Today in the Dojo: When it’s appropriate to give “show” a right proper boot in the arse and let “tell” have the floor.

“My most important piece of advice to all you would-be writers: when you write, try to leave out all the parts readers skip.” 
     -Elmore Leonard

Show vs. Tell has become one of those sacred commandments of writing, and there’s plenty of folks out there who would burn you at the stake for disobeying it.  Dramatize, we’re told.  Show don’t tell.  Every writer’s magazine and book rack will have copious words devoted to this golden rule of writing, so I imagine it’s going to shock the hell out of you when I tell you to sod showing.  Tell vs. Show, how’s that for anarchy?

Let me explain.

In the midst of George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy series cum tree-killing monstrosity Song of Ice and Fire,  I finally pinpointed why it irritates me so.  He dramatizes bloody everything.  In fact, he’s so busy dramatizing scenes that he’s had to cut other scenes and present them after the fact in very brief summaries or in character dialogue/memory/flashback/what-have-you.  The poor man probably does not even realize he’s slave to the Show vs. Tell rule, and it’s making me suffer.

Of course, he’s a damned good writer otherwise, so I have to keep reading.  Damn him.

But back to our program.

In a large and complicated book, and often even in smaller books that have to keep a quick pace, the Show vs. Tell rule is going to strangle us if we follow it too closely.  It’s something I learned while writing the first book of the trilogy (which has been shunted aside due to realizing this is a series, not a trilogy with a few prequels).  At first, I was picking scenes out one-by-one and dramatizing them.  No flashbacks.  No narrative summary.  No out-of-sequence.  Then one day, I realized that with all I had to dramatize, the trilogy would end up being a trilogy in 42 volumes.  This is bad for a number of reasons, not the least of which is because readers aren’t generally immortal, and neither am I.  Something had to be done.  In desperation, I turned to a trick I’d seen Robert Jordan use: time dilation.

I spent a whole chapter summarizing events, with only a few tiny dramatized bits.  When I got done with it, I shuddered.  “Oh, gods,” thought I, “this is wrong.  Wrong, wrong, wrong.  It skims too much.”  But I gave it to my Wise Reader anyway, and she came back with nothing but praise.  “I loved how this chapter covered so much,” she said, and went on to cite several of the events in it she’d liked just fine, even though I’d broken the Show vs. Tell rule.  I began to think I could get away with this on rare occasion.

So can you.

WHAT IS THIS TIME DILATION?

Simply put, Time Dilation takes a sequence of event and boils them down to a narrative essence.  It summarizes.  It makes the choice that, for the sake of the flow, full scenes will be forsaken for itsy bitsy scene fragments set like rasins in a bread of narrative summary.  It skims.  It samples.  It takes a chunk of time – days, weeks, months or years – and telescopes it.  It gets us from one huge event or set piece to another with a minimum of fuss and bother, but without the jolt of a line break or short transition.  It’s almost an extended transition, but whereas most transitions are only a paragraph or two at most, time dilation can cover several pages up to a chapter or more.

SOUNDS DANGEROUS

Well, it is.  It’s so easy to use, one could end up writing the majority of their book that way, and that is no way to write a book.  Think of time dilation as bridges.  You need bridges.  They’re useful.  But you can’t build a city out of them.  Not even if you make them really big and put houses on them.

It’s also damned easy to muck up.  There’s a huge difference between being able to dilate time gracefully and making a total hash out of it.  You have to make wise choices as to what you dilate, where, for how long, and in what sequence.  You also have to make sure to get enough dramatization in there to make the dilation feel like showing even though it’s not, but not enough to make it a choppy sea of mini-scenes.  We’re back to rasin bread again.  You can have too many raisins and you can have too few.

SO IF IT’S SO DANGEROUS, WHY SHOULD I DO IT, DANA?

I guess you won’t accept “Because Dana says so” as a proper response, so…

You should do it because it smooths your reader’s path through your book.  It gets them quickly through the bits where not much is happening but a few important things need to be covered.  It keeps you from overdramatizing scenes not worthy of dramatization, and from relying too much on flashback, interior monologue, and really silly “As you know, Jeeves, this happened last week” sorts of dialogue.  And it makes you look like a pro.

ALL RIGHT, I’LL DO IT.  BUT HOW?

It will be my pleasure to tell you.

There are several elements to consider when doing time dilation.  Let’s take it from the top: knowing where it’s needed.

Time dilation is perfect for those times between major scenes, when several things are happening that are dwarfed by what comes before and after.  It’s also quite useful when you’re going from an arc following one set of characters and heading back to a subplot that needs to catch the reader up with another set of folks.  If you’ve got a handful of stuff of minor interest that can’t be shuffled around because of chonology, format or what have you, time dilation could be your alternative to having a string of tiny scenes that catch the reader up or get him from A to B but bore him to death in the process.  Last thing we want is dead readers, right?
It can also be damned useful when you need to build a major plot point in blocks.  What I’m talking about here is, your character must connect some dots to have a major breakthrough.  Time dilation can help you accomplish that with elegance.

Time dilation in its essence needs to do one thing: get the reader from A to B with a few points of interest (mini-scenes) along the way.

Now that we know what it is and what purpose it serves, let’s have a look at some of the varieties of time dilation.

TIME DILATION: CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

This is the simplest form, appropriate when you’re just getting the story from one major event through a series of little events up to the next big event.  It can begin something like so: “The rest of that day ended in a blur for Dave, and the next few weeks weren’t much better.”

We then go on to summarize what happened to Dave over those weeks.  We might begin with a bit of narrative summary leading us to the next afternoon, when Jones comes up to him with a mini-crisis: the computer ate the budget files again.  Instead of fully dramatizing this event, we’ll take the gems from it: the bits of witty dialogue, Dave preventing Jones from attacking the computer with a baseball bat, and then quickly on through the next few days, with only brief diversions into other mini-scenes: the argument with the landlady over rent, the car breaking down, etc.  All of which will eventually lead us to Dave putting all those little bits and pieces together at the end of the sequence and realizing that the computer problems are the answer to his problems: with the budget in such a mess, he could so easily skim a little money out of the company accounts without anyone noticing a thing.

That’s the secret to time dilation: you build toward a crisis with those mini-scenes that is going to end the dilation chapter with a flaring match being touched to a fuse.  You’ve taken the reader through a critical time in Dave’s life, showing all of the little straws that finally broke the camel’s back, and you’ve managed to do it in chronological sequence so the reader can see each straw being placed just so, without being bored to tears with in-depth descriptions of each damned straw.

TIME DILATION: CENTRAL THEME

There’s another form of time dilation that happens to be my favorite: the out-of-sequence dilation that builds around a central theme or event.  This is what I used in my own successful foray into time dilation, and it’s a powerful tool.

In this version, you’ll still be dilating time, but you’ll be chopping it into bits and recombining those bits into a mosaic that forms a pic

ture by the end.  This is best used when you have several things happening around the same time, but which have more power if they’re grouped together by meaning rather than chronological order.  It will only work if you have a central theme to be illuminated.

Your central theme has to be powerful enough to carry the mosaic.  In my case, it was three words: faith, hope and trust.  At the beginning of the dilation, we see Ray arguing with Luther against trusting Dusty with any of their secrets.  Luther ends the scene by telling him to place his faith, hope and trust in her hands and see what she does with them.  Those words begin to echo through Ray’s mind, and the dilation begins.  The narrative takes us through his next several days, all out of order, with every mini-scene placed to reinforce that theme.  Each mini-scene shows him another aspect of what faith, hope and trust in her hands will mean, and brings him closer to the moment in which he realizes that Luther was right.  By the end of the sequence, chronological order is restored, and when that happens, Ray’s confusion has cleared.  He understands her better, and is starting to trust in her the way Luther does.

USING TIME DILATION WISELY

Time dilations need to be used sparingly, and they should be placed for maximum power.  A book of time dilations interspersed with a few big scenes won’t read well: neither will a book where some of the most important events are dilated rather than fully dramatized.

