Speaking of Stein, I ordered my copy of 'Stein on Writing' on Terry’s suggestion. If my writing goes to hell, it will be Terry’s fault.

Oi! That's not fair! Take it out on Sol -- I'd be happy to pass on any comments you have to him (I'm a member of a journalists' writing group he's on too), especially that you're giving up writing because of his book!

Seriously, Sol is quite challenging, which is one of the things I like about his approach. But it might not suit everyone. In fact -- and I realise my mouth is opening wide at this point, ready to receive my foot -- I wonder if there's a gender element somewhere in all this. After all, people have been squaring off Hemingway against Austen (that would make an interesting Celebrity Deathmatch).

Just last night, I was talking to a female children's writer friend who was telling me about all these female editors (almost everyone in children's publishing is female) she knows who are looking for books for boys. I laughed -- actually, I should write that:

"They've been saying that for years!" he laughed, two parts sarcastically, one part suicidally.

-- because more than once I've written a book for boys, with (I hope) a male perspective, for an editor who's actually asked me to it, only to have a female committee tell me, in one way or another, that it's not really the sort of boys' book they're looking for.

But I think this is changing the subject, which I apologise for.

Terry

I haven't read all of this thread but, just to add my pennyworth, one of the criticisms from the agent who read my full, was that she sometimes got confused as to who was talking. I was gobsmacked. I prefer not to use speech tags where poss, but i can see now that i maybe took this too far. As the writer we always know whose head we are in, but we need to make sure that this is always obvious to the reader.

As we have discussed so many times before, self-editing books and rules are brill for pointing a beginner in the right direction - as long as they don't make you paranoid about certain aspects of prose.

I still have a lot to learn.

I read this thread with interest, then turned to editing my novel.
I came across this line which I had written: 'Huffily, Carol replied, "no, of course not."

I removed the 'huffily' and spent half an hour trying to convey huffiness in terms of mannerisms which didn't consist of her snorting or tossing her head in the air ( the image of a thoroughbred horse refused to go away!)

I've now given up, highlighted that section and am hoping that I will work through it in my next edit!

SG

SG,

Before anyone comes on to tell you to go back to using 'huffily' because it does the job and there are no rules, and yet again reminds me that I advocate the kind of alternative stage directions you're struggling with (I don't, by the way), I think the problem here as such may be a wider one. If you've drawn Carol's character well, you shouldn't really need to tell us how she's likely to say 'No, of course not'. We'll know or at least be able to guess close enough. And by 'close enough' I'm not advocating you as the writer don't need to do your job. I'm supporting the art of good character writing, which allows the author a little of the natural ambivalence real people have whenever they make a statement ('she said'. Instead of being too prescriptive with a dialogue tag.

Terry

I understand what you're saying Terry, and that's why I will go back to it again, to see if I need either 'huffily' or the stage directions.

But this section is close to the start of the novel, and I find it difficult to be sure, at this stage, that I have drawn the character well enough. It's almost chicken and egg: surely you need some tags or directions in order to draft the character well enough so that you can dispense with them?

SG

Well, I'll probably get accused of being a purist, but I still think you can write well enough to not use tags, even at the start of a book. Besides, using them at the start sets a mental precedent in the reader which will get confused or irritated if you later change style. I've just started Katie Going's new book, 'The Garden of Eve', and it begins with a prologue that is nothing but dialogue between two characters, not even any 'she said's; only at the very end is there a line of narrative. Okay, the two characters are quite distinct in that they're mother and young daughter, but she still gets across their natures, needs and predilictions through dialogue alone.

Terry

I think that 'No, of course not.' does the huffiness job pretty well on its own. It wouldn't take much more info from earlier in the scene or the book for me to be hearing it right.

Which leads me on (can't you tell I've been reading academic stuff today) to the more general point that I do think there's a built-in problem in this kind of discussion online, in that it's next-to-impossible to bring to the discussion of a line or short exchange of dialogue everything that the reader of the book will bring to it.

For instance, because Rosy was talking about dialogue tags, in her extract from Emma she edited out lots of the rest of the scene because it's too long for the thread. But you can't actually talk about the effect of Austen's (or anyone's) choice of tags without taking into account the whole of the rest of the novel up to that point.

Which is also, I think, why how-to books which attempt (for understandable reasons) to create some easy-to-remember rules of thumb get some of us so hot under the collar. Because in the context of continuous prose, it's never, ever as simple as that...

Emma

Emma, it's true, all I included in my edited scene from 'Emma' was the dialogue with its tags. Of course, in betwen a few speeches there may have been a section or two of action or (more likely with Austen) introspection. As I said earlier, I also don't like the obsession in modern commercial fiction with dialogue (my editor has told me to keep in mind 'you can never have too much dialogue'. She has even used the agument that we are appealing to an audienece whose basic diet is TV). I very often break a few lines of speech with longer bits where I explore what the character or characters is thinking about all this (even though I dare say that is also 'tell'. When reading, I like to have plenty of internal monoogue. That is very different from the contrived way in which some modern authors avoid speech tags to the point where (as Casey says) it's actually ot even clear who's speaking, or else replace them with the character laying down his cigarette or twiddling with his beer glass or sweeping a hand through his flippng hair in every single scrap of dialogue. You may think I exaggerate, but I picked up a chick fic novel in the library last week and it was like the woman had taken th pledge against tags!

