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IMPROVE YOUR STYE

Pump up your creativity, use Literature, Imagination, Folklore and Experience to replenish your creative well and inspire your fiction. Already you can hear how each would interpret the song, making it his or her unique style. The plot doesnt change from singer to singer; we know that persistent little arachnid will get washed out the spout yet eventually triumph over adversity. The style then is determined by the singers tone of voice, which notes are emphasized, the tempo, the background music. A writer has to do all the same things to establish style but with words. Narrative Voice: Hit the high notes It isnt what she said, its the way she said it. Youre developing it between the narrator and the reader. Whether you want the reader to like, dislike, admire or loathe the narrator, it is most important for the reader to be compelled by him. This is achieved by creating a very specific narrative voice through the tone. Third-person-limited POV (in which were focused only on one characters perspective) is trickier because were not inside a characters head, thereby removing some of the confessional intimacy. Then why use it? Because first person can be too intimate, its effect can be achieved by contrasting the way the narrator thinks about the world with the way the reader sees that the described world actually is. Thirdperson-limited gives us just enough distance that we can better trust the narrators perspective. Her son was studying Catherine as she stood at their kitchen window. She felt him. Hed been doing it more and more often, idly and with no special intensity, she thought, but with a kind of dreamy stare. She knew that sort of study, when you sit with your chin on your palms, your elbows on the kitchen table, looking at something, at the thing itself, for certain, and also looking through it. She tipped the roasting chicken and looked down, considering her son behind her, the way he must have been looking at and into and past his mother. Hes looking at the rest of his life, she thought. Im a ghost at the center of the prospect. This is wonderful example pf creating many effects through narrative voice: 1. The focus is on the connection between Catherine and her son (She felt him.) 2. The conflict is her awareness of how his attitude toward her is changing, evolving (Hed been doing it more and more often). such a change can be frightening, which establishes the stakes: mother losing the relationship with her maturing son. 3. It indicates that what hes doing is something shes done herself (She knew that sort of study), ei- ther in a past relationship or recently. 4. She is an insightful and articulate woman (Hes looking at the rest of his life, she thought. Im a ghost at the center of the prospect.) That phrase a ghost at the center of the prospect is poetic, a rich, yet scary image that distills her apprehension. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct the other way in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted upon being received, for good or evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Here we have a narrative voice that has a wisdom about the world, and the reader trusts that this voice will continue to comment on events and put them in perspective. In this POV, the intimacy is formed with a narrator who isnt really part of the story, but whom we trust. Descriptive Texture: The emperors new clothes Descriptive texture is what transforms mere information into a multidimensional world. Its the difference between telling the reader about an event and creating the world so that the reader experiences the event for himself. Minimalism (which is highly selective about which details are included) and favor a rich, denser style (which uses sensual descriptions and lots of metaphors). Most writers fall somewhere between this spectrum. Its important to select the style that you most enjoy reading yourself. Beginning writers often make the mistake of overdescribing or underdescribing. Overdescribing can occur because the writer sees a descriptive passage as a chance to show off her talent, to dazzle the reader. But, the actual effect is to stop the story dead by distracting the reader from the characters. Description is a tool to enhance the story, the same as a frame enhances a painting. If the frame is too ornate or large, it overshadows the painting. The craggy, mist-shrouded mountains erupted out of the fetid jungle like the jagged tail of a slumbering dragon guarding the tropical paradise as if it were Eden itself. If that made you gag, you have good instincts. There are so many adjectives in that description that the average reader cant hold on to them all as he finally stumbles past the period of that sentence. Underdescribing also can be detrimental to the story. Big mountains were on the other side of the jungle. Snooze. Words like big are relative, so the reader doesnt have anything with which to compare the size of the mountains. The verb were is passive, making the mountains seem bland and diminutive. How do you know when to elaborate on description? When the person or object being described has an impact on the characters, affects them or affects how the reader is meant to persive them, then you elaborate. For example, if the mountains described above are mentioned merely as a passing landmark and have no further role in the story, just tell us theyre there and move on. But if they appear as a means of showing how insignificant the characters are in the larger natural world in order that the characters gain a new perspective on their lives, then elaborate. Describing characters is another chance to define your style. But the same rules apply: Develop description only toward the end of achieving the desired impact. He was tall, tall even sitting down. His long legs comfortable in expensive wool, the trousers of a boy who had been on ships, jets; who owned a horse, perhaps; who knew Latin what didnt he know? somebody made up, like a kid in a play with a beautiful mother and a handsome father, who took his breakfast from sideboard, and picked, even at fourteen and fifteen and sixteen, his mail from silver plate. He would have hobbies stamps, stars, things lovely dead. He wore a sport coat, brown as wood, thick as heavy bark. The buttons were leather buds. His shoes seemed carved from horses saddles, gunstocks. His clothes has grown once in a nature His eyes had skies in them. His yellow hair swirled on his head like a crayoned sun.

