Words, words, where are the words?
Why will my brain not write? I've got to get this SPN summergen story done; I've got the shape of the story in my head; words are not coming out. I originally typed that "worlds are not coming out" which is weirdly appropriate.
I was thinking about words earlier today.
As always seems to happen, a bunch of things have come together: I've been doing freerice.com daily, so I'm being introduced to a bunch of words I'd never heard/seen before and I'm noticing them when they're used now that they've been brought to my attention. I just read (as I've mentioned a zillion times) Donaldson's first Covenant trilogy, and Donaldson has a ridiculous love affair with the thesaurus. I'm also reading Lackey's The Fairy Godmother, and just blasted through Lynn's Dragon's Winter because it was so smooth after Donaldson. So Donaldson is wordy and overdoes the vocabulary. Lackey is generally okay, but has a tendency to reuse words to close together (not names, but descriptive nouns and adjectives). As this is a problem I have, too, I tend to notice it. And Lynn, well, her prose is 90% unnoticeable and 10% evocative. Of the three, I like Lynn's style the best, Lackey's second mostly because she's unnoticeable when she's not being redundant, and Donaldson's a distant third. I respect his vocabulary, but it's not how I would choose to write something.
I tend to think that most fictional prose should be transparent. There is a time and a place for words that make you pay attention to them. Poetry, pretty much always. Speeches, pretty much by definition. Narrative non-fiction sometimes; it depends on the topic whether you want to draw attention to your words, your topic, or both. And, as a caveat, I suppose I should consider the fact that some types of fiction, especially "literary" fiction, are written as much for the words as for the story. Which is probably why I read genre fiction and am not particularly drawn to, say, the fiction of the 1700-1800's. I want to get lost in the story, not tangled up in the words.
And yet, I do like an author who can turn a phrase or use words to make you think about things differently. C.J. Cherryh, one of my all-time favorite authors, has a distinctive way of stringing her words together and structuring her sentences so that you're pulled into the story and the writing mimics the thoughts/feelings/experiences of the characters. She does creative things with words, phrases, sentences; in some ways, it's like reading a poem. Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams, two other favorites, have/had a way of stating things that make you look at them in a whole new way, turning the subject on its head simply with the power of their words. I read them for how they write as much as what they write. But yet, I love what they write, and their books are always worth multiple re-reads.
Then there's Lorna Freeman. This woman knows voice. Her two books, written entirely in the first person POV of her character Rabbit, have reasonably simple prose. It's not that often that you'll stop and re-read a section just for the words (although you might for the humor). Her stories come to life because the way she writes makes Rabbit real; he's loveable, flawed, interesting, stubborn, prone to rash actions, and all of those come through in how she writes him. You don't notice it on the level of the words, though, if that makes any sense. The words are transparent; they don't interfere with the story or the characterization. When I'm reading her books, I'm completely immersed.
For a non-fantasy example, Janet Evanovich does something similar with her Stephanie Plum books. Again, the voice is strong; again, it's first person. (Hmm, wonder if that's a controlling factor? Well, Lynn's books were third person, so maybe not. Although I suspect voice in general is easier in first person.) Evanovich doesn't do anything particularly outstanding with her words, in the literal meaning of outstanding. I don't find myself re-reading a phrase or sentence or paragraph for the words, either because they're spectacular, confusing, or redundant/poorly put together. I'm sucked into the story. Reading these books is effortless, smooth, like I'm there experiencing the events of the story. Jodi Picoult, who generally writes in third person and doesn't, IMO, have a particularly strong command of voice but does know how to construct a story so that the reader is sucked in and on the edge of her seat, is another transparent writer. I'm there, I'm feeling what the characters are feeling, I'm seeing the movie in my head. I'm not stopping to parse a phrase, whether from admiration or irritation.
In general, I prefer that last type of writing. I want to be in the world, not thinking about how the author wrote the world. That's why Donaldson's writing fell apart for me: I spent too much time wondering why he had to use ten $1000 words when one or two $.02 words would have done. The words were cocky, showy, and distracting. They weren't showing me anything new beyond the fact that the word existed; they didn't help me to see the object they were describing more clearly or in a new way. In fact, I spent half the book picturing the story and half picturing the shadowy figure of Donaldson frantically flipping through a thesaurus.
And yet (love that phrase), as I'm writing this, I can't help but think that the kind of transparent writing I enjoy, for all its good points, may have one glaring bad point: it doesn't really produce the kinds of challenges or creative leaps that non-transparent writing at its best can produce. Cherryh, Pratchett, and Adams do interesting things with language (Cherryh in a different manner than Pratchett and Adams). Even Donaldson is at least using words that otherwise would be stuck on a dusty shelf groaning under an unused copy of the OED. Which is why, I suppose, it's a good thing that not all writers have exactly the same style or the same teacher(s).
In other news, I keep having this serial dream in which three kittens show up: a yellow/orange tabby, a white and yellow/orange whatever, and a brown/gray whatever. What's weird is that when they show up in my dream, I'm all, "There's the kittens! I wondered where they'd gotten to!" which is crazy because anyone who has kittens knows that they're in your face--or climbing up your legs, or sitting on your boobs/head/shoulders/computer--constantly. What is my subconscious trying to tell me?????
