Week 25 - Rhythm

17 Jun - 23 Jun: What's the best word in the English language?  Read on... (and no, it's not 'perversion').

"...he has come within sight of the word 'perversion', with its dark, complex thrill, beginning with the enigmatic 'p' that can mean anything, then swiftly tumbling via the ruthless 'r' to the vengeful 'v'."  J. M. Coetzee, Boyhood.

Read a word or a sentence or a paragraph out loud.  How does it sound?  Is it harsh or soft?  Does it want to be read quickly or slowly?  Does the sound compliment, contrast or clash with the meaning?  If you think like Coetzee, is it enigmatic; does it tumble; is it vengeful?

How to Write an Uncommonly Good Novel suggests chosing words for more than their dictionary meaning.  Here are some insights from author, Deborah Churchman:

1. Long, resonating and full sounds, for example, nose, range, grieve, and m and n sounds, add a heaviness to a sentence and may be appropriate for things that are monotonous, such as crowds, traffic and droning characters.

2. Quick, explosive sounds, such as B, P, T, D and K quicken pace.

3. Soft, breathy sounds, such as F, SH, CH and H are quiet and secretive.  Churchman recommends them for lovers' meetings.

4. Liquid sounds contain long L, R and W sounds.  Broadening vowels can also turn harsh sounds into much softer ones, e.g., catch to caught, bit to bite.  The classic, I love you is liquidity at its best.  And according to Churchman, the best word in the English language (by vote) is liquid smooth cellophane.

5. Onomatopoeia add action, e.g., splash, snap, thud, and can sound like the element being described.  The slithering snake is a familiar example.  Churchman provides a less obvious one from Edgar Allen Poe: "and the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain," is supposed to sound a bit like a curtain moving in the breeze.

6. Sprawling sounds such as long vowels and groups of consonants, such as spring, throng, scribe, take longer to read and tend to slow down the pace.

7. Pitch describes the ups and downs of a sentence.  If the sentence rises at the end, it is stronger and more masculine.  If it falls, it is soft and feminine, and more suited to reflective situations.

8. Alliteration (repetition of consonant sounds) and assonance (repetition of vowel sounds) are great in poetry, but should be applied carefully in prose.  Suzie saw something sinister as she sat sullenly on the sideline, might work well in a comedy, but is distracting, and just plain silly, in a serious piece.

9. Repetition of words and sounds for emphasis is recommended by many.  Three seems to be the magic number here.  Any more and the effect is dampened. 

Courtnery Carpenter includes word choice as one of 7-tools-for-pacing-a-novel in her Writer's Digest article, and provides further advice:

10. Action words are good for drama, suspense and conflict, and strangely enough, action scenes. 

11. Words that sound unpleasant or conjure up unpleasant images may be rushed over by the reader, consequently, quickening the pace.  Carpenter includes in this group words like grunt, hiss and slither.

Okay, so these titbits are about sound, not necessarily rhythm. Stephen King, On Writing, (besides meeting his wife there) credits poetry classes for giving him a greater understanding of rhythm in his own prose. 

John Gardner has a very thorough and academic look at rhythm in the Art of Fiction, and also recommends study in poetry for applying rhythm to writing.  Gardner points out (among other things) that one should be aware of the stressed and unstressed syllables in a sentence, as too many stressed syllables slow a sentence down.

Gardner includes faulty rhythm in his section on 'Common Mistakes', suggesting that too much rhythm is not realistic, and that short, sharp stresses and long,flowing ones should suit the scene. Gardner also includes accidental rhyme as something to look out for.

For those who wish to know the difference between iambic, dactylic, anapestic and amphibrachic metre [meter], Google it or talk to a poet.

Exercise 49.  Read aloud a sentence or paragraph you've writtern yourself.  Place a stressed symbol ( - ) above the long syllables and unstressed symbol ( ˘ ) for short syllables.  Experiment with how reordering a series, or rearranging the sentence or paragraph affects the rhythm, and decide on which suits the story best.  (Adapted from Gardner, The Art of Fiction.)

