This excerpt’s from Stephen Graham Jones. Let me get this out of the way immediately: he is smarter than I am (by orders of magnitude). He’s a professor who writes horror fiction and routinely hits best-of’s and wins Shirley Jacksons, Bram Stokers, etc. I wish I was half as successful. A quarter . . . I’d take a quarter. He loves asyndeton (dropping and’s). My own example: She cooked, cleaned, poisoned the pot roast. I'm okay with that to a point. I mean, I don't like it, but sometimes the effect works, and I'll even do it myself. I just don't favor it as much as other writers. My real concern is his use of null subjects. This is from a story I’m reading of his: Jonathan cries. Refuses to wipe his face. Can’t stop thinking about the thick socks in the trunk, for some reason. How he was looking forward to sleeping in them. And the plastic taste of the water from the tall green jug that looks like a gas can. There’s a bunch of them in a row. Jonathan cries. (He) Refuses to wipe his face. (He) Can’t stop thinking about the thick socks in the trunk, for some reason. (He can’t stop thinking about) How he was looking forward to sleeping in them. (He can’t stop thinking about) and the plastic taste of the water from the tall green jug that looks like a gas can. You'd have to be out of your mind to write it that way because of the repetitions, but that's its implied meaning. I think the first two occurrences are null subjects and the last two are fragments in the general sense. So here's the question! Does this type of writing annoy you? To me it seems fake. The device is so obviously in front of you that it's in the way of the story. I can't read the piece without seeing this trick, and I think every device should be transparent. If you stare at it too long (in revision) then it does go away, but the first-time reader doesn't see it this way (do they?). I see people do this online sometimes when I give crits. It's the voice, sure, but it's just so . . . phony? It's like watching one of those concert pianists who grimace too much. They should be into the flow, but there's a point where you can see the effort, and you know they're pretending, and then it becomes a vaudeville. There's another issue with this excerpt too, but it's not PC. I'm not sure I want to derail this thread with my own post. LOL. I think I'll keep it to myself.
I do this quite a lot, mostly because the narrative I write reflects the voice of the POV character. People don't usually think in full sentences that follow all the rules of grammar. If I try to make my narrative sound that way, it loses the character voice and sounds stilted. It sounds like I'm trying to write like An Author (TM). To me, that sounds phony. So no, I can't say this bothers me.
Too much of it would for sure. However, in that example I think it would flow nicely if he firmed up the middle sentence and kept the stutter steps as bookends: Jonathan cries. Refuses to wipe his face. He can’t stop thinking about the thick socks in the trunk, for some reason. How he was looking forward to sleeping in them. And the plastic taste of the water from the tall green jug that looks like a gas can. I quite like the way that sounds. In my head it feels like a football player breaking a tackle, gathering his balance, breaking another tackle, and then sprinting free up field. I use those stutter step sentences quite a bit, but almost never more than two in a row and usually with some nice adhesive sentences around it keep everything together.
I think it's important to note, also, that I wouldn't write the first two examples this way. I use that style purely for narrative coming from the POV of the character. I doubt I would use it for anything objective. Essentially, I wouldn't say "Refuses to wipe his face" or "Can't stop thinking about the thick socks in the trunk..." the way they're written. Instead, I would show him refusing to wipe his face and being unable to stop thinking about the socks. But I would use the same style, in all likelihood. I wonder if that makes a difference to how it's perceived. Seems reasonable to think so. Objective narrative written that way may come off as awkward. But if it's narrative reflecting character thought, then I stand by my position that not writing it that way would risk sounding stilted. Something interesting to think about, for sure.
I see it as totally natural and transparent. It's staring at it that makes me see the lack of subjects and see the architecture of what he's done; on first reading it flows perfectly for me.
I think my problem is that I read slow. When I read it fast, it seems okay. Otherwise, what I hear is this: Og stalked mammoth. Threw spear. Ate plenty that night. Ook ook. I've never considered it, but maybe the story changes based on the pace of the reading. It's why nobody cares about literary devices in genre fiction, because they're going too fast to see them anyway.
Have you seen this before? Somebody threw it up on another thread awhile back. Made me laugh my ass off:
Not only it doesn't bother me, I actually love this sort of writing style. it flows naturally and makes for a more immersive experience. In my opinion at least. Of course anything can be annoying if it's overused or used incorrectly but otherwise this works perfectly fine for me. This is something that I try to emulate in my own writing too. I love sentence fragments, for example, and try to use them whenever and wherever I can. This whole style just suits me so well both as a reader and a writer.
