posted
This is an off branch from my post in 'random musings' about the judges scoring and comments on my novel that won 5th place/an Honorable Mention.
The first judge who gave me the highest scores pointed out as my one major flaw to taking first place was cliche sentence structure. This is part of the comment-
quote: Tons of clichés: fear mounted, vice-like grip, fragile hope, flashed to life , harbinger of death, stabbed at his heart, heart pounding, a rotting corpse, full of life and hope, etc. Reach for other descriptions. Other ways to describe what’s going on.
I started to realize there was truth in this. It is so easy just to be overwhelmed by the vastness of a novel and all the chapters therein, you already feel you're pouring a waterfall of creativity into it, and you are just so happy you have a solid story, with well-defined chapters. As many know here I've been breaking down paragraphs for their structure, it gives you a feeling of impossibility to then take it to the level of each sentence standing on its own, with four hundred pages of them standing before you. But in doing so you really are preempting a ton of red marks, and better your chances to be acknowledged and accepted.
I then realized to restructure certain sentences it would require more than just turning the phrase. That I had to rework the sentence in a way that didn't lose the pacing. Both judges loved the pacing that kept the pages turning, but one wants unique sentence structure while the other wants me to structure better detail to bring the reader deeper into the story. And this has to be done on a sentence level so as not to disrupt the action/pace.
The hardest thing for a writer to accept is that they need to take their game to even yet another level higher. After a lot of pounding my head on the desk, I've started with researching some of the best sentences ever written to give me a goal/motivation. and started forming a list of stand-out structure I've read. This I'm throwing into the cauldron, with the eye of newt and tongue of frog, in the hope I get this magic spell right.
When you think of the time spent trying to learn how to get a sentence right; In structure, vocabulary, and grammar, and then trying to add an element of uniqueness to it, all you can do is sigh.
posted
Those clichés and their everyday idiom ilk are part of a copyeditor's work. [Edit: part of which is word-by-word assessment as indicated.] A writer's monumental challenge is how to realize what off-the-cuff expressions are cliché. Generally, off-the-cuffs are taken from mass culture expression, and rhetorical figures that once were fresh, lively, vivid and, through overuse, outworn and trite use became cliché, then everyday idiom, and as common as breaths of stale air.
Note that the ones referenced above are metaphoric: "fear mounted," fear mounts a steed; "vice-like grip," simile between a tool vice and a hand grip; "fragile hope," a physical object property and an intangible, abstract emotion metaphor; etc.
Yet metaphoric language and rhetorical figures and schemes develop vivid description in an economy of words, is prose's poetic equipment. An exercise worth the midnight candle burnt is draft write without rhetorical figures of speech, period. Wayne Booth, though, says deny one rhetoric, another will substitute -- by design or smart subconscious plant.
J.R.R. Tolkien, a master of simple, timeless, effective fantasy language, refused allegory, for example. Not much to find rhetorically on the language surface there, either, maybe a few figures of speech conventional to the invented Middle Earth milieu and personas. Few, if any, metaphor or figurative instance situations, though much extended and all but invisible metaphor and rhetorical figure.
Or from Maud Casey: "It's a Wooden Leg First: Paying Narrative Attention to the Literal Level of the Story in Order to Achieve the Figurative," a Warren Wilson College low residency MFA writer's program essay lecture, audio available at http://www.wwcmfa.org/mfa-store/additional-recordings-for-purchase.
Casey references Hulga's prosthetic leg from Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People." No figurative language within the story, certainly no clichés, only simple, timeless, material, concrete, tangible language, descriptions, and speech that possess extended metaphoric substance and are "imagery" motifs, symbolism generally, in that light, with immaterial, abstract, intangible yet greater meaning substance.
If readers don't infer extended metaphors and symbolism, no loss, as long as the overt drama carries readers along; if readers do, a narrative is livelier, more vivid, fuller, and of stronger appeal. If readers, though, encounter numerous trite idioms, ones everyone uses all the time, especially for journalism gossip talk and, therefore, everyday-talk expression, the language-rhetoric falls oh so flat and too soon alienates.
Plus, recast, reinterpreted, re-innovated, re-imagined clichés are a delight. "Fear mounted," for example, though Erasmus' De Copia exercise might be a tedium to do at first, how else can fear's onset be described as vividly and lively, or more, as the phrase's original instance? And less tell, more show? A first question is what's the rhetorical situation? A dramatic persona's fear onset. Does fear come on in a flash? Or does fear come on in a staged sequence: setup, delay, satisfaction? Tension's emotional effect overall is what readers know beforehand, from setup, and timely delayed satisfaction, and suspense's curiosity wants to know cause and effect and outcome's satisfaction.
What caused fear to mount before the fearful knew fear was about? That's a setup or preparation segment. So best practice is look back and evaluate whether the setup sets up for fear to mount. Fear mounted is an outcome segment, partial satisfaction though it might be. A cool customer would delay fear's onset yet be aware of hazard. A fearful persona would at first be oblivious and overreact once aware the situation was fraught with peril.
"Fear mounted" then? Lavish attention on the literal, material, concrete, tangible, and personal to a viewpoint agonist first. Cold sweats welled from his, her, its skin, is also cliché and tell, many off-the-cuff descriptions of fear's onset are. If fear is a personified natural emotion, and it is among the three primordials, along with anger and joy, does its persona-hood come on like a vodun loa for an agonist's personal perception?
Do two words fully represent and aptly emphasize the situation? The syntax is a noun and a verbal metaphor. Fear -- climbed, spurred, descended, swallowed, arrived, overwhelmed, entered, emerged, broke, bore, weltered, crashed, ad infinitum? Hmm. A few more words maybe? Fear's -- onslaught escalated, seeped ever deeper, delivered the heats of panicked fight and flight, stirred spasms in the groin. How about metaphoric attachments for fear? Boon companion fear -- raised its panicked hand, lifelong adversary fear stabbed her to the quick. Yada. Maybe, instead, the situation itself shows and implies and readers infer fear's onset.
