Deb,

I think you're missing the point a bit, in trying to prove anyone's right or wrong. But if I'm wrong, then so is my architect friend who when I put the same sentence to him said, "You can't convert a mudflat." But surely it's better to be open to what is actually a fascinating area of investigation.

Besides, looking at the two definitions you've provided, I don't really see how they describe a converted mudflat. The first talks about changing something into another form - but the mudflat has not been changed into another form; it's had different materials built upon it which now comprise a new form. And in the second, it hasn't had its function changed from one thing to another, because a mudflat does not have a (human) function. It's gone from no-function - mudflat - to function - harbour.

The point is, this description snagged at some people's minds. And whether or not I'm wrong, if I see similar descriptions in future, it will still snag at my mind, e.g. 'converted tree'; 'converted river'; 'converted forest'; 'converted mountain', etc. 'Converted barn', by contrast, does not snag; nor does 'converted church', 'converted garage', etc.

So, yes, barn into house, because it's one human construction into another. But building a harbour is not where 'you just make some changes and additions to what is there already'. What is there already is mud and ocean. What ends up there are stone walls, roads, houses, etc.

Terry

What is there already is mud and ocean. What ends up there are stone walls, roads, houses, etc.

Ah! That's why I didn't snag. To me a harbour is safe-ish water and convenient ways of moving between sea and land: a pier or two, places to tie up and get ashore or go on board, perhaps some sheds for repairing boats: a liminal area like a mudflat only with a bit of help: the interface between land and sea, and that's how I saw it in reading the piece. (Having read the story, I see that it's interestingly significant that it starts in that borderland, and the setting then moves to and fro between sea proper and land proper... My Inner Structuralist, a small and browbeaten creature, is very happy)

I agree that you couldn't possible 'convert' a mudflat into a three-story office for the customs men and several thousand ferry passengers, say, complete with traffic lights and duty free shop, but that's not what makes a harbour a harbour, or no one would speak of a 'natural harbour' where the rocks and so on protect the water and beach: the German for harbour is the same word as our 'haven'. Harbourish-ness lies essentially in it being protected from the sea; whether there are roads and buildings is incidental.

Emma

Emma, those are good points. I agree, there is such a thing as a natural harbour. This one isn't, however, but I can see your liminal take as being perfectly natural.

I still think there is at least a case for this phrase to be taken in different ways. And while difference doesn't have to cause a snag, it did here, at least for some of us. Now, it's possible the author intended that, but it seems doubtful. More likely, 'converted mudflat' sounded natural to her; and presumably to her editor. If instead she'd said the harbour had been built on a mudflat, I don't think anyone would have snagged.

What does all this prove? I don't know! But it's been interesting to go into such depth over a couple of words, for a change.

Terry

But it's been interesting to go into such depth over a couple of words, for a change.

Whenever we get a thread like this (or I do a blog post based on an indefinite article and a debatable apostrophe, say) I'm always afraid that some nervous, apprentice writer takes one look and thinks, 'OMG, is that the detail I should be thinking in? Oh no, I'll never do it. And I thought it was about telling stories! I'm going to switched to writing symphonies - it's got to be easier...'

But nine times out of ten the analysis comes afterwards, doesn't it: when you're trying to work out why something feels how it does, or doesn't work for you, or to explain it to a student, or whatever. Thank goodness, really, that it is post hoc most of the time, or none of us would ever write anything longer than a sonnet without getting brain fever. But I'm working on a theory that analysising stuff is actually about training your intuitions, as well as expanding your conscious toolkit...

But nine times out of ten the analysis comes afterwards, doesn't it: when you're trying to work out why something feels how it does, or doesn't work for you, or to explain it to a student, or whatever.

This is right on the button. I think anyone who's worked to be at a professional level at what they do, has in effect changed their instincts. We all start with untrained instincts, bits of which work and bits which don't. To learn, we have to unpick how professionals do it, then re-programme our instincts. Because, as you imply, the actual writing has to to flow without analytical thought clogging it. Later, when someone asks how it's done, you have to unpick again, which often isn't easy. Also, in unpicking, you realise you've still got things to learn, and things that you aren't doing right. Which of course is one of the benefits of teaching.

Which is why I don't think anyone should criticise this thread for being too focussed on a couple of words. If we were readers only, then yes, it might be pointless.