So here are some handy pointers to take away with you:

1.  Place time dilations between powerful scenes or sequences.  This serves two purposes: it gives the readers a chance for a breather, and keeps scenes with little dramatic potential from being overshadowed by very dramatic scenes.

2.  Choose your mini-dramatizations carefully.  If you have to write everything as fully-dramatized scenes in order to pick out the shiniest bits, do it.  It’s worth the time you spend.  You want the little fragments of dramatization to shine with as much brilliance as possible in order to keep up an illusion that you’re showing more than you actually are.

3.  Make your prose narration gleam.  Do not set your beautiful gems in brass.  You’re a writer, damn it – write your heart out in this prose.  Tell the story with all of the wit and wisdom and sheer power you can.  Don’t skimp.  You don’t want to over-polish your sentences, of course, but make sure they’re sparkly.

4.  Use concrete detail when possible.  Days of rain?  Tell us how gloomy the rain was.  Draw pictures with the scenery, the weather, the dragging days, whatever’s to hand.  You’ve read narrative passages where the description was superb.  Go back to those and see how the author managed to summarize without you noticing by putting the background to work.

5.  Rising action is as much a rule in time dilation as in fully-realized scenes.  The dilation is building to something, otherwise, you could just skip all of that and use a transition like “After a few days of blissful boredom, the world blew up in his face.”  Both the narration and the mini-scenes should build that rising action.  There has to be conflict, or it’s meaningless.

6.  End with a punch.  This is important.  Time dilations need a climax, a cliff-hanger, a flame-to-fuse just like every other chapter.  Provide them one and they will not fail you.

And please do remember, while showing is important, our business is called storytelling for a reason.  Time dilation will help you tell a better story.  Know it, love it, make it work for you.

Today in the Dojo: Using senses other than sight in writing.

Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. 
     -Anton Chekhov

I had a very strict routine when I left work in Tempe, AZ:  I punched out at lightning speed and race-walked through the parking lot to my car, threw my bags in the back, lit a cigarette, and tried to get my little car airborne.  I didn’t pause for anything except traffic.  My entire focus was narrowed on one goal: get home in as few minutes as possible.  My only thoughts: will I get to the end of the road before the light changes?  Avoid the slow people on the freeway?  Find a parking space close to the house? 

One night, however, I stopped dead as I reached for the car door, frozen.  Not with cold, of course: this was spring in the Sonoran Desert, which meant air conditioners were already blasting.  I didn’t know at first what had stopped me, until I took a deep noseful of the typically polluted, dry, acrid and unpleasant Phoenix air and smelled – orange blossoms.

I stood transfixed in a darkness lit by saffron-hued street lamps and the bluer glow of our parking lot lights, staring at the low clumps of trees rising from the incongruous strip of grass between our lot and the road, sucking down draughts of petal-scented air.  My balance shifted from flat-footed to nearly on my toes, as if my pounding heart was trying to pull me up into the black sky.  Usually, I only noticed the air enough to determine it’s temperature – it’s never a good idea to linger too long with Phoenix metro air.  But I was feeling its texture now – cool, stirring with the breathy breeze that carried the scent of the blooms from somewhere, soft with a rare touch of humidity.  My first thoughts skittered along wild courses of where? and how? and is it real?  I searched the night for orange trees and saw none.  But I could tell from the richness of the scent that this wasn’t a coworker’s perfume wafting across parking spaces: nothing but pure, living orange blossoms smell like that.

I’d almost forgotten the keys in my hand and the weight of my backpack dragging at my shoulder.  I stood by the rear fender of my car, pulling in as much of that scent as I could, mouth opening in a wondrous grin.  I knew that Phoenix had orange trees, often planted as hedges and spilling their pale orange-yellow fruits onto the road where passing cars squished them into mush, but I’d never expected to actually smell them bloom through the haze of dust and ozone and exhaust and other, less pleasant big-city odors.  Now my mind swirled around thoughts of beauty, and spun out associations at lightning speed: my mother, who spent her life searching for really authentic orange blossom perfume, would love this.  How could I get a scent like this into my story, where there are no oranges and I can’t even use association because the characters have no experience with oranges?  And this must be what an evening in the Court of Oranges smells like.  That took me back to one of my favorite books, The Walking Drum, and one of the most sensual scenes I’ve ever read: walking into the Court of Oranges in Cordoba, Spain, with everything so richly described that I could feel the dust on the paving stones, listen to fountains splash, and draw the scent of blooming orange trees deep into the soul of myself.

My consciousness filtered out the sounds of the Valley Metro bus laboring down the road, coworkers’ cars starting up, any sound except the rustle of leaves as the breeze stirred them.  I barely saw anything except those gently waving branches, and the way the light danced off of their shiny green leaves and shadowed the grass beneath.  I was experiencing magic in the heart of Tempe – the usual business of the city had no place there.  It’s a good thing we had good security in our parking lot, because if someone had decided to step out of the darkness and rob me, I would have just passed my purse over and shushed him.  Or possibly grabbed his arm and danced him around shouting, “It smells gorgeous out tonight!”  It could have led to a whole new school of self-defense: hug your robber, he won’t know what to do. 

I finally shook myself out of it.  I could have stood there all night breathing in the scent of orange blossoms, but my cat wouldn’t have been pleased, and I needed to get home and get this down in my mind.  I needed to be away from work.  But oh, how I hated leaving that scent behind.

Why this extended description of a very personal experience?  Because it was a great way to show you the power of scent to change a mood and preconceived notions.

It seems like 90% of the writers out there don’t use all of their senses when they’re writing.  5% of the ones who do mangle it.  The remaining 5% – well, they weave such a tapestry of sight, sound, smell, touch and taste that you live their worlds in all dimensions.  You experience everything.  And that experience lingers in your mind long after the story is over, to be pulled to full consciousness again years later on a metro Phoenix city street in the middle of the night by the scent of orange blossoms.

We want to be that 5%, don’t we?  So let’s get started on figuring out how to do it.

Don’t Let the Thugs of Sight and Sound Shove the Other Three to the Far Back Corner

We live in an age where the magic of movies and television predominate.  Those mediums have only two senses: sight and sound.  We see the picture and hear the sounds.  Other senses can only be suggested: characters can inhale the fragrance from a rose, savor a good meal, spit out something gross, fan themselves when it’s hot and shiver when it’s cold… but it’s still all sight and sound.  Unless, of course, they’re rhapsodizing on the scent of the rose or the taste of the food, in which case you probably want to beat the living crap out of them until they shut up and get on with the show.

Movies and television can’t make us experience the other senses, only suggest.  And usually, they’re such a visual feast, with the sound coming thick and fast, that the viewer doesn’t have time for more than a fleeting impression of bad, good, warm, cold, painful, soft, or otherwise.  I mean, come on – during that hot bedroom scene, were you really smelling the intermingling of sweat and perfume and feeling the silk sheets slide under you, or were you just salivating over the hot the actor/actress/both?

Admit it.  You were feasting your eyes, maybe enjoying the soundtrack and the moans, but you weren’t experiencing the rest. 

Prose writers, on the other hand, have the power to evoke all five senses directly, and bring them to vibrant life in such rich detail that the reader experiences them too.  We are not restricted to being able to present only sight and sound directly and have to imply the rest.  Yet what do we do?  Visualize scenes, throw some sounds in, and merely hint at the rest, nine times out of ten.

So we must push the thugs of sight and sound aside.  We need to beat them with mighty sticks until they fall to their knees and shuffle into line.  They are powerful – they need to be at the forefront of most scenes.  But just a little bit in front.  Humble them.

If you must, write several scenes from the point of view of a deaf and blind character.  Believe me, this will make you pay attention to taste, touch and smell, unless you are a coward and have them imagining what things must sound and look like.  In that case, STOP BEING A BLOODY COWARD.

Now.

Walk around with earplugs and a blindfold if you have to (along with a person who will ensure you don’t step over the balcony or get run over by a train you never heard coming).  Dinner time is not the only time to taste things.  Being in a rose garden or a cesspit is not the only time you’ll smell things.  Touch is more than being in contact with items – it’s also the feel of the air on your skin, the sense of large or small things around you. 