Exercise 50.  Think of, or consult your dictionary for ten words each that, in your mind, fall into the eleven groups listed above.  Think of how you can apply them to a story, or better yet, apply them.  For the 'distinctive' words (ref Clark), e.g., silouette, dynamite, glisten, try to find their etymologies (origins).  For example, discipline means 'to follow', hence, disciple, (depending on your source, of course.  Darn, did I just accidentally rhyme?).


Next week is Week 26.  I will be half way through the year and wondering what I've learnt, and looking back at my goals from Week 1.  Ah oh....

Week 24 - Clichés and Stereotypes

10 Jun - 16 Jun: Good things come to those who think for themselves.

A rose by any other name, might actually be a heliconia

Adria Haley, editor of the 2012 Novel and Short Story Writer's Market is quite specific about the stereotypes that appear in modern fiction: the anorexic teen, the drunk father, and the cancer victim are just a few.  Describing people just by nationality is a sin of stereotyping, as is assigning a person a specific accent, e.g., the waitress with the Southern drawl.

No problem, we'll just use the old contrasting-characteristics-trick.  Except that the smart prostitute and the gangster who adores his mother have been taken.  (Having said that, there is some value in the contrast concept that I'll look at in the coming weeks.)

This isn't exactly tricky stuff, so I'll conclude with the following reminder to myself:  the only real way to avoid stereotyping characters and situations (and flowers) is to get serious about it.  Really serious.  Dig deep, press hard, and listen carefully to how real people think and how they want to act.  Use the interesting bits to make characters, and then throw those characters into situations that make them do surprising things.

Now onto clichés because clichés are fun.  We all know that using them is sheer laziness, but they seem to just roll off the tongue, don't they?  That's why it's important to make a very particular point about seeking them out and removing them, regardless of how cool they are.  And in those instances where we can't come up with an original image, just write it straight, advises Roy Peter Clark.  For a pretty good list of clichés, check out this website: Clichés: Avoid Them Like the Plague.

Haley condemns not only clichéd language, but clichéd plots such as the lovers reunited, or revenge of the abused wife.  When I think about a story or scene, I try to remind myself of Roy Peter Clark's advice: reject first-level creativity. If most other people are likely to present it one way (since the idea itself is unlikely to original), present it a different way.  Educational blogs written by luddites are exempt, by the way.


Exercise 47. Ramble for a page or two with the aim of including as many clichés as you can think of.  Now go back and change the clichés to original thoughts and ideas, or if this proves difficult, say it straight.

Exercise 48.  So how did the fairytale princess and the biker dude turn out?  Rewrite the scene or description from last week.



Week 25 will continue with the word topics as I consider Rhythm.

Week 23 - Concrete and Abstract Language

3 Jun - 9 Jun:  Every Cloud Needs a Silver Lining

Way back in Week 6,  I included an exercise about turning cloudy descriptions of a character (he was a relaxed man) into concrete images (he strolled down the street).

Roy Peter Clark defines the scale of 'solidness of detail' as the ladder of abstraction, and suggests that a writer can use this concept to add depth and meaning to action and description.

At the bottom of the ladder are concrete words: words that deal with real, tangible things.  We can see, hear, touch, smell and taste concrete words, and they place us in a situation.

At the top of the ladder, abstract words are those wishy-washy ideas that people feel or have a certain association with, e.g., death, love, freedom, and happiness.

To grasp the purpose behind and potential impacts the ladder of abstraction has on a story, Clark poses the following questions:  "Can you give me an example?" requires a concrete response; "What does it mean?" will have the writer and reader reaching for the top rungs.


So what do we do with the ladder of abstraction?  This will depend on what we are trying to achieve, I guess.  Do we want our audience to race ahead with images of action, or to think about what it means?  Chances are we want our audience to do a bit of both, in which case, it makes sense to mix the two.  Linking death, say, to a black, rushing river, or childhood to icecream and Christmas presents, give unmistakable meaning to both the concrete and abstract ideas in each case.



So, that's the theory.  Instead of going on about it, or trying to make up inspiring examples of my own, I thought I'd look through my bookcase and see if I could find out how the masters do it.  Here's what I came up with:

Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens:

He had scarcely the power of understanding anything that had passed, until, after a long ramble in the quiet evening air, a burst of tears came to his relief...

