Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman
Movies have a distinct
advantage over novels. The former dramatize, or show, the incidents
of the plot as they occur. The latter describes them. Yes, yes,
novelists are told to “show not tell,” and, for the most part,
most try. Still, their medium is words, not pictures, and even
images, or word-pictures, aren't really pictures; they're
descriptions of images, written in words. The truth is plain and
simple: novelists can't “show,” not really; they can only tell.
It may be argued that what
is meant by “show, don't tell,” is not that novelists shouldn't
describe action, but that they shouldn't explain things.
Explanations, or exposition, as it's called in literary criticism, is
the sort of telling novelists are told not to write. Readers don't
want paragraphs or, worse yet, pages of exposition; they want action,
they want immediacy, they want drama.
Fair enough. “Don't
tell” refers to exposition, not description (although, novelists
are also instructed, there should be no more description than
necessary, either. Provide just enough detail—often a sentence or
two will suffice—to convey a general idea of the setting, a
character's looks, a building's appearance or whatever and move on.
Readers are likely to have seen the very person, place, or thing the
novelist is describing to envision it on their own, without seemingly
endless descriptions.
Mark Twain
Again, fair enough. Mark
Twain said “eschew surplusage,” and he's a writer whose work is
esteemed both literary and entertaining, a sometimes rare
combination.
Dean R. Koontz
Even with exposition
avoided and description greatly curtailed, novelists can keep their
writing interesting and entertaining by using a few techniques. Dean
Koontz shares a few tips in an
interview with The Rumpus.
Page by page, sentence by sentence, and word by word, he strives for
perfection:
I
rewrite the page until it’s as perfect as I can get it,
which will never be perfect. . . . The constant rewriting until the
page really flows and the prose really excites me and I move on to
the next
page . . . .
Twain
also reminded other writers that “there's a difference between
lightning and the lightning bug,” suggesting that literary
lightning results from using what Alexander Pope, in defining style,
called “proper words in their proper places.” In an interview
with Brad Crawford, Koontz said:
I
like prose to have hidden rhythms; I like prose to have a music
beneath the surface. It’s almost never recognized by the reader in
a conscious way, but it is recognized unconsciously. It’s why
readers feel the prose flow, why it speaks to them. A poet once
reviewed one of my books and recognized that entire passages were
written in iambic pentameter . . . .Different poetic meters affects
us emotionally in different ways. It’s not anything anyone’s
going to see, but it’s one of the great techniques to suck a reader
right into the heart of the story.
Polished
writing and cadence—there's no substitute for them in attracting
and holding readers' interest, but there's a tip I'd add to the list
of techniques novelists can use to maintain their readers'
involvement as they move their stories forward. For want of a better
term, I'll call it locomotion, or motive power.
To
present a scene using motive power, envision it as images, chosen and
arranged according to a specific purpose and a well-considered
design, as if the sequence were being shown on a movie screen. Think
of the written scene as a filmed shot. Before starting with your own
story, watch a scene from movie. Then, transcribe what you see, so to
speak, into words. I did this in a previous Chillers
and Thrillers
post, “Making
Every Word (or Image) Count.” The scene I used
is the opening sequence of Steven Spielberg's classic film Jaws,
but my purpose in doing so, it the earlier post was to consider how
“
Young
and blonde, Chrissie Watkins runs along a ramshackle fence, pursued
by a young man.
Tripping.
He falls, but he's on his feet again in a second.
Continuing
to run, she glances back, shedding her jacket.
She
pauses, removes a shoe, stumbles onward. Behind her, the man doffs
his sweatshirt.
As
he tumbles down a hill at the side of the trail, Chrissie, now
completely nude, runs toward the ocean.
Entering
the surf, she dives into the sea. By the time the man reaches the
beach, she's nearing a buoy some distance off shore.
She
sinks. For a moment, she's lost to sight.
Resurfacing,
she gasps, water streaming down her face. Smiling, as she treads
water, she looks west. The sun is low.
On
the beach, the man is a silhouette against the wash of the surf. His
outline, like a stretch of low land and scattered clouds, is lit,
yellow and pink, by the setting sun. Struggling to remove a shoe, he
falls drunk, perhaps.
In
the distance, Chrissie resumes swimming, turning her head from side
to side, smiling.
Sinking,
she kicks and waves her arms.
She
surfaces, smiles. Then, her head jerks backward; she's pulled
violently downward.
Her eyes widen. She turns her head slightly to
her right, looking puzzled. Her head dips below the surface, then
reappears. She looks panicked. In a splash, she vanishes beneath the
waves. When her head bobs up, pierces the surface, her mouth is open,
her eyes shut tightly, a grimace of terror and pain freezing her
features.
