posted
...on the Fragments and Feedback Forum really got me to thinking.
Too many writers are trying to open their stories in a style resembling the voice over narration for movie trailers.
I wonder if modern writing style is too contaminated by moviemaking techniques? It seems to me that the classics would never have been sold into a modern market in their original forms. Moby Dick for instance would have started off with something like, "Blood foamed on icy seawater while helpless screams faded; we watched the huge whale rip the guts from yet another struggling sailer."
So how can writers move the accepted stylisms back toward the more leisurely approach which heralds deep storytelling?
posted
I do! That is why I get such awful critiques. The action does not start until the scene is set. If the scene is not set, the action makes no sense! Yes I follow the old fashioned way, set the characters, set the scene, set the action, then the climax, then the end, with the climax as close to the end as possible (not at the beginning, sorry, recovering from the climax is a great theme these days, but recovery novels aren't my choice to read).
It would be fun to see how some of those openings would be re-written by today's standards, we would see how much literary genius we would have lost.
Someday, in about five generations, people will look back, and have no clue what we considered normal in our surroundings, because we don't write about it in our writings, we take for granted that "everyone" knows just what everything is, its size, and space relation to everything else.
Once, 20 odd years ago, I had to do a project in a speech class, it had to be written, and vocalized: Teach an alien from Mars how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It wasn't long before we realized just how unlikely an alien from Mars would know even what bread was if they had been on the planet only an hour!
Just imagine what our grandchildren's children will think of our literary geniuses of today. Will they even have a clue of our culture, our lifestyle, what we live with day to day? Will they even know what we consider an average house? Do you write for today? Or forever?
[This message has been edited by abby (edited October 22, 2005).]
posted
I love the beginning of Moby Dick. It introduces a strong narrative voice, gives a strong sense of milleu, and tells us about the narrator's despair. If you think all its doing is establishing setting, then you read very differently than I do.
You don't have to be up to your elbows in whale guts in a beginning. But you do have to do something to interest your readers.
posted
Beth, the point that is being made is simple, the classics do not have a lot of action or characterazation in the first 13 lines, or even the first two pages. It takes time to build. If someone took the first 13 lines from a classic, and dropped it as a new piece of writing in the Fragments and Feedback section, it would be ripped to shreds for no action and no characterization. Of course, when they found out it was a classic, as someone would eventually be bound to recognize it, the critiquers would feel foolish.
Posts: 92 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Somebody tried that, though they changed parts of the text to try and make it look like original work.
All the changes were for the worse, by the way. In fact, even though I didn't bother to critique it, most of the critiquers identified the places where the original had been altered as problems, even before someone identified it for the forum.
The classics always have a lot of characterization, which is preferable to action anyway. True, the character being illuminated is usually the narrator character. You don't see this so much anymore, narrator characters being somewhat out of style compared to 3PLO POV. But the fact remains, if you think that those oldies don't have a lot of characterization right off the bat, you don't understand them well enough to say whether or not your own work is similar.
In the first paragraph, our narrator introduces himself, contemplates suicide, and decides to go whaling, while introducing us to a strong and compelling narrative voice. I would give a lot to be able to cram so much characterization and action into my openings.
posted
Exactly! In the first 13 lines there is Only characterization. There is no action. There is no story. Only getting to know the character so that when the story does begin, we know what is going on and why.
Posts: 92 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Beth, I too love the beginning of Moby Dick which is why I chose it as an example. I can't think of any beginning quite as haunting and compelling, nor less likely to sell an unknown writer in today's market.
I think our present literary conventions are grossly contaminated by stylisms which might work in a movie but won't in any sort of enduring book. Try reading a popular novel from the the 60's or 70's and you'll see what I mean. They are severely dated but they sold well in the heavily censored black and white t.v. watching market.
quote:Just imagine what our grandchildren's children will think of our literary geniuses of today.
Probably as little as I think of Miller, Nin, Hemmingway, Fitzgerald and the rest of the post WW-I Paris clique.
[This message has been edited by keldon02 (edited October 22, 2005).]
posted
Hey, Keldon, I actually liked your re-write of Melville's opening!
I just took down my copy of "Moby Dick" and read that first page. You're right Beth. Damn. I'd love to be able to write with that kind of intense and yet accessible ease. And, to think, this book is over a 150 years old!
quote:Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing in particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation.
Hell, Abby, that ain't no 'soft' beginning! That's a killer-whale of an opener!! That's an 'Ahoy!' come on over here, 'cause I got a corker of a tale to tellya, laddie, opening!!!
posted
Thing is, styles have changed. If I sent in a monster story to Amazing:
quote:Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum, þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon. Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
(and if it weren't already in public domain), they'd reject it, and I wouldn't blame them, although it's a classic.
It's OK that we expect something different now.
