Writing about writing...

Yesterday was the first weekday I've missed a post! It was a bit of a crazy day and by the time I had something pulled together it was really late and basically today...so I decided just to wait.

Once again I'm poaching someone else's post (thanks, Elmore Leonard!*). As an aspiring author, I enjoy reading tips on how to be a better writer. Some the ideas provide practical and good advice...and of course some of it is garbage. They can't all be winners. :)

This article from the New York Times is one I liked and that had some good ideas. I enjoyed a lot of the examples, though I didn't necessarily agree with all of them. And as always, I shall attempt to provide insightful and witty comments, noticeable due to their being highlighted!


WRITERS ON WRITING; Easy on the Adverbs, Exclamation Points and Especially Hooptedoodle
By ELMORE LEONARD

These are rules I've picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I'm writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what's taking place in the story. If you have a facility for language and imagery and the sound of your voice pleases you, invisibility is not what you are after, and you can skip the rules. Still, you might look them over.
In general, I agree. When reading a book, I love when the characters shine, not the author. I want to picture and hear them, not whomever wrote it. That being said, when I write I like when it feels like me, that if someone who knows me read my book, they'd say "Katie totally wrote this...it really sounds like her." Double standard? Absolutely. But eh...as long as I'm honest about it? :)



1. Never open a book with weather.
If it's only to create atmosphere, and not a character's reaction to the weather, you don't want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want.
I have to admit that I Googled Barry Lopez because I really wanted to see the myriad of ways he could describe ice and snow and ran across juuuust a few examples...shorefast ice, embayed ice, sea ice, sheets of young ice, ice floes stained red, heavy pack ice, ice chisels, featureless sketches (stretches?) of ice, ice wall, ice sheet, ice apron, snow cave, crunch and squeak of snow, snow roof, wind-slabbed snow, snow squalls, wind-packed snow, snow as hard as concrete, dry snow, deep snow, unrelieved stretches of snow, compacted snow, blanket of snow, red-tinged snow...and they're all from one book, "Arctic Dream"!


2. Avoid prologues.
They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in nonfiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want.

There is a prologue in John Steinbeck's ''Sweet Thursday,'' but it's O.K. because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. He says: ''I like a lot of talk in a book and I don't like to have nobody tell me what the guy that's talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks. . . . figure out what the guy's thinking from what he says. I like some description but not too much of that. . . . Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. . . . Spin up some pretty words maybe or sing a little song with language. That's nice. But I wish it was set aside so I don't have to read it. I don't want hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story.''
I agree. When I pick up a book (which tends to be fiction), I just want to start the story, get to know the characters and enjoy the ride. Much better to incorporate the backstory in to the plot than make me read through "history" beforehand.


3. Never use a verb other than ''said'' to carry dialogue.
The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with ''she asseverated,'' and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.
I'm guilty of abusing this one. I have a hard time not inserting myself by trying to convey what I picture the character is thinking or feeling. It can be hard to impart your intent without including something like gasped or cried or breathed. I shall try to be better about keeping extra verbs to a minimum in the future.


4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb ''said'' . . .
. . . he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange.
But...ok, fine. Though I would argue that this should be 3.1 or something, instead of its own number. 


5. Keep your exclamation points under control.
You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.
What?! That is ridiculous!! How can I possibly convey my deep distress and vexation without a million exclamation points?!?! :D


6. Never use the words ''suddenly'' or ''all hell broke loose.''
This rule doesn't require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use ''suddenly'' tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.
I feel like idioms such as "all of a sudden," "as a matter of fact," "first of all" or "in a way" are fillers and generally don't need to be there. We all use them on occasion, warranted or not...but it's probably best to avoid them.


7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won't be able to stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavor of Wyoming voices in her book of short stories ''Close Range.''
Oh yes. A 1000 times yes. I hate when I'm reading along and have to "translate" a sentence that is, for all intents and purposes, written in English but attempting to convey poor grammar or an accent or some such nonsense. Completely throws off the flow of the dialogue...and bugs the heck out of me.


8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
Which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway's ''Hills Like White Elephants'' what do the ''American and the girl with him'' look like? ''She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.'' That's the only reference to a physical description in the story, and yet we see the couple and know them by their tones of voice, with not one adverb in sight.
I like formulating my own idea of what a character looks like. I'm ok with some basics, like height or hair color, to give me a base from which to work...but I don't need to know every detail about their physical appearance.


9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
Unless you're Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison. But even if you're good at it, you don't want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.
I would somewhat disagree with this. If I remember correctly, the opening paragraph of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (one of my all time favorite books and authors) minutely describes the studio and garden such that you can almost see and smell everything Wilde envisioned in this scene. Needless to say, I'm a huge fan.

And finally:

10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he's writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character's head, and the reader either knows what the guy's thinking or doesn't care. I'll bet you don't skip dialogue.
As much as I love the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, there were definitely parts I skimmed over because they were too descriptive or dialogue/poem heavy, such that I didn't feel like I was missing out on any important plot points by not reading them more closely. I understand why those parts are there and I know there are people who appreciate them, I am just not one of them.

My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.

If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Or, if proper usage gets in the way, it may have to go. I can't allow what we learned in English composition to disrupt the sound and rhythm of the narrative. It's my attempt to remain invisible, not distract the reader from the story with obvious writing. (Joseph Conrad said something about words getting in the way of what you want to say.)

If I write in scenes and always from the point of view of a particular character -- the one whose view best brings the scene to life -- I'm able to concentrate on the voices of the characters telling you who they are and how they feel about what they see and what's going on, and I'm nowhere in sight.
What Steinbeck did in ''Sweet Thursday'' was title his chapters as an indication, though obscure, of what they cover. ''Whom the Gods Love They Drive Nuts'' is one, ''Lousy Wednesday'' another. The third chapter is titled ''Hooptedoodle 1'' and the 38th chapter ''Hooptedoodle 2'' as warnings to the reader, as if Steinbeck is saying: ''Here's where you'll see me taking flights of fancy with my writing, and it won't get in the way of the story. Skip them if you want.''

''Sweet Thursday'' came out in 1954, when I was just beginning to be published, and I've never forgotten that prologue.

Did I read the hooptedoodle chapters? Every word.


Enjoy...happy reading & writing!


~ Katie


* Note: apparently Elmore Leonard died this week - which would explain why his article was posted on Facebook. RIP, Elmore Leonard.