Writing: Oomph!

[sartorias]

Yesterday in another portion of cyberspace a friend was talking about putting some “oomph” into the writing, and I thought about that last night as the first of the family holiday gatherings happened (I ate! It stayed in me! Hurrah

Comments

[mmerriam]

I would agree. In order for the "oomph" to have any meaning, it must advance the story by raising the internal conflict, or by playing on/crossing purposes with a primary character's motivation. Otherwise it's just empty prose. It might be pretty, or amusing, but it's still empty, and empty prose is dead weight.

[quiller77]

I don't think your brain is the least bit soggy. It makes perfect sense that real tension has to arise from internal stakes/motivations. I immediately thought of "Attack of the Clones" and how Lucas used empty action to supposedly up the ante. I roll my eyes and hit 'fast-forward' when I come to the conveyer belt scene. Ugh. Talk about action stopping the flow of a story (what little story there was). More action is not always better. It all has to tie into character motivation and where s/he is being prevented from achieving her/his goal.

A great reminder. Thank you.

[oursin]

For me 'oomph' is about how, rather than what: i.e. less about putting stuff into the content of the scene, than how it comes across, how what's-going-on is presented. I am so in agreement about 'frenetic busy' being not, not, not, what it is about. 'Frenetic busy' is not the same as 'dynamic action' and sometimes stillness and 'negative space' are far more effective anyway.

[sartorias]

Yes...I'm minded of the person I heard about twenty-five years ago or so who did her dissertation on the silences in Shakespeare.

[sartorias]

I've seen this one perhaps more frequently in romance, maybe because of the constraints of the form. Some writers can manage to make the arguments real, some don't. The very worst form of it, imo, is when a crucial bit of info is withheld and for no convincing reason they don't take ten seconds and spell it out, so they go on reacting from a wrong assumption. Argh! I hate that one as much as I hate Stupid Plot. In fact, it probably is a form of Stupid Plot.

[betty_m]

I think your description amplifies what I've heard as being necessary for a breakout novel--plot plus action and conflict, but action and conflict which, somehow, are integral to the story

[sartorias]

It does sound like a good one.