And, yes, I'd be ashamed when someone pointed out it was Moby Dick, because it feels like it's forbidden to dis a classic. But I don't like the opening. I'm not hooked; I'm distanced, and in fact I never read Moby Dick. Not because the opening was too slow, but because the author was so determined to stick a finger in Christianity's eye that he went through some really contorted reasoning to prove that idol worship is good. All in the first few pages.
I was bored to tears by Great Expectations. I tried to like it; I couldn't.
posted
Paul - I never said it was soft! Its far from soft, its beautiful. Beauty doesn't seem to sale these days, only gut wrenching action. Melville spent more than a page to develop one charachter. he did not try to rush developing two or more characters, and tell the story in the first 13 lines as the critiquers encourage the authors who post in the Fragments and Feedback section.
If the first 13 lines of "Moby Dick" were posted, there would be a unimanious yell that there is no story, no action, and only one character. However, since most people know it is a classic and have already read it, they realize the tale actually starts later, after they know the character.
I would consider a pure action opening as one that is soft, because you don't know the characters.
posted
I don't see that many critiquers here asking for more action per se.
I see more of them asking for point of view clarifications, and I see a lot of them saying whether or not they'd keep reading (which is one of the things they are supposed to say here) and why they would or would not.
I suppose requests for a reason to care could include requests for more action, but I don't think that's the only thing requested.
Abby, write your openings the way you want to write them. If readers won't turn the page because there isn't enough action, then ignore those readers. No one has to pay any attention to anything anyone says around here (except, of course, for what I say; please pay attention to that).
posted
I am just smacking my head at the notion that deciding to take up whaling instead of offing yourself constitutes no story, no action, and only slow character development.
And I, and others, have said several times why we think this is an extraordinarily excellent beginning - but I'm still being told that if it got posted here it would get trashed.
I don't think Abby's reading my posts, or anyone else's.
posted
Well, sometimes people can be so worried about getting their own point across that they may not get a clear understanding of what else is being said.
I don't know if this is the case here, but it is something that can certainly happen in in-person conversations, and has certainly happened online before.
I will tell you, I gave up writing for a year due to the critiques on this site. Everyone said the action didn't start soon enough. Even the one that started with: "No" Screamed Amanda.
I miss my writing. I will write, and I will intorduce the characters, and let the story tell itself instead of trying to force the story before the characters as is common today. My stories may not be published this decade, but society will slow down again, and want to read books sitting down, not on the run.
I will take what I like about books and use that in my writing, lots of characterazation, not five words of less, lots of information that may not seem important today, but will be in 20 years to set the setting for the reader then.
I will also look for a critique group that is more specific to the type of fiction I write, more adventure stories, not action. The demand for a good adventure/mystery story still exists, and always will.
The whole point in reading is to anticipate and see what happens next. There should always be a bit of a mystery in stories to keep the reader reading.I used to think I wrote sci-fi, but I guess I was wrong. Its kinda like asking a person who writes biographies to critique a western, neither would be satisfied.
posted
Abby, I've had some of those same sentiments, especially the frustration. So I'll go back to the question about how can popular stylism be directed back toward setting plus character followed by action instead of action driven openers, considering that books don't have a visual picture attached.
For my 2 cent opinion this group appears to be the best one I have found, but if you do find one more attuned to novels versus short stories, adventure stories versus action stories, building openers instead of sudden openers, please email me!
I think the fault is not neccessarily with the group nor with writers at all so much as with the fact that American readers have been habituated to American movie and tv styles. If you watch foreign movies (a luxury I've had only since netflix.com opened) you will see a sharp contrast between what we consider 'normal' style movie opening and what the French and Italians consider 'normal'. (It was a real shock to me to actually see what I'd read about modern American cowboy movies. Their style was stolen from Japanese Samurai movies of the 40's and 50's.)
quote:I used to think I wrote sci-fi, but I guess I was wrong.
I think you were right that you do write Sci Fi. The problem might be marketing more than style. How can one find the readers who would like their style rather than having to adapt their style to the ones who like mass-market styles?
[This message has been edited by keldon02 (edited October 22, 2005).]
I love this place. The members here give the best feedback I've ever seen, and most of it is tactfully and compassionately done. It's not always what we want to hear, but it's almost always helpful.
That said, I've only posted one thing for crits here and have yet to get any feedback. *grins* No place is perfect.
posted
Wow, a whole thread based off of something I said. That's kinda cool.
I don't think there's anything wrong with narrators at the beginning of novels (one of my novels has a narrator that sets up the story), but I do think there are a lot of authors who make it sound like a movie trailer voice over instead of as a person trying to tell a story. I do think this is influenced by movies, which makes it completely understandable.
And I had something else I was going to say and now I forgot. *shrugs*
posted
I have nothing new to add to this conversation, except to suggest that certain people read my posts more carefully next time.
Posts: 8322 | Registered: Aug 1999
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