They sat, listening, and afraid to speak, for hours. The untasted meal was removed.

The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe:

He didn't realize that there were women who thought about sexual attractiveness the way he thought about the bond market. 

It was a ten-dollar ride each morning, but what was that to the Master of the Universe?

A vague smoky abysmal uneasiness was seeping into Sherman's skull. The Bronx...

The Heart of the Matter, Graham Greene:

He felt the security of his age sitting there listening with a glass of gin in his hand and the rain coming down.

...the small hotel room was hot with the conflict between them.

Billy Bud, Herman Melville

It is not artistic heartlessness, but I wish I could but draw in crayons, for this woman was a most touching sight, and crayons, tracing softly melancholy lines, would best depict the mournful image of the dark-damasked Chola widow.

Okay, so that seems straightforward, not to mention effective.  Let's try some exercises.

Exercise 45. You are consumed with a) love, or b) hate.  Write a paragraph describing how you feel by linking these abstract ideas with concrete images.

Exercise 46.  Write half a dozen phrases (or more) that start at one end of the abstraction ladder and ends at the other, or a passage that travels up and then down (or vice versa) the ladder.  (Reference: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer, Roy Peter Clark.)


In preparation for next week, anyone reading should have a go at thinking about, or even writing down a short description of, a) a fairytale princess, and b) a member of an outlaw biker gang.

 

Week 22 - The Sentence

27 May - 2 Jun: It is.

In 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer, Roy Peter Clark offers a number of pointers on sentence structure:

1. Begin sentences with the subject or the verb so that the focus of the sentence is brought to the attention of the reader early.

2. Apply the 2-3-1 rule to sentences and paragraphs.  That is, the strongest elements should appear at the end and the beginning of sentences, paragraphs and even chapters.

3. Don't be afraid of long sentences.  They are useful for cataloguing or listing items or images, can add meaning to descriptions of long things, and offer variation to stories where short and medium-length sentences are the norm.  One needs to remember, of course, that although a long sentence is long, every word still needs to count.

4. For effect, establish a pattern through parallel construction and then break it, e.g., Peter, Paul and Mary; Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.

5. Complex ideas are better served with short sentences containing simple language.

6. Use sentence length to set the pace.  Short actions require short sentences; flowing actions require long sentences.  A choppy sentence that slows the pace may be useful for simplifying complex ideas, creating suspense, or creating an emotional impact, e.g., He froze.

7. Use verbs with a purpose in mind.  Active verbs move the action forward; passive verbs highlight a victim; 'to be' links words and ideas.

8. Be conscious of the number of elements within a sentence and how each relate to each other.  E.g., He is handsome, focuses the reader; He is handsome and divorced, divides the reader and can be useful for contrast; He is handsome, divorced, and looking for a wife, offers a complete triangle of information; He is handsome, divorced, looking for a wife, and has a good family, is getting ridiculous.

John Gardner offers further advice:

9. Don't overload a sentence.  One or two syntactic slots can be modified, but too many modifiers can make a sentence confusing.  Gardner provides the following example:  The man (1) walked (2) down the road (3).  Describe the man, the way he walked, or the road, but don't describe all three in one sentence.

10. Avoid using 'that' and 'which' as the added information can undermine the focus of the sentence, and lead to an anticlimax.

Okay, that's enough to think about for this week.  Next week I'll pull together the rest of the bits and pieces relating to general word choice and sentence structure, before venturing on to cliches and stereotypes.


Exercise 43.  Write a very long sentence (e.g., a page or more) using proper grammar.  Don't place semi-colons and commas where full-stops should be.  (Hint: a character's indecisive ponderings might be a good topic for this exercise.)  Reference: Gardner, The Art of Fiction.


Exercise 44. Think of a simple modern story (from a memory, news item etc) and retell it as a fairytale.  Use symbolism (boss=evil witch, credit card=magic sword etc), customize vocabulary, and change sentence structure to add to the tone (e.g., "Call me Lancelot you may").

Week 21 - Back to Earth

20 May - 26 May: Random Thoughts

Sometimes I wish I could talk to strangers, and explain to them what I am thinking, why I wear that expression, and how our world could be a better place, if only....