When I was writing “Charity Cases,” I had to shut off sight.  I’m in the POV of a blind man, after all.  Sound actually took back seat to feel as I wandered around the house in artificial darkness.  I could tell what room I was in by the way it felt – hallways felt smaller than the living room whether I was touching the walls or not.  Stepping on cat litter in bare feet took on a whole new meaning without visual distraction.  I wouldn’t have needed hearing to tell me when I went outside: the feel of open spaces and moving air, the smell of pine trees and dust, the taste of pollen in the air, would have told me as much.

Really experience things.  Pollution leaves a haze in the air, but it also has a taste and odor of its own.  So does clean a

ir.  If I was out in the rain, I could tell you whether it was pine country or the heart of the city from the taste of the raindrops.  I can tell you where we are from the way it smells – wet buildings smell far different from wet trees, damp clean sidewalks a lot different from moist earth or dirty asphalt.  Notice these things.  Don’t relegate taste and smell to the dinner table.

Want to get across the idea that it’s humid or dry?  Each kind of air feels different.  Dry air makes your skin feel dusty and tight.  Humid air feels soft, sometimes slick.  It even tastes different – the sandy taste of the air in Phoenix becomes clearer, sharper with an underlying plant-oil tang when it’s getting ready to rain.  Have you ever considered describing the weather in terms of taste like that?  You should.  It’s an excellent tool.  Don’t just smell the coming rain, taste it.  Feel your skin starting to plump.  Unless of course you live in a humid climate, in which case it probably won’t be as intense a sensation as it is to a desert dweller.

Character has zits?  Excellent.  Don’t just show them.  Feel their oily ooze and their squelchy bumpy texture.

Once you have sight and sound properly humbled, let them come crawling back, and then weave them in with the rest.  You’ll have a properly complex description once you do.

Words = Associations

I mentioned the 5% of writers who use all senses but don’t use them well.  Here’s what I mean:

The odor of roses.


The scent of roses.


The smell of roses.

We’re keeping it simple here.  Which one had the most positive associations for you?  Which word came closer to evoking the richness and delicacy of a full-blown rose?  I can pretty much guarantee you it wasn’t odor.

We associate odor with bad.  OdorEaters insoles to kill foot stench.  Oust to eliminate odors from the air.  You don’t even have to add the word bad to odor to get the wrinkling nose and the idea of stinky. 

But we associate scent with something positive or at least neutral.  Perfumes are called scents.  We have pine-scented, berry-scented, and lavender-scented products for everything from bathroom cleaners to candles.  Scented oil fans to make the room smell lovely.  If we say a product is scented, we’re not associating a bad scent with it.  It’s supposed to be pleasant.

You also don’t want to talk about the smell of something if you’re trying to wax poetic over how good it smells, because smell is a dual-purpose word.  It could smell good or bad.  In this context, it passes no judgments.  It just says roses smell without implying how the author or the character feels about that smell.  For all we know, the roses don’t smell like anything much at all.

See how tricky that is?

Be very, very careful with your sensory words.  You’re passing judgments.  You want to make sure those judgments are the ones you want the reader to make.

I’m now going to play a dirty trick on you by way of Louis L’Amour.  Louis won’t mind if I quote him.  If his estate does, well, the work is properly cited and it might sell a book, so they can deal.

First, the adulterated version:

It was hot at noon in the Court of Oranges.  The air was filled with the odor of flowers and the sound of water.  There was a crunching of sandals as the white-robed thousands walked into the mosque.  Above them the palms threw shadows on the orange trees, and fruit peeked through the leaves.


There were four big basins in the Court of Oranges and water poured into them with a faint trickle.  The air felt still and hot, thick with the smells of jasmine and rose, and along the walls were hibiscus, large red flowers beside others of light gold or white.

Not bad.  Not bad.  We’ve got sight, sound, smell and a touch of touch.  Everything’s described well enough to get the idea of what it all was like. 

But it is a poor, sad thing compared to the real version:

At noon in the Court of Oranges the sun was hot.  The air was heavy with the scent of flowers and lazy with the sound of running water.  At noon in the Court of Oranges there was a shuffling of feet as the white-robed thousands moved slowly into the mosque.  Above them the palms cast slender shadows over the orange trees, and golden fruit shone through the glossy leaves like the Golden Apples of legend.


There were four great basins in the Court of Oranges and water tumbled into them with a pleasant, sleepy sound.  The air hung still and hot, thick with the scent of jasmine and rose, and along the walls were hibiscus, great soft red flowers beside others of pale gold or white.

                -from The Walking Drum by Louis L’Amour

I didn’t change all that much in the adulterated version, but the differences were huge anyway, weren’t they?  The first didn’t flow like poetry.  It didn’t evoke such specific images and associations.  The feel of things was quite weak.  Even the sounds didn’t weave around us quite so intensely, and the visuals were frankly lacking.  We didn’t really even smell the flowers – they were odorous, but that was about all.

Louis was very specific in his word choices and details.  First, it wasn’t hot.  The sun was hot.  That gives us the glare of hot sun off of stones and skin without having to go into great detail.  The sun being hot rather than merely the air changes everything.

The air could be heavy with scent, but Louis chose to fill the air instead.  Filled evokes a different sense than heavy.  Heavy implies weight bearing down.  Filled implies we were sated, content. 

We’ve already discussed scent vs. odor.  Now you’ve gotten to see it in action.  Smells better when it’s not an odor, doesn’t it?  And the air being lazy with the sound of running water is different than just the sound of water.  Sound means little unless it’s specific, and even running water wouldn’t have done here alone: it needed to impart a lazy feel to the air.

Crunching sandals and people walking is a far different thing than shuffling feet as people walk slowly.  The first is brisk.  Folk don’t walk briskly into mosques, not when there’s such a press of them.  Walking slowly, shuffling, implies the proper humility and reverence for this holy place.

I could go on, but you have the idea.  Word choice is vital when you’re using all five senses, or even just a few.  It’s like weaving a tapestry: you don’t simply choose red thread, you go for carmine or scarlet or vermilion, and that choice affects the whole rest of the weaving.  So does the choice between wool, cotton or silk thread.  So does… well, I won’t lecture you on different looms and such.

Words have associations.  Concrete things and words evoke more than general ones. 

Unusual Marriages You’d Never Expect Would Work

We’ve all heard leaves whispering or rustling or chuckling.  How about hissing?  Slithering?  Do they do that?

Yes, they do.  Depending on what mood you’re in and whether you like wind in the trees.

Can a rose smell bad?  Certainly, if your lover gave you a bouquet of heady reds and then dumped you in the middle of an expensive restaurant, leaving you wit

h the check, the public humiliation and no ride home. 

Dirt tastes wonderful?  Certainly does, if you’re a farmer moving from a poor farm to a rich one, or a bloke who has just hit the ground and avoided death by a millimeter.

Everybody can have babbling brooks and silky hair and delicious cuisine.  Your challenge is to look for new ways to say the same things, or combine a sense with a thing you’d never expect but which happens in real life.  Taste the pine sap, don’t simply smell the alpine forest.  Let the silk be clammy and uncomfortable.  How does love taste, or boredom sound, or eagerness smell?  Figure it out, then make it so.

In fact, I challenge you to make a list of clichéd sensory descriptions: babbling brook, running water, and so forth. Then pair them with new words.  Babbling trees.  Trotting water.  See what comes of it – could be something useful.

And if you’re at a loss, go experience the world with all your senses.  Next time you fall in love, focus on how it tastes.  Next time you drink wine, concentrate on how it makes your nose feel.  What does utter darkness look like?  What does bright light sound like?  Believe me, you can find associations that work.

The Babbling Brook Might Grate on the Troubled Soul

Remember that the emotions a character is going through is going to influence their sensory impressions.  You will not feel the same way about the babbling brook if it reminds you of your chattering coworker that you fled to the mountains to escape.  Speaking of those majestic peaks, they’re kinda broad at the bottom and tiny and bald on top, just like the boss who’s always looming over you, and those damned trees are clustered at the edge of the glade like all of those damned jackals who are just waiting for you to fuck up so they can pounce on your job…

See how that can take a clichéd pastoral scene and give it a whole new meaning?  Same sights.  Same sounds.  Same smells.  Completely different experience.  Completely different way of describing it. 
Conversely, in the worst moment of your life, that brief whiff of jasmine might be the only thing that gives you hope and strength.  A pleasant scent may have just become your life raft in the middle of a very stormy sea.

