I’ve got a first person POV and a narrative style where the POV character is making direct addresses to the reader. He’s a modern, young person and the tone of the piece is primary light hearted, with a touch of the comically absurd.
As I write, it seems completely fitting and natural for contractions to slip into the narrative part of the text. In other stories when this happens, I go stamp them out in the name of good grammatical form. But with this story, it sounds so stifled when I do it. I think this is because the narrative is almost a spoken thing, and the character would definitely be someone who would use contractions.
We’re all so fond of saying rules can be broken if it’s the right situation. This feels like one of those situations, but I fear that, no matter how the flow sounds to me, it’s going to look completely unprofessional if I leave the contractions in.
posted
If you have a first person story then the idea is to get the reader to feel like they are in the I character's head---I use contractions all over the place for my first person stories.
posted
I don't find contractions to be a problem. (See, I just used one!) To be honest, I even use them *occassionally* in third person stories. This only hapens when the pace of the story picks up and I feel like I stumbled over the do not instead of don't. They are especially suitable in first person, I think.
Posts: 3567 | Registered: May 2003
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posted
Using literary criticism jargon, you would be using a narraitve voice called skaz. According to David Lodge:
quote:In this kind of novel or story, the narrator is a character who refers to himself (or herself) as "I," and addresses the reader as "you." He or she uses vocabulary and syntax characteristic of colloquial speech, and appears to be relating the story spontaneously rather than delivering a carefully constructed and polished written account
Thus, you're not breaking any rules, but, rather, are adopting a very specific narrative style (that has its own rules!).
In American literature, the two greatest examples of this are J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. And I know OSC has written a novelette that employs the same narrative style; I can't remember the name ("Dogwalker," perhaps), but it was in his short-story collection, Maps in a Mirror: Flux.
My suggestion would be to read both Salinger and Twain (at least two or three chapters of each) to get a feel for this kind of narrative style.
By the way, the David Lodge quote is from The Art of Fiction, Penguin Books, 1992, p. 18.
[This message has been edited by Balthasar (edited June 28, 2003).]
posted
Another novel that used the skaz narrative method -- and this one is science fiction -- is Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange. In fact, Burgess writes the entire novel in teenage criminal slang. It takes about chapter or two before you really begin understanding the slang (and you have to read very slow), but it is a masterpiece of this kind of narrative method.
Here's a sample:
quote:Our pockets were full of deng, so there was no real need from the point of view of crasting any more pretty polly to tolchock some old veck in an alley and viddy him swim in his blood while we counted the taking and divided by four, nor to do the ultra-violent on some shivering starry grey-haired ptitsa in a shop and go smecking off with the till's guts. But, as they say, money isn't everything.
[This message has been edited by Balthasar (edited June 29, 2003).]
posted
Thanks for the comments. My books are mostly all still boxed up from my recent move, so I was having trouble getting a hold of something to find examples. Ya’ll have reaffirmed my gut feeling the contractions should stay.
Funny, I have no problem leaving fragments if it feels right. I wonder why I decided contractions were on the hit list. Some hold over from research papers, no doubt.
That Clockwork Orange quote is one of the most painful ways I’ve ever seen someone say they didn’t need to hold up a man on the street or rob an old sale’s clerk because the gang already had enough money. While I know you can get used to a slang/dialect over time, especially when it's in context, asking your reader to examine each sentence four times to decide what in the world you're talking about seems like you might be stretching the boundries of communication a bit thin.
[This message has been edited by GZ (edited June 29, 2003).]
posted
A Clockwork orange is a much beloved classic. The narrative style is half of what makes it great.
Which gets me to your question. I believe contractions work fine in narration, especially when you are in deep penetration. Consider this:
quote:I didn't think the door was locked, so I gave it a good yank. I'm lucky I didn't pull my shoulder out.
Even though the POV character is thinking instread of speaking, the contractions seem fine. This character thinks in contractions.
In fiction writing, the only time contractions might seem awkward is when you are in omniscient POV. Contractions are still okay, but sometimes they feel strange.
quote:That Clockwork Orange quote is one of the most painful ways I’ve ever seen someone say they didn’t need to hold up a man on the street or rob an old sale’s clerk because the gang already had enough money. While I know you can get used to a slang/dialect over time, especially when it's in context, asking your reader to examine each sentence four times to decide what in the world you're talking about seems like you might be stretching the boundries of communication a bit thin.
I agree with Doc Brown -- the dialect in A Clockwork Orange is half of what makes that novel so fun to read. The key to reading this kind of narrative is, I think, to read as if the author were telling you the story. Don't try to figure it out right away. If you do, the effect is lost. And besides, an author who knows what he's doing -- and Burgess is that kind of author -- won't leave you totally in the dark. Hence, the concluding sentence: "But, as they say, money isn't everything."
I'm glad this helps, and best of luck on your story. And yes, the contractions phobia is a left over from one to many research papers (I know, I've written quite a few in my time).