He sees the boy as some sort of god-figure, and so the description is filled with imagined characteristics to imply that. Dont be afraid to try to tell your story a few different ways before you find the style that works for you.

BUILDING BETTER SENTENCES


As writers, we cant ignore sentences. The sentence is the most important unit in the English language; without it, our stories simply cannot be told. All our characters sound alike. Worse still, there is no music in our language. The prose is stilted. Chopped into fragments. Its helpful to know what our sentences are doing and how we can nudge them in the right direction. Listen to the music The ear writes my poems, not the mind, Prose writers, too, often speak of the important role the ear plays in the writing and revision process. Some writers claim to hear an inner voice that dictates the rhythms, diction and tone of their language. Others focus on the interplay among words or on lyrical cadences that makes for stunning, musical prose. One way to tune our sentences is to listen to the sounds of individual words. When possible, these sounds should reinforce the imagistic and emotional content of our sentence. For instance, ripple is probably not the best word to use in a sentence about the weight of loneliness. Not only does ripple mean something slight; it sounds slight. The short I is a bantam-weight vowel, the lightest, most childlike sound in our language. A more weighty choice would be a word like stone or root or nobody. Is there a vowel more heavy or sad than the long o? It hollows out the mouth intones the deepest sorrow. And their ending sounds make strong final impressions. The t of root supplies an abrupt ending, while the n of stone remains before our eyes and deep in our throats, providing weight and texture to reinforce the feeling of heaviness. In contrast, the ending sounds of ripple slide easily into one another. Just as singers vary the tone of a musical phrase by prolonging it, shortening it, pitching it higher or lower, making it louder or softer, or changing its sound color (breathy, harsh, resonant, liquid), writers vary the tone of passages by the way sounds they choose and by the way they sing these sounds. From the first word on, a subliminal music plays beneath Poes words. I imagine an oboe or a bass cello, its tomes mournfully forlorn. This feeling of foreboding is accomplished partly through the use of deep vowel sounds: whole, autumn, soundless, clouds. Taken together, the vowels intone a dark music that is made even darker by Poes repetition of heavy initial consonants: dull, dark, day, dreary. But individual words alone, however musically apt, cannot make our sentences sing. We also need an underlying rhythm, a musical line playing beneath our words. The rhythm of Poes opening sentence is accomplished through short, stopped phrases, each comma striking like a gong foretelling doom. We are slowed by each phrase, as Poes language draws us, step by step, toward the gloom that awaits us. There was music from my neighbors house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the starts The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing upstairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep at the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors and hairs shorn in strange new ways and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile. The bar is in full swing and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside until the air is alive