What I’m getting at here is that sensory impressions in and of themselves aren’t all that useful.  What really makes them pop is the character experiencing them, and what their experience of them says about themselves and their condition.

Sensory impressions are also an under-used way of showing changes over time.  For instance, when I was young and immortal, hot breezes and bright sun made me feel free and energetic.  Now, they just remind me that sun and dry air are aggravating the wrinkles developing all over my face, and sapping what little energy I possess to boot.  I loved the desert in summer when I was young.  Now, it just makes me weep for clouds, rain and cool green climes.

Snow was exciting.  Cold was crisp, sharp, tasty.  Now it’s blocking the driveway and making my work shoes miserably soggy, and as far as eating the stuff – well, I know how much pollution it had to fall through to get on the ground.  They don’t have a Brita snow purifier yet.

Could be just the opposite for a character of mine who grew up in freezing cold Minnesota winters and moved to the desert so they would never have to see a cloud or snowflake again.  Or for the middle-aged bloke who discovered a passion for skiing at age forty-five and owns an SUV to boot.  Snow?  What great stuff!  And so tasty, too!

I think I’ve given you enough to get you thinking about how the senses can do so much more than just show you’re aware that things get seen, sounds get heard, food gets tasted, flowers smelled, and various and sundry touched  You’re now ready to move on from simple embroidery to full-blown tapestry weaving.  And you’ll create a work that engages all five senses for the reader, and lingers on in the mind long after the final page is turned.

Today in the Dojo:  How to get across the flavor of an accent without letting it overwhelm the story.

”The best dialect writers, by and large, are economical of their talents: They use the minimum, not the maximum, of deviation from the norm, thus sparing the reader as well as convincing him.”
      -E.B. White

Variety is the spice of life, and it’s rarely more spicy than when we’re talking.  The United States alone has hundreds of regional accents, not to mention the plethora of foreign accents, affected accents, group accents, fake accents, and accents for the sake of accents.  We writers have to take that into account when scribbling our immortal dialogue. The conundrum becomes, how does the author spice up the prose with accents without rendering it inedible?

I’m sure we’ve all had the experience of reading a book that has a brand-new arrival from overseas who miraculously speaks perfect American English, and gotten thoroughly annoyed by it.  Granted, a book isn’t like a movie, where Central Casting can choose a person able to ape the right accent (or, even better, find someone of the right origin who also happens to be a nifty actor) and then letting Nature take its course.  But still, you don’t like seeing Hajij, who has been portrayed as fresh from Pakistan, chatting with the main character like a California native.  And for that matter, California Natives probably shouldn’t talk like Native New Yorkers, either. 

We’re not going to address the political correctness aspect here.  It’s hard enough to faithfully render an accent without having to confront angry mobs of sensitive people as well.  I’m going to invoke the First Amendment and say that you’re free to render speech however you like.  Just have a bat near the door in case someone large and unpleasant with a heavy accent comes to discuss your choices with you.

You may be thinking, if I’m placing my prose and personal safety at risk, why even bother with accents?  Why not just render dialogue on good, plain English and let the reader fill in the blanks?

Flavor, that’s why.  If you want good, bland dialogue to keep the reader from getting distracted from the other textures and subtle seasonings in your story, fine.  But a well-rendered accent (or few dozen) is like a good condiment: it takes a tasty dish and makes it pop. 

So, let’s have a wander down the spice aisle and see what’s in stock.

All Kinds of Accents

There’s a lot of reliance on phonetic spelling among neophytes when they’re trying to get an accent across, but that doesn’t work for several reasons.  It’s barely intelligible, for one thing.  You don’t want your readers spending 90% of their reading time sounding things out, trying to figure out what they hell you’re saying.  And it doesn’t create the accent in the reader’s mind: face it.  This is prose.  You can’t faithfully reproduce audio in a visual medium.  What you need to do is suggest.

So let’s just browse the racks a bit here and see what’s available.  Then we’ll wander over to Dana “Julia Child” Hunter’s kitchen for a nice demo on using the ingredients to cook up flavorful dialogue.

You’ll notice first that there’s a billion choices as to types of accent.  We’ve got national: British, Spanish, Mexican, French, Arabian, Pakistani, Indian, Israeli, Chinese, Japanese… by now, you’ve got the idea.  Moving down the aisle, we see that within countries, we’ve got a plethora of regional accents.  Did you know that not all Canadians pronounce the classical Canadian oo for o?  Yup.  Somebody from British Columbia sounds a lot different than a bloke from Ottawa, and Quebec sounds like a whole other country all together (which they could end up being someday).  You’ve got your young vs. old accents, your goth vs. jock accents, mixed accents, pretended accents, accents caused by speech impediments, brain damage, and…  Let’s just say you’re never going to suffer from a lack of choice.

So what exactly is an accent anyway?  Part of it’s pronunciation – you say tuh-may-toe, I say toe-mah-toe, or tuh-may-tuh, for that matter.  My father, who is good ol’ farmboy stock from Indiana, puts an R in things that don’t deserve such treatment, like “worsh” for “wash” and “squorsh” for “squash”.  Let’s not even talk about talking about our nation’s capitol with him…  A broom is a broom is a broom, but if you’re from Boston, it’s a “brum.”  Ask Dave, who treated a coworker and myself to this immortal exchange:

“Hey, Tasha, could I borrow a brum?”

“A ‘brum,’ Dave?  What the hell’s a ‘brum’?”

“A brum, you know, you sweep the flah.”

“A flah, Dave?”

At which point, Dave turned a nice shade of heart-attack red and stomped out.  Tasha waited a few seconds for him to get out of earshot, burst out laughing, and said, “I’d better take him the broom so he can sweep his floor.”

But an accent’s not all in the pronunciation, and it would be follow for we as writers to rely on that alone.  Accent is also word choice and the way we organize words.  If I tell you I threw my Wellingtons into the boot, you can pretty much guarantee I’m from England.  If I tell you I threw my rubbers into the trunk, I’m either oversexed or I’m from one of those regions in the U.S. where you can still say “rubbers” instead of “boots” without getting very odd looks.

Brits might say “Don’t let’s fight,” whereas an American will say, “Let’s not fight.”  Somebody from Liverpool’s likely to say, “Not bleedin’ likely, guv,” while a Londoner’s more inclined toward, “That’s highly unlikely,” and an American’s take on the whole thing is “It’ll never happen.”  See how that works? 

Accent is also a matter of unique phrases, proverbs, and misunderstandings.  “Like killing snakes” may mean “Like, I had to take a shovel to this snake and totally smash it, dude.”  But it’s really a Welsh way of saying “really fucking busy.”  In the English-speaking world, we’re all pretty familiar with “kill two birds with one stone,” but a Turkish gentleman I heard in a  documentary renders it “with one stone you can shoot two birds.”  How’s that for local color?

Accent grows from a person’s native speech.  All of the rules of grammar they learned for their own language don’t go out the window when they learn English – they get tangled up with it.  Which is why you end up with dropped words, odd turns of phrase, and some very bizarre sentences.  Languages that aren’t as article-happy as ours end up with speakers who tend to leave out bits of proper English, especially when upset: “You crazy!”  And different words don’t translate perfectly, so you get my Mexican friend George’s favorite phrase: “Can you mind?”  By which, I’m almost certain, he means, “Can you believe it?” or alternately, “Can you understand?”

You’ve also got generation gaps.  People in ancient times didn’t talk just like modern Americans.  Hell, Americans didn’t talk like modern Americans ten years ago.  Accent is as much a matter of upbringing and attitude as anything else.  Some of us are still alive who remember when “Radical!” was the hippest thing to say.  Some of us are still alive who remember when calling somebody a “cat” was the pinnacle of cool.  So don’t forget that along with all your other purchases: you’ll need to pick as much for age as for location.

