Wednesday 28 July 2010

Dostoyevsky: his grammatical constructs

I've been applying all I've learn, particularly the kind of grammatical schemes detailed here and here, about poetics to extant literature.  I picked up Crime and Punishment the other day.  The book's now crammed with notes in the margins.  It's a slow process, but developing a literary eye and ear seems indispensable to writing.  There are loads of things to analyse, like suspense, tension, his lexicon to analyse--but Dostoyevsky's grammatical constructs first struck me.

One technique he uses is to place one short sentence after, on average, two longer, complex sentences.  You can see this style below, from the first paragraph of Crime and Punishment.
  • (1) She occupied the floor beneath him, and her kitchen, with its usually-open door, was entered from the stairase. (2) Thus, whenever the young man went out, he found himself obliged to pass under the enemy's fire, which always produced a morbid terror, humiliating him and making him knit his brows. (3) He owed her some money and felt afraid of enountering her.
The reader is jolted by the difference in pace between sentence (1) and (2), and (3).  This seems useful for two reasons.  The first is that it would become monotonmous to read the same kind of complex sentences again and again, in the same way it is monotomous to hear the same beat again and again without variaration.  See the altered version below, and then compare it to the former.
  • (1) She occupied the floor beneath him, and her kitchen, with its usually-open door, was entered from the stairase. (2) Thus, whenever the young man went out, he found himself obliged to pass under the enemy's fire, which always produced a morbid terror, humiliating him and making him knit his brows. (3) He owed her some money, from being unable to pay rent since his retreat into solitude, and felt afraid of enountering her.
The other reason is emphasis.  The change in rhythm, in the former example, focuses the reader on (3).  This is particularly important, as the reader is made to focus on the fact the character is poor and afraid, which is important to the this part of the story and is the focus of the next paragraph.

It surprised me how Dostoyevsky's use of language, and not simply action or description, effected the atmosphere of Crime and Punishment's world.  Later on his uses "polysyndeton" effectively to show an oppressive atmosphere: '...and complaints, and have to make excuses and subterfuges...'.  The use of grammar, eh.  No just knowing what verbs and nouns are...

Friday 9 July 2010

The use (and non-use) of suspense: analysing Brautigan to learn writing

Suspense is there to keep readers reading.  A gun to the reader's head could do that, but it's usually better to keep them reading by making them want to know something--but to withhold that something.  Brautigan does this in one of his short stories by suggesting that all is not right with a very old woman wanting a pound of meat:  "...but who knows what such an old woman could use a pound of meat for?"  Suddenly the readers interested is piqued.

But the suspense is not simply not telling the reader what he or she wants to know until later--it's building the suspense.  The rest of the story demonstrates her odd behaviour, her insistence, her feelings of victory once she's bought it.  It all serves to make a simple act--buying a large amount of meat--into something more interesting.  And so the reader wants to know more and more about this pound of meat, and is satisfied at the end--particularly so as it serves this story as a whole: the weather in San Francisco (it's a surreal story).

That said, Brautigan also does the opposite to good effect.  In Complicated Banking Problems he starts:  "I have a bank account because I grew tired of burying my money in the back yard and something else happened."  Brautigan could have built up that "something else", talked about its surroundings, alluded to its history and then ended the story revealing an unexpected and interesting "something else".  But instead he says:  "I was burying some money a few years ago when I came across a human skeleton."

But now the suspense has transferred to the human skeleton.  Why is it there?  But he doesn't explain that, or even build up the suspense.  It's just left as an arbitrary skeleton in an arbitrary backyard.  He talks about what was in the skeleton's hand, instead.  And, moreover, right there in the second paragraph he gives the moral of the story.  Without building up any more suspense, except to say there are three women in front of him in the queue, he goes on to write an excellent piece.  And it all works perfectly--all without any more suspense.

After all, suspense is only a good literary device when it's interesting:  few will read on page after to page to find out what I had for breakfast this morning (eggs on toast.)  And if you can make that interesting something without using suspense (Brautigan does it by beautifully describing the women in front of him in the queue) then suspense could become a useless adjunct.

Tuesday 29 June 2010

Overdoing "show" instead "tell" (Analysing Brautigan to learn writing)

Abraham Maslow once said if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  Since learning about the different between "show" and "tell" (better defined as "show an action from a character's perspective" rather than "give/tell a description"), I became a little like that, painfully attempting to change every sentence into a "show" sentence.  So, in an attempt to get over it, I analysed one of Richard Brautigan's short stories, The Weather in San Fransisco.

