Style Writing in Black and White (B&W)

I thumbed through a pictorial history of Talkies by Daniel Blum yesterday. It contained hundreds of photos of movies produced from the 1920s to the early 1970s. All photos were black and white and were arranged by year.

Being 50+ and a TV addict during my earlier years, I recognized many celebrities and specific frames from movie scenes. The B&W limitation on film was based solely upon technology and production costs up through the 1960s.

I am actively learning the craft of writing. Consequently, I spend a lot of time thinking about necessary and unnecessary prose, descriptions, and even dialog. Out of my recent musing, I pondered these random points. I offer no judgements but only questions and thoughts. Feel free to comment.

• How essential is color to storytelling?
  
• Will the modern reader of fictional genres enjoy works that contain no reference to color?
• Vividly described scenes imply bright and colorful descriptions. Certainly, this has its place. I imagine it can also be used as a smoke screen for poor storytelling. (or is that green screen)
• Have you considered writing a B&W short story? The idea is to make zero references to color.

Calvin and Hobbs by Bill Watterson, 1989

 

It would be funny to describe the bank in "It's a Wonderful Life" using only gray scale.

 

I don't think I mention color much if at all. I was much more visual in my descriptions when I first started writing, but as I got more sophisticated they've become much less physical and materialist. Not entirely sure what to call it, maybe I describe an atmosphere (not necessarily a physical one) or an idea or a mood. Of course there's still some physical description, but in my early days I used to bring the story to a halt and spend at least half a page giving a detailed head-to-toe description of a new character or anything important. I learned instead to break up descriptions and pepper then often in single word form throughout the sentences. And it's more suggested or hinted at now, as opposed to deterministically described.

Come to think of it I do mention color at times. There was a firelit evening scene in my Beastseekers piece that needed the brooding deep blue of the sky and the flickering yellows and oranges of the firelight in order to convey the mood. But I think it's mostly just in such scenes where color becomes important.

I'm not sure if I'd notice if a story didn't mention color, as long as it includes some kind of vividness.

Black alone can be powerfully evocative though. I'm thinking of some passages in Robert E Howard's Conan (I've only read one of the stories) and to this day I remember an image of black skies brooding over black landscapes.

 

Good idea! I never enjoyed reading lengthy descriptions of wide open vistas. I prefer a few hints from the author so I can connect those dots in my mind's eye. Funny, I was working on my second draft tonight and discovered I used the color red after 120 pages. Removed it.

I do refer to a world that is only illuminated by ultraviolet radiation. Totally dark to the human eyes, but displayed in monochrome using a UV camera. I guess I am avoiding color and writing in black and white.

 

I don't really see the point in making writing harder than it has to be. And gimmicks can come across cheap more often than clever. Vivid descriptions don't have to reference color. In fact I think most of the time they don't, but at the same time I don't see anything wrong if they do. I guess I don't really understand the point of what you're trying to do. Is this going to benefit the reader? How? A good story is a good story. Vivid description (when done well) adds to a story. Sure, you don't need to mention colors, but I just don't see the point in avoiding them. It just sounds off to say you're writing in black and white since that's likely not how the reader is going to see it. Sorry, but I really hate gimmicks in literature, and this one makes no sense to me.

 

I'm not bashing color. I use it. My goal with this post was to generate a thoughtful discussion with writers such as yourself about the importance of color and to have a little fun.

The thought occurred to me that color can be a "gimmick in literature" much as it was in the 50s and 60s with cinema. Unlike you, I have some appreciation for gimmickry in story telling. The "Wizard of Oz" used color as an interesting contrast between Kansas and Oz. That was a powerful gimmick for the viewer in the 30s at the theater. For most, it was their first experience in the world of colorized film.

The higher concept here for storytellers, I think, is that a great story can survive the absence of color. Why, because readers are clever enough to colorize the story with their own experience. However, I imagine some authors writing stories where color can be central to the story, e.g. associating colors with emotions or with sounds.

 

If you follow the idea of only mentioning that which is essential to the plot, develops characters, or sets the scene, it would be rare that you'd mention any particular colour. Even if you write something like, 'the woman wore a brightly coloured dress,' you may have no need to mention what colour the dress was. You wouldn't state the abundantly obvious like, 'the grass was green and the sky was blue.' Instead, you may write, 'the grass of the pasture looked lush in the bright sunlight.'