All of these things, and probably about a trillion other subtleties I’m missing, add up to one thing: a smorgasbord of spicy language.

That’s Cute, Dana.  But There’s No Such Thing as an Accent Aisle

You’re right, there’s not.  But it’s not impossible to find what you’re looking for.

If you’re going to pay the cable bill, get more out of it than brain death.  TV’s chock full of regional and national accents.  Keep your ears open while you’re watching the latest offerings on the boob tube – any program you watch, especially the documentary types, have real people with real accents jabbering away.  It’s how I learned that a Welsh accent sounds remarkably Irish (to my American ears), and got that Turkish gem of a butchered proverb I cited above.  Movies can help you there, too, especially those (like Monty Python) that are performed by native speakers rather than Americans aping foreign accents.

Since you’re online anyway, go surfing.  Need sayings and turns of phrase?  They’re there.  When I was writing my Welsh lady, I just typed “Welsh Proverbs” into a search engine and got a plethora of useful things to use. Things that she in fact uses to tweak the noses of the Americans she teaches.  You’ll find all kinds of websites run by native speakers translating their mother tongue gems into English (not always with proper grammar, which is even more useful for our purposes), and if you put out an SOS in a forum or on a social networking site, you’ll get plenty of folks willing to help you render their idiom faithfully.

Read books written by natives to the time and place you’re wanting to mimic.  I can get by in a range of British accents just from having read so many books by British authors.  I’ve picked up a variety of unique bits from authors such as Salman Rushdie, Amy Tan (who is native to the U.S., but renders her mother’s Chinese accent faithfully), various anonymous folk who scribbled assorted rants on scrap bits of stone and clay in ancient days…  All of it adds up to a flavor I couldn’t have gotten any other way, with the added benefit of already being translated into prose.

Listen to your friends, coworkers, kids’ friends, neighbors, folks at the next table… no, really listen to them.  America’s such a mutt society that you can find anything you’re looking for just by walking out your door.  We’ve got a little bit of everything around us.  In my lifetime, I’ve learned about a billion ways to say “sure” just by listening to the people around me.  Two that stand out: “Ja, you betcha” in Minnesota and “Ayot” in Maine, and I never even had to leave Arizona.  If you’re lucky enough to have a native speaker as a boon companion – or even just a casual acquaintance – just ask.  They’ll
probably be delighted to share their local color with you and correct your errors.

The intertoobz are full of audio snippets; there are even sites dedicated to preserving accents for posterity.  A little Google-fu will usually turn up what you need.  You may even be able to track down educational bits that teach actors how to ape accents.

Now that we’ve got bags full of the stuff, toddle along to Dana’s kitchen for a crash-course in whipping up some dialogue that kicks it up a notch.

Cooking it Up

Remember how I told you to stay away from phonetic spellings?  I meant it.  There’s more clever ways of getting an accent down on paper than misspelling all the words.  But there is a place for phonetics, so we shall come back to it at the end.

Speech patterns and word choice are the best means for getting the accent on paper.  Our society hears accents all day every day – usually you only need a few cues for the reader to imagine the accent you’re aiming for.  Let’s go back to an earlier example of mine: “Like, I had to take a shovel to this snake and totally smash it, dude.”  There’s nothing phonetically spelled.  No dropped letters.  But you still heard a California surfer there, didn’t you?

Now, try this on:

“You don’t think that young Bingo would have the immortal rind to try to get me into some other foul enterprise?”

“I should say that it was more than probable, sir.”

You’ve probably already figured out that we’re listening to a couple of Englishmen, one who’s young and not inclined to treat the Queen’s English with respect and reverence, and the other a servant who speaks with exquisite diction.  I don’t even have to tell you that this is an exchange between Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves in Carry On, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse, but I will anyway.

This is just a taste of what can be done with word choice and syntax alone.  Misplaced or improperly used contractions can also get the accent across.  Think Granny Weatherwax from Terry Pratchett’s Carpe Jugulum:  “There’s no grays, only whites that’s got grubby.”  Abused words, fractured sentences, and slang suggest all without needing to resort to spelling things all wonky.

Pay attention to substitute words.  The same words mean different things in different cultures, and you can suggest exactly where your character is from by those words.  Your New Englander (if I remember my regions right) probably won’t say soda – he wants a pop.  You won’t hear a Frenchman talking in yards and inches – it’ll be meters and centimeters.  If a Brit’s talking about the pavement, it doesn’t mean the road but the sidewalk.  Mews has nothing to do with what your kitten does when it’s hungry, but everything to do with where you park your car in London. 

Now we begin heading perilously close to misspelling territory, but it’s useful sometimes.  We’ll start with the simple one: dropped or substituted letters.  Observe:

“Although you’re inclined to forget your papervork, you get exasperated easily, you regret your own lack of education and distrust erudition in others, you are immensely proud of your city and you vonder if you may be a class traitor.”

This is Lady Margolotta, a vampire from Uberwald, speaking in Pratchett’s The Fifth Elephant.  You may notice she pronounces Ws as Vs, but you may not.  That’s because it doesn’t overwhelm.  The substituted letter is there to remind us that this lady has an accent we should recognize from really bad horror films.

If you drop a letter (such as g in ing), or substitute a letter, make sure you do it consistently for that character.  Lady Margolotta would not be the same if, in the next scene, she says, “I wonder where my shoes are?”

Some words have been misspelled so much and so often that they can be safely misspelled – they’re practically words all to themselves.  I’m thinking of things like “guv’nor” in British works, “gonna” in American.  They’re so common that the reader’s eyes barely pause as they’re scanning the dialogue, and that’s just what you want.

And now, we come to the point where I admit that yes, it’s sometimes okay to use phonetic spelling.  You may, like James Herriot in his Dog Stories, wish to preserve a unique accent in all its glory: “Well, ah know ‘im and he’s a gawp.  He’s a great gawp.  Knows everything and knows nowt.”  Or you may wish to show how incomprehensible some of the characters are to others, as in Terry Pratchett’s Carpe Jugulum, where one of the Nac Mac Feegle is expressing his opinion on the situation:  “Ach!  Bae, yon snae rikt speel, y’ol behennit!  Feggers!  Yon ken sweal boggin bludsuckers owl dhu tae-”  The reason these authors get away with it is because they keep most of their prose clean and legible, and often have another character translate when things are really comprehensible.

It’s also useful when characters are spoofing accents, such as in an exchange between characters Nicole once sent me:  “Oh, thankee, massa’, for your gen’rous he’p, massa’.  I could’na survived without you, suh.”  You can tell that one character is not overly impressed with the generosity of the other, indeed is offended, and is using a particular accent to get their displeasure across.

In the end, the real test is if readers can understand your rendering of the accents.  If it turns the dialogue incomprehensible or slows the reader to a crawl trying to decipher it, you could have way too much accent on the accent.  Remember that accents are merely a spice, not the main ingredient of the story.  Use them wisely, use them sparingly, and stay true to the spirit rather than the letter (unless, like Pratchett, your intent is to make the reader share other characters’ inability to understand a word these buggers are saying).  Let go of the need to make the reader hear exactly what you hear, and you’ll be able to serve up accented dialogue that will have them demanding seconds.

Today in the Dojo: Wherein I ask a bunch of writerly friends about answering thorny questions raised by non-writerly folk.

Either a writer doesn’t want to talk about his work, or he talks about it more than you want.

– Anatole Broyard

People who find out I’m writing a novel tend to ask, either immediately or at inconvenient moments a long time later, “What’s your book about?”  I choke, stammer, and look desperately for a distraction, like “ZOMG look it’s a UFO!!!”  I hate that question.  There’s no simple answer to it that doesn’t sound bloody stupid.

That’s not the only question that throws me.  But it’s among the hardest to deal with.

Once, after hearing that Dreaded Inquiry for the billionth time, I began thinking: How do we answer such questions?  So I sent out a list to my compatriots from the sadly deceased Death thread, and got fascinating results, including a few snappy comebacks I intend to usurp one of these days.

