Thursday, November 29, 2012

Moving Beyond "Show Don't Tell"


I’m on a quest.  I’ve been reading Stephen King lately.  I’m working my way through Skeleton Crew, one of his many short story anthologies.  It’s a mixed bag of sorts, but most of it is splendid stuff. 

After each story, I’ll talk to my wife about it.  The conversation goes something like this:

“So there’s this tale where these four college kids go down to a lake, and on the lake there’s this oil-slick.  It traps them on a raft in the middle of the lake, and it starts sucking them under the water and EATING them!”

“Wait, the oil slick traps them?”

“Mm-hmm.”

(laughing) “That sounds really stupid.”

“Yeah…uh...well, it’s a lot better the way HE tells it.”

Why is it that when Stephen King gets an idea I’m hooked, but when I look at my own writing it sounds flat and—well, for lack of a better word—made up?

So I’ve been taking a really close look at his short stories.  In just a few pages I can get an opening hook, a short plot, some characters, and a zinger of an ending.  In contrast, I’ve also been trolling through Amazon.com looking for cheap self-published schlock.  I’m hoping that in the process I can begin to tell what King (and other authors) does right, and what I (and the other self-published authors who aren’t Stephen King) do wrong.

No small challenge, there.

One thing that stands out to me are his descriptions.  They go way beyond the showing-not-telling kinds of depictions that we learn in workshops and writing classes.  King’s descriptions come alive.  Check this one out:
In the year 1927 we were playing jazz in a speak-easy just south of Morgan, Illinois, a town seventy miles from Chicago.  It was real hick country, not another big town for twenty miles in any direction.  But there were a lot of farmboys with a hankering for something stronger than Moxie after a hot day in the field, and a lot of would-be jazz-babies out stepping with their drugstore-cowboy boyfriends.  There were also some married men (you always know them, friend, they might as well be wearing signs) coming far out of their way to be where no one would recognize them while they cut a rug with their not-quite-legit lassies.
—The Wedding Gig

The thing that stands out the most for me is vibe.  Just listen to it.  The year is 1927, at a speak-easy seventy miles from Chicago, real hick country.  Would-be jazz-babies out stepping with their drugstore-cowboy boyfriends.  Married men coming out to cut a rug with their not-quite-legit lassies.

Can you feel it?

The other thing that grabs me is the personality that King attributes to the people that he’s describing.  Instead of describing individuals, he describes in caricatures.  He gives you a feel for what the people are like, and then the reader’s brain just fills in the rest.  

Listen once more: farmboys with a hankering for something stronger than Moxie after a hot day.  Jazz-babies with their drugstore-cowboy boyfriends.

This goes way beyond showing-not-telling.  This is more than merely cutting out stray adverbs, shunning passive voice, and pouring on the cleverly-placed action verbs.

This is vibe. It's a focus on mood, and atmosphere, and what's going on, and who's working the scene.

I’ve read enough of King's stuff to see him do this over and over.  Whenever he does a description, he doesn’t show the reader, so much as he describes what the thing is like.  He sketches its character, its personality…and your brain just fills in the rest.  This is brilliant stuff.

Here's another example (paraphrased a bit, for brevity):
The girls had come over to the apartment at midafternoon...there was a case of beer in the fridge and a new night Ranger album on Randy's battered stereo. The four of them set about getting pleasantly oiled.  Afer a while the talk had turned to the end of the long Indian summer they had been enjoying. The radio was predicting flurries for Wednesday.  LaVerne had advanced the opinion that weathermen predicting snow flurries in October should be shot.  No one had disagreed.
—The Raft

I like this scene.  Two college guys, having their girlfriends over.  I can hear Night Ranger blaring Sister Christian.  They're relaxing after a day of classes and studies.  I can hear the talk.

So I decided to hunt for a nice boring description in my own story and see if I couldn’t liven it up a little.  I picked this gem:

We stopped at the head table.  Lord Braxton sat in his great chair, a drinking horn in one hand and a thin wedge of cheese in the other.  Lady Aderyn leaned on his side.  Their children sat around them eating and playing with their food.  A trio of musicians played off to one side.

Yawn.  Let’s see if I can’t do better.  Instead of pouring on more description, see if I can’t toss in some vibe.
We stopped at the head table.  Lord Braxton sprawled in his great chair, a drinking horn in one hand and a spoon in the other.  He shoveled stew into his mouth like he was feeding an ox.  Lady Aderyn leaned on his side where she could whisper in his ear if she wanted, yet keep within arm’s reach of a wandering child.  Their children buzzed around them, too excited to eat or stay in their seats, playing with their food, reveling in the evening’s cheer.  A trio of musicians played off to one side.  I hadn’t seen them before.  They looked like the travelling kind that made their living from hall to hall. 

Monday, November 26, 2012

Economy of Words


Overnarration happens when authors use too many words to express what they want to say.  Another term for this is “economy of words”.   A good narrative will use as few words as possible to describe what is happening.

