The Densonary for Creative Writing
By HOWARD DENSON
Anyone who hangs around writers or reads books or articles about the craft of writing will come across this saying:
"You have to write a million words before you become a writer."
That sentence can be discouraging if you have never written anything and have just decided to try out your writing skills. However, the truism is probably right on target, although long-time Writers' Festival friend and novelist David Poyer says it takes two million words..
Many writers do not wait to begin working on their million words. When they were children, they jotted down stories that their mothers liked and showed to family members. Later their stories in junior high and high school acquired more complexity. Perhaps by the time they were ready for college (if they went to college at all), they were polished and accomplished writers. By their high school graduation, they had already written their million words.
Some writers seem to be naturals, even from early ages. John Keats, for example, wrote everything he had to write by the time he died at age twenty-six. Truman Capote amazed the sophisticates of the 1940's by being only a teen and writing with such ease and imagery. In the 1920's, F. Scott Fitzgerald had amazed the readers of the Lost Generation. He was so young. . .and so likely to die as an aviator in the Great War. (He didn't. It ended too early, so he had to live and drink, and drink.)
Other writers, however, are not "naturals." They have to write, revise, throw away pieces that won't gel, face rejection, mature, etc. -- until finally things start to fall into place for them (probably when they have written their million words).
"I want to write, but I don't have time to do it."
Have you said the above? If so, you are deceiving yourself: You DO have time to write. You may be busy in other areas, but time for writing is there if you take advantage of it. You may have to set your alarm thirty minutes earlier and use the extra time in the morning to write. You may have to skip one television show a day to write. You may have to tell your family that 8-9 p.m. (for example) is your writing time, that a particular spot in the house is your writing spot, and that you are not to be disturbed during that hour.
This course assumes that most of you are early in your writing development and that you are still working on your million words. However, if you have been writing regularly, have completed your million words, and even have some publications to your credit, the course can still be helpful, if only in providing a structure.
This course will try to help you develop your capacity for imaginative writing in prose or poetry. The course includes critical discussion of your work and of selected literary techniques.
You will not have to write every genre that a creative writing course can encompass, but you will want to discuss a few of the principles of poetry, short fiction, memoirs, etc.
The instructor will assign some exercises in various areas, and he will grade them on the effort put into them rather than their likelihood of being published. He will want you to exercise your creative writing muscles in ways that you may not have attempted before. (See list of exercises later.)
You will also write your own major projects, mainly in your own areas of interest. The instructor wants to discuss these with you to make certain the assignments are fair and helpful, so be sure to make suggestions.
"Before I can write, I have to wait for the inspiration."
Your instructor has attended (and helped to put on) dozens of writers' conferences in the Southeast. He has heard, or discussed writing with, the second U. S. Poet Laureate Richard Wilbur, science fiction giant Ray Bradbury, Pulitzer Prize winners Peter Taylor (fiction) and Gwendolyn Brooks (poetry), and many, many others. All of them will say the following:
Do not wait for inspiration or you will never write anything.
Set yourself a writing schedule and stick to it.
Do not leave your writing-spot until you have written something.
Do not do anything other than think about writing during your writing time while you are at your writing spot. (Watch the opening of the film, Throw Mama from the Train, to see how Billy Crystal's character thinks of ways to distract himself from writing.)
The Oral Tradition
It helps to read your writing out loud and to hear your voice read your words. Formerly, the great literary works were almost entirely oral, and there is an excitement that occurs when a good story is being told. Your instructor discovered that one of the benefits of writing groups and writers' conferences is hearing Peter Taylor read "The Hand of Emmagene" or Eudora Welty read "The Petrified Man."
Reading aloud also helps us to find the voices of certain characters.
Although you may not want to admit it, you have a craving to be heard and a desire to have other people read your writing.
Your Writing and You
We all have to fight the problem of feeling that, when a possible flaw is found in our writing, a flaw has been found in us as individuals. Fight this feeling. You are separate from your writing. You can be an excellent human being and still be unable to write a decent poem. You may be a brilliant poet -- but not able to write particularly interesting or good short stories. You may be a good writer and have an off-day on a piece of writing. (On the other hand, some writers may be perfectly awful human beings and yet write beautifully. Perhaps in their ugly lives, that is their only area of beauty.)
Here's a final insight from the instructor:
You may find that there is a delayed effect in this writing course, or, yes, there are tiny "timed release" capsules in the course. For example, when your instructor had creative writing years ago from a professor at Florida State University, he wrote the required stories, read the required stories, participated in the discussions, etc. and finished the course with a "gentlemanly" grade. A few years later, after the professor's early death, the instructor was driving in busy traffic and "writing" a story in his head. Suddenly, a light went on in your instructor's head and he said, "Oh, so THIS is what the prof meant."
Advice for Non-Fiction Writing
If you wish to write magazine articles, you should study the magazines in your area of interest (part of process of "knowing your market"). It would be foolish, for example, to send a story on child-rearing to Field and Stream or to send a 7,000-word article to a magazine that would only use articles of a maximum of 3,000 words. In addition, you have to make yourself known. Do this by writing to as many magazines as possible; spend plenty of information about yourself and about where you can be reached. When you write a query letter, give enough information about the proposed story to the editor: angle, length, suggestions for photographs. Follow the instructions on the "writer's outline" given out by the publication. Also, submit a clean and easy-reading manuscript. You may also consider sending an example of your writing with your query letter.
Avoid these mistakes in magazine writing:
1. Don't write stories in a newspaper style.
2. Don't use short, newspaper-style paragraphs, since magazines use longer (regular) paragraphs.
3. Don't use a lot of quotes. Newspaper articles may be filled with quotations, but magazine articles only use them when the person has authority and a right to make statements.
4. Don't become bogged down in numbers, facts, and figures (except in business articles).
5. Don't use the inverted pyramid organization of newspapers (articles designed to be cut from the bottom). Instead, have a story that reads smoothly from beginning to end, with a capsule opening and capsule closing.
6. Don't be careless with facts and figures.
7. Don't submit superfluous information. If the editor expects five or six pages, don't submit thirty pages.
8. Avoid excessive personal information.
Narratives for Stories / Drama
As for some general advice in the writing of stories or plays, you should consider the following principles. Some of the above items will also apply to stories/plays: for example, if a magazine never prints a short story longer than 4,000 words, then it's a waste of time to mail the magazine a 5,000- or 7,000-word story.
When you are working on the crisis-solution for a play or story, keep in mind:
1. The protagonist can only act within his or her abilities.
2. The problem must remain complex and not become suddenly simple.
3. Avoid sudden good fortune to avoid crisis.
4. The actions should be used to tell the readers about the character of the people in the tale. Avoid exposition and flat statement: "Mr. Jones was stingy, cruel, hostile, and erratic." Show how he was stingy, etc.
Mario Puzo's Godfatherly Rules for Writing
Time years ago featured these rules by the author of The Godfather for writing a sure-fire winner. Mario Puzo's rules, however, do not work for everyone.
1. Never write in the first person.
2. Never show your stuff to anybody. You can get inhibited.
3. Never talk about what you are going to do until after you have written it.
4. Rewriting is the whole secret to writing.
5. Never sell your book to the movies until after it's published.
6. Never let a domestic quarrel ruin a day's writing. If you can't start the next day fresh, get rid of your wife.
7. Moodiness is really concentration. Accept it because concentration is the key to writing.
8. A writer's life should be a tranquil life. Read a lot and go to the movies.
9. Read criticism only in the beginning. Then read novels to learn technique.
10. Never trust anybody but yourself. That includes critics, friends and especially publishers.
Narrative Structure
I was thumbing through the Creative Writer's Handbook to check on how it was presenting the narrative structures of stories/novels/plays. Most of the stages are there, but, in case there is some confusion, let me touch these bases.