And so, I give you Conversations With Non-Writers About Writing:

1.  How do most non-writers react when they find out you want to be a writer? Is their response different than other writers’?

Nikki:  Usually when I tell people I am or am going to be a writer, I get the “that’s nice” smile and a nod. Sometimes they ask me what I’m going to write, but usually because they expect me to say nonfiction. Sorry, folks. I’m going to make up stories for a living, sleeping ’til noon, staring out the window for inspiration, taking coffee breaks whenever I want….yep…I’m going to be a loafer for a living. Don’t get the wrong impression–my family and friends are incredibly supportive, but I know that even my academic advisor hopes I have something to fall back on, just in case. Some people assume I’m going to teach writing. (Nicole bursts into manic laughter.) Yeah. Right.

Garrett:  The most often question I get asked is a three-parter: Are you published? When will you be published? Do you even WANT to be published? The third is added in a fit of pique when my answers to the first two are, “No, not yet,” and “I’m not sure; I’m still putting stuff together.” Sometimes non-writers will look at me with a vague sense of awe, which bewilders me to no end. I wouldn’t wish writing on my worst enemy, most days, except of course now I can’t live without it.

The one or two writers I do talk with are encouraging and sympathetic. We give each other spot checks to make sure this is still what we want to do/are compelled to do. Sometimes it feels like an unspoken or unofficial support group; we’re here for each other, keeping each other strong. Mind you, that’s because I’m actually FRIENDS with the writers I know ….

Simon:  Most non-writers, when I tell them I’m a writer, generally say something like: “I’ve always wanted to write a book. How do you find the time?” I tell them you have to make time. A book is not something that is going to write itself. Either you sit down and do it, or you don’t. The choice is yours.

William:  I feel much more comfortable talking to other writers. Too often non-writers consider me crazy or a lazy bum who doesn’t want to get a real job. Both of which are true, but I prefer to share my affliction with fellow sufferers.

Jim:  The single most common reaction is one of disbelief. Some hide it better than others, but my problem is I don’t look like a writer is supposed to. Not that I’m entirely sure what the standard is, but I don’t fit it either way. Frequently, people find out I’m a writer because they find out my focus in school was creative writing. Now, instead of saying “oh you’re a writer” they say “oh, so are you planning on teaching?” No, I tell them, I’m planning on writing. To be sure, I have settled on teaching in order to pay bills, but the moment anyone thinks that’s the reason I sat through courses on rhetoric and endless workshops, they are very wrong. Most often when I meet other writers, the reaction is a mixed one, guarded and sympathetic. Not so much a verbal response as that look in the eyes of someone who knows your pain, but also is not going to let you gain the advantage.

Glynis:  I get two reactions from non-writers: 1. They smile politely and shrug. 2. They’re genuinely interested because they have read a book or two. Writers tend to go straight for the meatier questions: What genre? Shorts or novels? But it always boils down to: Have you published yet? When I say no, a subtle smirk crosses their face that says, “Oh, okay, so you want to write but you suck.”

Dana:  Since I simply state “I am a writer,” non-writers get that starry-eyed expression people get upon meeting some sort of celebrity.  Those thinking about writing something swallow hard and get that “How do I get her to help me?” expression that has me thinking awshit where’s the exit???  Writers themselves either express delight or an “Oh God, not ANOTHER one!” thought process.

2.  What kinds of questions do non-writers ask you about your writing?  How do you answer?

Nikki:  Sometimes I get the typical “Where do you get your ideas?” questions, but once I got asked about my personal writing process. A friend and former English lit. major wanted to know how I go about writing a piece of fiction. Another time someone asked me why I decided to go into writing. In no uncertain terms, I told him I didn’t decide. I said I’ve always been a writer. Someone even once asked me about my writing environment, which I thought was a thoughtful inquiry. I told her I write whenever, however, wherever I can, and someday, I’ll have a beautiful roll top desk to clutter. That seemed a satisfying answer to her.

Garrett:  “What kind of stories do you write?” That’s what it alll boils down to. At least I don’t get the dreaded “Where do you get your ideas from?” question.  How do I answer?  “I write about a lady who is part of an organization that can best be described as ‘Men in Black’ meets ‘Harry Potter.'” I then pray to God Almighty they know those references because if they don’t that means more explaining.

Simon:  The two most popular questions I get asked are “Where do you find the time?” and “How do you get published?”  See above for answer to first question. As to the question, “How do you get published?” . . . I tell them the best thing one can do is find an agent to represent the work. Publishing houses, for the most part, do no accept unsolicited manuscripts. Warning: Landing an agent can be just as hard as landing a publishing contract.

William:  Stupid ones, usually. Most think fiction writing is a trade, like bricklaying. While we know it’s art — don’t we?  How do I answer?  With sarcasm and derision. The best defense is a good offense.

Jim:  Well, first there are the common civillian questions. People ask “have you been published” yet. Then of course they want to know where or by whom. Sometimes people ask pretty straightforward questions that aren’t, for me at least, so easily answered. “What kind of writing do you do?” comes up a lot, as people have a need for easy categorizations. “What are you working on now?” is usually followed by “What’s it about?” And perhaps my least favorite yet most telling question is “Why do you write?” Yes, I’ve gotten that from the civillians.  How do I answer?  The “have you been published?” question is easy, as I have been published, but nowhere the average person is going to be familliar with. These are genre publications that folded years ago. As far as what kind of writing I do, you can pretty much divide it between fiction and creative non-fiction, as I like to mix it up between the wildly speculative and painfully honest, and sometimes I freely mix and match. Other writers might understand this concept, but I’ve seen the confusion happening on the faces of the non-writers. Of course, they want to know the genre of the fiction. Is it horror, romance, western, techno-thiller? It sounds elitist, but I hate having to break down into such a specific label. I’m a bit of a genre whore, after all, why should I have to stick with one? So I usually answer something along the lines of “literary magical realist urban fantasy with Lovecraftian-esque cyberpunk horror influenced by the writings of graphic novel and wuxia fantasy films and toned by cynical, and often black humor.” Not surprisingly, that answer is frequently a conversation ender. To the “What’s it about?” question, I’ve actually been trying to find quick and easy answers, as I know it’s a skill I have to master to pitch a story or novel to a publisher. But it’s hard to summarize existential quandries colored by situational madness in twenty words or less. If I think the person is really interested I’ll respond honestly. “This story is about an Elvis impersonator who works in a donut shop and whose life takes a
dramatic turn when, upon failing to commit suicide, he ends up with the voice of a dead pop-star in his head urging him out of his self-constructed misery.” For everyone else, I tend to answer “stuff.” As for why I write, the answer is zen, and if you don’t get it, you likely won’t. “I write because I have to, because I can’t NOT write.”

Glynis:  “When do you do it?”  “Where do you get your ideas?”  “How many books have you published?”  “When are you going to publish your manuscript?”  How do I answer these questions? Pretty much this way: “When do you do it?” Whenever I can. “Where do you get your ideas?” From my brain. “How many books have you published?” None. This is where I slip into defensive mode and snootily state that I have finished writing a novel. “When are you going to publish your manuscript?” When someone buys it. “How does that happen?” I send out letters and samples. If I send out enough odd are someone may believe in the story and give me money. “So you haven’t found anyone who believes in it?” No. This leads to an embarrassing silence. My conversation partner gives me an all too familiar subtle smirk.

Dana:  Absolute tops: 1. What kind of stuff do you write?  2. Are you writing something now?  3. Is it a novel or a short story?  4. Can I read it???  Not quite as often is “5. Have you been published anywhere?”  6. And the really brilliant ones ask if it’s hard.  How do I answer?  1.  “Um…. it’s complicated.”  If pressed, I can usually shut them up with “It’s speculative fiction,” or if I’m in a really nasty mood, “It’s a sort of urban-fantasy-slash-sci-fi kind of mixed with psychological thriller, mystery, and high fantasy – pretty complicated.”  Their eyes usually glaze over at this point and I’m free to go.  2.  “Yes.”  3.  “Depends on my mood.  And I do a bog, too.  It actually has a few readers.”  4.  “Yes, please.  Report back what you hated about it, as well.  But only if you read speculative fiction.”  If the follow-up question is “What’s that?” I shop elsewhere for wise readers.  5.  “Not yet.  Publication requires submissions.  I’ve been too busy trying to write something that doesn’t suck so badly it won’t get published.  Maybe in a year or two.”  6.  [Hysterical laughter]  “Oh, you betcha.  Hard doesn’t even begin to cover it.”