Consider the following excerpt from a novel I found on Amazon (The names of the characters have been changed to protect the innocent):

Margret tremulously cowered behind the scraggly hyacinth bush, concealing herself behind the dark green leaves.  The ancient fountains stood cold and silent in the neglected garden.  Scarcely breathing, she watched as the dark stranger made his way through the garden.  Viciously searching any suspected hiding place, the stranger tore back branches, throwing aside shrubs and leaves.  Slowly Margret crept backwards.  Cautiously looking over her shoulder, she eased her way back toward an opening in the surrounding hedge.  Sliding one knee back after another, she felt the errant twig under her at the same time she heard it snap.  She froze.  The stranger whirled around and glared toward the hyacinth bush.  With long swift strides he crossed the crumbling courtyard and yanked the branches aside.

Use adverbs sparingly
Let’s talk about adverbs for a second.  I was a cook one summer in a long-term care facility.  The head chef told me to put celery seed in anything that had hamburger.  It was a wonderful suggestion, one that I use to this day—but he cautioned me: a little bit goes a long way.

Adverbs are like that.  Use sparingly.  In fact, most writers will tell you to avoid them like the plague.  However, if you pick up any novel published by any well-respected writer, you’ll see adverbs all over the place.  So what gives?

Here are three rules for whether you can keep an adverb or not:
1. Does it say something that has already been implied elsewhere?
2. When you take the adverb out, does the sentence feel broken?
3. Never EVER use an adverb in a dialog tag (i.e., “I hate you,” she said viciously).  Good dialog should imply what the adverb states (see rule #1).

So, let’s look over this paragraph and go on an adverb hunt.  We don’t need tremulously.  This adverb implies fear, and we already know that Margret is fearful because she is cowering.   Next we have scarcely.  I’d keep this one.  It’s short and it adds mood, and if you take it out the sentence doesn’t work.  After that we have viciously, which we can cut.  The rest of that same sentence describes the stranger tearing back branches, throwing aside shrubs and leaves, etc.  Then we have slowly, which we can give the ax.  Margret is creeping backwards.  It’s rather obvious that she is doing it slowly.  Finally, we have cautiously looking, which just begs to be replaced with something shorter.

Saying the same thing twice
Next, let’s talk about saying things twice.  Take the first sentence (offending adverbs removed):

Margret cowered behind the scraggly hyacinth bush, concealing herself behind the dark green leaves. 

If you give this a careful look, you’ll see that the author describes Margret hiding twice.  Do we need both?  Here’s another one:

Viciously searching any suspected hiding place, the stranger tore back branches, throwing aside shrubs and leaves.

The first part is telling instead of showing.  The next part is restating what we’ve been told, with some more showing thrown in for good measure.

You might think that the author is trying to add detail, or that she is trying to describe how the stranger is searching.  But this sentence still sounds like it was written by an amateur, and here's why.

Your reader’s mind is powerful.  A few carefully chosen words can evoke an entire scene, none of which you need to waste words describing.  Never underestimate the reader’s own ability to fill in unwritten details. 

Read that last sentence again.  I’ll wait.

A good author will pick up on this.  A few well-chosen words, and the reader will create the entire scene for you. 

Let your work sit for a couple days before proofreading it.  When you go over it again, listen to the flow.  Pay attention to the implied image that your narrative creates in your mind as you’re reading it. 

Revise and shorten
Now let’s look at this:

Cautiously looking over her shoulder, she eased her way back toward an opening in the surrounding hedge.  Sliding one knee back after another, she felt the errant twig under her at the same time she heard it snap. 

The two sentences kind of overlap in their purpose.  Margret is cautious in the first sentence, then she’s sliding backwards on her knees (which itself is a cautious action).  Then we have a rather wordy description of a snapping twig.  We could clean this up and shorten it.

Look for places where your narrative starts to feel wordy.  Pay extra attention to places where you describe a character’s actions.  Remember, your reader’s mind is very powerful, and a few well-chosen words will convey a much tighter meaning than ten poorly chosen ones.

Final example
Here is the revised paragraph.  I could probably tighten this up some more, but you get the picture. 

Margret cowered behind the scraggly hyacinth bush.  The ancient fountains stood cold and silent in the neglected garden.  Scarcely breathing, she watched as the dark stranger tore back branches, and threw aside shrubs and leaves.  Glancing over her shoulder, Margret spied an opening in the garden’s surrounding hedge and crept her way toward it, sliding on her knees.  She felt the errant twig under her at the same time it gave a loud snap.  She froze.  The stranger whirled to face the hyacinth bush.  With long swift strides he crossed the crumbling courtyard and yanked the branches aside.

Notice the difference? 

Summary
In summary, three tools for tightening up your prose:
1. Cut out as many adverbs as you can.
2.  Look for places where your narrative implies the same thing more than once.
3.  Look for other ways you can replace longer phrases with shorter ones.

Less is more
What a really good example of writing that uses good economy of words?  Go to http://brevitymag.com/.  This site has short creative non-fiction essays, 750 words or less.  It’s all brilliant writing, verbal ikebana, and candy for the mind!