Hi,
Read a story today that opened something like;
"He [insert sequence of activity] and stared out on the frozen expanse. [Another sequence of activity. ]."

To me, that frozen expanse with a definite article is anonymous and wrong here. It feels like it is either missing something ("the frozen expanse of Morthyrllwy") or should be indefinite ("a frozen expanse"). If it was indefinite, it still feels like I need more ("a frozen expanse of hard, bare rock that stretched from here to the dark lands of Milton Keynes").

So; which is it? Am I just a grumpy git or do I have a point?

G

How about you're a grumpy old git AND you have a point?

I think you're right: it should be 'a frozen expanse'. 'The' shows that the writer has probably resorted, subconsciously, to using a cliche. 'Frozen expanse' is pretty lazy in the first place, but it's used by lazy writers because it has a kind of shorthand association in the reader's mind. You can almost see the movie camera panning around a landscape covered in snow, etc.

A newspaper writer recently pointed to some similar cliches that don't really mean anything (in relation to music, in this case), like 'soundscape'. The very next day, I read a review of a Sigur Ros concert that talked about the 'soundscapes' they create. Now, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have noticed that if someone hadn't pointed it out to me. Which means my mind would have, by default, accepted a cliche as valid.

So, I think what I'm saying, Mr Git, is that this is exactly the kind of thing us writers should be noting.

I see exactly what you mean, Gaius, but I think it makes sense if you read this as free indirect style.

The narrator would tell us it's "a frozen expanse", because we've never met it before: the narrator conveys things in the terms which make sense to a newcomer such as the reader (like talking about "Granny" to your small son, though you call her "Mum" yourself)

But if we're inside the character's head, then he would think of it as "the expanse" - because that's the terms in which he thinks of it himself.

It is more disconcerting to the beady-eyed writer - if not to the average reader, who's long moved on - because it's the first line of the story, so we're not yet securely in the writer's hands and tuned in to how this story is going to work. We haven't, if you like, yet got a sense of the narrator's voice, so as to pick up with the change of voice when it's beginning to be coloured by the character's PoV.

But swap in "the garden" and "a garden" and the point I'm trying to make gets a bit clearer.

Compare (if you can be bothered) the incredibly subtle use of "in here" in the paragraph of Elizabeth Bowen that I dissected on my blog. It makes no sense, unless you get it as the characters' voice:

http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/2012/08/an-education-in-writing.html

One of the many joys of her paragraph is that it uses the way PoV and voice interact in such a masterly way... (Another joy is how well it shows that the ridiculous idea that you shouldn't have more than one point of view in a scene is ... ridiculous. Not to mention infantile. )

Emma

I agree with Emma on this. Using 'the' is acceptable because, to him, it is the frozen expanse with which he is already familiar or aware of. If the piece started, 'he stared out at a frozen expanse' it would rather suggest that he was seeing something that he had not expected to see or at least that he had not known what he was going to see when he looked out of the window.

I also agree though that simply using the word 'expanse' is unhelpful and could cause the reader to have to back-track later when he discovers that the character had been looking out not at the rocky plateau that had initially occurred to the reader but to an iced-up railway marshalling yard or whatever.

Well, I'm not so sure that he would think 'the frozen expanse'. That's a rather impersonal way of viewing it; wouldn't he be more likely to think of it by name first, then with something like 'frozen now . . .' etc added?

I guess my main point here is that there is a definite article being used ("the frozen expanse") which implies that something specific is being discussed, but that thing has neither been introduced nor referenced nor hinted at nor implied.

Like this line; "He fired the gun and then sat down."

When used like this, I have no problem;

"Come on, you old git," Marmaduke muttered, "it's only one shot." He removed a service revolver from the holster at his waist. He fired the gun and then sat down. He would deal with the consequences later.

But when used like this, as the opening of a story, it just feels clunky as hell;

He fired the gun and then sat down. He would deal with the consequences later.

G

I guess my main point here is that there is a definite article being used ("the frozen expanse") which implies that something specific is being discussed, but that thing has neither been introduced nor referenced nor hinted at nor implied.

But the way it reads to me - maybe I didn't put it very clearly before - is that it has been referred to, in his head, and at this point the narrative voice is coloured by that. To him, it's perfectly ordinary and familiar - hence the "the".

"He got up, flipped on the kettle, found a cleanish mug, and stared out at the frozen expanse while the kettle boiled."

seems to me no different from

"He got up, flipped on the kettle, found a cleanish mug, and stared out at the frozen garden while the kettle boiled."

I do agree with Terry that "frozen expanse" is pretty off-the-peg, to use Cherys's phrase: second-hand language. I don't think it's a sparkling piece of writing. But that's a different issue.

Hmm.

Yes, I think I got that, but I don't think I agree!

This is an opening, remember, the very first lines of a story, there is no context whatsoever. As such, there is a quite major conceptual difference between "the garden" and "the frozen expanse" in that a garden is familiar enough to be expected. Saying "the garden" is _only_ acceptable here because so many of the likely readership will have gardens and they are unremarkable enough not to need much notice.

But I don't think it gets around my core objection which I don't think has been addressed either. So I'll rewrite the example as this;

"I used the hammer to nail the door shut."