From O'Conner's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find": "'Now look here, Bailey,' she said, 'see here, read this,' and she stood with one hand on her thin hip and the other rattling the newspaper at his bald head. 'Here this fellow that calls himself The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida and you read here what it says he did to these people. Just you read it. I wouldn't take my children in any direction with a criminal like that aloose in it. I couldn't answer to my conscience if I did.'" (The O'Connor story collection, PDF.)
The speaker clutches at any excuse not to go to Florida, instead, wants to go to Tennessee, congruent yet incidental for the moment opposite of the situation's true nature. Savvy readers recognize that excerpt for a foreshadow and think, uh-oh, first intimations of the dramatic action to come, a setup for and a dramatic irony facet of the whole. And readers empathize from there on. The speaker thereafter continues to attempt to change the destination until . . .
No "fear mounted" and similar idioms. The simple speaker doesn't talk or think or act that way. Fear comes on from the outset, though, for the speaker and her family and readers. That phrase is banal narrator-writer expression, artless tell, like many, if not most, clichés are. On the other hand, contrarily, if such expressions are part of a character's true nature -- well, okay, maybe grand, though judiciously, timely deployed for other than narrator tell, like character development at least. Also, and this is the pinnacle of satire's arts, ironic commentary about such vacuous expression that's apt for and suited to the whole drama.
Such idioms and clichés are an artful part and subtle commentary within E. Annie Proulx's The Shipping News. Quoyle thinks cliché newspaper headlines for emotional reactions to his contentious situations, part as well out of an instinct to hone his reporter craft. Exquisite congruent opposites and a third-space satire and subtext social commentary.
[Another edit: Casey and Smith's Glossary advise against symbol "hunting" and "planting," respectively, and others advise against clever-cute wordplay and pun, especially if readers are the butt of a linguistic contrivance, and forced, inauthentic figurative expression, rather, such features best practice arise incidentally, naturally and organically, intuitively and discoverably.]
posted
Don't worry E. I'm not out to purposely make quotable sentences, that defeats the whole point of flow. I just needed some kind of nudge. A way to(if I may use a cliche) See the forest for the trees.
When you have pacing and concept, it's just hard to understand what I wasn't seeing. Thanks for the advice. I see it a little clearer now.
I think I'm going to shelve it for a couple weeks and tackle it with fresh eyes. Work on other projects and apply these principles to get them warmed up before mentally dealing with a 376-page rewrite.
It's funny how this is a major domino effect because now, I'm looking at my short-stories and new novels for the flaw, and let's just leave it with - Sigh.
posted
Something to think about… Many of the things you mention as cliché almost always come from someone external to the story, describing the situation within it. And that’s inherently dispassionate—a report, describing things poetically to, hopefully, make the description more exciting. But that’s like adding glitter. Yes, it’s pretty, but it’s calling attention to itself, not the situation.
Instead of describing as an external observer, work on making the reader live the moment. That is why they’re with you, after all.
Constantly ask yourself if the paragraph you just wrote is you talking about what’s happening, or the protagonist’s observation, analysis, conclusion, or action. If it’s you, you’re on stage with the characters, blocking the reader’s view. And it’s sometimes necessary to stand in the spotlight—especially when connecting scenes—as Sol Stein observed, “In sum, if you want to improve your chances of publication, keep your story visible on stage and yourself mum.”
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quote:Originally posted by walexander: Don't worry E. I'm not out to purposely make quotable sentences, that defeats the whole point of flow. I just needed some kind of nudge. A way to(if I may use a cliche) See the forest for the trees.
"quotable sentences", another group aside from journalists attempts quotable quotes: lawyers before a court who rely on verbal fireworks and acrobatics to baffle a judge and jury with their literary brilliance. Platitudes and gnomes (clever sayings, maxims, proverbs, and aphorisms) are a stock in trade for both, and often enough empty and off-target rhetoric.
One of the more common ones I encounter from lawyers, also a cliché -- A picture is worth a thousand words. What they mean is photographic evidence proves their point, though doesn't, and really mean they're at a loss for words (cliché) and too lazy to think out the implications and reduce those to spoken words. One litigation which pivoted on photos, opposition counsel called attention to the insipidness of the other side's use of the cliché gnome.
The most common English cliché idiom is any use of verb to run for anything other than rapid ambulation. Sit for set mistake is a kin of that type and second-most common, as well as immovable objects that "stand." All convenient habits that substitute for failed imagination.
Another strategy for conquest of cliché expression tackles a saying's origins, before such was even a metaphor. A picture is worth a thousand words comes from publication arcana. Back when, a published newspaper folio illustration earned an engraver the same as one thousand words of text and occupied the same page real estate amount. "Out of sorts," "cut to the chase," "stop the presses," printer lingo, much cliché came from publication culture due to back when prose writers visited print shops and overheard novelty expressions.
"Font" is one misused term that came about from desktop publication technology. Couldn't see the font for the matrices? In any case -- another cliché from publication culture, sneak in a lowercase E from a similar typeface font if out of the regular sorts -- cliché might or might not work for readers. Unlikely to work for me, though, except if for strong and clear greater rhetorical purposes than mere tell. Yet many's the workshop peers who denied clichés occurred in their prose.
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posted
When you find yourself saddled with a cliched structure... rather than rework the whole thing (and you're right that it affects rhythms around it), try to substitute something unusual to normies but in line with the POV character, yet still in tolerable agreement with the established rhythms.
So a were-vulture might not think "rotting corpse" but rather, "fragrant corpse".
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