![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2){kind=small}
ecstatic Writing is like sheer exultant fire when it goes well. And did I mention that I really like having new music? I got the Sonata Arctica, Nightwish, and Kate Price CD's I ordered as end-of-finals presents today. Whoo-hoo!
Anyway, this is less a rant than a list of "This is how I really like to see language used in fantasy fiction." And of course the usual, "Yes, if an author is skilled enough he/she can get away with anything" disclaimer applies. My liking of authors with really spare styles like Glen Cook proves that. It's just that a) I see a lot more authors who can't get away with it than ones who can, and b) the authors I treasure most use language very well and in what I think are the right ways.
1) The language adapts itself to what is happening in the story. This means that when the author is writing a sword fight between two characters who have hated each other for a long time, it does not have this format:
*sword strike*
*parry*
*250-word paragraph of description about the sword's origin, looks, and how well it has served its owner in battle*
*strike*
*parry*
*300-word paragraph of description about how Good Guy feels as he looks into Bad Guy's cold obsidian eyes*
Ugh. No. A sword fight like this is a battle to the death, cold and hard as the blades it's being fought with. It is not a court occasion where I don't mind if the author describes every detail of the princess's dress and what symbols the nobles are wearing and what the roof looks like. I don't want clouds of purple prose to take away from the action and make me forget what's happening between one strike and the next. It makes it seem slow, which a sword fight shouldn't be.
Adjectives and adverbs are another problem in fast-paced scenes. Those suckers will pile up like you wouldn't believe if you don't look at them, and I have read far, far too many amateurs' scenes which went like this:
"Her cold emerald eyes narrowed down the impossibly heavy iron blade with its golden pommel at her opponent, whose sleek blond hair was tossing in the wind, his crimson lips curved in a cruel smile and his eyes like a dark mirror."
First of all, at this point in the story the audience should know what color your characters' eyes and hair are, so you don't need to keep mentioning them. Second, lips are usually some shade of red; it's a useless detail. Third, "impossibly heavy" is obviously not true if the heroine is carrying the damn thing. Fourth, show me her opponent is cruel, do not tell me. Fifth, "like a dark mirror" is a very stupid and overused simile. And finally, what is this top-heavy blather doing in a fight scene?
The problem is that a lot of authors mistake "luxurious" language for suspenseful language. It's not. Suspense has to be built up out of everything that came before and the atmosphere that the author builds into the story. Purple prose won't help. Excitement does not live by description alone.
Where do I think description belongs? Court scenes, the ending of the book, marriages, funerals. Scenes you've built up to for a while and where nothing more urgent is happening. Even then I tend to skim the clothing descriptions and any panegyrics on how the women are wearing their hair (it just doesn't matter).
2) "The author uses the right word, not its second cousin." -Mark Twain I really hate seeing people haul out the thesaurus- or, alternatively, become so sure they know a word that they just charge ahead and use it without even looking it up. "Ravish" and "ravage" are not the same thing; "ravish" is the one that means to rape, if you must be poetic about rape. Nor are "monarch" and "regent." Regents are the ones who hold the throne for a temporary period of time, usually while they're waiting for a younger heir to reach the age of majority. (You know? The stereotypical evil uncle?) A woman is a widow, a man a widower. Someone who is prone is not lying in the same way as someone who is supine. And on and on.
Yes, I am an extremely picky reader. I'm also a writer who has a horror of making a vocabulary flub, and so if I'm at all uncertain of a word, I look it up. It's saved me from scores of embarrassing mistakes in the past. When I can tell a writer hasn't done that, it snaps me right out of the story and makes me aware of the book as little black marks on a page or computer screen. And that ends any feeling that the story is a remarkable journey into the imagination. It's a remarkable look at the author's lack of education, but I would rather not have seen that.
3) Continual use of "just," "only," "rather, "quite," and "very" is scrapped. These are weak words. Which is stronger in each pair?
John was very angry.
John was furious.
John was quite upset.
John could feel his teeth grinding together.
He rather wanted to speak to her.
He yearned to speak to her.
He was only a few feet from her.
He stood a few feet from her.
The sword was just a little bit further.
She imagined she could feel the sword brushing her fingertips.
The author can get away with some uses of this, but more and I start to notice. ("Very" is one of the few words I think Guy Gavriel Kay overuses, and I wish he would stop). The worst offense is in dialogue, where there are characters who repeat the words until I want to scream at them to stop. Even if you're aiming for a social context where you imagine the characters really would use those words, vary them. Tighten the sentences sometimes. Make other characters notice and get annoyed. I often feel that way about people who hem and haw and say "very, very angry" instead of getting to the damn point in real life.
