Friday After Hours Forum

September 12, 2008

Strong or Weak Prose

 

Mary Rosenblum: Welcome to our Friday After Hours.   I wanted to talk about the actual mechanics of strong and weak prose, because we instructors throw words like that around a lot.   And you can't expect people to simply understand how to do it intuitively. Well, it would be nice, but that's not necessarily how it happens!   Strong prose...no matter what the form its in...is prose that does its job with no extra words and by engaging the reader fully.  It can be elegant and literary, it can be spare and gritty.   Those are styles and both can be strong or weak.   Let me give you an actual example. And it's not from anyone who is here tonight. I wouldn't take a chance that it could happen!

I was angrily shoving my cereal around in my bowl which I would crunch noisily – minutes before mumbling “Goodbye,” then grabbing my backpack, I would always sling it onto slouching shoulders and make it to the bust stop, with just minutes to spare.
This is a novice writer. And it's pretty weak prose.   You can see the writer's intent.  She wants to show us that the narrator is angry in the morning, not in a good mood.   But it's not getting that intent across to the reader with enough impact.   Think about throwing stones. If you toss a tiny pebble at someone, they might not even feel it. they don't react.   If you throw a hefty stone, you sure get their attention!   You want to throw stones, not pea-sized pebbles!
So what makes this weak?
Let's take it apart here:
Incorrect use of ‘would’ adding ‘empty’ words  Any word that adds no visual image is 'empty'. They clutter up your prose.
Mixed up verb tenses.   Does this happen every morning? Or is this one here and now scene? The tenses make it hard to be sure.
Lots of author voice ‘telling’ us.  Very clearly this person is telling us about something, but we're not really 'in' the scene.
Insertion of disconnected dialogue fragment.  We don't see her speak, we don't even know whom she's speaking to, so it just dangles
Adverb to define emotion. She has to tell us that her tone is angry.
Long, run-on sentence allows reader attention to wander and reduces dramatic tension. all one meandering sentence. Those longer sentences soften the dramatic tension always.
So. Let's fix it. Here's my version.
At the breakfast table I shoved my cereal around in my bowl and crunched it noisily. Then I snarled a goodbye at Mom, slung my pack over my shoulder and ran for the bus stop. Most mornings I made it with minutes to spare.
What did I change:
No ‘would’.

No ‘ing’ verbs – active verbs only.
We have a clear sense of a 'here and now' scene.
Emotion implied by action and words.
Meteor: broke the sentence up. Readers should not need 'angrily' to guess the narrator's mood.
Mary Rosenblum: Right, Meteor.  The shorter sentences give it more dramatic energy. They add 'punch'.
Rae: Are 'ing' verbs always nonactive?
Mary Rosenblum: Rae, good question. They DO serve a purpose, as does 'would'.  But we tend to misuse them.
IShouldBeWriting: Isn't a crunch noisy already?
Mary Rosenblum: It could be, should be. But I left it to imply that she was crunching with extra intention to be noisy...maybe with her mouth open.   And as to the ...ing verbs, they are usually used to demonstrate ongoing actions.  While Brent was painting, I cleaned out the refrigerator.   That implies that Brent was painting before, during, and after the refrigerator cleanout.
Rae: He turned on the television, flipping through the channels until he found the ball game.  Good or bad?
Mary Rosenblum: That's quite correct, Rae.  If I wanted more dramatic punch, I would probably do this: He turned on the television and flipped through the channels until he found the ball game.  This kind of change is very basic and as you begin to master 'strong' prose you'll write it in your first draft and you won't need to revise to attain it.  An excellent exercise is to take any random piece of your own work and do a word count. Now you MUST remove 10% of those words.   Without changing the meaning of the piece.
Meteor: You instructors are mean that way! You can take out a lot of words simply by finding a more 'compact' way to put each sentence, combining two into one, and so on. And in the process, you'll learn some stronger techniques.
Mary Rosenblum: yeah, we are, meteor.  You have to remember...your words are always wonderful....to you. It's out job to give you the reading public's take. They're not nearly so tolerant and loving!
Rae: but what happens if you have two spots in the same paragraph. For example: "Walking over to the refrigerator, she tucked the phone under her chin."
Mary Rosenblum: Rae, that's fine.  We'll see her walking to the fridge, lifting the phone and tucking it under her chin.  The spare, strong prose is especially important in the NF world.  Magazine editors and newspaper editors have only so many column inches for prose.  They want the maximum amount of content in the minimum space ....or their customers will stop buying the magazine and they'll be out of a job.   They do NOT plan to pay you for words they are going to cut out.   And it is your task to hold the attention of a wide range of readers, from careful to casual.   Ideally, the prose should instantly form a visual image in the reader's mind....or convey an item of information clearly.   He picked up the glowing red orb, contemplated it for a moment and rubbed it on his shirt before he took a bite. He ate an apple.   Think of these as your extremes.  'he ate an apple' might be too spare and you can elaborate to create mood or nuance.   He nibbled at the plump apple.  More elaborate is not 'wrong' okay?   It's only wrong when it does not suit the use.  But....more elaborate descriptions still need to be strong.  He nibbled at the plump apple still conveys that image quickly and clearly but with some nuance.
Meteor: This is one thing I had some difficulty with. I want to over explain.
Mary Rosenblum: Oh, that is SO common, Meteor!  I call it 'spoonfeeding' the readers. You make sure they know everything!
Meteor: yep
Mary Rosenblum:: The problem with that is it leaves the poor readers nothing to do but lie there with their mouths open. We do like to participate you know! We like to figure things out, enjoy these little 'aha' moments!   Another common issue is repetition.  I see that a lot in nonfiction. The writer makes the same point in several different ways.
Rae: guilty as charged. lol.
Mary Rosenblum: Ah, we all are at first, Rae! Me, too!   You have to learn to read for your points. When I first wrote NF, I'd make notes in the margin, defining the nature of each point I was making. That way I found the repetitions.  When you do that, you can easily rearrange your piece so that all similar points are grouped together. That gives your piece a stronger structure.  I would put strong and weak prose out of your heads while you work on a first draft.   Once you have finished that first draft, read it through for structure.  Make any big structural changes that you're going to make...deleting scenes, moving scenes, trimming a nonfiction piece.   Then sit down and look only at your prose.  Use your 'find' feature of your word processor if you're working online.   Search for the 'to be' verbs: is, was, were, etc.   Now, eliminate them.   Yes, you'll have to restructure some sentences and maybe combine some. But you'll replace weak verbs with strong verbs.  BIG increase in strength right there.   He was going to the store.   He ran to the store. He hurried to the store.   Now search 'there was' or 'there is' or 'there were' or 'there are'.   When they begin a sentence, get rid of 'em.  There was a refrigerator in the kitchen.  A battered refrigerator muttered in the corner by the stove.
Now look for 'general' words.  

