Overwriting vs. Lyricism

I agree with all your knew rules for the most part, except I'm still adamant in my stance on dialog tags. I too am trying to use less of them, but when I do need them... I just can't bring myself to write the word "said". To me, it just seems if a line of dialog can't merit anything more passionate than a "said", it's not worth including in the chapter. I've been known to discard books if I see ten "saids" in a row without seeing another dialog tag. I literally twitch every time I see the word, except when it's not being used as a dialog tag:

"No, we can't go in there!" Bob exclaimed as Mary placed her hand on the doorknob. "Joe said to stay out of that room!"

Or:

A thousand conflicting thoughts raced through his head. He had said before that he would never partake in such a thing...

But that's just me. My friends think I'm crazy in this regard too. They'll give me something of theirs to read over and before I can say anything, they're all "I know, I know--needs less 'said'!"

But no need to really worry, since trying to eliminate dialog tags when possible is a better way to go, I think, than either using a variety of them or a whole ton of "said".

I has a Verso post! (Not really, but let me pretend I do)

This was very, very helpful, even if you are going to laugh at yourself in a few years time for writing it. It helped me, at least. Though I'm with Van in the whole "he said, she said" department.

As a reader, I personally like descriptions of the voice of a character, even if they come after the lines have already been spoken by the character. It helps me envision the character better, I think.

I am not sure, but the 4th point may be what you notice, maruutsu. Not everything needs to have a metaphor attached to it. I don’t need to point out that everything looks or sounds like something else.

Yes, that is exactly what I meant. Unfortunately I'm not nearly as good as you are at spotting whatever made that "click" in my mind, and even less so at expressing it. But yes, what I meant by "lyrical" was "dreamy", "beautiful", and "metaphorical" description. In my defense, it was something like 4 in the morning when I wrote that.

Wow, that's a beautiful shot. Magog's hair creating those long verticals...

I'll be back later with a real response! You just reminded me of some things that I need to work on.

*glomp*

Van, you may have fallen prey to the "Don't think of an elephant" phenomenon. Your sensitivity to overuse of "said" may make the word jump out at you. I know I have a hard time reading fiction for enjoyment lately -- I'm analyzing every turn of phrase, and the sorts of "faults" that I would chastise myself for really leap out at me. OMG SHE DID NOT JUST SAY "WALKED SLOWLY"!!!

If you have something like this:

"You're late," she said.

"I know," he said.

"We're not going to have time to stop and buy a bottle of wine," she said.

"So get something out of the cellar. They don't care about the fucking wine," he said.

"We are not going to bring a three-dollar bottle of Trader Joe's wine to my brother's dinner!" she said.

then the problem is not overuse of "said". The problem is overuse of dialog attributions and the presence of a pair of talking heads. I find this no better:

"You're late," she growled.

"I know," he muttered.

"We're not going to have time to stop and buy a bottle of wine," she snapped.

"So get something out of the cellar. They don't care about the fucking wine," he groaned.

"We are not going to bring a three-dollar bottle of Trader Joe's wine to my brother's dinner!" she exclaimed.

I actually find that worse. The dialog tags are trying to serve as description and action, without really contributing anything of the sort. Not to mention the true problem -- repetitive rhythm of the phrases -- is still there.

Try this:

She stopped in the kitchen doorway and planted her hands on her hips. There was no going around her.

"You're late."

He tossed his keys on the table and scooped up the pile of mail. "I know."

He studied the address printed on the first envelope in a fake cursive script. "Mr. and Mrs. Townsend." Not for long.

Her stilettos clicked across the linoleum until her shadow fell over his shoulder and darkened the names. He tilted the letters into the light from the hallway and fanned through the stack. A postcard fell into his hand. It seemed he was due to have his teeth cleaned.

She reached around him and yanked the card away from his face. "We're not going to have time to stop and buy a bottle of wine."

He waved a flyer at her, as if she were only an insect buzzing past his ear. "So get something out of the cellar. They don't care about the fucking wine."