A
splash, and she is pulled across the water, past the buoy, only her
head and shoulders visible above the water. She struggles. She's
pulled to the right. She straightens, but, again, she's pulled to the
right. Water churns about her.
On
the beach, the man, her boyfriend, sleeps.
At
sea, Chrissie struggles. Launched toward the buoy, she clings
desperately to its platform. It turns. Cast off, she swims toward
shore. A moment later, she's seized. Anguished, amid the roiling
water, she cries out.
She
is snatched underwater.
Her boyfriend continues to sleep, oblivious to the
breaking waves washing over him.
The sky is nearly dark.
Even
if we cast this passage in the simple past tense, as is conventional
with novels, the sense of movement, of action, of drama that the
locomotion technique produces remains intact:
Young
and blonde, Chrissie Watkins ran along a ramshackle fence, pursued by
a young man.
Tripping,
he fell, but he was on his feet again in a second.
Continuing
to run, she glanced back, shedding her jacket.
Pausing,
she removed a shoe, stumbled onward.
Behind her, the man doffed his sweatshirt.
As
he tumbled down a hill at the side of the trail, Chrissie, now
completely nude, rand toward the ocean.
Entering
the surf, she dove into the sea. By the time the man reached the
beach, she was nearing a buoy some distance off shore.
She
sank. For a moment, she was lost to sight.
Resurfacing,
she gasped, water streaming down her face. Smiling, as she tread
water, she looked west. The sun was low.
On
the beach, the man was a silhouette against the wash of the surf. His
outline, like a stretch of low land and scattered clouds, was lit,
yellow and pink, by the setting sun. Struggling to remove a shoe, he
fell, drunk, perhaps.
In
the distance, Chrissie resumed swimming, turning her head from side
to side, smiling.
Sinking,
she kicked and waved her arms.
She
surfaced, smiled. Then, her head jerked backward; she was pulled
violently downward. Her eyes widened. She turned her head slightly to
her right, looking puzzled. Her head dipped below the surface, then
reappeared. She looked panicked. In a splash, she vanished beneath
the waves. When her head bobbed up, piercing the surface, her mouth
opened and her eyes shut tightly, as a grimace of terror and pain
froze her features.
A
splash, and she was pulled across the water, past the buoy, only her
head and shoulders visible above the water. As she struggled, she was
pulled to the right. She straightened, but, again, she was pulled to
the right. Water churned about her.
On
the beach, the man, her boyfriend, slept.
At
sea, Chrissie struggled. Launched toward the buoy, she clung
desperately to its platform. It turned. Cast off, she swam toward
shore. A moment later, she was seized. Anguished, amid the roiling
water, she cried out.
She
was snatched underwater.
Her boyfriend continued to sleep, oblivious to the
breaking waves washing over him.
The sky was nearly dark.
This
is not a story of our own, of course; it's a scene from a movie. By
“transcribing” the scene, as it occurs on film, we mimic the way
the film was shot, using short sentences, action verbs, few details,
little characterization through description or interior monologue.
The emphasis is on action, movement, drama. By writing our own scenes
in the same manner, whenever possible (which is much more frequently
than many novelists might imagine), we maintain readers' interest and
entertain them. Trained by movies, readers will likely appreciate our
style, even if only subconsciously. If they like our stories, they'll
probably be back for more.
Edgar Allan Poe
One
other tip, this one from Edgar
Allan Poe (by way of an annotation in Kevin J. Hayes's The
Annotated Poe). First, the passage from Poe's short story.
“Metzengerstein”:
The career of the horseman was, indisputably, on his own
part, uncontrollable. The agony of his countenance, the convulsive
struggling of his frame gave no evidence of superhuman exertion; nut
no sound, save a solitary shriek, escaped from his lacerated lips,
which were bitten through and through, in the intensity of terror.
Sergei Eisenstein
Now,
Hayes's note:
The cinema has much to offer when it comes to
understanding Poe, partly because his work has contributed so much to
its development. The great Soviet filmmaker Sergei
Eisenstein found that Poe's writing anticipated visual techniques
that would not be fully utilized until the invention of motion
pictures. This paragraph provides a good example. Poe depicts
Metzengerstein in close-up (the “agony of his convulsions”),
pulls back to show him from a distance (“the convulsive struggling
of his frame”), and then supplies an extreme close-up (“his
lacerated lips, which were bitten through and through”). The rapid
shifting of images quickens the narrative pace, which the ensuing
cacophony of sound—the shriek of Metzengerstein, the clatter of
hoofs, the roar of the flames, and the shriek of the wind—further
intensifies, thus providing a narrative running start for the horse's
final bound up the staircase.
Wow!
Words in the hands of a master author who is both a short story
writer and a poet can accomplish feats nothing short of amazing.
Using
their techniques, we lesser mortals can still improve our own
writing—dramatically.
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