storytelling

I've heard from two people now that when they tried to post a comment, they got a strange error message about 'inadmissible content'. Which is very odd, as I have no filters installed that I know about. Before I try to track down the source of the problem, it would be good to know exactly how many people have run into this bug. There's a small poll near the top of the right hand column; please take a minute to vote.

Update: I believe the problem has been solved. If you tried to post a comment and got this message:

Your comment could not be submitted due to questionable content: ss

...it's because blacklist was being overly diligent. This has been corrected. I hope.

Posted by at 9:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Hands and fingers are far easier to write about than facial features. I spend a lot of time observing mechanical detail, when I'm reading; in fact, if I forget to pay attention to the mechanics, that's the primary sign that the author has successfully seduced me into the story. Most especially I'm prone to notice what characters do with their hands while they're talking. In fiction, as in real life, body language gives a lot away.

I'm not talking about describing hands in a general way. How the old man missing three fingers manages to tie his shoes may turn out to be an interesting and well done paragraph, sure. But what I'm talking about here is using hand motions as a layering technique in dialogue/scene.

If you think about all the things hands can do, it seems pretty much impossible to make a list. I did a search through my own novels and came up with the things that I use (and sometimes, if I don't watch myself, overuse):

• "Not another war story! What a bellicose young nation you are. No dinner party seems complete without a discussion of one revolution or another." Her hand made a long corkscrew in the air. "A most untidy business."
• She turned her hand over on the table and wiggled her fingers.
• Elizabeth ran her knuckles over her brow.
• With great deliberation she put down her fork and folded her hands in her lap.
• ... one hand raised in a peaceful gesture.
• She came closer, one long bony finger poking at his chest ...
• Nathaniel rubbed a finger over the bridge of his nose.
• He jerked a thumb toward Anna ...
• ... his great splayed thumb packing down the tobacco ...
• She pressed her palms hard together
• ... she fluttered her hands at them all ...

I'm always telling myself that I should take notes when I'm reading and I come across an interesting bit about the way a character moves his or her hands, but then I always forget, or I'm too lazy to get up and find sticky notes, or I do get up to find something to write on and then get waylaid. But if you can make yourself do it, it's a good thing to have such lists to refer to; not that you need to use them, but they get you thinking along lines that may be unusual for you.

Posted by at 4:32 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I made Johnn mad. Here's the comment he posted in response to my post on the misuse and misrepresentation of dialect, most particularly in Gone with the Wind.

Before you make comments on how to write dialect, you might first want to make sure you have written a book that's sold a tenth as well as the one you're detracting. Writing dialect is tricky, but you picked an example that works, at least according to world wide sales of the book. In future, choose an example that helps novice writers, not one that simply identifes your own likes and dislikes. Posted by: Johnn Gualt at March 20, 2004 12:15 PM

I'm being accused here of criticizing the representation of dialect in GwtW, to which I can only plead guilty.

Actually I'm surprised it took this long for somebody to jump up and cry foul -- you don't have to look very far to find some very acrimonious discussions about Gone with the Wind on the web, courtesy of the two major camps in this controversy: Those who dislike the book (and the movie) because of the way it glorifies racism and slavery, and those who have decided that GwtW is perfection and must not be criticized for any reason. I belong to the first camp; Johnn, to the second.

There's a lot of material on the web about GwtW, including an interesting essay by Ruth Nestvold which deftly summarizes the novel's primary flaw:

there is one point of criticism that remains no matter how you look at it: even if this popular classic is perhaps informed by a feminist impulse, even if it is not as apologetic as it is made out to be, it is unremittingly and unforgivably racist. With the exception of Mammy, the personification of the earth mother, and Uncle Peter, the exemplary father figure, "darkies" are almost always children in need of a guiding hand or children gone wrong. Gone With the Wind may not simplistically recreate the moonlight and magnolia myth, but it does argue that Southern society, complete with slavery, would have been a fine institution if uncultured, ignorant Yankees hadn't come along and ruined it all.

One of the ways that GwtW encapsulates racism is by its differentiated use of dialect, as I discussed in that earlier post. John thinks that because GwtW has sold so many copies, I should not say such a thing. But in my view, it's important to discuss racism in GwtW precisely because it has sold so many copies, and has influenced so many people's views and understanding of the south. And not, I would claim, in a good way.

I am very interested in the way language is represented in dialogue, because it's an integral part of characterization. I will continue to write about it now and then. As to presenting my opinions here in the process of trying to be helpful to novice writers: of course. This is my blog. I would argue that my opinions are informed, given my academic specialization and publications, but of course people who stop by here are free to take what they need, and leave the rest.

Finally, if you'd like to look at some of the Unconditional Love arguments about GwtW, have a look at Mr. Cranky's movie review, which sparked a sharp debate by means of this statement:

this film probably single-handedly set back Civil Rights a full ten years.

Posted by at 1:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been talking about individual facial features up to this point, but of course you don't have to restrict yourself to eyes or mouth or chin. It's a mix and match kinda business, reading emotions from what the features do -- or don't do. To further complicate things, concrete details are often dabbed here and there among POV observations. Some examples:

"'Eli-eh-eli,' it was wheezing, its tiny, ugly baked apple of a face contorted by fear or frustration or hunger or something else that Skip couldn't understand. " Blessings: A Novel, Anna Quindlen

I couldn't resist using this, because I do so like Anna Quindlen's work and because this has got to be the best description of what a newborn baby looks like to a man who has no interest in it. Skip is repelled, but he's also engaged enough to take note of the things he sees in that ugly little face, and to try and interpret the emotions there.

"Jodie's face fell apart, her jaw sagging, her eyes widening." What Ever Happened to Janie? Caroline B. Cooney

First we've got the whole-face short-cut (her face fell); then the concrete details. The question is, do you need both? In this order? That depends on the context of the passage, but my first reaction is that less would be more, here.

"She had a happy, helpless expression on her face, which was flushed and hot." Middlesex : A Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides

Another example of giving us a whole-face short-cut (the POV character interprets what he sees in her face as happy and helpless) and then the concrete details: flushed, hot. Again this feels a little overdone to me.

"Calvin's face lit up with hope, and his eyes, which had been somber, regained their usual sparkle." A Wrinkle In Time Madeleine L'Engle

See? This is why you can't use sparkle. Many years ago when L'Engle wrote this classic story, it wasn't yet on the list of cliches to avoid. Almost as dangerous is the way Calvin's face lights up. These are good concrete details, but they are so routine that they have ceased to evoke the image or emotions they are meant to

"Her face, matching her voice, was chilled and rigid." Niccolo Rising, Dorothy Dunnett.

Here we have a good example of what a face isn't doing; there's no expression of the emotions you'd expect to see when someone important to you comes back after a long absence. Instead Marian has an iron grip on her emotions. Her facial expression (rather than individual features) is compared quite successfully to her voice -- something else to talk about at some point.

"His expression was blank and without dimples, and his mouth occupied less of its line than was normal." Niccolo Rising, Dorothy Dunnett.

Another example of details that establish a lack of emotion, or suppressed emotion.

I'm hoping to write a little about body language and hands, then about metaphor and simile, and then I'll see if I can construct a few dialogues that need to be layered, to show how that can be done. Bear with me a while longer.

Posted by at 9:56 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)