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Writing
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Writing
The Purpose Of Prose
There’s an interesting discussion going on over at Crimespace about “lean” or “muscular” prose, what it is and why it’s used. Gerald So has also weighed in on his own blog..
I think that this misses the point of writing. To me, writing in a particular style is not a goal. My goal is to write in the style that fits the story, whatever that may be. I recently sold a story in which the narrator is an over-educated, almost hysterical neurotic, and just finished another in which the narrator is a laconic cowboy. Each is written in a style that would not be appropriate for the other. Now, it’s true that some styles do come more naturally to me than others; for example, I had trouble writing with a story that was intended to be in a loose, objective third-person point of view, in which narrative summary would substitute for much of the dialog.
In a broader sense, I think that prose should generally appear effortless. It should serve only to further the story and should not call attention to itself needlessly. When I say “further the story”, I’m not just talking about plot, but also character, setting, tone – if possible, each sentence should further more than one of these, for example pushing the plot forward while giving insight into a character.
This type of writing is very common in genres such as mystery or science fiction, less so in literary fiction. Sometimes literary fiction seems to be like Olympic gymnastics: capable of amazing feats, but certainly not effortless. I personally believe that this striving for effect weakens the overall work and should be disposed of quietly.
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Programming, Writing
Control Freak
I have two hobbies: writing and programming. In both of these it’s very important to be able to track your revisions and recover previous versions. For the past year or so I have used the TortoiseSVN client for source control, but I didn’t really understand what I was doing.
Until the other day, when I read Eric Sink’s excellent source control HOWTO. This covers pretty much everything you would need to know about editing documents and saving your changes.
Better still, not only does it apply to computer code, it applies to stories equally well. Finish a draft? Save it with a tag. An editor asks for revisions? Create a branch that may be later merged into the main trunk. Decide you liked that scene you deleted 2 months ago? It’s still there.
Plus it’s handy for procrastination. Think of all the time you could waste getting this set up right when you should be writing prose/code!
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Writing
Hearing Voices
Dave White wrote a post last week about voice. I recently had an interesting experience with voice and thought I’d share.
I completed the first draft of a new story, a story I was hoping would be a departure for me stylistically. Most of my stories tend to be full of dialog, with enough action to keep them bopping along from scene to scene. In this story, I wanted the reader to be a bit more distant from the characters. So I thought I’d tell much of it through narrative, with richer descriptions and less dialog.
I couldn’t do it. Either it was a failure of the imagination or I just don’t have the skill (yet) to depart from my normal way of telling a story. I still like the story, and it came out mostly the way I wanted it to, but the voice is not as I intended.
Then, this past weeked, I read a novel calle The Polish Officer by Alan Furst. THIS was the style I was going for. Detached, almost clinical, never getting too close. Among other things I realized that to use this style you have to share the characters’ thoughts with the reader, something I don’t like doing, and if it’s a story of any length, you will probably need to use multiple viewpoints. Both of these techniques are more difficult that the typical single viewpoint words-and-action style that I use, but Furst carried them off withou apparent effort.
So now I have a little inspiration to use for my second draft, and a little better understanding. It was just serendipity that I picked up that book when I needed it.
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Writing
Why I’m In A Writing Group
02.27.08 | Permalink | 2 CommentsI’m in a writer’s group here in Fort Worth. Roughly half a dozen other writers belong, all pretty much around my level of skill. Everyone has opinions and the discussions tend to be lively.
About a week ago I presented a detective story. It’s probably the best idea I’ve ever had, and I kicked it around for years and years before I ever got down to writing it. As a result I had a pretty good idea of how I wanted it to go, and that’s mostly how it went.
One problem was a scene near the middle, where the detective takes a woman he met during the investigation out to dinner. This scene contained a small but important character point that I wanted to make, and otherwise was just a way of getting certain characters together in the next scene. I tried to do the scene with narration only, but there’s just nothing going on to describe, so I resorted to a few lines of “witty” dialog.
At the meeting, the story was pretty well received, with lots of suggestions for ways to improve it, many of which I’ll probably end up using. Just when things seemed to be winding down a writer named Chris Drury gave me an excellent suggestion for how to add a little impact to the date scene: have them discuss, and make fun of, the other patrons.
This was such a great idea that I immediately began to plan how to best use it, including having the detective and the girl make fun of themselves and each other in a way that will point to some of the later developments, and will also let me fill in a little backstory.