Sometimes I wish I could hide from the world, from all the strangers that silently judge me, and from my own rash words that fail to say what I mean and leave me feeling more empty than if I'd said nothing at all.

Sometimes I wish I could sit down with a stranger and ask probing questions that would lead to the story of the century, or at least a good yarn, and even if it didn't, perhaps I'd learn something.

Sometimes I wonder if I could ever invent a group of characters so fascinating that others would want to read about them, because I am so rational and boring, and I am constantly amazed at how weird real people can be.

Sometimes I need to remind myself that not learning and practising what I learn is as much a part of learning as learning is.


Exercise 41.  This week, I will write a mission statement for something I am writing, I intend to write or I would like to write.  That is, I will explore what I would like to achieve through my story.  (Borrowed from 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark.)

Exercise 42. I will take out a story I have left unfinished and make myself finish it (as suggested by Joan Rosier-Jones in So You Want to Write).



This time next week I will be in transit, yet again, but I will look at Sentence Structure sometime during Week 22.

Week 20 - Punctuation

13 May - 19 May: Punctuation Saves Lives!
(A bit behind this week - oops.)

Yes, we all know the moral behind: Let's Eat, Grandma, vs Let's Eat Grandma, right? (Right?)  It's an oldie, but it's such an effective example of the power of punctuation.

In 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer, Roy Peter Clark states simply that punctuation "divides words, phrases and ideas into convenient groupings."

In You Can Write, Eamon Murphy explores in greater depth the basic structure of a sentence, and how punctuation should separate key words and supporting words, but should never be inserted inside a group of key words.  Key words must remain as a unit.

Roy Peter Clark's simple analogy between punctuation and road signals is a good one, I think:

•  A full-stop or period (depending on which continent you're on), is a stop sign.  The more stop signs, the slower the pace.  This may help with suspense and clarity (in writing, that is, not driving).
• A comma is a speed bump where one needs to slow down, but not stop.
• A semi-colon is a rolling stop where the driver stops and starts up again on the same journey.
• Parentheses signify a detour; something to be underemphasized.  Clark advises that they are best applied to short, witty phrases within the story.
• Brackets, on the other hand, i.e. [ ] are used to clarify something by including detail that would otherwise be left out, e.g., 'He [Smith] was found guilty.'
• A colon is a flashing yellow light that alerts of something to come.
• A dash is a tree branch on the road, that is, something that demands attention.  Dashes are usually paired and used for special affect, or used singularly for emphasis at the end of a sentence.

Clark adds that ellipses (...), brackets, exclamation points, and capital letters lend voice, tone, and pitch to the piece.  A writer, afterall, cannot rely on vocal intonation and body language to get a message across.

That pretty much sums up Punctuation 101 in my simple mind, and I feel fairly confident that my understanding of basic punctuation is fair. 

Being far from perfect, however, I still find myself stopping and wondering about the best option, so here are a few random notes and reminders, mainly taken from the Elements of Style by Strunk and White, and You Can Write by Murphy:

