Unusual styles

I recently read a book which didn’t use quotation marks to indicate characters’ speech, and that started me thinking about two of the quirky or original styles I’ve seen in fiction.

Stephen King’s was the first that came to mind, partly because I enjoyed his way of putting italicized words and phrases into his stories, both to give those words added emphasis and to break up the paragraphs of the narrative. It produced a sense of
(reading between the lines)
an undercurrent, of being aware of something on more than a conscious level. It heightened the suspense and tension brilliantly.

A similar technique was used in the start of a story I once read. I’ve forgotten the title and the author’s name, but the story had small, tantalizing glimpses of future action in italics. So it would have gone something like this.

Three days’ vacation was all Julie could afford, so she had only a single suitcase. She unpacked it quickly, taking out clothes, sunblock… and the knives, not sharpened, it lasts longer that way… and her new camera.

The book which didn’t use quotation marks was an ARC of Norman Ollestad’s Crazy for the Storm, though I remember this quirk from Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain as well. I think this technique is used to produce an uncluttered impression of the story, a sense of smoothness and quiet as spoken speech flows at the same level as the rest of the text, rather than being set apart in any way.

Unfortunately, I had to work a little harder to distinguish when characters were speaking. Although this might well have been the effect the authors were hoping for (Quentin Tarantino has said that the events in his films aren’t in chronological order because he likes the audience figuratively chasing the film), it also meant I’m not likely to read such books for enjoyment or relaxation.

And while this may be just me, sometimes the technique worked too well. The words drifted up from somewhere within the narrative itself, rather than emanating from the mouths of the characters. That was a little too literary.

I’d rather styles not be excessively quirky; if I want to read something without capital letters or with only one word per line, there’s always e. e. cummings. But distinctive styles in fiction are often memorable – both in good and bad ways.

Long paragraphs

I recently read another writer’s request for a critique on a paragraph he had written. Just a paragraph, I thought to myself and began to read. Unfortunately, it was a very, very long paragraph, and just looking at that solid rectangle of text made me feel a bit tired in advance. Has that ever happened to you? I don’t remember if there was dialogue or anything else to break up the relentless march of text, just that that paragraph was at least ten lines long and I didn’t finish reading it, much less critiquing. I had a feeling that once I reached the end, if I reached the end, I would have forgotten what the start of the paragraph was about and might have to begin again, in a never-ending Sisyphean cycle, much like this paragraph, now that I come to think about it.

Thank goodness for white space!

Or sepia space, on the blog, but it’s the same thing. The white space enhances the text, just like the neutrally-colored mat within a frame enhances the picture and makes it easier for the viewer to observe. The contrast makes a difference.

Likewise, readers who flip through a book and see great blocks of text will be less eager to continue reading than readers who do the same but see short paragraphs. The former always looks to me like a wall, but the latter are like the rungs of a ladder, much more accessible.

Shorter sentences and paragraphs are not only easier to read, they build up tension and contribute to action scenes. But that being said, when would solid chunks of text work?

1. Speeches and streams of consciousness

The streams of consciousness are much more common in literary fiction than the genres, but when done well (my favorite example is Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea), they work excellently. It draws the reader into a different, often poetic state of mind and keeps the reader moving forward through a progression of thoughts without breaking the spell.

It has to be done well, though. There’s a big difference between a stream of consciousness and rambling repetition like my original paragraph.

The same applies to speeches, especially if they're tense, charged declarations such as a general rousing troops to fight against an enemy which vastly outnumbers them (the "We few, we happy few" type of speech) or a heartbreaking revelation like that in the last chapter of Gone with the Wind. Here, you don't want anything to disrupt the reader's complete immersion in the story, and if the speech is good enough, the reader doesn't want to look away either.

2. Description

Normally, I don’t like long paragraphs of description, and I avoid them in my work. But in some books, they work very well. A homage to Watership Down would probably include lengthy description, and when I read sex-and-shopping novels, I don’t mind the forward motion stopping as clothes, jewelry, meals or people are described (in my order of preference).

Style and narrator disconnects

I’ve made this mistake in my own work, and I saw it again in a story I was critiquing. It’s not a difficult mistake to make, either.

Let’s say you have a simple, down-to-earth character. She’s not stupid, but she’s not very educated either. Her name is Jane and she’s looking for a local dignitary who’s gone missing.

“The Mayor stayed here? In such a place? I don’t believe it.”

Taking a pace back, Jane glanced up and let her gaze measure the crumbling façade of the inn. The image of Mayor Cariswell--foppish at the best of times--taking up residence in such a flophouse was incongruous. Yet the trail led there, and logic dictated that if he had indeed sojourned in the inn, it was for the purpose of avoiding anyone even near his own station in life. Ironic that she had tracked him down regardless.

Nothing about the excerpt jumps out as being technically wrong, and yet it doesn’t ring true to me either. If Jane is a plain-spoken, unpretentious character, she may well think logically, but her internal monologue shouldn’t resemble something written for Mr Spock. The sentence structure here is complex, with the polysyllabic words and comments on logic and irony, and that has two effects. First, it gives the narrative a cool, scholarly tone, and second, it prevents the reader from being completely immersed in Jane’s mind. Readers expect a viewpoint character who is a professor of philosophy to express herself in a different way from a viewpoint character who is a member of the Crips. And that goes for the narrative as well.

It’s a difficult habit to break, for me. I tend to be wary of absolutes and dogmatic statements, so my characters will think, There’s probably a hundred bandits in the hills, instead of thinking, There's likely a hundred bandits in the hills or even just, There’s a hundred bandits in the hills. I have to consider this when I edit, and decide whether the characters would qualify their statements – or whether they use the word “probably” as often as I do. Better that I wonder about this than the reader do the same, and detach from my story because of it.

Flower power

Strew on her roses, roses,
And never a spray of yew! ~~~ Matthew Arnold

I was on the subway today when I saw a man carrying a bunch of flowers. I'm shy with people I don't know, so rather than looking at the man, I looked at the flowers. There were two red rosebuds, partly open, and several sprigs of baby's breath.

I wondered who the recipient of the flowers was. A wife or girlfriend or date, or maybe a family member? Difficult to tell, because the bunch - can't really call it a bouquet - was so generic. Red roses and baby's breath go together like macaroni and cheese, costing perhaps a bit more but taking just as much time to think of and prepare. They're polite and impersonal and unfortunately dull.

If I were receiving roses, I'd want any color other than red - perhaps salmon-pink or a white that's slowly ripening into cream. Then again, my favorite flowers are dandelions, so I should be getting plenty of those soon.

Flowers in fiction need to be as well chosen as those in real life, which is why I like the red carnation motif in Judith Krantz's Mistral's Daughter . At least it wasn't a red rose. If the heroine receives "a bunch of flowers" (which she did in Tim LaHaye's and Jerry B. Jenkins's Tribulation Force), that won't be as vivid and interesting as

stems of Hawaiian Torch Ginger, three feet tall; their large heads were cones of petals with the sensuous texture of soft leather and the color of blood.

Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Flowers can be as exotic as this, or as those in Anita Desai's The Village by the Sea, which describes blossoms of hibiscus mutabilis that are white in the morning, turn pink by midday and darken to a crimson knot by nightfall. But a thoughtful description will lift even a rose off the flat printed page.

Maybe the rose is one of those which are naturally thornless, or it has heart-shaped petals. An armful of daffodils will mean something different from a vase of calla lilies - to me, daffodils are cheerful trumpets sounding the first notes of spring, while lilies are cool and dignified... beautiful, but also churchish and solemn.

Have anthuriums or daisies or a bunch of paper origami flowers. Just don't be generic and forgettable.