Put that as an opening line and, no matter how you look at it, it sucks. What hammer? Where hammer? Why hammer?
G

there is no context whatsoever

I'd say that there is a context, the context being that here is a guy who already knows that there is a frozen expanse out there.

Just as in 'It was not far to the harbour but already the rain was pounding on the corrugated iron roof and he decided to take the car.' He wouldn't take 'a car'. The reader doesn't need to know whether it's a Ford or a Chrysler. The definite article tells him that either the character owns a car or there is one that is available to him.

Such contexts (ownership of a car or existence of a frozen expanse known to the character) are easily inferred by the reader from the use of 'the'. i just don't see it as a problem.

This is an opening, remember, the very first lines of a story, there is no context whatsoever.

Yes, that's certainly true - and I'm not defending it as a creative decision, if you like, only as a technical one. You do always have to be aware of that,

"I used the hammer to nail the door shut."

I love this kind of opening line. Yes, absolutely, you're dropped straight, right into the voice and the head and the story - why not? - and it's the "the"s which give us that sense of urgency and immediacy. It's not confusing - we know what's going on at the practical, physical level, and we'll soon understand what's going on. It's not the only way to start a story, but it's nothing unusual. Compare a few other openings grabbed nearly at random from my shelves:

"So now get up."
Felled, dazed, silent, he has fallen; knocked full length on the cobbles of the yard. (Hilary Mantel / Wolf Hall)

She stands up in the garden where she has been working and looks into the distance. (Michael Ondaatje / The English Patient)

The employees could tell that the company was floundering and that some of them would lose their jobs soon. (Ha Jin / 'In The Crossfire'

5.16. There is is in square red numbers. Dawn. Fourteen minutes before getting-up time. (Jenn Ashworth / The Friday Gospels)

"Sorry?" said Patrick. "I didn't quite catch that." (Helen Simpson/'Sorry?'

<Added>

I'd say that there is a context, the context being that here is a guy who already knows that there is a frozen expanse out there.

Yes, exactly. Like Chris, I think I just don't get the problem. It's just one of the possibilities offered by psychic distance.

"So now get up."
Felled, dazed, silent, he has fallen; knocked full length on the cobbles of the yard. (Hilary Mantel / Wolf Hall)

She stands up in the garden where she has been working and looks into the distance. (Michael Ondaatje / The English Patient)

The employees could tell that the company was floundering and that some of them would lose their jobs soon. (Ha Jin / 'In The Crossfire'

(Didn't get the relevance of the others, sorry.)

The bits I've highlighted are building on the anonymous stuff - the italicized ones are mutually supporting - so as to provide additional context.

However, it looks like I am in a minority on this one, so I will just say that, in the original, the sensation of being force-fed with assumptions by the disembodied definite article was incredibly jarring or I wouldn't have started this thread...

G

(Didn't get the relevance of the others, sorry.)

Only that they're all out of context - they're all asking the reader to keep going because they'll make sense later, in retrospect, as we're given more of the situation.

"He [insert sequence of activity] and stared out on the frozen expanse. [Another sequence of activity. ]."

I'd be interested to know what the full sentence is, though - they presumably provide some clues to context.

I'd be interested to know what the full sentence is, though

I'll wwmail you a link as it is a published story so I don't want to get into any flame wars with anyone connected.

they presumably provide some clues to context

I've just gone back to it...

TBH, my reaction is still as negative to the opening of the story, but now for entirely different (though related reasons).

Actually, the first sentence _does_ have some context and following this thread I'll forgive its continued existence... You may even like the first sentence (I don't, it's a bit purple for me, but in line with some of your other examples).

Having gone back to it, though, I find I still hate it but now because of the subsequent sentences in the first paragraph. All down to the use of the definite article EG: "she stopped to yank the XXX from her bag" when XXX has not been introduced and has no previous reference.

I guess it's just a question of style... I'd happily have accepted "she stopped to yank her XXX from her bag"...

G

"she stopped to yank the XXX from her bag" when XXX has not been introduced and has no previous reference. I guess it's just a question of style... I'd happily have accepted "she stopped to yank her XXX from her bag"...

That one doesn't bother me - but I do see a lot of this kind of "the" in middling students' work, and it can seem a big clunky. On the one hand I would defend to the death the proposition that it's not technically incorrect, not confusing, not grammatically wrong ... I do agree that it can seem clunky, especially when over-used.

I think it's something to do with over-use. When you use a "the" where logic would suggest an "a" or a "her" - in the way you've suggested - the writer's implying that we already know about this, when clearly we don't. In the cause of teleporting the reader straight into a head, it has its uses. But, like many things which are non-standard in the cause of having a particular effect, it's effective in inverse proportion to how often you use it. Either it just stops being effective, or it becomes an irritating tic...

I think the word I'm reaching for is "mannered", in other words...

the writer's implying that we already know about this, when clearly we don't

I think it also gives the wrong significance to scene props.

A character might choose to eat an apple. (Background, insignificant.)
Eve ate the forbidden fruit. (Key plot point, from what I remember.)

For it to be directly and overtly referenced, it suggests it is something I maybe need to know about and I feel silly when I don't (because it hasn't been mentioned) then grumpy when I discover it's just bland, window-dressing description that maybe could have been cut in the first place.
G