3.  Do you have a hard time talking about your writing, even though you want to share it with the world?

Nikki:  Yes, I do. My veins are thick with ink. But it’s so personal to me that for all the stories, sketches, and ideas I have, it’s hard to express my writing, especially to those who don’t share that passion. My way of sharing it with the world is by writing.

Garrett:  Oh dear GOD, yes. I’d much rather be in the position of “let me show you instead of telling you.” I think that’s why I’ve let so many folks read my early work. While it most likely isn’t ready to be published, it gives the people I actually care about an idea about what it is I try to convey. Besides, letting people read my stuff makes me feel less like a poseur.

Simon:  I sometimes feel self-conscious about it because I don’t want to come across as bragging. However, I don’t mind talking about it if people are asking me questions and show a genuine interest.

William:  All I really want to share with the world is my actual writing. I don’t get much satsifaction from discussing how I did it, what I think of it, etc. The writing should speak for itself. The author should be an enigma — for his own good. (I belong to the J. D. Salinger school of mysterious writers.)


Jim:  I do. Not because it’s too personal to share, or because I’m afraid I’ll be laughed at by getting into it. Talking about writing is frustrating for a few reasons. With non-writers, it either seems like I’m talking a different language, these are people who really don’t understand how this works and see it much like something you just do quickly and yay, it’s done. Often it can seem like too much bravado i.e. “yay look at me, I’m so cool I write.” This might just be a result of too much self-consciousness on my part, yet I find unless people ask, I never bring up my writing. And unless they really show interest, it tends to be a pretty quick conversation. With other writers, it depends. We can be a fickle bunch, and sometimes the realization that two people are writers turns pretty feral, I get the feeling we’re sizing each other up, questions turn guarded as though revealing too much will expose weakness, and often we end up quickly wanting to talk about something else. At the end of the day, I want my writing to speak for itself.

Glynis:  It’s a lot like talking about kids. I can talk about it for hours if someone is willing to listen. It’s difficult to be enthusiastic when you notice eyes glazing over when you bring the subject up.

Dana:  Yes, I do have a hard time discussing it.  I didn’t used to.  But now that the concepts and ideas are pretty much sorted, I’m not as prone to burble for hours.  Now, people ask me detailed questions, and I’m prone to evasive answers that only take a few seconds’ time.  I do want to talk about it.  But I’d much rather just write it.

5.  Extraneous comments on the whole bloody subject?

Nikki:  Not at the moment, but if I think of something clever, I’ll get back to you.

Garrett:  Since I finally know who my main protagonist is, at least in this phase of my writing, my writing has gotten a whole lot more focused. I don’t know if it’ll ever be easier, but my protagonist has helped me see that writing is one of the things I’m meant to be doing with my life. For that, I owe her pretty much everything, and the best way I can think to pay her back is to craft the very best stories I can tell.

Simon:  . . . blah! Where’s my million-dollar contract?!

William:  You’re going to hate this, but I think telling someone how to write is like telling a young couple how to have sex. Both are learned by trial and error, much groping in the dark, embarrassing failures from time to time, and persistence. Writing like love-making is a passionate affair that doesn’t lend itself well to logic or self-consciousness, which can ruin the atmosphere.

Jim:  The single most annoying thing related to the questions and conversations about writing are when those people who don’t write with passion, obsession, or need but somehow think it would be a fun way to kill a weekend start talking about this novel they want to write. We all know the type. They’ll find out you’re a writer and go “oh yeah, I’ve been thinking about writing this novel ’cause I have this great idea about aliens and pizza delivery. I just never have time to write it but I think when Christmas comes I’ll do it. What do you think?”  Trust me, I want to tell them, you don’t want to know what I think.

Glynis:  Writing is interesting to writers. If it was interesting to anyone else, the local bookstore would be stocked with stories about writers writing stories.

Dana:  If your plot can’t be summarized in two sentences or less, I’ve discovered it’s easy to get people to stop asking about it by saying, “There’s this guy, and he does some stuff, and the world kinda implodes or something – it’s a good book, everybody dies.”  And I wish people would stop asking me about my writing when I’m sitting at the lunch table trying to work…. there should be a law that states that interrupting a writer during writing is one of the justifiables in “justifiable homicide.”

I hope you guys had as much fun with all of this as I did.  It mea

ns a lot to me that you all took the time away from your writing and your lives to send the answers to those questions.  It just reinforces my opinion that we are some of the coolest writers writing today – so where’s our multi-million dollar publishing contracts?  Eh?

Today in the Dojo: Why a completely unique fictional voice may not be possible nor desirable, but slavish imitation can be avoided.

There is no satisfactory explanation of style, no infallible guide to good writing, no assurance that a person who thinks clearly will be able to write clearly, no key that unlocks the door, no inflexible rules by which the young writer may steer his course. He will often find himself steering by stars that are disturbingly in motion.

– E. B. White

A long time ago, my writer friend Glynis asked me a question to which I gave a totally wrong answer:

“Do you find your writing style affected when reading fiction at the same time as writing fiction?”

To which I blithely answered, “When I first started writing, yes, but not now.”  Or something to that effect.  Which was me talking out of the nether regions again, self-deceived because I hadn’t been writing much fiction, and the fiction I had written had been composed under the influence of non-fiction for the most part.

Hubris is an ugly thing, my darlings. 

There was a horrifying moment afterward when I realized that I’d read so much Terry Pratchett that I was now writing like him.  Which isn’t so awful – he’s a brilliant writer – but not quite appropriate for something that was supposed to be life-or-death serious.  Snarky, dry British humor does not quite lend to the epic mood.  It would be like Jon Stewart writing Beowulf.  John Candy doing the Iliad.  Juvenal writing the Aeneid, even.  Of course, if you don’t know that Juvenal is the Roman who wrote the Satires, that joke just flew over your head.  If you haven’t read Juvenal, by all means give him a try.  As far as non-stuffy classics go, his are the non-stuffiest.  It’s kind of like studying the Onion’s Our Dumb Century in a political theory class.  You know it’s a joke that the rest of the world’s taking too seriously.

So anyway, there I was, realizing that I was writing something that sounded awfully damned close to Pratchett and going, “Doh.”  But I didn’t lie to Glynis.  I wasn’t actually reading Terry Pratchett while I was writing the book.  I’d read him a couple of weeks before.  But when you give yourself that concentrated a dose of one person’s fiction (four books), and when the only other fiction you’d read also sounded like Terry Pratchett a bit, and outside of that you hadn’t read any fiction for some time, and then you go to write some of your own…. let’s just say that the other author’s style tends to creep in whether you will it or no, especially when you’re writing over two thousand words at a time.

So yes, Victoria, there is a style problem.  I mean, Santa Claus.  I mean – hell, I don’t know what I mean anymore. 

That experience with pseudo-Pratchett style kind of made me consider a few things, which I shall now share with you.  This is one of those times when it’s an advantage to be a struggling joe just like everybody else, because the authority factor goes up while the bullshit factor goes down.

If anybody’s bullshit detector just went off, recall the sign at the door that said PLEASE TURN OFF ALL CELL PHONES, BEEPERS AND OTHER ELECTRONIC DEVICES.  Bullshit detectors come under the heading of “Other Electronic Devices,” FYI.

And now I shall claim to speak with authority without being revealed as a total charlatan… 

Right, then.  So, style.  What is this “style” and why should it be so affected by other “styles”?