Terry

Can I suggest that the writer might have meant to make the reader snag? Why should snagging be considered a bad thing? Sometimes it's good to choose a word which is downright wrong, or odd - just to bounce language off a wall and catch poetry on the rebound.
I don't believe that writing must make sense all the time. One function of writing is to communicate to the reader, but another is to offer the reader a transcendental experience. It has always been like this, from the earliest written texts. And drawing attention to the language is one way of making the reader think about the artificiality of their own world, and to invite them to step outside it.

Can I suggest that the writer might have meant to make the reader snag?

This is a much better way of putting what I was getting at clumsily in talking about 'elbowed'. It didn't make immediate sense, so my brain was hanging onto it, waiting for it to make sense... which it did with 'in the crook of the elbow'.

But I do think that readers' tolerance for being snagged varies a lot, (and probably roughly along the literary-commercial spectrum) both in terms of how much they're willing to hang on to something that doesn't make sense or seems odd and awkward, and in terms of how completely they want it to come clear in the end, or whether they're willing to stay with an un-articulated sense of transcendence.

You could say that parallel narrative creates a continuous series of snags, liked a nutmeg grater: asking the reader to assemble the alternating chunks of text into two separate stories, and simultanously hang on to each one while reading the other to find the correspondences and contrasts. No wonder the trade hates them.

And drawing attention to the language is one way of making the reader think about the artificiality of their own world, and to invite them to step outside it.

Certainly I'd suggest that the kind of poem which doesn't make basic sense on first reading is pretty-much telling you to stop, and try to find different kinds of meaning. And the most frustrating person to have in a workshop is someone who's ploddingly literary, and deaf to all the other things that words can be doing - and must be doing if your writing's ever going to rise out of the merely functional. (Also the kind of person who's pretty disheartening to teach...)

And it's a voice. It's a voice telling you a story. If I go down to the beach at Ascea and stop to chat to one of the old men who fishes there, and he tells me 'The fish are small here', I don't question if he's seen every single one and measured it (small compared with what, for that matter). There is such a thing as being too literal - and that, I think, is really missing the point.

"Can I suggest that the writer might have meant to make the reader snag?"

Particularly pertinent given that what's being described is an unlovely approximation of a place, not something that fits easily and naturally into the landscape, but something that's been cramped in, awkwardly shoe-horned in.

The elbowed in and the stumbling word "converted" are, I agree, awkward, strangely makeshift words to choose, but that's precisely in keeping with the atmosphere the writer is evoking.

So, IMO, it works.

"I may be too picky, but I think it's the author's job to not snag the reader's mind with too many unclear meanings or references. I think that's what I mean by integrity: that it's the author's job to make the words disappear, so to speak, and the imagery to take their place."

I do think there is a fine line to tread between writing which plays with the cleverness and beauty of the prose itself, and writing which is so achingly self-conscious and full of lexical pyrotechnics that it actually detracts from the sum total.

I can think of many prize-winning big names who, for me, fall into the latter category. But as Emma says, tolerance for that is probably subjective. From the brief bit I've read of this story, for my taste the writer is on the right side of the line.

There is such a thing as being too literal - and that, I think, is really missing the point.

Well said, Leila.

I think we did discuss the fact a writer might actually want to snag the reader's mind. Which means it can have a point. But the two or three snags in the early sentences don't serve a story purpose - unless anyone who's read the rest of it can show one. And I can't see any literary point to these examples. So, yes, it's fine to declare that snags can have a point; but it'd be good if someone could explain what the point is here. But then again, I think what this discussion has shown is that literary points tend to be subjective. For example, anything by Salman Rushdie makes my teeth itch and toes curl with embarrassment at its 'cleverness', but other people clearly think it's great art.

Terry

Do you not buy my explanation? (That the awkward, makeshift, unlovely language is a deliberate reflection of the awkward, makeshift, unlovely setting?.

That the awkward, makeshift, unlovely language is a deliberate reflection of the awkward, makeshift, unlovely setting?

I certainly buy the idea that the language being rather bare, and full of reservations, doublish-negatives, the syntax plain to the point of almost being stilted, is very much part of the effect (though I'm not sure I'd buy into your feeling of awkward/unloveliness)

Actually, I'm wondering whetehr you can altogether separate the snags of language in an opening, with the sort of snags of plot that you'd be failing in your duty to provide. Is waiting to find out what 'elbowed' is all about, say, not another facet of waiting to find out why she'd never been there at high tide... or rather, why that was what she choses to say about the harbour?

<Added>

Doh!

that you'd be failing in your duty NOT to provide.

I'm not sure why it should serve a story purpose? The narrator's voice serves to define his/her character and his/her world-view. That's a perfectly good purpose.