• Ellipses use three dots, or four when it includes a period.
• Enclose independant supporting expressions, including names, inside two commas, e.g., Well, Tom, it is your responsibility.
• Be careful when 'who' is used, as this may begin a dependant expression that needs to be grouped with the main subject e.g., The men and women who served in the war, were honoured in the ceremony.
• The serial comma is that one placed before the joining word [conjunction] in a series, e.g., red, white, and blue.  It is not always used, and is generally dropped in business names. 
• A run-on sentence is the name given when two independant clauses have no separating punctuation., e.g., She went to the shop her husband stayed home.
• A comma splice is the name given when two independant clauses are separated with a comma only, e.g., She went to the shop, her husband stayed home.  It is incorrect and a conjunction, or stronger punctuation, such as a semi-colon or period, is needed.
• Fanboys is a handy acronym for the joining words: for and nor but or yet so. (Ray Bailey, Survival Kit for Writing English, in Eamon Murphy, You Can Write.)
• Punctuation falls outside parentheses when the expression is within a sentence.  If a parenthetic expression is a sentence by itself, the punctuation falls within the parentheses, e.g., He was fast, (but not fast enough). (He was fast, but not fast enough.)
• Use a colon in three instances: when something is announced by a complete sentence, e.g., You will need the following: (rather than, You will need:); when the second statement interprets the first, e.g., It was a long process: he picked the fruit, washed it, graded it, boxed it, and labelled it; or when introducing a quotation; e.g., He smiled at the bastard as Oscar Wilde's words came to him: "Always forgive your enemies - nothing annoys them so much." 
• A comma can be used when quotations are more relaxed, such as, My mother said, "Don't talk to strangers."  No quotation marks are needed when 'that' is used, such as, My mother told me that talking to strangers could lead to dangers.
• "Use a dash only when a more common mark of punctuation seems inadequate." (Strunk and White, The Elements of Style.)
• Enclose commas and periods inside quotation marks, e.g., I read "The Pearl," "Of Mice and Men," and "Grapes of Wrath" when I was in hospital. 
• "Question marks and exclamation marks are placed inside or outside quoted material depending on whether they apply to the whole sentence or just the quoted portion, but colons and semicolons are always placed outside." (Wikipedia.)
• Where quotation marks or inverted commas are used for words-as-words, irony, or an implied different meaning, the comma or period falls outside the quotation marks, e.g., She was really 'nice'.

And the list goes on.  While I'm still learning about the quirks of punctuation, if nothing else, I'll try to be consistent, if not totally conventional.


Phew.  I'm not going to do punctuation exercises because they are in every piece of writing I do.  So, here are some fun exercises to lighten things up.

Exercise 39.  Explain the totally fictional origins of a famous (or not so famous) man-made landmark (e.g., The Great Wall of China was built to ‘keep out rabbits’).

Exercise 40.  Write an account of a point played between Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova from the perspective of the tennis ball being played, or, write an account of the moonwalk as first performed by Michael Jackson from the perspective of one of his shoes.


  

Week 19 - Vocabulary

6 May - 12 May: 'Words, words, mere words...'

"Better than a thousand hollow words, is one that brings peace." Buddha 

http://www.brainyquote.com/

Stephen King On Writing credits vocabulary as being one of the most important tools in the writer's toolbox.  Having said that, he does not differentiate between a good vocabulary and a bad one, just that a writer needs to choose and use words effectively to tell the story.  More often than not, this is achieved through simple words in preference to pretentious embellishments of language.

In The Art of Fiction, John Gardner provides more specific advice on vocabulary: avoid words that sound impressive but that everyone else is using, for example, serendipity, ubiquitous, ambiance and milieu.  Instead, he suggests using common words that are not used often and that sound interesting, for example, galumph, quagmire, distraught and remiss.

Roy Peter Clark similarly suggests choosing words the 'average writer avoids but the average reader understands', and that a writer should experiment with language, in serious as well as light-hearted pieces.

Both Gardner and Clark advocate using esoteric terms when the story calls for it, and to use them with authority (but not to the point of overwhelming the reader with jargon).  The writer, therefore, should pay attention to architectural terms for when she is describing buildings, botanical terms for garden settings, and nautical terms for that seafaring adventure.

In addition, Gardner encourages the use of foreign words.  Strunk and White (The Elements of Style), however, advise caution when borrowing from foreign languages, lest the reader become confused and distracted (by the author's inclination to show off perhaps?).


Words are so important - they are the building blocks of every story after all - that I will visit this topic again during June, with a more concise discussion on how language can set tone, control pace and create suspense.  In the meantime, the exercises below are intended to help the writer look for and experiment with new and interesting words.


Exercise 37. Flip through a dictionary and choose six interesting words that are vaguely or not familiar to you.  Now write a short passage that incorporates these words (after reading the definitions, of course).


Exercise 38. Open a thesaurus at a random page. Choose a word and write a story containing every synonym listed for that word (or if you don’t have access to a thesaurus, choose a simple word and use all the synonyms you can think of).


Week 20 will explore the other building block of writing: Punctuation.  I will briefly look at the concept, and then consider less-common examples (that tend to trip me up in my own writing).