McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Not a question of pace but rhythm
Thub:
Some of the points you have made are dead on. I tend to use names repetitively even though I know I do that and try to hold back. I use to much 30s-50s slang as in "It was off to" or "easy on the eyes" or "on account of". I do have too much "a little, kind of, almost, and very." I didn't describe the overflowing or bulging file box. I just said file box and expected people to have an idea of the size and weight of it. My interjections are crazy long.
I think you were tired of reading it by the second paragraph though which doesn't bode well for me. You may have been looking for what could be considered wrong rather than what is wrong. I know how that goes. I have been guilty of it myself. The last thing a teacher needs is a critic.
Any suggestions on rhythm? Are my sentences to short, to long, not complex enough, to complex, or not have enough evocative words to slow it down? Is that just my rhythm, and I need to embrace my bouncy writing and tell a story about a professional tennis player who solves crimes? Yes I am joking at the end there. My guy would play basketball. Ooh or ping pong.
Suilan:
Sorry, I didn't say it explicitly, but I was trying to answer your original question "How to make my writing less bouncy." All my suggestions, except 6 and 12 perhaps, were written with that in mind.
(So I would argue that it's not an esoteric question at all, but one of craft.)
Taking care of these things will help with the rhythm. You do have an eye for interesting details, paragraph structure, and you dish out information in chewable bits, not dumping them on the reader, so it bodes well. :)
There are many things I like about your writing (e.g. your use of vivid detail, such as: more rust than paint, or comments like: I was named after a horse -- laconic and intriguing) but you didn't ask for a critique, only for comments on what might be wrong with your rhythm, so that's what I commented on. ;)
You might want to check out a guide on line editing or improving your style or writing for clarity at the library. There's some useful advice here (starting with #12) -- http://www.bartleby.com/141/strunk5.html#13
--- Quote --- I think you were tired of reading it by the second paragraph
--- End quote ---
Since commenting on the first part took me an hour, it doesn't have anything to do with being tired of reading.
It was also Stephen King (I think) who said: First drafts are crap. They're supposed to be.
So that shouldn't discourage you. A first draft should get the story down, no matter how bouncy or faulty the prose. Don't compare it to published works. Every writer, no matter how experienced, needs to revise their manuscript.
Thing is, the more effortless (smooth, less bouncy) a text appears to the reader, the more effort the writer put into it.
Regarding sentence length, you do vary it sufficiently, imo. Some sentences will be shorter once you've edited out some of the adjectives or expressions like "kind of" or "aside from the fact that." Other sentences (like the first) will appear shorter if you put the verb in earlier.
Good luck!
P.S.
--- Quote --- You may have been looking for what could be considered wrong rather than what is wrong.
--- End quote ---
I assure you I wasn't. I'm not a teacher but a writer, translator, and linguist. Still, everything I said was a suggestion. There's no such thing as an objective opinion. ;D
Thub:
--- Quote from: Suilan on October 13, 2008, 10:27:51 AM ---
Since commenting on the first part took me an hour, it doesn't have anything to do with being tired of reading.
--- End quote ---
This is the funniest thing I have seen in a while.
Honestly I love it. I sat here and laughed for maybe a minute straight. I just realized you may not have meant it as a joke, but it's pretty funny in the right context. I mean... it's 2 sentences long.. granted.. one of those is a very long sentence, but if it takes an hour to point out all of the things wrong with 2 sentences, I am in pretty deep.
It occurs to me that you may have meant section instead of paragraph. That's not nearly as bad. If you really meant paragraph, please don't tell me...for my sake.
I do appreciate your comments. I didn't mean teacher in the sense that you are Prof. Suilan. I mean teacher as in a person who is trying to teach me something.
Thanks again. I will check out that site. Do you, or anyone else for that matter, have any books to recommend? I have read Jim Butchers live journal about writing fiction and should probably go back and read it again; because, I know I made some mistakes he warns readers about.
Suilan:
I'm happy to have made you so happy, even if only for a minute. ;D
What I meant by first part: everything under "near the beginning" in your post October 12, 2008, 04:13:29 AM
(Second part = everything under "near the end" in that post.)
So what took me in hour was analyzing the prose of the first five paragraphs for "bouncyness" and writing comments 1-14 in post October 12, 2008, 10:46:15 AM. BTW, I'm not on a mission here, or trying to teach you. (Teachers only teach because they get paid for it.) You asked a question, I tried to answer it. So even if you don't agree on all points, experimenting a little can't hurt, eh? If you don't like the result, you can always change it back.
Books on revising & improving voice/style
Renni Browne & Dave King -- Self-Editing for Fiction Writers
Noah Lukeman -- The First Five Pages
Monica Wood -- Description
Constance Hale -- Sin and Syntax: How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose
Suilan:
Another great book:
Noah Lukeman -- A Dash of Style
Now, it says it's about "The Art and Mastery of Punctuation" but Lukeman takes a creative approach that's unlike any book on punctuation. He has the novelist in mind, not non-fiction writers. The book is really about writing clear, smooth sentences.
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