I won’t even attempt to answer that in depth.  To me, an author’s style is no more and no less than the way they write that makes them recognizable as them.  I mean, give a reader a page of Anne Rice and a page of Danielle Steele and they’ll know instantly which one’s which, even if they don’t know the authors that well.  Danielle is the fluffy one, Anne is the wanky gothic one.  Throw a page from John Grisham in, and they’ll instantly say, “Ah-ha!  That rich bastard who wrote all those damned lawyer thingies.”

Simple enough on the surface.  We’re all unique human beings.  We should have no problem with sounding like it.

However.  Humans are born chameleons.  You know what I mean.  No snarky jokes about four legs and forked tongues.  I mean that we’re good at imitation.  Imitation leather, fur, crab… we created it, baby.  We’ve done it since birth.  Babies imitate adults, kids imitate each other while imitating (or perhaps gently mocking?) adults, and adults, it need hardly be said, are the biggest imitators of all, including imitating uniqueness to the point where they form clubs.  Corporations imitate each other and their betters.  Little guys imitate big guys.  And so on.  Innovation and uniqueness are treasured, but they remain so for about 2.2 seconds before everybody else jumps into the mix and the solo performance becomes a conga line.

What I mean by all of the above is, we can’t help but imitate.  That’s what people do and always have.

If you don’t imitate, even if you are truly unique, some bastard of a critic will come along and compare you to somebody else.  I mean, for gods’ sakes, Terry Pratchett has been compared to Tolkien.  The only thing they have in common is that they’re Brits and the write things with dragons and elves in them.  That’s it.  But Pratchett is apparently just like Tolkien.

In fantasy literature, this is becoming something of a joke.  You’re not writing fantasy unless a critic reading your advance copy has commented, “Strongly reminiscent of Tolkien.”

In fact, one of my favorite bands, Leaves’ Eyes, is Strongly Reminiscent of Tolkien.  It’s based on Norse Mythology and has some strings that sound a bit like the Lord of the Rings soundtrack in places.  Never mind the fact that no one like Liv Kristine sang in the film, or that Tolkien never heard of heavy metal, or that there’s no Ring in sight: if this were a book, some critic would have said…

You know what’s coming.  I don’t have to say it.

So that’s my first point.  Sounding like somebody or other is unavoidable.  So an author in chrysalis is doomed if s/he is trying to be unique.  By virtue of being a human being writing a book, you are not unique.

But there are degrees and then there are degrees.  “Reminiscent” is not the same as “Exactly like”.  And authors, really great authors, do put their individual stamp on their writing style.  The thing is, I don’t believe that’s conscious.  Style seems to me, from what I’ve experienced and what I’ve heard about others’ experience, to be something cobbled together from bits of influence and a little touch of what makes you yourself.  A chameleon may end up resembling a plaid throw rug, but you won’t shake him out and put him in front of the door, so to speak.  Not unless you want PETA to come and speak very sharply to you.

Neil Gaiman unapologetically wrote something that sounded an awful lot like “Neil Gaiman’s Take on Being Terry Pratchett” – read Ananzi Boys and tell me I’m wrong.  But at core, you could easily tell the difference.  Take heart from that while you’re struggling with style.  Even the megasuperstars don’t always sound precisely like themselves.

That is Dana Hunter’s “No Worries!” school of style development.  Quit worrying about who you sound like and just let the story sound like what it needs to sound like.  As long as you’re not setting out to write Just Like So-and-So, you’re probably okay.  I mean, Neil Gaiman didn’t set his novel Ananzi Boys in a cheap imitation of Discworld – call it Plateworld, ha ha – he set it here on Earth, with its own unique characters.  And that made it Gaiman, despite some situations and phrases that sounded a lot like Terry Pratchett.

If, on the other hand, you sound just like the author you’re currently reading because the plot, characters, world and all else are renamed and thinly disguised versions of the book you just read, then you’ve got worries.  That’s when you need to ask yourself why you’re regurgitating someone else’s story rather than telling your own.

Of course, you must also keep in mind that many people *coughTerryBrookshack* have begun  long and lucrative careers by closely imitating other, more creative, authors, so maybe you shouldn’t worry so much after all.

However, I see you are still worrying and so am I.  So let’s see what’s to be done about it, as none of us want to sound just like other people.

The first path to finding your style is, of course, writing endlessly.  Every writer I’ve ever read about has gone through a long phase of sounding just like their favorite authors, but after writing something on the order of a billion words, they found themselves sounding like… themselves.  Even *ackTerryBrookschokeptah.*  Write enough, and you’ll stop sounding like other writers out of sheer boredom, possibly, or because you’re so busy writing you forget to be self-conscious about it.

The second path is to mix up your reading.  Don’t spend a week reading nothing but books by one sort of author and then attempt to write your own magnum opus (or magnificent octopus, as the case may be).  You’ll end up like me, sitting there reading over the last paragraph and going, “What the sod is Terry Pratchett doing in here?  ACK!”  A variety of fiction and fictional styles will prevent some of that.  I’ve found that sometimes it’s best not to read novels while I’m writing novels), nor short stories while writing short stories.  Instead, if I’m really trying to keep my style purish, I’ll read the opposite of what I’m writing at the time, and I’ll go from non-fiction to humorous fantasy to hard science fiction to mystery and all over the place.  That seems to keep my brain confused enough that when I write, I write like Dana Hunter.  Whoever that is.

A corollary to that is to read something opposite in tone to what you’re writing.  I’ve discovered that if I’m writing something serious, best to read humor.  Humorous, the most depressing stuff I can get my hands on.  And so on down the list of emotions.  It’s really hard to draw on Robert Jordan for style when you’re writing something funny, even unconsciously, let’s put it that way.

The hell of the above is, sometimes you have to read stuff that mirrors what you’re doing to keep you inspired.  That’s when the trick of variety comes in.  If I need science fiction to inspire sci fi thoughts, I’ll bounce around among Connie Willis, Harlan Ellison, Ken MacLeod, C.S. Friedman, and the like.  All of them are different enough that, again, I get the overall spirit without getting unduly influenced by particulars.

If you find that you’re one of those people who is b

asically Water and will take the shape of whatever you’re reading at the time no matter how hard you try not to, you have a few choices.  When I’m in a particularly impressionable phase, I’ll put down the fiction and pick up non-fiction for my reading edification instead.  Such as just after the Hubris Fiasco: to cleanse my palette from an overdose of Pratchett, I went through the entirety of Joseph Campbell’s Masks of God.  And watched a hell of a lot of television.  Eventually, all of that (somewhat) rid me of the tendency to let Jiahrkah sound just like Sam Vimes or Vetinari or any of Pratchett’s more snarky passages of prose.  (Unfortunately, it turns out that the problem lies not just with me but with the fact that Jiahrkah likes sounding that way and resists all efforts of mine to make him stop.)

That aside, I know of famous authors who declare that they refuse to read anything but non-fiction while writing fiction, because otherwise they, too, end up imitating their heroes.  So there you go.

If all else fails, give up worrying about it during the first draft.  I’ve discovered after much pain and gnashing of teeth that once the first draft’s been sitting quiescent on the old hard drive for a while, I’ve figured out how to get rid of the Other-author-isms and turn it into mostly-pure Dana on the second or third.

The final path that I’ve identified is to slow way the hell down.  When I’m writing slowly and really thinking in-depth about what I’m writing and how I want to say a particular thing, it comes out totally me.  But that means that a short story can take months and a novel, more years than it should.  However, if you wish to follow that path, it’s a valid one.

In all this, it’s important to remember that everyone’s style is cobbled together from bits and pieces of your own personality, things you admire in other writers, half-remembered influences from yesteryear, and funky turns of phrase that your friends and family or that stranger on the bus uttered.  True uniqueness is not really possible, nor desirable.  If you’re truly unique, then not many people are going to understand you, and that’s not the best way to tell a story.  If your writing is denser than James Joyce’s and your readers need an advanced degree, schizophrenia, drugs, Cliff Notes, or all of the above to understand it, what good is it really doing other than giving a few some snobbish delight and the rest a headache?

Remember, my darlings: whatever else a chameleon ends up looking like, in the end it looks just like itself.  Your style will do the same thing.  Don’t worry overmuch if it starts to blend a little with its surroundings.