You're so right about 'verbal.' I don't know why I said that. Brain fart. Criiinge.... I thought about the storytelling thing because I remembered going to an event here in Glasgow, featuring Garrison Keillor. While he was onstage he told a few of his stories that I'd actually read, but he told them as a storyteller would, without reading them at all. It wasn't till he was partway into each one that I realised 'hey, I've read this before.' I honestly thought he was straightforwardly telling a story, not reciting one he'd written. It was interesting. Of course he is a pro at both, but it did make me think ...I wonder which came first. The storytelling or the writing? I was a huge fan of Prairie Home Companion back when I still lived in Michigan, and was delighted to finally get to see him in person. I spoke to him afterwards, during the book signing bit of the evening, and when I told him I was from Michigan, he got animated, and asked me if I would mind sticking around a while longer—so I could translate the Glasgwegian accents for him! He said it was really embarrassing to be spoken to so kindly, and not to be able to understand what was being said. I agreed ...although he didn't seem to have too much of a problem after that. He was very popular with the Glasgow audience, by the way. Which surprised me a bit. I thought his work was so local-specific, it might not go down well outside the upper Midwest. But his humour and insight about human nature is, apparently, universal.
Just so long as you follow these three rules: 1. Passive voice shouldn't be used. 2. A preposition is the wrong word to end a sentence with. 3. Complete sentences, always. 4. Redundancy is unnecessary, unneeded and superfluous. 5. Don't use run-on sentences, because they feel disorganized, and they sound like rambling, or worse, they come off as ranting, and anyway, run-ons can almost always be reworded into multiple sentences, or they can be restructured in other ways, if you prefer, and no, I don't care if Charles Dickens constantly wrote sentences with more clauses than this one, because I don't think he knew any better, or maybe they were rationing periods in Victorian England, for all I know, though I can't imagine why, and besides, he had a vast enough vocabulary, not to mention a talent for simile, that causes most people to overlook it, even if I can't stand it personally, and I mean it really drives me crazy, but then again, you probably shouldn't trust my opinion; I use semi-colons.
The word "rules" doesn't sit well with creative people, and what are writers if not creative? Proofreaders. Memo mills. Instruction manual scribes. Still, writers need a starting point, and I prefer to label them guidelines. There are principles more likely to set a writer on a reasonably rapid development track, and reasons why these principles are recommended. Following the principles won't make you successful overnight, and maybe won't make you successful at all. But they will bring you closer to competence. Anyone starting out in writing, or parenting, or any skilled endeavor, needs a solid foundation before developing signature skills. With a solid basis in conventional approaches, you have a better sense of what readers, and editors and agents, expect, and why these conventions work. Then when you deviate from a guideline, you know what it is you are attempting to accomplish, not just making random changes to be different and unique. Uniqueness doesn't come from throwing gimmicks into your writing. In fact, gimmicks are generally the first thing new writers try in order to make their writing stand out. It places them squarely in the mainstream of "never made it." Uniqueness comes from discovering your natural, expressive voice, and nurturing it. With a solid background of conventional guidelines, you can deviate from them where it really makes a specific statement, accepting the truth that such deviations are also a distraction to the reader. So you only deviate when doing so earns you a greater advantage than the cost of disturbing the reader's flow.
About rules: How many "rules" does this break? Not a complete sentence. Don't split infinitives. Avoid adverbs. Don't end with a preposition. And yet, just about attempt to reshape this to absolve it of writing sins would weaken it beyond redemption.
Did you read the article, though? Most of the "rules" she's citing are stupid, and wouldn't bring anyone closer to competence at all.