First, keep in mind that it is doubtful that, when creating a story, a writer will consciously keep these steps in mind. However, after a story is finished, the writer may wonder why the first draft is flat. Here is one instance where the analysis of structure may come in.
Second, many stories, novels, plays, movies, etc. will NOT follow exactly the structure laid out below. You may wish to check out two stories that relate to variations in the structure:
Frank Stockton's "The Lady or the Tiger?" at http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/LadyTige.shtml
Ambrose Bierce's "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" at http://eserver.org/fiction/occurrence-at-owl-creek.html
The Classic Narrative Structure
EXPOSITION: This gives an explanation of the setting (time and place), including any special information needed to understand the "rules" of the setting. It also contains necessary background information.
INCITING FORCE: This is the spark that gets the story going. In The Wizard of Oz, the spark occurs when the nasty neighbor tries to take away the dog Toto.
COMPLICATING ACTION: After the protagonist decides to do something after the inciting force, you wouldn't have a story if the first action resolved the problem. One novelist describes writing a story like putting a hero in a tree while there's a tiger below. With each chapter, one of the limbs is sawed away.
CRISIS: This is the point where a key development occurs. The action can only go in one direction after this, although that direction may not be clear to the reader/viewer as the crisis first appears.
CLIMAX: This is the emotional high point of the story, when the main problem is resolved.
FALLING ACTION: This is similar to the complicating action, except it's when all minor complications are resolved. (Old-time movies, involving, say, a treasure hunt, might just flat out end with the chest of gold being dug up and the lid being opened: "The End.")
CONCLUSION: If a story is a comedy or a melodrama, it is likely to end with a happy solution. If the story is starkly realistic or tragic, it could end in a catastrophe.
In many stories and films, people can argue about what is (or is not) the climax or other stages. In Oz, there's a strong emotional quotient to when Dorothy accidentally throws water on the witch as she tries to put out Scarecrow. "What a world, what a world!" That exclamation resolves the major complication she's been facing; however, she still needs to get home. Back in Oz, after the wizard's hot-air balloon leaves without her, when she taps her heels together and says she wants to go home, is that the climax? Or, when she wakes up in black-and-white at the farm, is that the climax. . .or is it a combination of falling action and conclusion?
The Stage Villain
The Wicked Witch (as played by Margaret Hamilton) does a wonderful job in Oz in fulfilling the role of the stage villain. What is that role? The job of a stage villain is to drive action toward catastrophe, if possible. Notice the complications she causes after Dorothy's house has killed her sister. She demands the ruby slippers that the Good Witch has bestowed upon Dorothy. She watches over Dorothy and her companions and tries to take them out with the poppy field. She sets her flying monkeys on them and generally just makes their lives miserable. You feel her presence throughout the film, but she's only on the screen about twelve minutes.
Another ideal stage villain is the Great White Shark in Jaws. Whenever you watch the water, you are wondering what the shark villain is up to.
In the classic version of Dracula, Bela Lugosi as the Count is not on the screen all that much, but, like the Wicked Witch, the audience always senses his presence throughout the film.
Three Types of Approaches for Stories
HORIZONTAL: The narrative structure above works well with a linear structure. This event occurs, then that event, then this one, and so on till the end of the story/film/etc. John Masefield wrote an adventure novel called Odtaa, which was an acronym for "one damned thing after another" (what occurs with James Bond, Indiana Jones, and, yes, even Dorothy).
CONVERGENT: In this work, you have, in effect, a group of strangers who have their stories, frustrations, desires, etc., and they come together at a point where something happens. Probably the best example of this type of story is Thornton Wilder's 1927 Pulitzer Prize-winning work, The Bridge over San Luis Rey. In the tale, five people fall to their death in Peru when a rope bridge breaks. The story explores whether life is by design or by happenstance. Other works will have the characters converge, but they are apt to be in horizontal stories (Poseidon Adventure, Titantic, etc.).
VERTICAL: This type of interior story sinks shafts into the minds of characters, and you largely get understandings into the fears, wants, hopes, etc. of the characters. The reader or viewer then has to make certain connections. (TIP: Avoid this unless you become very, very successful.) William Faulkner's Sound and the Fury has elements of this, especially with the chapter told by "Benjie, the idiot." In 2001: A Space Odyssey, we have interior sections that seem disconnected from any horizontally told story. The Broadway musical that features audition after audition functions somewhat as a vertical story. There's a horizontal structure to "this is the audition that involves 10 or 20 actors/singers at a 'cattle-call,'" but each section of it functions in an interior manner, especially when they are telling about themselves.
A Post Script to a Minor Point
This note is for the freelancer who is always looking for a possible story. A journalist is likely to tell you at some point that a successful journalist always carries three or four things:
A watch: to make sure he or she gets to the next assignment or time. . .or to have to note the time of any events that he or she might witness.
A pen or pencil: to record information, quotes, etc. (Yes, a small tape recorder might be useful at times.)
A notepad: to have something to record information on. (Even if you are using a tape recorder, you still will need a paper backup since your batteries may play out or your tape may screw up.)
A camera: Today cameras are so small that they don't protrude and take up much space. One Jacksonville Journal photographer won a Pulitzer Prize for a "kiss of life" picture when he chanced upon one electrical worker administering mouth-to-mouth in an effort to save the life of a co-worker who had just been zapped.
Types of Characters
I was going through Creative Writer's Handbook looking for the sections on characters and found that some of the information is spread out. For example, read through all of the pages dealing with characters (in fiction, short fiction, and drama). That will give you a good leg-up for when it comes time for you to gallop through the tests on Tips on Techniques. I don't want to run the risk that the handbook leaves out some key information, so --
Let me emphasize some points (which you may have already had stressed in, say, LIT 2000). There are six types of characters, in three different categories.
Degree of Importance
Major Character: This character is of great importance because, if you were to remove the character, your story or play couldn't be told. For example, in The Wizard of Oz, clearly Dorothy is a major character. Take her out and the story couldn't be told.
Minor Character: Typically, this character is in a story to do something. He or she is a function character. Glenda the Good Witch falls into this category. She gives the dead witch's shoes to Dorothy, sends them off on their adventures, and revives them when they have fallen under the spell of the poppy field.
Confusion area: Major-Minor. . .or Minor-Major? Occasionally you'll have a story in which you can't decide whether a character is major or minor. Probably the writer wasn't worrying about it when he or she was writing the story or script. Let's stick with the movie Oz: Dorothy's companions are the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, and the Tinman. (In other Oz books, Dorothy had a variety of other companions.) At times, her three friends perform major action, although they often seem to be there for Dorothy to learn how to nurture and show compassion. However, they demonstrate the three qualities that we want to improve in ourselves: our knowledge, our courage, and our heart. They are minor in the sense that the story could have been told with one of her friends being a Munchkin, Toto changed into a dog-like human, or whatever. There could have been two companions or four.
Degree of Reality
Round Character: A round character is someone who is totally realistic and alive in a novel or play. In fact, we are able to put that character into different situations and imagine what he or she would do. If the character is alone in a study, we have a good sense of what he or she would think about. In short, this character is like a realistic oil painting or photograph.
Flat Character: A flat character is sketched just enough to get the job done. He or she is like a cartoon.