4) Dialogue tag + adverb= NO, OUCH. I'm not a big fan of exotic dialogue tags in the first place. A few "murmured" or "muttered" or "sang" dialogue tags can ease the monotony of "said" and "asked," but when the author never uses "said" or "asked," he's always forcing me to pay attention to the dialogue tags, and sometimes giving me extreme trouble picturing how the characters would really get the information across. (I am looking directly at you, R. A. Salvatore). But at least I've learned to put up with them most of the time.
I have never yet learned to stop flinching when I encounter:
"Come on! They're just over the hill!" he yelled urgently.
"We can take them! Come on, Seris!" Hulinda shrieked meaningfully.
"I'm coming! Hold your horses!" Seris exclaimed crankily as she staggered after them.
Cut out the adverbs. Please. They're distracting; dialogue tags should be as invisible as possible, which is why "said" and "asked" are wonderful. They're lazy; they tell me that Seris is cranky instead of showing me, and in the case of something like "meaningfully" they don't even allow me to make up my own mind about whether Hulinda's observation is meaningful or just stupid. They're overexposing; this is another place where the author's tendency to skydive without a common sense parachute shows up. I've seen characters "exclaim" things "quietly," "hiss loudly" without sibilants (how do you hiss a shout without sibilants?), "spit dryly," "bark calmly." You want me laughing at the humor in your story, not you.
5) The author maintains an awareness of levels of formality. The king doesn't say, "We'll send a couple of guys to check it out" in front of his court. The gutter whore doesn't say, "Put the glistering coins on the table when we have finished coitus." Those are the most obvious and wince-worthy examples, of course, but there are other, milder ones. All are capable of snapping me out of the story.
This is a tricky one because it crosses two levels: that of the story and that of English. You have to simultaneously keep in mind the social class of your character and what level of education they've likely received, and what impression your words will make on the ears of an English-speaking audience. "Coitus" is a very formal word for sex, a scientific or prissy one. You can argue that your gutter whore character was secretly educated by the Knights Templar, but is it likely that she would say that to a customer, even so?
In general:
-Your less educated characters should use fewer similes and metaphors. They haven't got the time to come up with them, and they'll be more used to dealing with the harsh realities of life, with less need to dress them up in fancy words.
-Your higher-class characters should be less likely to take shortcuts in their speech, especially in formal situations. That means fewer contractions, fewer English idioms (like "check out"), and no words like "whore" unless they're looking to offend someone.
-Remember when/where you are. A dragon should not be described as "rocketing" through the air when the world doesn't have rockets.
-Avoid English words that are characteristic of modern slang speech unless you're writing urban fantasy. This means no "guys," no "cool," no "awesome!"
There's a lot of fantasy I consider okay, some I consider good, but very little I consider great and will reread- and all of the great authors know what they are doing with language.
I just rather quite wish Kay would stop it with his "very."
May 20 2004, 21:22:09 UTC 8 years ago
Well, it might, depending on the society's context: if it's the sort of setting where having a curl out of place could get one mistaken for a common trull, or at least looked at askance by Important People, then I'd almost expect a certain amount of effort to be expended in those sorts of details. (I'm thinking for example of that marvelous opening sequence of Dangerous Liasons, which might be hard to pull off in text but which serves remarkably to get the point across that to these people, yes, every last nitpicky stupid nuance of hair and dress and makeup does matter, almost on the level of life and death.)
Not, of course, that the average fantasy generally seems to be doing its overdescribing for a story-related purpose.
-Avoid English words that are characteristic of modern slang speech unless you're writing urban fantasy. This means no "guys," no "cool," no "awesome!"
{snicker} I have this one character who I keep seeing as pulling these looks that I can't help but want to describe as, "...Dude." Very hard to come up with a good in-context way to gloss these... ;)
May 21 2004, 09:53:21 UTC 8 years ago
{snicker} I have this one character who I keep seeing as pulling these looks that I can't help but want to describe as, "...Dude." Very hard to come up with a good in-context way to gloss these... ;)
*grin* I have some of those, too, but I find that way too often I'm still thinking as though the character was part of our world, not his own. It's hard to shake the habit, but once I remember that there's no fucking way he would know what "dude" meant or what cultural relevance it has to us, it's easier.