I think I've come to an epiphany about the speed of prose. I look at the things that bother me (asyndetons, null subjects) and they're most pronounced when read slowly. They're seamless at high speeds. Well, to a point. I think you need a strong voice to pull them off, but that's true for every literary device, really. They come off as pompous/fake when they don't blend. I've always felt that shifting structures were the key to making any text work, and I guess that's still true. At least in my own mind, I feel more comfortable with it. It's not the device but the voice that holds it. The trouble is, I study while I read. I'm not just reading for plot. I'm watching the author work. There are a number of horror writers out there right now who have a lot to offer if you can deconstruct their madness. Stephen Graham Jones, Nathan Ballingrud, Laird Barron, Gemma Files, etc. Ballingrud's my favorite because he's so effortlessly profound. Laird can be really funny though . . . Getting off on a tangent, but it's still related to SGJ, so I'll keep at it. . . The previous story in this book was outstanding. The idea is so concise. It's basically three scenes: Father goes hunting with kid Father suspects kid is a beast Father plans to kill kid The way this is done though . . . the father cares about the kid because he's trying to show him their culture. (SGJ is a Blackfoot Indian, so is this character. It's a unique perspective) Anyway, the kid is walking down the tree line, flushing out game. He doesn't know the father is watching through his scope because he thinks the kid's lost (which in his mind, is kind of pathetic, and a failure on his part). Through the scope, the father sees the kid crawling on all fours and turning his head like an owl. It's never explained. I'm not sure if the kid is a skinwalker or what, but the father has unvoiced suspicions. In the final scene, they go back to hunt, and you know what the father has planned. It's all in the subtext. It's really pretty sickening because you don't know if what he's seeing is even real. You assume it is, but . . . nothing is absolute. So, I'm studying a true master and reading too closely. There's an advantage to that, but at the same time, I'll try imagine the text moving quickly.
I wrote a short just a couple days ago that utilized these types of sentences. Can't say it bothers me I think it's all context. Fragments make a lot of sense in an emotionally-charged scene by conveying (I think) a lack of traditional eloquence and a more raw emotional immediacy. It's when this sort of writing creeps into scenes where I don't think it belongs that it bothers me. "I went to the store. Bought hot dogs, chips. Took them to the barbeque. And had a wonderful time." I also find it pretty tiring if there's too much of it, but 'too much' is obviously crazy subjective. Generally, I just feel it should be used for punch, not the entirety of a story.
Null subjects. No problem reading them. I often write them and later correct them. I think you should have a very good reason to keep them, if you do. Null fragments. You should have a very very good reason to keep these. In the example Can’t stop thinking about... I accept having my brain fill in to get He can't stop thinking about... But no way I will complete And the plastic taste of the... To be He can't stop thinking about the plastic taste of the... Maybe maybe if the 'and' was was dropped and if Thick socks and Plastic taste were obvious and similar examples of things that you stop thinking about. To me the scentense And the plastic taste of the water from... Is a cut and paste error and what's much worse it disturbs my reading flow.
It comes off as contrived. And for some reason, I'm not certain I can quantify, his style seems a bit feminine? Perhaps it's because I associate that sort of writing with gothic/romance horror aimed at teenage girls. Jonathan cries. Refuses to wipe his face. Can’t stop thinking about the thick socks in the trunk, for some reason. How he was looking forward to sleeping in them. And the plastic taste of the water from the tall green jug that looks like a gas can. The two lines highlighted in red are just plain silly! First, who the hell thinks about thick socks during an emotional breakdown? And, "for some reason" is immediately followed by that very reason! The passage falls into the category of, "quirky writing".
It worked for me. I agree that writing comes off differently if you're really studying it rather than just reading it. I went through a phase when I could hardly enjoy reading at all because I was unable to turn off my analytical brain and just let myself get lost in the story. I probably learned a lot, but I didn't enjoy the process. Possibly the trouble is that you're using "feminine" as a word that apparently means "things I don't care for"?
I had to look up 'null subjects' as I had no idea what it meant, and I'm still none the wiser. The definition I read says it is '... absence (or apparent absence) of a subject in a sentence ...' And then gives these examples: Well where is the 'absence of a subject' here?? One is clearly talking about a pair of shoes which are not fit for purpose, and the other describes a husband and wife in the bathroom bathing their baby. How are these absent of a subject??
The first one is: (I) don't know as these . . . The second one is in the second line. The first line's normal: (I) want more bubbles. It's funny, null subjects get talked about mostly in language acquisition because kids use them all time. "Cake! Want now. Give to me." Authors like them too though. To me they seem write at home in dialog. (edit: ha, typo. I'm leaving that.)
I still don't get it. So 'null subjects' just means taking out the pronouns (I / He / She)? Why doesn't the definition just say that then?
Null subjects mean, Grammatically, the sentence is missing a subject. From the context, we might understand what they are talking about, but it still lacks a noun/pronoun/phrase/clause in the subject position.