Confusion area: Hamlet is about the roundest character in drama. Readers or viewers of the play eventually develop an elaborate sense of what the character is like. On the other hand, in detective fiction, we have Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason. In the books, Perry goes through the cases and always wins, thanks to his keen intellect and helpers in Della Street and Paul Drake. However, we really don't know the book Perry very well. On the other hand, Raymond Burr in the TV series has given us a Perry that is vivid and perceptive. Frequently actors can take flat characters and bring them alive, but remember that we are seeing the work of the actor (and director) and not of the original writer.
Degree of Change
Static Character: This person doesn't change very much (except for aging and perhaps developing some ailments). The character is the same at the beginning of a piece as he or she is at the end. Normally, these characters aren't that interesting to write (or to perform). However, they do exist in life and are useful in fiction. One of the most interesting static characters is Walter Mitty in James Thurber's story, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty." At the beginning of the story, he has a drab, blah life, from which he escapes by day-dreaming. He escapes a nagging wife and other frustrations, via day-dreams. And the story ends with him (guess what?) day-dreaming. Peter Sellers plays Chance, a static character in Being There. He is child-like and simple, but, when he is thrown out on his own, he encounters the rich and politically famous who read great significance into his simple remarks. He becomes quite famous and appears on the covers of news magazines. At the end, he is pretty much as simple and good-natured, as he was at the beginning.
Dynamic Character: This character changes and is not the same as he was at the beginning. In the recent Star Wars trilogy, we saw Annikin transform from a little boy with normal ideals, hopes, and dreams to Darth Vader. In Hamlet, the Prince was an intellectual or a philosopher at the beginning; he had been comfortable at the university debating intellectual matters with his good friend Horatio. He suffers when his father dies, and then this apparition appears and essentially orders him to become a champion and a hero by killing the villain, the current king.
Confusion area: If you have anthology heroes, they often don't change significantly. James Bond is pretty much James Bond in whatever book or movie you encounter. Captain Kirk goes from adventure to adventure without great changes, other than aging in the movies. Major changes are apt to happen to supporting characters. (In science fiction, the current version of Battlestar Galactica is a major exception to the rule of unchanging major characters.)
When Do You Apply the Rules Concerning Categories of Characters?
In creative writing, there are a couple of approaches to use. Some writers do much "pre-writing" (this is more of an English teacher's phrase than a writer's phrase). In short, they think, and think, and think about the story. Sometimes a writer may be at lunch with his or her spouse and a couple friends; they may notice that the writer has zoned out, and the spouse may say, "Oh, don't worry. He/She's writing." Some writers put down a line and polish it, go to the next line, and polish that, etc., until the story is finally finished. However, while they are trying to write well, others may use a different approach and try to power through the story until the end. Then they start revising and polishing.
Regardless of the approach, writers may notice some problems:
* The story is blah. Perhaps it can be saved by locating the parts that do sparkle. The writer can then try to do more of the stuff that sparkles.
* The story is confusing. Maybe the writer has TOO many characters. This may be where the writer tries to combine characters. Perhaps he or she says, "I want at least three characters to represent what we should strive for: a good heart, knowledge, and courage." Maybe the story is confusing because the story has a real cowardly lion, a stuffed toy lion, and a garden ornament cast-iron lion. Lion, lion, and lion: isn't that a bit much? So perhaps the writer comes up with a scarecrow, one real lion, and (why not?) a tin man.
If you are writing a short story or a play, you'll want to pare down the number of characters. If you are writing a novel, you will need a limited number of important characters and some control over the dozen or so function characters that appear.
Now, let's stop a moment and have you put the palms of your hands almost together. Adjust your hand so that, say, two fingers on both hands are aligned and the other digits don't particularly touch. This is sort of like the characters in a story. The fingers that touch represent major characters, but you've got eight other digits that are out there. Think about your plot line and see where you can use the same character to do several things. For example, if your character goes to a hotel, Jones the doorman lets him in, Smith at the check-in desk lets him know where Miss Melody Playsalot is, and Wilson the porter takes him to a room. You may not want to dwell on names with minor characters, but, if these are apt to show up later in the story, is it possible to have a hotel where one person may fill in on several tasks? If so, you can simplify your story.
Points of View
Your textbook has a good discussion of points of view. Occasionally textbooks spread out some of the material, so let's look at them briefly. When you think of point of view (POV), you are thinking in term of the writer's metaphorical camera.
First person acting POV -- The narrator is telling the story and is instrumental in the action that he or she describes. The "camera" is on the character and shows the action through his or her eyes. Detective fiction often uses this POV: Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe, Andrew Greeley's Father Blackie. Frequently when the first person acting POV is used, it's preferable to have an "unreliable" narrator -- someone who may not understand everything that is going on around him or her.
First person observing POV -- This narrator is telling what happened to someone close to him/her. It could be Nick Carraway telling about Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby or Doctor Watson telling about the adventures of his friend, Sherlock Holmes.
Yes, at times, the first person observer may slip over into the acting column (as with Watson).
The first person narrator may not be so popular today among book editors and publishers in the first decade of the 21st century. They may claim that, if the readers dislike the narrator, they will dislike the whole book.
Second person POV -- This would be rare (and probably very irritating), but it's possible. Someone may suffer from extreme amnesia and may try to track down what happened. . .or possibly a psychiatrist might be tracking down what the patient had forgotten. Don't do second person POV. It will just annoy everyone.
Third person limited POV -- With this POV (which is common in crime writing), the focus may be on Detective Liveright and his or her colleagues, as they try to find the "perps" who have committed a crime. We can do into the minds of the "good" guys as each tries to solve the riddle, but we can't go into the minds of the potential perps. (Or you could flip it around and focus on the bad guys trying to evade the police; they could wonder about the evidence that might have been gathered against them, but the book or story wouldn't go into the mind of a good guy.) If someone has been murdered (by Simon Slime, let's say), you can't go into Simon's mind in this manner:
"Okay, Simon," Detective Sparkle said, "we know you killed Veronica Hattrick.
"No, I didn't." Simon wondered when the questioning would end. He did have to get home to feed the cats.
What's wrong? It's simple. If Simon was the actual killer, he would be thinking something else:
"Okay, Simon," Detective Sparkle said, "we know you killed Veronica Hattrick.
"No, I didn't." Simon fought to keep from laughing at them. They'd never be able to figure this out. Detective Sparkle, in particular, was about the dumbest cop he had ever seen.
Sometimes third person limited is used without referring to any crime. For example, the POV "camera" could be focused on a young man or woman who has moved to the city and feels very isolated and insecure. The central character is trying to feel his or her way into the adult world.
Third person omniscient POV -- Mystery writer P.D. James (and others) referred to this as the god-like narrator, a term perhaps preferred by the Brits. The author of such a tale is all-knowing, but the author is not supposed to be god. This narrator simply is able to go into the minds of any characters: good and bad characters, major and minor. Tolstoy's War and Peace is written in this POV. In practical terms, the author cannot go into every character's mind or it would stretch the book out until it became a big mushy mess. Instead, the writer focuses on a few characters, and the writer limits the time and space devoted to thoughts.
Tips on Dialogue
Most of you are writing prose pieces, either short fiction, chapters of novels, or memoir pieces, and you will have sections with dialogue. An advantage of dialogue (that's used properly) is that it will give a sense of immediacy to a piece. If you have not done so already, read all of the sections in CREATIVE WRITER'S HANDBOOK about using dialogue. Don't forget the chapters and sections on drama and plays.Editors sometimes say, when they look at a page from a novel or script, that they can tell when dialogue is being done properly just by the appearance of the page. For example, here's an improper usage (and I'm using xxx for the words):
A said, "xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx ."
B said, "xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx."
See the problem? A is gassing on, and on, and on. Then B responds and gases on and on and on.
We generally talk more in phrases, and it's human nature for one person to want the other to shut up, so that he/she can say something. For that reason, A and B's dialogue on a page might look more like this:
A said, "xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx."