I haven’t read it, and was making my comment only based on that one quote. With my first pass at the quote, it sounded like complete jibberish. There was indeed a certain amount of fun in figuring out what the jibberish was supposed to mean. One the other hand, I still haven’t quite decided what a pretty polly is (I’m guessing a girl or prostitute – oh wait, I just looked it up in an online glossary for the book – money???). Given that lack of understanding, some of what the writer was trying to communicate was lost. Perhaps, with reading the rest of the chapter, etc., that would have been made clear through context. I honestly can’t say.
Saying it was painful might have been a bit harsh. I seem to be on a rampage of bashing beloved classics recently. I’ve probably managed to make myself look like an uneducated ninny in the process, but lets ignore that for a moment.
This work appears to be an extreme example of what can be done the skaz style. A literary experiment that, in the hands of this author, is generally accounted as a success. He has adroitly created a language for the future (with apparently a great deal of Russian influence, according to that online glossary), and had his character use it to tell the tale in convincing way that apparently adds to the story.
Okay, yeah, that sounds pretty impressive. I might even actually have to read it now that my curiosity has been prodded.
What I still question is the value of such an extreme use of narrative style (with regards to slang/dialect) to literary works in general. It’s that communication factor I mentioned. The difference between a prostitute and money is usually significant (to use my confusion from above as an example). The benefits from the use of extreme narrative are offset by some pretty powerful negatives. Negatives that I think most writers, in most situations, would want to avoid.
Here’s what I think you risk loosing: + Reader interest – not everyone is going to take the time to figure it out. (Of course, others will love the novelty of it) + Clarity of vision and ideas -- what is getting lost in the translation? It’s hard enough to ensure clarity without that handicap.
Those might be just two things, but they are two big ones. How much affect will you have on a reader if they don’t understand you, or just can’t get past the language to care?
I’d love to hear some other people’s opinion’s about this.
[This message has been edited by GZ (edited June 30, 2003).]
posted
GZ, there's something very important you need to know about A Clockwork Orange. The entire novel is told through the first person eyes of Alex, who narrates in a futuristic slang. Author Tony Burgess has never published a glossary explaining the slang. All glossaries for Clockwork are the best guesses of various scholars who have read the book. It helps that a lot of the slang came from Russian.
I believe that Tony Burgess did not intend for readers to look up every word in a glossary. He wanted readers to read straight through, "hearing" Alex's narration, and understanding the story using their own interpretation of the slang.
[This message has been edited by Doc Brown (edited June 30, 2003).]
posted
The point being that Burgess correctly understood that a first person narrative must be written as the nominal narrator would write it, no use of words or language that the narrator wouldn't know, but also including all the details and language that the character would use.
If you write in first person, then the narrative must seem like something created by the POV character, unintelligible slang and all.
By the way, I use contractions where ever I darn well please, even in formal or technical writing. When you say "did not" as opposed to "didn't" it communicates specific emphasis on the "not" as well as on the past tense form "did". If no emphasis is needed on either point, then "didn't" is more precise and correct than "did not". The same is true of most common contractions. On the other hand--with very few exceptions--I avoid unexplicated acronyms in my writing.
posted
In the first and second drafts of my story I, too, routed out any contractions, a habit from writing op-eds for the newspaper. Readers commented on the distanced feel of my story -- some saying they liked it, some saying it wasn't in keeping with some of the characters, who wouldn't think that way. One editor who did a critique at a conference said that style of writing wasn't in vogue now, though it would probably come back as everything does.
The thing is, I wasn't going for a distanced style. I combed through my story and re-evaluted all my contractions, judiciously leaving only the ones that served a specific purpose -- like the more sinister conversation of the antagonist, the stilted talk of the robotic, the more erudite speech of the academic. The whole thing reads far better now.
Survivor, I would never go so far as to use contractions in a technical paper, but I do use them in third person narration. Sometimes they are the most appropriate way to write. Consider that the following passage contains four contractions.
quote:Captain Ironrod couldn't see or hear the Thuggarean Death Troopers, but he knew they were back there. Slinking in the shadows, their lances slick with gnoric toxin, they'd be gaining on him soon. He was tired, and his legs couldn't keep up the pace. He though about stopping to make a stand, but pressed on. He wouldn't make that mistake again.
posted
Actually, I wrote that a bit backwards. <embarrassed> Since I had written mainly without contractions out of habit, it should have been I re-evaluated my NON-contractions and left the whole forms for the above-mentioned uses. I contracted just about everything else unless it just didn't sound right. (That's why I'm not one of those who gets up extra early to write -- my brain isn't always plugged in at 5AM. )
Posts: 1810 | Registered: Jun 2002
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posted
In some cases using contractions in technical writing is considered okay. Think of the following examples:
1. If you are under a severe character limit (directions must fit in a small space and need to a larger sized font) contractions are okay. Anything to make the text look right in the space provided (and be readable). 2. Audiences sometimes have more trouble reading "do not" properly than "don't." As dumb as that sounds, the human eye can miss half a non-contracted phrase easier than it can miss the contracted one. Also, I have seen companies that prefer the "don't" to the do NOT with the not all in capitals (as shown before) and underlined. The capitals-bolded-underlined thing on the negatives sometimes can alienate or make an audience feel as though they are stupid.
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