She ripped the pile of mail out of his hand and smacked it onto the table. "We are not going to bring a three-dollar bottle of Trader Joe's wine to my brother's dinner!"

Not a dialog tag in sight! My ability to write Twenty-first Century marital conflict aside, I think we all agree that the third one is more like what we should be aiming for. There will be times when dialog attribution is necessary (especially if there are more than 2 people talking -- it's REALLY hard to pull off then) but we don't want to overdo it.

I do think it's perfectly OK to describe voices and manners of speaking, maruutsu, just as you might describe anything else about a person or his behavior. Something like "His voice was thick and throaty from illness" or "Sigefrith’s tone soured into a sneer" (both from "Cedric makes a promise") is fine.

But just "he groaned"? "he muttered"? "he exclaimed"? I don't think it's necessary very often. For me personally, I have noticed I overuse such words while I am writing my first draft -- I feel obliged to tell the reader, with every line of dialog, exactly the tone of voice that the speaker has. But really, when I revise, I am starting to realize that the reader can infer a lot of that from the words themselves as well as the body language and so on. (I find "exclaimed" particularly egregious because that's what the exclamation mark means. No need to say it twice.)

In fact, I think a lot of my recent thoughts about writing (writing dialog in particular) are due to a realization that I need to trust the reader more. There is no way I can describe everything in such a way that you will see and hear exactly everything I see and hear. I have to give you enough detail that you will be able to reconstitute a scene that is reasonably close to what I have in mind, that evokes the appropriate feelings and touches on the appropriate themes, and let you do the rest. If I do too much for you, I risk both boring you and disappointing you.

One of the things that makes fiction so engaging is the possibility for readers to identify with characters and imagine themselves in these fictional situations. If I prevent you from making use of your imagination, or worse, present you with details that don't match up with what you had started to imagine, then I am actually doing you a disservice.

However, I am also a poet and more importantly a passionate reader of poetry, and I am so often spellbound by the ability of poets to evoke intense images and emotions with so few words. I have not lost sight of that goal with my fiction writing. I have not, in any way, decided to make my writing less lyrical, descriptive, or whatever.

I do try, and have always tried (to greater or lesser success, as the years have shown) to avoid "purple prose" and paragraphs of descriptions of landscapes and sunsets and alabaster brows and what-have-you. But I want every word I write to have as much power as I can fit into it. This is why I am chipping away at passive constructions, replacing boring-verb+adverb constructions with strong verbs, etc. And that is also why I am removing dialog tags like "groaned" where they are only serving to tell you something you have already guessed from the words, the body language, etc.

In my opinion "said" is better than "groaned" because if you need the "groaned" then you probably haven't done your job with the surrounding prose, and "said" is almost invisible. (Unless your said-dar is turned up to full power like Van's. ) But even better than "said" is nothing at all, wherever possible. Give the reader a hand in telling people apart when things get crowded, but otherwise trust her to build the scene and hear the voices in her own mind.

It's like poetry. By tapping into the reader's own imagination and experiences, you can literally say more with less words. Even if she doesn't imagine EXACTLY what you did, the thing she imagined will probably have more poetic rightness and realness FOR HER. As long as you can bridge the gap to the extent that she's not imagining something totally at odds with what you had in mind, you're in good shape.

And as for your concerns, maruutsu, I now think that it's only a case of us having a string of gritty, bloody, fast-paced chapters that haven't left much room for dreamy reflection. I expect we will soon return to a better balance of lyricism vs. adrenaline.

Anyway, I feel like I am being rather insufferable with my writing theories today, even if this is my blog and I can say whatever the hell I want *teehee*, so I shall get back to redecorating Nothelm, after the great lot-clearing catastrophe of 2009. At least I got my castle back.