"xxx xxx xxx?" B asked.
"xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx."
"xxx xxx xxx xxx."
As your text will tell you, sometimes aspiring writers think that they have to vary the dialogue tags instead of just using "he said" and "she asked." So they wind up with something like this:
"
xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx," A said.B asked, "xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx."
"xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx," A vouchsafed.
B queried, "xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx."
A maintained, "xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx."
[and so on]
To re-emphasize, you do not need to vary the dialogue tags. "He said" and "She asked" are just fine.
In fact, if you have, say, a male and female conversation, you often don't need tags at all.
"xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx." Allen put down the telephone and waited for Bertha to come to the phone.
"
xxx xxx." She listened to the caller and hung up without saying good-bye.Bertha hung up the phone and came over to the chair near him.
Allen counted to ten before speaking. "xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx?"
She stiffened and pulled away. "xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx."
Each of the above is a dialogue paragraph. You will have A and whatever he says or does (a response or body language often speaks louder than words). The next paragraph will be B's response, perhaps only "She shrugged and turned her back to him."
Overuse of Names in Dialogue
Listen carefully and you will find that, most often, we don't use each other's names in our conversation. There are exceptions. A drug counselor may use a client's name repeatedly to make some sort of connection and perhaps calm down the individual. So we don't do the following:
"Allen, xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx."
"No, Bertha,
xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx.""
xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx, Allen.""xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx
, Bertha."Omit Adverbs and Avoid Tom Swifties
Many beginning writers will use dialogue tags that contain adverbs. Omit 99% of your adverbs. Here are some:
"Okay, let's look at the big picture," he said patiently." (Take out the patiently and describe his body language and pace of his speech.)
"Xxxxx," she said sarcastically. (If the words spoken are sarcastic, then the adverb isn't necessary.)
One reason for avoiding adverb tags is that you may stray into the area of Tom Swifties (named after the tags that appeared in the turn-of-the-last-century books, Tom Swift and His Electric Bar of Soap: okay, I made that one up). Here are some Tom Swifties:
"Good God, I've put on weight," he said heavily.
"Ouch, I touched that bare 120 volt wire," she said electrically.
You'll find many websites devoted to the Tom Swifties. Here are three links:
http://www.fun-with-words.com/tom_swifties_history.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Swifty
http://www.brainyencyclopedia.com/encyclopedia/t/to/tom_swifty.html
Use Laughed and Smiled for Expressions, Not Speech
Then there is the writer who uses "laughed" and "smiled" improperly. (One of our speakers at the Writers Festival, perhaps Tim O'Brien or Allen Dean Foster, was asked about his early published writing. One of them said, "We did another edition of [title of book], and I was embarrassed at the times I used laughed in a dialogue tag. I went in and removed those."
Allen laughed, "xxx xxx xxx xxx xxx."
Bertha smiled, "xxx xxx xxx xxx."
Instead of doing that, you have a couple of options:
1. Write this:
Allen said with a laugh, "xxx xxx xxx xxx."
Bertha said with a smile, "xxx, xxx."
2. Work the laugh or the smile into the body language:
Allen was chuckling when he opened the folder. "Xxx xxx xxx xxx."
[Ms. Cooper has given me permission to use her Point of View exercise for the Densonary website.. Several students do the Point of View exercise and do well with the first two viewpoints; however, they often stumble with the third person omniscient. That POV has been called the "god-like" narrator, but it's not God or any deity or spirit. Instead, 3rd person POV omniscient simply allows the writer to go into all characters' minds.]
Erin Cooper
CRW 2000 Online Course
June 4, 2005
Minor Exercise #3: Point of View
A) The viewpoint of a highly intelligent human being:
The door is hanging open, cracked and broken; more than likely, wrecked by the neighbor who found the victim. On the floor is the body of a young woman. The room reeks with the odor of human filth. She must have soiled herself before (or while) she died. This combined, with the vomit, made the room almost intolerable. If not for the open window, offering some relief from the smell, most of the officers would be making excuses to leave the room. It smells like fear. She is no more than twenty years old. Her blond hair is wet and fanned out around her surprised face. Her eyes are wide open and blood shot. Her lips are blue, and her neck is resting at an odd angle. She was wrapped in a towel and the mirrors in the bathroom had a fogged look. She must have been in the shower. On her bed is a black slinky dress with matching shoes resting on the floor. Her nails, recently manicured, look broken and dirty.
B) The viewpoint of a five-year-old child:
Wow, it sure smells bad in here! I wonder why all these people are walking around in the middle of the night. It's pretty cold in here. Why is the window open? Probably to get rid of that stinky smell. Oh gosh, why is Miss Krista's lying on the floor. She was always so nice to me. She shouldn't have that window open with wet hair. Momma said that, if you do that, you'll catch a cold.
C) The viewpoint of a third-person omniscient narrator?
The door was broken by Jason. Jason and Krista were always really good friends. They would have a movie night every Friday, before she started dating Paul. Paul was the most jealous person Jason had ever met. He took to heart every perceived slight innocently made by Krista and reacted with vicious retaliation, whether it be seeing another girl behind Krista's back to acting in violence. Krista would never say that Paul hit her or mistreated her at all. She would make up excused for malicious behavior, saying that "all guys find it hard to be monogamous" or that "Paul just doesn't realize his own strength." Jason told Krista a hundred times that she was in an unhealthy relationship and she should dump Paul, but she was stubborn and thought she was in love. [Notice that we're getting Jason's perspective.]
One their first anniversary, Krista was preparing for a fun night out with Paul. She must look wonderful tonight; Paul was very particular about how she looked when they went out together. She laid out her black dress (Paul's favorite) and hopped into the shower. Tonight she would make Paul happy; she would not, could not disappoint him again. [Now we have her POV.]
Krista had only been in the shower long enough to wash her hair when she heard a pounding on the door. She quickly turned off the water and got out. She wrapped herself in a huge, green towel and ran to the door. She swung it open with a big smile to great Paul, but, instead of a loving face to return her greeting, she was met with a hard, angry face. [Still her POV.]
"Where were you this afternoon?" Paul roared. "I called four times and you did not answer!"
"Paul, I was getting my nails done, I turned off my phone," Krista said with a tremble. "Don't be angry. I'm sorry!"
"You stupid, two-timing slut! Don't you ever lie to me!" Paul growled out the words as he took a step towards Krista and closed the door. "You were seeing somebody behind my back! Don't you lie to me! I know! I know!" Paul had a crazed look in his eye. Rage contorted his face making him look evil and dangerous.
"No Paul, I promise! I love you!" Krista pleaded. "Please calm down. Please!"
Paul had lost all control. He lunged forward and grabbed Krista by the neck. Krista let out a blood-curdling scream. He lifted her off the ground by her neck, cursing and throwing out scathing insults. Krista's hands groped and scratched fruitlessly at Paul's hands, tiring desperately to loosen his crushing grip. Krista felt blinding pain behind her eyes as the blood vessels started to burst. Her hands slowly started to loosen and she felt herself losing all control of her bodily functions. She was desperate for air. "Oh God, I'm going to die," she thought just before she when completely limp. [Still her POV: we know her thoughts.]
Paul, finally starting to regain some control over his raging emotions, noticed Krista hanging limp. He threw her to the floor and started to worry about what to do. [Now this is Paul's POV] He had just killed his girlfriend, even if she were just a whore. As he was starting towards the door, he heard Jason knocking and calling out to Krista. Jason was always half in love with her, the stupid punk! Paul would have to find another way out. He ran to the window, shimmed it open, and hurried down the fire escape.