The story starts with quite a bit of tell.  The main scene between the butcher and the very old lady is introduced "...with an Italian butcher selling a pound of meat to a very old lady".  This could have been re-written from the butcher's or the old lady's perspective, certainly:  "The old lady's hands reached up to pay..." etc.  But what struck me about the story's beginning was that, despite the story being very much "tell", it wasn't bad.  In fact, it demonstrated many excellent literary devices--suspense, vivid descriptions, etc--all without using any "show".

After some dialogue, Brautigan finally does use some "show".  But he uses "show" to describe the main part of the scene, the very old lady waking through her house with the pound of meat.  The "tell" parts merely led up to this part.  And that seems to be the main distinction: make the main action "show".  But even this can be over-done.  Towards the end of the story there's a sentence: "walked down a long hall into room that was filled with bees".  The "filled with bees" part is a description here, but the sentences wouldn't sound better with "...where bees swarmed", especially as the sentence would move perspective from the very old lady to the bees.

Looking at this work, the "show" and "tell" rule seems a lot more blurred.  And it makes sense.  It's certainly better to write "his teeth chattered" instead of "he was cold" most of the time, but if his temperature is only a necessary scene-setting part of the story--not the main action--"he was cold" may well be permissible.

Wednesday 23 June 2010

Writing to improve, throw away para

As I have no ideas for stories--or at least none I'm keen on--I thought I'd attempt to write a short paragraph with 1) an action that draws attention (a hook), 2) conflict with another (tension) and 3) a resolution to improve my writing. And make sure it was all "show" and no to little "tell".

It doesn't deal with motivation/why, i.e. a back-story. And I have no idea why I'm writing about violence, something I really didn't think I'd do. But I was attempting to think up a situation with action and an obstacle, and it was the first thing that came to mind. 

Anyway, practice makes moderately satisfactory. All comments and suggestions welcome, etc.

Neil's forearm and half-clenched fist thudded upon the grass, breaking his body's sideways fall. Clawing his fingers into the muddy grass, he looked to see the guard staring at him. "I will use my sword next time." Twisting to grip the grass from behind his head, he swung his boots upwards sending the guard flying to the ground. Neil heard the guard's sword clang on the ground and saw the open gate in full for the first time. Wrenching his body straight, he ran towards and past it, harried by the guard's cries of anger as he chased. But Neil relaxed. He knew the guard would not leave his post to chase him further, not even for a successful trespasser.

Monday 21 June 2010

Writing advice

I planned on only writing stories or articles on this blog, but sod it. Here's some excellent advice on writing from Eric W. Trant's blog.
You’ll get there. To the end. Finally. And guess what?—it sucks. The whole book. Full of these twists and holes and God am I ever going to get a book published? Hemingway said, “All first drafts are shit.” Remember those words.

Sunday 20 June 2010

Schrödinger's wife

Annabella Schrödinger could make no sense out of her husband. She had taken to staring at him out of confusion, pressuring him to make sense.

"The cat! It's the cat! Dead or alive--we don't know! My love, the cat! Mittens!" was the last thing he had said before hunching over his study's writing table for the night.

Glancing away from her husband's frantic scribbling for once, she walked into the living room to confront the slew of books, papers and notes he habitually left behind.

Kicking some books into a corner, the side of her foot hit a sealed box. "Meow," the box said back to her. "Ah, Mittens. At least you're okay."

Wednesday 16 June 2010

England goalkeeper David James holds key to falling crime-rate

Some intrepid research--if watching BBC THREE counts--told me that that poor, young adolescents are violent towards other poor, young adolescents to warn off other poor, young adolescents from being violent towards them. Got it? Good. And then those poor, young adolescents who received that violence then become targets and so have to prove themselves by being violent towards other poor, young adolescents who...

There's an analogy here. And it's England's 2004 World Cup qualifier with Austria.

England goalkeeper David James made a particularly bad howler, causing opposition Austrian strikers to attempt shots from pretty much anywhere, just in case. And that only stopped when James proved himself by stopping a ball hitting the back of the net for once. James here represented the victim of violence, and the opposition Austrian strikers the perpetrators of further inner-city violence.

If, say, instead of having to prove himself on the pitch, the England team voted for a job placement scheme substituting those Austrian strikers into different professions--Law, Banking, Accountancy, Administration, 18-30s Holiday Group Leader--then James wouldn't have needed to prove himself by saving further shots on goal. Indeed, there would be no more shots to save!

That's 1) the key to a falling crime-rate and 2) the only way we're going to win the World Cup.