Oh yeah, the third example is definitely superior, as dialog tags do tend to break up the action and make the text somewhat awkward... but I'd still take the second over the first. I nearly had a seizure after reading that first one

But I do see your point about words like "groaned" being more obvious than "said". But yeah, my said-dar is permanently cranked up to eleven and I doubt that will ever change. As is the case with all of my other problems, I'm going to blame private school. Damn right-wing, anti-arts, no-more-creative-writing-after-grade-six-and-even-then-barely-any education!

I hear ya, Van. I didn't get any creative writing in private school after the sixth grade.

I know what you mean about cracking a book open and instantly criticizing what you're reading, Jenny. Today I began reading a novel in Spanish, and even though I haven't read anything in Spanish at all in a LONG time, I still criticized everything. That was unexpected, as I thought that I'd only criticize something written in English, considering that's been my focus lately. But that's off-topic.

Anyway, I personally find these comments really enlightening! So write away

(Sadly I'm writing the new chapter of Medieval Legacy right now and I can't help but go back every few sentences and write stuff like "THIS SUCKS. REVISE AND REWRITE LATER". )

Heheheh, that is pretty much how I feel when I write anything... only after the "revise and rewrite everything" a few times, I'm all "oh, to hell with it! Lalala, hasty ending, done! *posts*"

Ever since I started writing, I haven't read all that much since the things that bug me in literature become even more obvious and like you guys said, the whole criticism thing comes into play. "Saids" aren't the only thing I'll toss books over. Elves, for example, are another huge pet-peeve of mine. I like the Lotherian elves because they're actually unique, but with most fantasy novels... urgh. It bothers me to see Tolkien's elves in a novel with someone else's name on the cover. I am also wary of any book with an award sticker on it, as well as anything that seems like it would show up on a school reading list. I could go on for ages ranting about why I don't read books anymore, but I've probably bothered you all enough today as it is

Me too! I hate elves in fiction, unless said elves are Lotherian or sexy emo Peter Pans.

Why don't you try reading A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin, Van? I think you'd like it. (Sorry, I cannot advertise those books enough )

I didn't expressed it like maruutsu, but I felt that the chapter were somehow lighter these times. Not shorter, but lighter. I remember that some of the past Lothere chapter were long and dense and it took time to get through. The most positive part with these changes in your writing is that we get more involved in the scene. Like you said, Rua is dying and we don't have 20 chapters around that. The time is going quickly and you give us an idea of this with the writing.

The other thing I like with these changes is that we understand more the intention of the scene. If there is too much details in description, we lost the idea or the drama in a scene.

Anyway, I liked this post about writing. It's always very interesting to see how authors manage with their writing.

Yes, that's exactly what I meant, Francois!

Poor François, slogging through my English! My husband won't even try to read my story; he says my English is too hard.

I don't know, your comments sound suspiciously like someone who is glad I'm writing less chapters around an event (i.e. that time is moving faster) than that there is something about the chapters themselves that has changed.

Again, I suppose you would have to show me some of these chunks of descriptive deadweight for me to judge whether my writing has changed in that regard. I don't consider myself as someone who writes much pure description, though it's always possible I do so without being aware of it. I did write a lot of description in "Twilight's End", for example, but given the number of readers who said that they really had the sense of Egelric being at the beach, I wouldn't consider that descriptive deadweight, but rather successful scene-setting.

But if I am getting better at setting the pace of the story overall AND within the individual chapters, then that's good news, at least when I'm writing dramatic stuff. Remember, it wasn't too long ago that I was writing on this blog saying that I wanted to work on improving my pacing, and here we go.

I'm not especially glad that you write less chapters around an event. I meant that in the case of Lasrua, she's dying and the action goes quickly (and I like the fact that we didn't see everything between the chapter where she got stabbed and the chapter she's with Malcolm). I'm absolutely not against the fact that there might be a dozen of chapter around an event, like a party for instance (or the Red Boots Drama).

As for Twilight's End, I think the amount of description was perfectly balanced.