After Jason broke down the door, he saw Krista lying on the floor; she was wet and wrapped in a towel. He turned and threw up adding a pungent stench to the already malodorous room. He saw no one else in the room, but he wasn't really taking the time to look. He grabbed his cell phone and called 911. [And Jason's POV.]
[Thank you, Ms. Cooper.]
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Change Weak Linking Verbs to Strong Action Verbs |
If you use too many linking verbs in your writing, you
deaden the writing, perhaps by engaging in a "Dick and Jane" style. You will
frequently find that a sentence or a clause with a linking verb can be imbedded
in another sentence, perhaps as a describing word.
We need SOME linking verbs, as in "The 23rd Psalm" with its
opening, "The Lord IS my shepherd." If you change that opening to "The Lord
ranks as my shepherd" or to something else equally silly, you will have ruined a
perfectly good sentence. Use a linking verb when the writing requires it, but,
as with "The 23rd Psalm," emphasize the active verbs: "I SHALL not WANT...He
MAKETH me LIE down. . .He RESTORETH. . .He LEADETH," etc.
Below you will find a piece of writing with an excess of linking verbs and weak verbs. Passives (in italics) also weaken a sentence. Then you will see how the same material may be discussed using strong ACTION VERBS. The examples below will also identify the infinitives of strong verbs.
Weak Verbs
Action Verbs
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The cabin we VISIT IS in the woods. It IS about twenty miles from Double Springs, but it SEEMS farther because the road IS windy and rough. Except for a mail box along the main road, not far from a sign that IS for Bruton's Snuff, there IS no way for a stranger to KNOW to TURN into the woods where our vacations are held. The cabin IS a quarter mile up the hill. There IS practically a tunnel of bushes that a car HAS to DRIVE through. Finally, it IS possible to see that the cabin IS separate from the rocks and cowcumber trees. It IS a haven for us from the pressures of civilization. |
Every month in the summer, we VISIT our cabin in the woods, about twenty miles from Double Springs. When we NEGOTIATE our way over the winding and rough road, we FEEL that the trip TAKES all day. We WATCH the odometer and KEEP an eye out for a rusty sign that ADVERTISES Bruton's Snuff. The mileage and the sign ALERT us to LOOK for our mail box and then to TURN our car into a tunnel of foliage. Then we BOUNCE our way a quarter mile up the hill when we START to see a cliff, then the cowcumber trees, and finally the log cabin that LETS us ESCAPE beepers, answering machines, e-mail, and other intrusions of civilization. |
Talking Words vs. Writing Words
We often write to write the same way that we talk, not realizing that good American prose attempts to give the impression that what's on the page is what someone might actually say. If you have read a court deposition, you will realize that our actual spoken words are sometimes embarrassing in the way they garble syntax, leave things out, and simply don't communicate that well.
Avoid overuse of the verb get or got. (Diction; overuse of word)
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INSTEAD OF USING: |
USE: |
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got up, got out of bed |
arose, climbed out, rolled out, |
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got a bath/shower |
bathed, showered |
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got dressed |
Dressed |
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got breakfast |
ate breakfast |
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got to school/work |
drove, rode, pedaled, jogged |
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got there at |
Arrived |
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got out |
departed, left, escaped |
If you have written a piece of 500 to 1500 words, do a "search" for "get" and "got." If you find that you have used the word a dozen times, take out nine of them.
2. Avoid overuse of a lot, plenty, quite a bit, or a great deal (and variations thereof) to refer to amount. A lot may only designate an area of ground; a great deal, a hand of cards; a great bit, the end of a drill. Do not use a large amount. Instead, say "I had much trouble" or "Several fans attended the game" (even better: "Dozens of fans attended the game").
3. Another overused word is nice: "A nice man drove a nice car to a nice party, where nice people had nice conversations." Do not use nice. It's not nice to fool with such empty words.
4. Avoid linking verbs. When a paper is filled with linking verbs, the paper inevitably has these problems:
--The sentences are likely to be wordy and "Dick and Janey": "Dick looked at the house. The house was old. The house was white. The house was on the corner," etc.
--The paper often lacks an interesting flow because the sentences are monotonous and often use the same subject and verb.
--The paper may be static and focusing on "conditions."
--Since the sentences do not have an "actor" performing any action, the paper may just sit there.
So, for these and other reasons, every fourth linking verb will count as a fatal error. Instead of such weak verbs as is, are, was, were, will be, shall be, would be, seems to be, happens to be, etc., you should find verbs that have meaning and impact. Make your verbs snap, crackle, and pop, if possible.
A linking verb merely pins a label on a docile subject via a predicate adjective ("The house is light green") or a predicate nominative ("Bill Nelson is a senator").
However, for Silly Mistake No. 1, do not simply omit the linking verb, since you will create a fragment ("The house light green," "Bob Graham a senator"). This creates a major error, whereas formerly you may have only had a weak verb. Instead, reframe the sentence and use action verbs: "The light green house dominated the hilltop" and "Senator Graham represented Florida."
Silly Mistake No. 2: Use action verbs means to make your verbs snap, crackle, and pop. It does not mean to take, say, "It is here," and change it to "It are here."
You should also avoid has, have, and had as lone verbs, although they may be necessary as helping verbs.
What is the difference between helping verbs and linking verbs? You will
find the answer in your handbook, but here is a quick explanation:
LINKING: "George was in bed all day." (Linking verb stands alone.)
HELPING: "Harriet has been working all day." (They "help" working.)
Composition students will need to remove as many linking verbs as possible at all stages of revision.
5. Do not water down your verbs with unnecessary would's. No one wants to read "I would eat breakfast, would have two eggs, and would run out to catch my ride," when you meant to say, "On a typical morning, I gobble my breakfast of two eggs, toast and coffee and then run to catch my ride."
Also, used to rarely needs to be put before past tense verbs: e.g., "I used to gobble my breakfast of two eggs, toast, and coffee and used to run for my ride back in the days when I worked for a living." Again, just hit the verb directly.
Avoid using progressive verb tenses, unless they are required to make a point. Some progressive verbs are the following: "am running," "was running," "have been running," "had been running." To make a point about your activities on a particular day, you may need to say, "I am running the 440 today" or "I can't whistle now because I'm eating crackers." Some activity is occurring, and you wish to bring attention to it. At other times, however, a sentence may be cleaner if it uses a simple verb: "I run," "I ran," "I have run," etc.
Avoid using unnecessary "began to" or "started to" constructions. If you are talking about long delays and dilly-dallying (say, about a student unable to make himself or herself start a paper), then "began to" may be necessary. However, most often we can change "Jim began to mow the grass before going to town" to "Jim mowed the grass before going to town."
Avoid using "decided to" verb forms.
You may have written, "At the cafe, we decided to order a breakfast of pancakes and waffles. After we finished, we decided to go to the Riverwalk to wait for Robyn to arrive. When she showed up fifteen minutes late, we decided to drive on to the beach." Each one of those "decided to" verb forms could be changed to "ordered," "went, " and "drove." You would only use "decided to" if you were writing about, say, a constitution and bylaws meeting, at which members were sharply divided and arguing extensively: "Finally, at 3:45 p.m., the members decided to have a two-year term for the president."6. Do not misuse or overuse always. This word means "forever," not simply "usually" or "often." If you mean often, write often. (Just do not use it too often.)
7. Generally scratch out really and very except in one case out of a hundred. These are "talking words," used primarily to help us keep a cadence in our speech as we search for other words. In writing, they are rarely needed.