Yup, and some of my favorite authors, and my favorite books, break most if not all of those so-called "rules." One of my personal bugbears not listed in the article is "show, don't tell." I know it's a popular opinion on this particular forum, but I feel it gets pushed a little too hard at times. One of my stories had a line where the MC, after a harrowing experience, runs their fingers through their "short black hair." I was advised that the MC wouldn't be thinking of their own hair color, and that including that detail was "telling" unless I could get them in front of a mirror or have another character comment on how black their hair looked or... And I spent some time trying to do this before I realized that writers read with far different eyes from the general public. Then I started to realize that authors I really admired would sometimes devote pages, chapters even, to flat-out detached narrator "telling", and as long as it's done well, as long as it leads to something, it can work in the same way a movie might have a long panning shot from over the bay, moving past the harbor, sweeping through the skyscrapers, down to the bad side of town with flashing blue lights and random gunshots, in through an apartment window and we see the protag pick up his phone "Yeah? Yeah." and the action begins. He's not thinking about the fact that he's in a tenement in the bad side of San Francisco in the summer, is he? Anyway, yeah, good article.
Late for an ETA, but (the also late) Iain M. Banks liked to include the occasional massively overwritten, incredibly long, but still grammatically good sentence. From his book The Algebraist: A whole book that way? No, but as a trademark? Oh hell yeah.
I don’t see inserted descriptions like that as “telling”, and I have no problem with telling. I see them as POV violations and sometimes distractions. I don’t see your long-shot example as a POV violation or a distraction, because it’s not breaking the current POV choice or narrative goals.
Been thinking about Raider's of the Lost Ark for a minute now. Did that dude even have a name? And who was he supposed to be in the Nazi milieu? I'm thinking he must have been part of the security services (Gestapo)... he kind of had that Heidrich way about him. Saw that movie again not too long ago. It's really dated. Like, really, really, really dated. Still an awesome flick, but the cheesiness of it has trumped my childhood nostalgia for it a bit. But anything that burns Nazis alive is a-okay in my book. The best line in the whole series comes from Last Crusade when Harrison Ford sees the flag and says, "Nazis... I hate these guys."
I've always been a Keillor fan, too. I started for the humor and imagery, and later often saw a darker undertone that made for complete pictures. My guess is that the stories are written first, but he writes them with an understanding and ear for oral presentation. My guess anyway.
I honestly remember it mostly for the theme song. When Indy dives off the boat and swims over to the submarine (or vice versa? Who knows...) and the music springs up in the background? Hell, yeah! Ah. From boat to sub:
Yeah, who's deterred by a German U-boat? Not Indy. I'll just hold onto the side like Marty McFly and improvise later. You've got to love the gleeful insouciance of 80s action movies!
Good to see I've retained something from my European history BA, even if I need an 80s movie to unlock it.
I don't think that person knew what is generally meant by "show, don't tell," because that was some ridiculous advice. I still feel it's a useful prescription when someone writes a patch of expository narration in place of what could be a great scene. I agree entirely though, that not only can "telling" be done well, it's absolutely necessary. You have to be able to use "We ate and packed our bags. By 9:30, we were back on the road." so you can get to the next scene worth "showing." I think the trick is knowing when to show, when to tell and when to skip it entirely. This has been on my mind lately with my WIP. It takes place over many months with significant down time between major action or drama. I know which are the most important scenes, obviously, but I'm making a lot of judgement calls on which of the lesser scenes draw the reader in by adding to atmosphere or character, and which are indulgent, distracting or just plain slow. It's tricky. Many of my favorite authors madly indulge in superfluous details and backstory. The narrative gets completely sidetracked by tangents and flashbacks and unnecessary events, but it works. I become more attached to a character because of an endearing action or bit of dialog in a scene that was otherwise useless to the story. Other writers don't know when to cut to the chase. I'm not too worried though. I'm sure pacing issues will be easier to recognize on my second pass. I'm trying that thing where you don't reread or edit until you have a first draft finished. I've never been this productive, but it's driving me a little bananas, not being able to obsessively nitpick every paragraph.
Comfort yourself. You WILL be able to nitpick every paragraph, once the first draft is done! If you're anything like me, you'll spend the next half of your life nitpicking every paragraph—nay, every word.
Hmm, I believe that verbs can be implied in sentences so do you think I should change it to or, maybe It does change the underlying message though...