I might express my self quite badly for it's not my first language, but what I meant was that I have the feeling that two years ago, you could have written far more chapters around Lasrua being stabbed with everybody's point of view. And I like that in the last chapter, we don't know whether it's Alred or Matthew going out. I like not knowing everything and having to guess things (and that what you tried to express when you say that you must trust the readers to understand some things).

Interesting comment! I think I understand you now. And that was the sort of thing I was thinking when I wrote in my comment to Lydia": "This is storytelling after all."

What the writer chooses to show and hide is so important, and it's true, this is another thing I have been thinking about lately. I've been choosing which scenes to write (and not write) with the goal of raising story questions. Not questions like "What kind of houses do the elves live in?" Not even just questions like "What happens next"? But questions like "Why did Malcolm tell Sigefrith Rua was dead?" and "What happened in that room when the three were alone in there?"

I could have written a chapter or two or three about what happened in that room. I could have done Osh's POV, Malcolm's POV, Rua's POV, or all three. And I believe that "two years ago", as you said, I might have. I'm sure I could have made it very romantic or shocking or emotionally moving for the reader in some way. Kleenexes might have come out. I seem to be pretty good at that.

But lately I'm coming to believe that's not the best way to tell a STORY. If you show every scene, the reader is just passively sitting back and watching events unfold. (From several different angles. ) Other than the eternal "What happens next?" question, there's not much mystery. The reader doesn't have much to think about, nor much room to imagine. I think readers like to do a bit of detective work and fill in the blanks -- especially when later on they learn they were right! (This makes foreshadowing even more important. *waits as everybody rereads "Britamund gives the most beautiful answer"*)

It may seem kind of manipulative to withhold information... and I think a writer can take it too far, where she just leaves a question hanging for chapter after chapter, and dances around it, but never gives the reader any satisfaction.

As an aside, I think I am doing that right now with my "Is Rua going to die?" question. I'm taking 1 or 2 chapters too long to answer that. An unfortunate consequence of not planning my outline ahead of time. I apologize to all of you who are caught up with the story and reading chapter-by-chapter.

But overall, my goal is not to just cruelly hide information from you, but rather to set up story questions like dominoes, where every time I answer a question I raise another one. I think that, in itself, would make the story seem to move faster, because the reader is more motivated to keep going. It's like the psychology of video games... you get a good feeling every time you gain a level, or get the next piece of the puzzle, or whatever. And video games aren't fun if they're too easy and don't make you work a little, and even cause you to fail sometimes. (Red herrings, anyone? *waits as everybody rereads "Cedric makes a promise"*)

However, I know that style of story isn't to everyone's tastes, and I may annoy some people. Some people read just for relaxation or to wile away a quarter hour, and they might not appreciate being made to think and guess more of the story. And some people really LIKE loads of description. The genre of fantasy, I hear, is known for that, though I don't really consider myself a writer of fantasy, elves notwithstanding. I don't know how this will all work out. The World's Longest Writing Experiment continues!

I like thinking and guessing! I actually really appreciate this whole project as something that it's not really possible to read into too deeply. (I guess it's possible, but it would have to be pretty out there.)

ETA: Sometimes, I ask questions like "Why did Malcolm tell Sigefrith Rua was dead?" just to make sure I haven't missed something that was meant to be clear from the text. I thought it was possible that we were meant to understand that Malcolm was lying, for instance. So your clarification that our not knowing is, indeed, part of the story, was what I was looking for in the end.

That's fine, keep asking! If this were an edited, published work, then you would have the advantage of knowing that the story had already been scrutinized for ambiguities and goofs, plus you would be able to read the next chapters right away before you really started wondering "Wait, was he lying?"

But since this is NOT... don't be shy about asking questions. The worst that will happen is I will tell you that the answers will be forthcoming in the story. Conversely, if you ask a question about something that I expected you to understand from what I've already written, then the fault is mine for not making things clearer. And it's helpful for me to know right away, so I can clear things up in the next chapters.

In short, I am totally using you guys as test dummies.

Proudly reporting for duty!

*dons Dummy #1 hat*