So that’s why I go to writing groups. No matter how good your story is, you never know when someone will give you an idea that may make it better.
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Reviews, Writing
Breaking Down “The Last Time”
Last week, as part of the Valentine’s Day mystery story project – they may as well have called it “Love and Death” – I published a story here on the site, called “The Last Time“. It’s actually a sequel to another short I posted here, called “Alice“.
Since it’s short, I thought I’d run through “The Last Time” paragraph by paragraph and give you an idea of what I was trying to do. Go read the story and then read this.
I walked off the construction site when I got the call. I couldn’t go back there now, but that’s okay. I’ve been fired before.
The narrator, a construction worker (let’s call him Steve), gets a call. It’s important enough for him to quit his job, but he doesn’t seem to think it’s life and death (”…but that’s okay.”).
Four years without a word, then this. It was nice to know that she still thought of me when she had a mess that needed cleaning.
The call was from a woman who he hadn’t heard from in a long time. Steve is not particularly happy to hear from her, but he feels an obligation to go take care of whatever mess she’s in. And it’s not the first time he’s had to do this (”…she still thought of me…”).
As I climbed the four flights of stairs I promised myself this was the last time I would help her. Then I told myself it was the last time I’d make that promise.
Here I set the scene a little bit. It’s an apartment building, and not especially swank – there’s no elevator. Steve tries to convince himself that any responsibility he feels towards the woman has been discharged, but even he isn’t convinced, because this isn’t the first time he said it would be the last time.
I didn’t knock, just opened the door. She sat on the couch opposite, staring at nothing. As I stepped into the room I noticed the smell, the scent of fire and smoke hanging in the air, like the Fourth of July when I was a kid. But this wasn’t firecrackers.
He barges in, and the woman, Alice, is sitting there sort of withdrawn. And, of course, someone’s been shooting off a gun.
Then I saw the man’s body to the left, by the TV.
More than a typical mess.
I hadn’t been a cop in years but I knew what happened inside of ten seconds. Three shell casings just inside a doorway on the right. Three red holes in the man’s chest. One casing next to the body. One bullet wound in the head.
The crime scene shows that this was murder, not self defense. Three shots put the man down, and a fourth finished him off. Plus, I’m hoping to suggest that the police force was one of the jobs Steve walked away from for Alice.
The gun, an automatic, probably a .32 or .380, lay on the coffee table. Alice didn’t look at it. There were no tears. She was beyond that now.
Alice had played on Steve’s emotions for years, getting him to do her dirty work. But there’s no way to portray herself as the victim here, no point in crying about killing a man.
It was easy to see the girl I’d loved, but she wasn’t that girl any longer. The makeup was thick upon her face but couldn’t hide the lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes. Her hair was no longer blonde, but yellow, a color Mother Nature had never intended. The roses on her cheap print dress had faded.
Alice is older, and the worse for wear, and whatever feelings were between them have grown shopworn as well.
She stood up slowly and walked past me without a word, close enough to smell her perfume. I saw the plan. She goes, I stay.
No. She’d always asked a lot, more than she’d earned, but not this. She wasn’t worth my life. Maybe she never had been.
She wants Steve to take the fall, and for the first time he sees how far she’s willing to go to save herself.
I picked up the gun from the table and took careful aim. “Alice,” I said.
She didn’t turn around, just stopped in the doorway. I took a breath, held it, the sight picture steady on the back of her head. A moment passed and I exhaled.
He can’t pull the trigger. In spite of how she is, he can’t bring himself to kill her, not even when she wouldn’t hesitate to send him over to save herself.
Alice turned and started down the stairs. I listened to her footsteps as they grew fainter, finally punctuated by the slam of the front door.
I laid the gun on the table and sat down to wait for the police.
There’s nothing left to do but accept his fate.
In this story and in “Alice” I was trying to show a tragic, twisted relationship, between a woman who leaves a good man for a succession of bad ones, but always comes back when she needs help.
So why does Steve help her? I guess there’s a tendency to help those who are weak, who can’t look after themselves, even when they’re responsible for it. It’s tough to disown someone you love, even when they can’t stay straight.
There’s also some dark fatalism in this story, in the way Steve accepts being puninshed for a murder he didn’t commit. He doesn’t try to get away; he knows someone has to take the fall, and in the end he just can’t let it be Alice. Even though by this time there’s just memories of love.
As for the title, this is certainly the last time he’ll lend her a hand.
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