Balance in all things may be the answer. We are obviously taking exaggerated positions to make a point. Of course I have lots of speeches without tags (especially in two-person scenes where it's obvious who's speaking and they are not required for that reason), and of course I do include 'stage dircetions' at times. And I do think that a tag every time would read awkwardly to a modern ear, even if Jane Austen rarely omitted one. But the dogged aoidance of them is equally irritating. But just as the inclusion of tags may be a matter of deliberate stylistic choice as much as inadvertence or poor writing, so the avoidance of them may be a symptom of the slavish following of the modern 'rule' (as in this chick fic novel I was looking at) as much as it might represent admirably tight, spare writing. I personally think the difference (more speech tags and adverbs versus fewer) is one of style and choice, not inherently good or bad. That's all I'm saying.

Rosy

Rosy,

You make some good points and they've made me realise that part of our disagreement could be down to me being unaware that there is a bit of a fashion amongst the creative writing teaching world for not using tags or lots of adverbs and adjectives. My journey towards good writing has not been shaped by the latest trends, just the desire to tell stories cleanly. And by 'clean' I mean with as little irritating author intrusion as possible. However, this doesn't mean a story can't work, for example, when it's told from a strong omniscient voice. The point is, the author should be conscious of why he's using whatever it is he's using -- not conscious necessarily in terms of exactly how the plot is going to develop, and the characters' journey within it, but aware of technique and style and tone.

I agree on the unfortunate trend in cinematic writing today but one of the main problems I have with it is that it's unconscious. Writers are aping what they see on TV or film, producing visual images entirely devoid of narrative significance. Unfortunately -- and this is probably a whole different debate -- many readers are similarly programmed these days and so prefer this approach, even if it doesn't make sense in prose fiction!

In the end, as someone else said on this thread, it's probably all about rhythm. If you can use tags, lots of adverbs, 'telling' internal monologues, etc, and maintain the reading rhythm, then fine. That rhythm is what I look for when I'm editing other people's work, and to do that I first have to establish their intent; and intent leads directly to tone and style, which in turn lead to rhythm. Believe me, I do not have a fashion agenda in this, but in general I'd say that writers who use a lot of tags, adverbs, etc, tend to find it harder to establish a rhythm, mainly because these things tend to be signs of the author intruding into the story, telling the reader what he should or shouldn't be surmising from the text. And if you're going to intrude, I think it's best -- again, from the perspective of rhythm -- to actually become a voice in the story, so the reader can identify with your character and know why they're being directed.

Terry

Apologies for the frivolous interjection, but I just wanted to say that I can't read the title of this thread without thinking first that it means books which edit themselves, rather than books about self-editing. If only...

Emma

Hee hee

(that was to Emma)

Good thread, btw!!
p

Self-writing ones (and/or self-righting?) would also be nice!



Rosy x

Is the Lifeboat Thread self-righting? All that diving on and off makes me nervous. Mind you, it has it's very own bouyancy aid in BJ, doesn't it.

Emma

<Added>

D'you think that a very self-conscious and over-written book could be described as self-writeous?

<Added>

its not it's. I blame the essays I'm marking...

This has been a great thread and I've enjoyed read it although I have to admit I haven't managed to take it all in!

Terry, you said

And if you're going to intrude, I think it's best -- again, from the perspective of rhythm -- to actually become a voice in the story, so the reader can identify with your character and know why they're being directed.

How would you do this in a story written in the third person? Have a know-it-all who states the obvious or obvious to the author? I'm not sure how, apart from telling which, unfortunately, I seem to be quite adept at, I would go about this.
Tracy

Terry, you said And if you're going to intrude, I think it's best -- again, from the perspective of rhythm -- to actually become a voice in the story, so the reader can identify with your character and know why they're being directed. How would you do this in a story written in the third person? Have a know-it-all who states the obvious or obvious to the author? I'm not sure how, apart from telling which, unfortunately, I seem to be quite adept at, I would go about this.

Basically, I think the author should either be a detectable presence in the story or not. Becoming a presence, either directly as a participating narrator, or as an authorial voice, is risky, though, because the reader may not like your tone and therefore feel distanced from the other characters. What people find attractive in the authorial tone probably changes over time. It's probably no accident, for instance, that Kurt Vonnegut became very popular during the late sixties and seventies. He often used the author's voice, and participated as a character in his stories, either directly or in his prologues. He was very funny, honest, and imbued with the principle of live and let live; so, ideal for those times.

Vonnegut's stories are mostly written in the third person but he'll often start in the first. Here, for example, is an extract from the opening of Slaughterhouse 5:

I had the Bell Telephone Company find him for me. They are wonderful that way. I have this disease late at night sometimes, involving alcohol and the telephone. I get drunk, and I drive my wife away with a breath like mustard gas and roses. And then, speaking gravely and elegantly into the telephone, I ask the operators to connect me with this friend or that one, from whom I have not heard in years.

Note the wonderful rhythm, also the lack of authorial distance, the straightforward intimacy. It's all very simply done, but incredibly effective. He's talking here about how he finally came to write a book about the horrific experiences he had during the allied bombing of Dresden in the second world war. By starting with why it's taken him so long to actually write it, you understand much of what it caused in him and others before you get taken back there.

But, as said, it's risky, and you have to possess a voice that in essence is the right balance between humanity and judgement. Probably best, therefore, that we stick to third person limited or straight first person.

There is a kind of middle way, I think, although I'm not sure it's conscious. That's the kind of style you see in Harry Potter, where the author isn't an actual presence but clearly makes all the value judgements for the reader. Just read the first couple of paragraphs of the first book if you want to see what I mean, where the Dursleys are not so much described as judged. JKR is also very fond of dialogue tags, of course. All of which is fine for readers who just want it all put on a plate for them.

Terry