8. You exist "in society," so omit the expression unless you are FAXing a paper in from the moon or Mars. Editors and teachers despair when they encounter articles or papers repeatedly saying "blah blah in our society," "in our complex society," or (the ultimate in excessive verbiage) "in our modern complex society in which we live today." If you are using present tense and referring to people, you are automatically writing about our society.
9. Avoid "I thought to myself," since, of course, that's where thinking, wondering, and pondering occur.
10. PAINT A PICTURE. Do not refer to every object as it, this, thing, something, anything and individuals as only he or she. Every third use of it in a normal-sized paragraph will count as a fatal error.
WRITE LIKE A CAMERA,
AND WRITE LIKE A TAPE RECORDER.
When you write, editors want you to imagine that you are a camera. On paper, you should try to capture as many pictures or images that you can. You should also function like a tape recorder, trying to let your reader hear the snap, pop, and crackle of our world.
Twain Hits the Mark
When I was a student at Florida State University, our collection of writings by Mark Twain contained Twain's essay, "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses." In this essay, Twain aims to be humorous while he skewers Cooper and offers some excellent advice on writing.
America's first major writer was Washington Irving (whose "Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip van Winkle" are still being read), and James Fenimore Cooper was our second major figure. To give credit to Cooper, he did capture a spirit of nature and a great respect for the American Indian at a time when most Americans probably just wanted them to move on out of the way so the whites could take over the land.
"The Pathfinder" and "The Deerslayer" stand at the head of Cooper's novels as artistic creations. There are others of his works which contain parts as perfect as are to be found in these, and scenes even more thrilling. Not one can be compared with either of them as a finished whole. The defects in both of these tales are comparatively slight. They were pure works of art.
--Professor Lounsbury
The five tales reveal an extraordinary fullness of invention. ... One of the very greatest characters in fiction, Natty Bumppo... The craft of the woodsman, the tricks of the trapper, all the delicate art of the forest were familiar to Cooper from his youth up.
--Professor Matthews
Cooper is the greatest artist in the domain of romantic fiction in America.
--Wilkie Collins
It seems to me that it was far from right for the Professor of English Literature at Yale, the Professor of English Literature in Columbia, and Wilkie Collins to deliver opinions on Cooper's literature without having read some of it. It would have been much more decorous to keep silent and let persons talk who have read Cooper.
Cooper's art has some defects. In one place in "Deerslayer," and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offenses against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record.
There are nineteen rules governing literary art in domain of romantic fiction -- some say twenty-two. In "Deerslayer," Cooper violated eighteen of them. These eighteen require:
1. That a tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere. But the "Deerslayer" tale accomplishes nothing and arrives in air.
2. They require that the episodes in a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it. But as the "Deerslayer" tale is not a tale, and accomplishes nothing and arrives nowhere, the episodes have no rightful place in the work, since there was nothing for them to develop.
3. They require that the personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others. But this detail has often been overlooked in the "Deerslayer" tale.
4. They require that the personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there. But this detail also has been overlooked in the "Deerslayer" tale.
5. The require that when the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject at hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say. But this requirement has been ignored from the beginning of the "Deerslayer" tale to the end of it.
6. They require that when the author describes the character of a personage in the tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description. But this law gets little or no attention in the "Deerslayer" tale, as Natty Bumppo's case will amply prove.
7. They require that when a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven- dollar Friendship's Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a negro minstrel in the end of it. But this rule is flung down and danced upon in the "Deerslayer" tale.
8. They require that crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader as "the craft of the woodsman, the delicate art of the forest," by either the author or the people in the tale. But this rule is persistently violated in the "Deerslayer" tale.
9. They require that the personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable. But these rules are not respected in the "Deerslayer" tale.
10. They require that the author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones. But the reader of the "Deerslayer" tale dislikes the good people in it, is indifferent to the others, and wishes they would all get drowned together.
11. They require that the characters in a tale shall be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency. But in the "Deerslayer" tale, this rule is vacated.
In addition to these large rules, there are some little ones. These require that the author shall:
12. Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it.
13. Use the right word, not its second cousin.
14. Eschew surplusage.
15. Not omit necessary details.
16. Avoid slovenliness of form.
17. Use good grammar.
18. Employ a simple and straightforward style.
Even these seven are coldly and persistently violated in the "Deerslayer" tale.
Cooper's gift in the way of invention was not a rich endowment; but such as it was he liked to work it, he was pleased with the effects, and indeed he did some quite sweet things with it. In his little box of stage-properties he kept six or eight cunning devices, tricks, artifices for his savages and woodsmen to deceive and circumvent each other with, and he was never so happy as when he was working these innocent things and seeing them go. A favorite one was to make a moccasined person tread in the tracks of a moccasined enemy, and thus hide his own trail. Cooper wore out barrels and barrels of moccasins in working that trick. Another stage-property that he pulled out of his box pretty frequently was the broken twig. He prized his broken twig above all the rest of his effects, and worked it the hardest. It is a restful chapter in any book of his when somebody doesn't step on a dry twig and alarm all the reds and whites for two hundred yards around. Every time a Cooper person is in peril, and absolute silence is worth four dollars a minute, he is sure to step on a dry twig. There may be a hundred other handier things to step on, but that wouldn't satisfy Cooper. Cooper requires him to turn out and find a dry twig; and if he can't do it, go and borrow one. In fact, the Leatherstocking Series ought to have been called the Broken Twig Series.
I am sorry that there is not room to put in a few dozen instances of the delicate art of the forest, as practiced by Natty Bumppo and some of the other Cooperian experts. Perhaps we may venture two or three samples. Cooper was a sailor -- a naval officer; yet he gravely tells us how a vessel, driving toward a lee shore in a gale, is steered for a particular spot by her skipper because he knows of an undertow there which will hold her back against the gale and save her. For just pure woodcraft, or sailorcraft, or whatever it is, isn't that neat? For several years, Cooper was daily in the society of artillery, and he ought to have noticed that when a cannon-ball strikes the ground it either buries itself or skips a hundred feet or so; skips again a hundred feet or so -- and so on, till finally it gets tired and rolls. Now in one place he loses some "females" -- as he always calls women -- in the edge of a wood near a plain at night in a fog, on purpose to give Bumppo a chance to show off the delicate art of the forest before the reader. These mislaid people are hunting for a fort. They hear a cannon-blast, and a cannon-ball presently comes rolling into the wood and stops at their feet. To the females this suggests nothing. The case is very different with the admirable Bumppo. I wish I may never know peace again if he doesn't strike out promptly and follow the track of that cannon-ball across the plain in the dense fog and find the fort. Isn't it a daisy? If Cooper had any real knowledge of Nature's ways of doing things, he had a most delicate art in concealing the fact. For instance: one of his acute Indian experts, Chingachgook (pronounced Chicago, I think), has lost the trail of a person he is tracking through the forest. Apparently that trail is hopelessly lost. Neither you nor I could ever have guessed the way to find it. It was very different with Chicago. Chicago was not stumped for long. He turned a running stream out of its course, and there, in the slush in its old bed, were that person's moccasin tracks. The current did not wash them away, as it would have done in all other like cases -- no, even the eternal laws of Nature have to vacate when Cooper wants to put up a delicate job of woodcraft on the reader.
We must be a little wary when Brander Matthews tells us that Cooper's books "reveal an extraordinary fullness of invention." As a rule, I am quite willing to accept Brander Matthews's literary judgments and applaud his lucid and graceful phrasing of them; but that particular statement needs to be taken with a few tons of salt. Bless you heart, Cooper hadn't any more invention than a horse; and don't mean a high-class horse, either; I mean a clothes- horse. It would be very difficult to find a really clever "situation" in Cooper's books, and still more difficult to find one of any kind which has failed to render absurd by his handling of it. Look at the episodes of "the caves"; and at the celebrated scuffle between Maqua and those others on the table-land a few days later; and at Hurry Harry's queer water-transit from the castle to the ark; and at Deerslayer's half-hour with his first corpse; and at the quarrel between Hurry Harry and Deerslayer later; and at -- but choose for yourself; you can't go amiss.