Lunch.  butter on a piece of toast.  A handful of grapes.   

House.  Sagging cottage with peeling paint.   An old Victorian aging gracefully on a manicured lot.  

Cat  tabby.
Went.   Ran, walked, stumbled, limped...and so forth!
  Using specific words allows you to constantly enrich the scene.  George went into the kitchen and fed the cat.   George hunted through the fridge for the open can of tuna and dumped it onto one of Mae's blue china saucers as Butterscotch twined around his ankles.
  Now....again...nothing is ALWAYS good or bad.  If you need to get the cat feeding out of the way fast so that you can move on to an important scene, George fed the cat may be just right.  But if you're trying to show George as a character and this is his evening routine, you want us to see the fridge, the saucer, the twining cat.  
Rae: If you have short word count, would you cut that sentence, or leave it be and work on other areas?
Mary Rosenblum: You have to decide the relative importance of bits, Rae.
Rae: I mean, is it better to have less description when the word count is tight?
Mary Rosenblum: Usually, yes, Rae.

Meteor: there's always so much to know.
Mary Rosenblum: Meteor, there is, but you don't have to learn it all at once! You just write a lot, analyze what you read, and slowly, surely you improve.
You can really minimize description to a key word or two.  Think about that one word that is going to imply what you want the readers to get.   If you want to portray a rotting old mansion on an overgrown lot, you might call it the haunted house on the corner.   We'll see it.   Your character sees an overweight cowboy in a bar.  Readers will fill in a lot of blanks.
squeaky:  I have always had a problem with going over on my word counts, when I go back to edit and cut down, I feel like I am cutting an important part of my story. How can I decide what is important and what is not important?
Mary Rosenblum:   squeaky, I am willing to bet money that the problem is not your extra words but rather that you have plotted a story that is too large for the word limit.  Learning how to craft a plot that will result in a story of a specific length takes practice.  A big plot will not work as a short story....it will simply read like a summary.  As a pro, I get a lot of anthology invitations....I sign a contract to write a story with a specific theme, by a certain date, at a certain work count.  And that word count is carved in stone, most of the time!  I just had to replot a fantasy story when I realized my plot would send it over the 10,000 word limit.
squeaky:  so true, how do I come up with a short story but keep it interesting?
Mary Rosenblum:   Find the climax first, squeaky.  What is going to get resolved there, how?  Then back up.   For a short short story you start close to the climax and imply a lot.  For a novel you can start WAY back and include lots of subplots.  Then really work on that tight writing.   No extra words!  Don't take sentences out but instead ask yourself, 'how do I say this in fewer words'.
squeaky:  I think I am trying to write a novel in a short story
Mary Rosenblum:   Most novice writers do, Squeaky! You're hardly alone!  I suggest that you know your main conflict, you know how it will be resolved...and everything else is fluid.  The means you use to resolve the conflict may change....but ultimately that conflict needs to be resolved in a certain way.
squeaky:  : the climax is always the hardest part for me to write, I am better with the beginnings.
Mary Rosenblum Beginnings are hard, squeaky, so good that you can do them well!

Rae:  This is off topic, if I may. I have been asked to do an outline of a story I am writing. I have never worked from an outline before. I don't know the ending, and can't think of one, because I have only worked on the opening. What happens when your story changes?
Mary Rosenblum:   Rae, spend some time playing with that story start.   Tell yourself the story in your head, imagine it taking place...try different courses of action, think about different things that can happen to the characters.  See what clicks for you.
Rae:  I can see the start and middle in details in my mind, but there is not an ending there. It is actually a funny sort of mystery story. Not good I guess.
Mary Rosenblum:   Ends grow from the beginning. What's your central conflict?  Solving the mystery obviously!
squeaky:  I can picture the story happening in my mind, but I have a very hard time trying to find the words to put on paper for readers to understand and get the same emotions I do.
Mary Rosenblum:   I think of that situation like doing a jigsaw puzzle. I have part of the picture completed and I'm looking for the right pieces. And speaky, that's why you're taking the course. To learn the mechanics of translating the thoughts and emotions you imagine onto the page so that we can share them.  Or if you're not taking the course, that's why you're here tonight, at least.
Laina: I find that as I write the story, the ending comes to me as I write. Do we need to know the ending before we begin?
Rae:  that is why I am having a hard time doing this outline. The more I write, the clearer the ending becomes.
Mary Rosenblum:   Whatever works for you, Laina, is the right thing to do. I like to know my ending when I start, but sometimes it changes. Well, Rae, doing an outline is no different than writing the first draft...you just imagine the story and you don't write down all the words is all.
Thanks for coming tonight, all!  See you at our next Forum.  Have a great weekend!