May 21 2004, 17:40:05 UTC 8 years ago
Heh, you're going to either love or hate my first when/if it ever makes it to Publication -- their society came up with a whole system for signalling professional affiliation through hairstyles! The really scary part is that the characters came up with this themselves, I was just sitting there watching them do it going, "...Guuh?" ;)
but once I remember that there's no fucking way he would know what "dude" meant or what cultural relevance it has to us, it's easier.
Still, it's a delicate balancing act when you factor in that if you're writing about young men, then your local observational models these days are going to be a bunch of inarticulate wankers for the most part, so it can be a little hard to try to visualize a specimen that isn't. ;)
March 13 2005, 11:39:52 UTC 7 years ago
May 20 2004, 21:23:02 UTC 8 years ago
Why? Because there is a difference between being "very angry" and being "furious." They do not mean the same thing, at least not to me. I can be "very angry" without wanting to kill someone, but furious pushes me over that line. Furious brings to my mind certain images, sensations and feelings that "very angry" does not. Thus, if I want to evoke the sense of "very angry", I will use "very angry"; when I actually want to evoke "furious", I will use "furious." The same goes for authors I read.
Likewise with "yearned" - if nothing else, to my mind there is a sexualisation of that word. It ties in with Mark Twain and his specific choice.
Getting even subtler, there is a change in focus between these two:
He was only a few feet from her.
He stood a few feet from her.
The first, the focus is on the 'few feet'; the second, on the fact that he is standing.
Following with the subtlety, the second phrasings may all be stronger, but likewise that makes them more aggressive. I prefer to have a story told to me, not be assaulted by it. There are times and places for aggressive phrasings, and then there are times for invisible ones.
And, as I final pet peeve, find me another way to say "said muzzily" or "said sleepily" that doesn't sound ridiculous or change my meaning.
. . . Yes. I spend far too much time thinking about language.
May 21 2004, 10:04:16 UTC 8 years ago
I don't share your perception of words like furious and yearned. To me furious conveys images of red and flushed cheeks and hissing and clenched fists, while angry is yelling at the kids to turn the music down, and very angry is an empty phrase. I think of yearning more as the longing to go home (or to a fantasy world), probably from reading nineteenth-century Romantic poetry.
I love fantasies that drag me in and shake me like a dog shakes a rat, so that might be why I favor aggressive language. However, as I note when talking about said and asked, I think there are times authors unnecessarily draw attention to words that don't deserve it. I don't think dialogue tags deserve it, while actions do. *shrug* It's probably just a difference of perception.
I might use a "said sleepily" or "said muzzily" provided I hadn't used any other adverbs in about fifteen lines. Otherwise, I would probably phrase it as "in a muzzy voice," or make it clear from actions like blinking and mumbling into the pillow that the character is barely on the edge of waking.
May 21 2004, 10:17:39 UTC 8 years ago
::g:: Probably has to do with me having far, far too much experience with the various levels of anger, personally.
Angry (with any adverb) = still able to function on a normal level (for me). I can see a "very/extremely/extraordinarily angry" absolutely driven by that anger down to their core, but still able to do things like think up a battle plan, manipulate a court situation, stand up straight and bark "yessir!" back at their commanding officer, etc.
Furious (or enraged, or otherwise) = (again, for me) a lack of that kind of sanity. That's a person over the edge. That's a person going to be saying things they don't mean, doing very stupid things indeed, throwing caution to the wind, etc.
I think of yearning more as the longing to go home (or to a fantasy world), probably from reading nineteenth-century Romantic poetry.
Heh. I find a subtle tone of sexuality in all romantic poetry, and actually did one of my Lit papers on exactly that . . .
It's probably my obsession with shades of meaning again. If a character says/thinks/is attached to a word like "yearn", I will think of them in a certain way and unless they have very much earned that depth of emotion though the narrative, I'm likely to think of them as an overromantic (in the classical sense, not the interpersonal-romance) sop whom I mostly can't respect. Odysseus earns the right to yearn for Pe
May 21 2004, 10:18:14 UTC 8 years ago
Stupid comment limit. =|
Odysseus earns the right to yearn for Penelope after all of that; when Paris yearns for Helen, what, ten minutes after meeting her? I class him in a certain slot and he probably won't come out.It gives too much away. Whereas "he wanted very much to see her again" gives nothing away; he could want that because he's desperate to get her in bed, he could want it because she's got the key to his sekret heritage, he could just want it because she was a very interesting person and he's bored. That may very well be personal taste, but I like stories - and characters, specifically - who don't show me everything, either through actions or narrative. I like reserve. I like pieces where I have to work to catch the interplay so I automatically shy away from words like "yearn" and "desire" and likewise, because they're so blatant they make me wrinkle my nose. And that's just in my reading.