If Cooper had been an observer his inventive faculty would have worked better; not more interestingly, but more rationally, more plausibly. Cooper's proudest creations in the way of "situations" suffer noticeably from the absence of the observer's protecting gift. Cooper's eye was splendidly inaccurate. Cooper seldom saw anything correctly. He saw nearly all things as through a glass eye, darkly. Of course a man who cannot see the commonest little every-day matters accurately is working at a disadvantage when he is constructing a "situation." In the "Deerslayer" tale Cooper has a stream which is fifty feet wide where it flows out of a lake; it presently narrows to twenty as it meanders along for no given reason, and yet when a stream acts like that it ought to be required to explain itself. Fourteen pages later the width of the brook's outlet from the lake has suddenly shrunk thirty feet, and become "the narrowest part of the stream." This shrinkage is not accounted for. The stream has bends in it, a sure indication that it has alluvial banks and cuts them; yet these bends are only thirty and fifty feet long. If Cooper had been a nice and punctilious observer he would have noticed that the bends were often nine hundred feet long than short of it.
Cooper made the exit of that stream fifty feet wide, in the first place, for no particular reason; in the second place, he narrowed it to less than twenty to accommodate some Indians. He bends a "sapling" to form an arch over this narrow passage, and conceals six Indians in its foliage. They are "laying" for a settler's scow or ark which is coming up the stream on its way to the lake; it is being hauled against the stiff current by rope whose stationary end is anchored in the lake; its rate of progress cannot be more than a mile an hour. Cooper describes the ark, but pretty obscurely. In the matter of dimensions "it was little more than a modern canal boat." Let us guess, then, that it was about one hundred and forty feet long. It was of "greater breadth than common." Let us guess then that it was about sixteen feet wide. This leviathon had been prowling down bends which were but a third as long as itself, and scraping between banks where it only had two feet of space to spare on each side. We cannot too much admire this miracle. A low- roofed dwelling occupies "two-thirds of the ark's length" -- a dwelling ninety feet long and sixteen feet wide, let us say -- a kind of vestibule train. The dwelling has two rooms -- each forty- five feet long and sixteen feet wide, let us guess. One of them is the bedroom of the Hutter girls, Judith and Hetty; the other is the parlor in the daytime, at night it is papa's bedchamber. The ark is arriving at the stream's exit now, whose width has been reduced to less than twenty feet to accommodate the Indians -- say to eighteen. There is a foot to spare on each side of the boat. Did the Indians notice that there was going to be a tight squeeze there? Did they notice that they could make money by climbing down out of that arched sapling and just stepping aboard when the ark scraped by? No, other Indians would have noticed these things, but Cooper's Indian's never notice anything. Cooper thinks they are marvelous creatures for noticing, but he was almost always in error about his Indians. There was seldom a sane one among them.
The ark is one hundred and forty-feet long; the dwelling is ninety feet long. The idea of the Indians is to drop softly and secretly from the arched sapling to the dwelling as the ark creeps along under it at the rate of a mile an hour, and butcher the family. It will take the ark a minute and a half to pass under. It will take the ninety-foot dwelling a minute to pass under. Now, then, what did the six Indians do? It would take you thirty years to guess, and even then you would have to give it up, I believe. Therefore, I will tell you what the Indians did. Their chief, a person of quite extraordinary intellect for a Cooper Indian, warily watched the canal-boat as it squeezed along under him and when he had got his calculations fined down to exactly the right shade, as he judge, he let go and dropped. And missed the boat! That is actually what he did. He missed the house, and landed in the stern of the scow. It was not much of a fall, yet it knocked him silly. He lay there unconscious. If the house had been ninety-seven feet long he would have made the trip. The error lay in the construction of the house. Cooper was no architect.
There still remained in the roost five Indians. The boat has passed under and is now out of their reach. Let me explain what the five did -- you would not be able to reason it out for yourself. No. 1 jumped for the boat, but fell in the water astern of it. Then No. 2 jumped for the boat, but fell in the water still further astern of it. Then No. 3 jumped for the boat, and fell a good way astern of it. Then No. 4 jumped for the boat, and fell in the water away astern. Then even No. 5 made a jump for the boat -- for he was Cooper Indian. In that matter of intellect, the difference between a Cooper Indian and the Indian that stands in front of the cigar-shop is not spacious. The scow episode is really a sublime burst of invention; but it does not thrill, because the inaccuracy of details throw a sort of air of fictitiousness and general improbability over it. This comes of Cooper's inadequacy as observer.
The reader will find some examples of Cooper's high talent for inaccurate observation in the account of the shooting-match in "The Pathfinder."
A common wrought nail was driven lightly into the target, its head having been first touched with paint.
The color of the paint is not stated -- an important omission, but Cooper deals freely in important omissions. No, after all, it was not an important omission; for this nail-head is a hundred yards from the marksmen, and could not be seen at that distance, no matter what its color might be. How far can the best eyes see a common housefly? A hundred yards? It is quite impossible. Very well; eyes that cannot see a house-fly that is a hundred yards away cannot see an ordinary nail-head at that distance, for the size of the two objects is the same. It takes a keen eye to see a fly or a nail-head at fifty yards -- one hundred and fifty-feet. Can the reader do it?
The nail was lightly driven, its head painted, and game called. Then the Cooper miracles began. The bullet of the first marksman chipped an edge of the nail-head; the next man's bullet drove the nail a little way into the target -- and removed all the paint. Haven't the miracles gone far enough now? Not to suit Cooper; for the purpose of this whole scheme is to show off his prodigy, Deerslayer-Hawkeye-Long-Rifle-Leatherstocking-Pathfinder-Bumppo before the ladies.
"Be all ready to clench it,
boys!" cried out Pathfinder, stepping into his friend's tracks the instant they
were vacant. "Never mind a new nail; I can see that, though the paint is gone,
and what I can see I can hit at a hundred yards, though it were only a
mosquito's eye. Be ready to clench!"
The rifle cracked, the bullet sped its way, and the head of the nail was buried
in the wood, covered by the piece of flattened lead.
There, you see, is a man who could hunt flies with a rifle, and command a ducal salary in a Wild West show to-day if we had him back with us.
The recorded feat is certainly surprising just as it stands; but it is not surprising enough for Cooper. Cooper adds a touch. He has made Pathfinder do this miracle with another man's rife; and not only that, but Pathfinder did not have even the advantage of loading it himself. He had everything against him, and yet he made that impossible shot; and not only made it, but did it with absolute confidence, saying, "Be ready to clench." Now a person like that would have undertaken that same feat with a brickbat, and with Cooper to help he would have achieved it, too.
Pathfinder showed off handsomely that day before the ladies. His very first feat a thing which no Wild West show can touch. He was standing with the group of marksmen, observing -- a hundred yards from the target, mind; one Jasper rasper raised his rifle and drove the center of the bull's-eye. Then the Quartermaster fired. The target exhibited no result this time. There was a laugh. "It's a dead miss," said Major Lundie. Pathfinder waited an impressive moment or two; then said, in that calm, indifferent, know-it-all way of his, "No, Major, he has covered Jasper's bullet, as will be seen if any one will take the trouble to examine the target."