with chatter and laughter and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each others names. Like the liquid movement of the partygoers, Fitzgeralds long, languid rhythms rise and fall seamlessly. Unlike Poes syntax, which trudges in fits and starts, Fitzgeralds continues breathlessly to the end of the passage. As you review your sentences and stories, dont just look at the words. Listen to their musical pitch, color and volume. Did you use soft, soothing consonants in one description and harshs, cacophonous consonants in another? Did you use deep-toned, solemn vowels in one section of dialogue and high-pitched vowels in another? Sense of Character The sentence style we use signals to our readers how to navigate our storys landscape. We are lulled by the rhythms of Thurbers sentences. We revel in his brilliantly tuned sentences. A rule we are quite happy Jamaica Kincaid breaks in her stunning one-sentence story Girl. A narrator who uses formal, parallel syntax may well be a clear, careful thinker who keeps her emotional distance; a narrator who zigzags through his sentences, backing up to interrupt himself, may be signaling indecision or insecurity; a character whose ideas flow unceasingly one into the other reveals the stream of his rapidly flowing consciousness. Even when were using third-person narration, we can still suggest a characters personality, life circumstances and emotional landscape by the cadences, syntax and diction of our sentences. Sleep, pick, eat,pick, pray Bed, field, tables, field, church. Bed. Field. Table: a hollow gallop of wooden bowls on a wooden table. Field. Church: a chase through dark woods and climbing vines, barefoot behind her grandmother Bed. Field. Table. Field By cycling and recycling the same words through recurring staccato rhythms, Greene mimics the internal rhythms of her characters thoughts, revealing the weight of Fannys weariness and the monotony of her days. Spice up your Sentences The sentences in our stories their lengths, grammatical structures and sounds qualities affects not only our storys tone, style and character development. They also affect how tension is created and sustained and how the plot unfolds. To keep our plot line taut, we need active, direct, energetic sentences that move the action along. But even quick-on-th-trigger prose cannot sustain itself indefinitely. Language that continues without pause or variation ceases to hold a readers attention; it is the change in the rhythm that is important. To maintain suspense, we must alternate between scene and summary, showing and telling, and between braking and accelerating. Slow. Withhold. Delay. All techniques for increasing tension. One of the most obvious ways to slow the pace of a story is to use short sentences, directives or fragments. Another method is to use short paragraphs, a visual pause for the eye. One moment the window was empty, a dark square and the next this strange new woman was standing against the sill. Her appearance was as sudden as if a blind had been snaped up. There she stood exactly in the centre of her little theatre of sashes and sill and darkness beyond. One expected her to bow. He backed away from his own window like a thief.

Sansoms use of short paragraphs increases the stop-and-start feeling of the moment, increasing tension by the use of halt and delay. This technique is like striptease; what we get is precisely what we must wait patiently, or impatiently, to learn. Even a single sentence can create tension if you withhold its climatic information until the end. By reversing the order of your syntax, beginning with the wind and the moon and saving the clincher, he kissed her, for last, you can keep the reader guessing. Another way to slow your storys pace is to change the verb tense of the telling. Although its usually best to be consistent with your verb tense, a wellorchestrated switch can heighten tension. Present tense, though it contributes to a feeling of immediacy, can actually prolong a scene. She sits at the window, gives the impression of prolonged action because it emphasizes the process rather than the completed event. A present tense action is, by definition, an action in process, so the reader expects to be led through the process. Writing in the present tense may also slow you down, making you more conscious of the sentences forming in your ear and on the page of your story-inprogress. In return for your attention to their needs, your sentences will reward you by shaping your narrative style, revealing characters inner and outer landscapes, maintaining dramatic tension, and tuning your story to the most effective musical key. Perhaps its what your characters are saying rather than how theyre saying it. Can you up the ante? The simplest fictional formula is situation, complication and (ir) resolution. Many times we get stories where the complication feels like part of an emerging problem the character must face, rather than an additional factor that will make a resolution tougher. Other times the complication just isnt complicated enough, or there isnt enough at stake. Try intensifying an existing complication, or toss in one or two more for good measure! When all else fails, why not try a Sidecar approach? The vase could become a subplot, which could complicate things if the girlfriend thinks he should do something different from what hes inclined. Greater complexity means greater reader interest. So tweak away!

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