Granted, it's always assuming it's done well. Bad writing is bad writing, whether the author is assaulting me with twenty adverbs in a sentence or with long, action-specific details where a "walked quickly to the sink" would have sufficed just as well.
May 20 2004, 21:46:21 UTC 8 years ago
I mean, really. It's as if the author has completely forgotten what they set out to convey. Pick the history OR the fight, but not both at once because it's obvious that wouldn't be going on in a real sword fight. At that point I think the author already has problems, because they can't imagine themselves properly as being in a sword fight, so how do they expect to take the reader there?
May 21 2004, 10:07:23 UTC 8 years ago
May 21 2004, 06:29:48 UTC 8 years ago
This is why I love my electronic dictionary. It takes three seconds to look something up, so I have no excuse to make dumb vocabulary mistakes (although I have and probably still do make such mistakes).
I'm becoming more aware of point 4- sometimes dialogue tags only say something that is obvious to the reader anyway because of context. In that case, it's a useless word and must be axed.
Spitting dryly is a skill I've yet to see anyone acquire.
You can argue that your gutter whore character was secretly educated by the Knights Templar, but is it likely that she would say that to a customer, even so?
Maybe she has a very scholarly customer and knows it, but in that case why is she working in the gutter- especially if she's that educated. Maybe too very scholarly characters having sex... all right, now this idea is getting weird.
May 21 2004, 10:11:01 UTC 8 years ago
Most adverbial dialogue tags can be carried out in the dialogue itself. If it has a question mark after it, I don't need a "questioned."
Maybe she has a very scholarly customer and knows it, but in that case why is she working in the gutter- especially if she's that educated. Maybe too very scholarly characters having sex... all right, now this idea is getting weird.
*grin* I like your reason better than the usual ones: that the character is educated but somehow doesn't care about escaping the gutter (which would require some really unusual and convincing explanation of psychology) or that the character is a spy. Pfft. From what I've read about historical prostitution, the women would spend too much time on their backs to make good spies.
May 21 2004, 06:32:56 UTC 8 years ago
May 21 2004, 10:11:36 UTC 8 years ago
February 23 2006, 07:19:03 UTC 6 years ago
August 21 2004, 13:02:04 UTC 7 years ago
I kind of imagine a cartoonishly huge widening of eyes while the beaming person expects someone to say "Good dog, you get a cookie." It's probably wrong.
January 27 2006, 18:43:04 UTC 6 years ago
"Rocketing"
I've noticed that you have a problem with words like this some time - words that were derived based on modern technology, but no longer have an association with that technology.Why is that? For example, when I hear the term "rocketing", I don't picture rockets - I picture something moving very, very quickly, often associated with a fast acceleration. I don't think of rockets. Do you want to ban all words of modern technological origin from works? For example, can an insect chirp with a particular "frequency", or does it have to have a "rhythm"? May one describe a "microscopic" creature in a world without microscopes? Etc.
Now, I have limits on this in my case. I'll tear up and abandon on an ice floe a fantasy work in which, for example, uses words like "spam" or "nuked". These imply a much stronger correlation with the actual technology described than words like "rocketing".
July 22 2009, 04:07:00 UTC 2 years ago
Re: "Rocketing"
Using words that allude too obviously to modern things not existent in your world is like using modern metaphors; it's not part of the world. It reminds the audience that the narrator isn't in the world, they're making it up. It ruins suspension of disbelief for the sake of lazy writing, and because of that it's clumsy.With that sort of language, your reader cannot become immersed in the world, because you're continually reminding them that they're looking in from the outside. They may remain interested in the story, but you effectively bar them from entering, and excuse my clumsy language, "the zone" and getting properly immersed. Yopu have to be a really good writer for them not to notice these things, and if you're a really good writer, surely you have more appropriate synonyms that don't take this risk?
June 12 2006, 15:06:23 UTC 5 years ago
October 18 2006, 01:05:50 UTC 5 years ago
I tried reading one of his books. I got to the first fight scene...
Ew. It was, for lack of a better word, revolting. I get nauseous just thinking about it.
February 12 2007, 19:39:32 UTC 5 years ago
Hey now, there's a long historical tradition of evil regents, so I'm not too fussed about whether it's a stereotype. (Though I would like to see more manipulators and fewer usurpers.)
July 22 2009, 04:10:44 UTC 2 years ago
December 13 2010, 20:49:22 UTC 1 year ago