Wasn't it remarkable! How could he see that little pellet fly through the air and enter that distant bullet-hole? Yet that is what he did; for nothing is impossible to a Cooper person. Did any of those people have any deep-seated doubts about this thing? No; for that would imply sanity, and these were all Cooper people.
The respect for Pathfinder's skill and for his quickness and accuracy of sight [the italics are mine] was so profound and general, that the instant he made this declaration the spectators began to distrust their own opinions, and a dozen rushed to the target in order to ascertain the fact. There, sure enough, it was found that the Quartermaster's bullet had gone through the hole made by Jasper's, and that, too, so accurately as to require a minute examination to be certain of the circumstance, which, however, was soon clearly established by discovering one bullet over the other in the stump against which the target was placed.
They made a "minute" examination; but never mind, how could they know that there were two bullets in that hole without digging the latest one out? for neither probe nor eyesight could prove the presence of any more than one bullet. Did they dig? No; as we shall see. It is the Pathfinder's turn now; he steps out before the ladies, takes aim, and fires.
But, alas! here is a disappointment; in incredible, an unimaginable disappointment -- for the target's aspect is unchanged; there is nothing there but that same old bullet hole!
"If one dared to hint at such a thing," cried Major Duncan, "I should say that the Pathfinder has also missed the target."
As nobody had missed it yet, the "also" was not necessary; but never mind about that, for the Pathfinder is going to speak.
"No, no, Major," said he,
confidently, "that would be a
risky declaration. I didn't load the piece, and can't say what was in it; but if
it was lead, you will find the bullet driving down those of the Quartermaster
and Jasper, else is not my name Pathfinder."
A shout from the target announced the truth of this assertion.
Is the miracle sufficient as it stands? Not for Cooper. The Pathfinder speaks again, as he "now slowly advances toward the stage occupied by the females":
"That's not all, boys, that's not all; if you find the target touched at all, I'll own to a miss. The Quartermaster cut the wood, but you'll find no wood cut by that last messenger."
The miracle is at last complete. He knew -- doubtless saw -- at the distance of a hundred yards -- this his bullet had passed into the hole without fraying the edges. There were now three bullets in that one hole -- three bullets embedded processionally in the body of the stump back of the target. Everybody knew this -- somehow or other -- and yet nobody had dug any of them out to make sure. Cooper is not a close observer, but he is interesting. He is certainly always that, no matter what happens. And he is more interesting when he is not noticing what he is about than when he is. This is a considerable merit.
The conversations in the Cooper books have a curious sound in our modern ears. To believe that such talk really ever came out of people's mouths would be to believe that there was a time when time was of no value to a person who thought he had something to say; when it was the custom to spread a two-minute remark out to ten; when a man's mouth was a rolling-mill, and busied itself all day long in turning four-foot pigs of thought into thirty-foot bars of conversational railroad iron by attenuation; when subjects were seldom faithfully stuck to, but the talk wandered all around and arrived nowhere; when conversations consisted mainly of irrelevancies, with here and there a relevancy, a relevancy with an embarrassed look, as not being able to explain how it got there.
Cooper was certainly not a master in the construction of dialogue. Inaccurate observation defeated him here as it defeated him in so many other enterprises of his life. He even failed to notice that the man who talks corrupt English six days in the week must and will talk it on seventh, and can't help himself. In the "Deerslayer" story, he lets Deerslayer talk the showiest kind of book-talk sometimes, and at other times the basest of base dialects. For instance, when some one asks him if he has a sweetheart, and if so, where she abides, this is his majestic answer:
"She's in the forest -- hanging from the boughs of the trees, in a soft rain -- in the dew on the open grass -- the clouds that float about in the blue heavens -- the birds that sing in the woods -- the sweet springs where I slake my thirst -- and in all the other glorious gifts that come from God's Providence!"
And he preceded that, a little before, with this:
"It consarns me as all things that touches a friend consarns a friend."
And this is another of his remarks:
"If I was Injin born, now, I might tell of this, or carry in the scalp and boast of the expl'ite afore the whole tribe; of if my inimy had only been a bear" -- [and so on]
We cannot imagine such a thing as a veteran Scotch Commander-in- Chief comporting himself like a windy melodramatic actor, but Cooper could. On one occasion, Alice and Cora were being chased by the French through a fog in the neighborhood of their father's fort:
"Point de
quartier aux coquins!" cried an eager pursuer, who seemed to
direct the operations of the enemy.
"Stand firm and be ready, my gallant 60ths!" suddenly exclaimed a voice above
them; "wait to see the enemy, fire low, and sweep the glacis."
"Father! father" exclaimed a
piercing cry from out the mist. "It is I!
Alice! thy own
Elsie! spare, O! save your daughters!"
"Hold!" shouted the former speaker, in the awful tones of parental agony, the
sound reaching even to the woods, and rolling back in a solemn echo. "'Tis she!
God has restored me my children! Throw open the sally- port; to the field,
60ths, to the field! pull not a trigger, lest ye kill my lambs! Drive off these
dogs of France with your steel!"
Cooper's word-sense was singularly dull. When a person has a poor ear for music he will flat and sharp right along without knowing it. He keeps near the tune, but is not the tune. When a person has a poor ear for words, the result is a literary flatting and sharping; you perceive what he is intending to say, but you also perceive that he does not say it. This is Cooper. He was not a word-musician. His ear was satisfied with the approximate words. I will furnish some circumstantial evidence in support of this charge. My instances are gathered from half a dozen pages of the tale called "Deerslayer." He uses "Verbal" for "oral"; "precision" for "facility"; "phenomena" for "marvels"; "necessary" for "predetermined"; "unsophisticated" for "primitive"; "preparation" for "expectancy"; "rebuked" for "subdued"; "dependent on" for "resulting from"; "fact" for "condition"; "fact" for "conjecture"; "precaution" for "caution"; "explain" for "determine"; "mortified" for "disappointed"; "meretricious" for "factitious"; "materially" for "considerably"; "decreasing" for "deepening"; "increasing" for "disappearing"; "embedded" for "inclosed"; "treacherous" for "hostile"; "stood" for "stooped"; "softened" for "replaced"; "rejoined" for "remarked"; "situation" for "condition"; "different" for "differing"; "insensible" for "unsentient"; "brevity" for "celerity"; "distrusted" for "suspicious"; "mental imbecility" for "imbecility"; "eyes" for "sight"; "counteracting" for "opposing"; "funeral obsequies" for "obsequies."
There have been daring people in the world who claimed that Cooper could write English, but they are all dead now -- all dead but Lounsbury. I don't remember that Lounsbury makes the claim in so many words, still he makes it, for he says that "Deerslayer" is a "pure work of art." Pure, in that connection, means faultless -- faultless in all details -- and language is a detail. If Mr. Lounsbury had only compared Cooper's English with the English he writes himself -- but it is plain that he didn't; and so it is likely that he imagines until this day that Cooper's is as clean and compact as his own. Now I feel sure, deep down in my heart, that Cooper wrote about the poorest English that exists in our language, and that the English of "Deerslayer" is the very worst that even Cooper ever wrote.
I may be mistaken, but it does seem to me that "Deerslayer" is not a work of art in any sense; it does seem to me that it is destitute of every detail that goes to the making of a work of art; in truth, it seems to me that "Deerslayer" is just simply a literary delirium tremens.
A work of art? It has no invention; it has no order, system, sequence, or result; it has no lifelikeness, no thrill, no stir, no seeming of reality; its characters are confusedly drawn, and by their acts and words they prove that they are not the sort of people the author claims that they are; its humor is pathetic; its pathos is funny; its conversations are -- oh! indescribable; its love-scenes odious; its English a crime against the language.
Counting these out, what is left is Art. I think we must all admit that.
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