novel where a conversation between two characters has become between three, yet Lawrence uses the bare minimum of attribution tags in a three way conversation:

They looked into each other’s eyes, laughing. At that moment they became aware of Miriam. There was a click, and everything had altered.
“Hello, Miriam!” he exclaimed. “You said you’d come!”
“Yes. Had you forgotten?”
She shook hands with Clara, saying:
“It seems strange to see you here.”
“Yes,” replied the other; “it seems strange to be here.”
There was a hesitation.
“This is pretty, isn’t it?” said Miriam.
“I like it very much,” replied Clara.
Then Miriam realised that Clara was accepted as she had never been.
“Have you come down alone?” asked Paul.
“Yes; I went to Agatha’s to tea. We are going to chapel. I only called in for a moment to see Clara.”
“You should have come in here to tea,” he said.
Miriam laughed shortly, and Clara turned impatiently aside.
“Do you like the chrysanthemums?” he asked.
“Yes; they are very fine,” replied Miriam.
“Which sort do you like best?” he asked.
“I don’t know. The bronze, I think.”
“I don’t think you’ve seen all the sorts. Come and look. Come and see which are YOUR favourites, Clara.”
He led the two women back to his own garden, where the towsled bushes of flowers of all colours stood raggedly along the path down to the field. The situation did not embarrass him, to his knowledge.
“Look, Miriam; these are the white ones that came from your garden. They aren’t so fine here, are they?”
“No,” said Miriam.
“But they’re hardier. You’re so sheltered; things grow big and tender, and then die. These little yellow ones I like. Will you have some?”

Lots of asked and replieds rather than saids, but that’s the nature of this particular conversation. More importantly, note all the dialogue that has no tag in spite of the fact that three people are present. Lawrence has used the absolute minimum number of tags for this given dialogue and yet it is always clear who is speaking.

For our research we also pulled out some detective novels, some Alice Munro and others that I can’t remember. And later I also took a look at “The Hunger Games”, by Suzanne Collins, another YA novel but one that had been recommended to students by my daughter’s high school, to see if that one might be the same or different from The Olympians series. We found no other examples of (what I would call) overuse of alternatives.

The results of my survey: unless you can’t help it, don’t overuse alternatives to ‘said’. Unless, perhaps, you’re writing for an audience that won’t complain and who can take the sensory overload. School teachers might still push their students to consider alternatives, but overusing tags makes the writing stilted, and overusing colorful tags makes the writing garish.

I don’t think Robert Ludlum would be too offended with the description that I have indirectly applied. 🙂

bookmark_borderReview and thoughts: The Surrendered

Posted on by Glenn

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately and not much writing. One of the recent reads is “The Surrendered” by Chang-rae Lee. As is always the case, I’m writing about it not for a scholarly review but to note “writerly” aspects that I’ve thought about.

A little prior to this I read Murakami and with his novels I am aware that he is writing in Japanese and the writing that I read is translated. The books (I’ve read two of his novels now) have some unusual use of language and I often wonder to what extent this is his writing style, or a Japanese way of presenting writing, or simply the translator having difficulties. I don’t know that I’ll ever know for sure so I don’t pay too much attention.

But as far as I can tell Chang-rae Lee writes in English and “The Surrendered” was not written and then translated. It’s still possible that English was not his first language or that he simply carries with him some some elements of other cultural presentation or phrasing, but some elements of his writing seem odd to me.

One element is his use of commas. Somehow in my development as a writer I’ve become an overuser of commas and often have to suck a number of them out when reviewing, so perhaps I’m overly sensitive to what I perceive to be improper or at least less that ideal use of commas. Chang-rae Lee’s writing sometimes reminds me of my own difficulties with their use. From his book,

It was massive and impressive to his boy’s eyes, built from blocks of granite and with a medieval-style tower, and within its soaring buttressed wooden ceiling above the nave, the supports and walls were clad in a limestone that shone brilliantly in the daytime from the light that streamed in through three high, narrow stained-glass windows over the main entrance.

I’m not sure about the use of the comma near the middle. Here, without it:

 It was massive and impressive to his boy’s eyes, built from blocks of granite and with a medieval-style tower, and within its soaring buttressed wooden ceiling above the nave the supports and walls were clad in a limestone that shone brilliantly in the daytime from the light that streamed in through three high, narrow stained-glass windows over the main entrance.

Another example.

There was a separate small chapel off the nave, devoted to the Annunciation, and Hector was surprised how well he could recall it now, the narrow space like a miniaturized chapel with its smaller altar and cross and off to the side a stature of a remarkably beautiful Irish-faced Mary, who could have been one of his sisters.

The last comma makes me uncomfortable, but if you remove it the related but separate statement about the Mary figure being similar to his sisters is not set off enough.

There was a separate small chapel off the nave, devoted to the Annunciation, and Hector was surprised how well he could recall it now, the narrow space like a miniaturized chapel with its smaller altar and cross and off to the side a stature of a remarkably beautiful Irish-faced Mary who could have been one of his sisters.

Or maybe the two separate sections of sentence could be split right in the middle with a semi-colon? I don’t know what’s ideal here.

There was a separate small chapel off the nave, devoted to the Annunciation, and Hector was surprised how well he could recall it now; the narrow space like a miniaturized chapel with its smaller altar and cross and off to the side a stature of a remarkably beautiful Irish-faced Mary, who could have been one of his sisters.

These are just two examples grabbed from sections of text within the same chapter; other examples similar to these are everywhere within the novel.

Part of the issue arises because he, like many writers, likes to use long sentences and when you try to combine many related but not sequential phrases in one sentence, things can get hairy. As with the sentence that I just wrote. 🙂 At the same time he contrasts these long sentences with occasional short statements, but there were a few times that I found these short lines unnecessarily abrupt and blunt. They felt less like an important statement being highlighted and more like a speed bump that you feel but didn’t see coming.

A couple other items of note. I was not aware until I completed reading and began doing some internet searches that Chang-rae Lee  is male. For some reason I had the sense that the author was female, though I’m not sure why. Perhaps the perspectives of the female characters seemed more vivid to me than the male characters, or maybe it’s, as my partner says of my own writing, that his writing has a female style. I have a sense of what that means but without really understanding it.

Also, when I researched I expected to find references to D. H. Lawrence because I found the description of the relationships very Lawrencian, but in my limited searching I found no one else making that connection. Perhaps it’s old news and has been discussed in reviews of his earlier works but it seems that his earlier writing has been done in first person and I don’t think that same Lawrencian way of describing relationships would be as common in first person, but here I’m only guessing.

I said that this was not intended as a review of the book, but if you are reading this and thinking about reading it, do so. I particularly admire the depth of the story and the exquisite way in which he juggles story lines from different points in time, presenting them in a sequence that strengthens the effect of the story rather than adhering to any straight-line double time line. One casual reviewer had difficulty with this which made me sad because  Chang-rae Lee has done this so well that if you have trouble with it, well, it’s just sad.