I was thinking about words earlier today.
As always seems to happen, a bunch of things have come together: I've been doing freerice.com daily, so I'm being introduced to a bunch of words I'd never heard/seen before and I'm noticing them when they're used now that they've been brought to my attention. I just read (as I've mentioned a zillion times) Donaldson's first Covenant trilogy, and Donaldson has a ridiculous love affair with the thesaurus. I'm also reading Lackey's The Fairy Godmother, and just blasted through Lynn's Dragon's Winter because it was so smooth after Donaldson. So Donaldson is wordy and overdoes the vocabulary. Lackey is generally okay, but has a tendency to reuse words to close together (not names, but descriptive nouns and adjectives). As this is a problem I have, too, I tend to notice it. And Lynn, well, her prose is 90% unnoticeable and 10% evocative. Of the three, I like Lynn's style the best, Lackey's second mostly because she's unnoticeable when she's not being redundant, and Donaldson's a distant third. I respect his vocabulary, but it's not how I would choose to write something.
I tend to think that most fictional prose should be transparent. There is a time and a place for words that make you pay attention to them. Poetry, pretty much always. Speeches, pretty much by definition. Narrative non-fiction sometimes; it depends on the topic whether you want to draw attention to your words, your topic, or both. And, as a caveat, I suppose I should consider the fact that some types of fiction, especially "literary" fiction, are written as much for the words as for the story. Which is probably why I read genre fiction and am not particularly drawn to, say, the fiction of the 1700-1800's. I want to get lost in the story, not tangled up in the words.
And yet, I do like an author who can turn a phrase or use words to make you think about things differently. C.J. Cherryh, one of my all-time favorite authors, has a distinctive way of stringing her words together and structuring her sentences so that you're pulled into the story and the writing mimics the thoughts/feelings/experiences of the characters. She does creative things with words, phrases, sentences; in some ways, it's like reading a poem. Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams, two other favorites, have/had a way of stating things that make you look at them in a whole new way, turning the subject on its head simply with the power of their words. I read them for how they write as much as what they write. But yet, I love what they write, and their books are always worth multiple re-reads.
Then there's Lorna Freeman. This woman knows voice. Her two books, written entirely in the first person POV of her character Rabbit, have reasonably simple prose. It's not that often that you'll stop and re-read a section just for the words (although you might for the humor). Her stories come to life because the way she writes makes Rabbit real; he's loveable, flawed, interesting, stubborn, prone to rash actions, and all of those come through in how she writes him. You don't notice it on the level of the words, though, if that makes any sense. The words are transparent; they don't interfere with the story or the characterization. When I'm reading her books, I'm completely immersed.
For a non-fantasy example, Janet Evanovich does something similar with her Stephanie Plum books. Again, the voice is strong; again, it's first person. (Hmm, wonder if that's a controlling factor? Well, Lynn's books were third person, so maybe not. Although I suspect voice in general is easier in first person.) Evanovich doesn't do anything particularly outstanding with her words, in the literal meaning of outstanding. I don't find myself re-reading a phrase or sentence or paragraph for the words, either because they're spectacular, confusing, or redundant/poorly put together. I'm sucked into the story. Reading these books is effortless, smooth, like I'm there experiencing the events of the story. Jodi Picoult, who generally writes in third person and doesn't, IMO, have a particularly strong command of voice but does know how to construct a story so that the reader is sucked in and on the edge of her seat, is another transparent writer. I'm there, I'm feeling what the characters are feeling, I'm seeing the movie in my head. I'm not stopping to parse a phrase, whether from admiration or irritation.
In general, I prefer that last type of writing. I want to be in the world, not thinking about how the author wrote the world. That's why Donaldson's writing fell apart for me: I spent too much time wondering why he had to use ten $1000 words when one or two $.02 words would have done. The words were cocky, showy, and distracting. They weren't showing me anything new beyond the fact that the word existed; they didn't help me to see the object they were describing more clearly or in a new way. In fact, I spent half the book picturing the story and half picturing the shadowy figure of Donaldson frantically flipping through a thesaurus.
And yet (love that phrase), as I'm writing this, I can't help but think that the kind of transparent writing I enjoy, for all its good points, may have one glaring bad point: it doesn't really produce the kinds of challenges or creative leaps that non-transparent writing at its best can produce. Cherryh, Pratchett, and Adams do interesting things with language (Cherryh in a different manner than Pratchett and Adams). Even Donaldson is at least using words that otherwise would be stuck on a dusty shelf groaning under an unused copy of the OED. Which is why, I suppose, it's a good thing that not all writers have exactly the same style or the same teacher(s).
In other news, I keep having this serial dream in which three kittens show up: a yellow/orange tabby, a white and yellow/orange whatever, and a brown/gray whatever. What's weird is that when they show up in my dream, I'm all, "There's the kittens! I wondered where they'd gotten to!" which is crazy because anyone who has kittens knows that they're in your face--or climbing up your legs, or sitting on your boobs/head/shoulders/computer--constantly. What is my subconscious trying to tell me?????