PS on Voice Seminar Red Shift

[Katie-Ellen]

Red Shift, Alan Garner

Sorry I had to go early, and couldn't join the discussion about my choice of voice in this session. Garner didn't go down well, which is not really surprising but these were the seemingly banal opening lines of an extraordinary novel. Red Shift is a love story, and a fantasy novel/world based sci-fi. You wouldn't think so, based on this, would you? It's about a time slip.

The two people are teenage sweethearts, 'clever' Tom and Jan.
Alan Garner is not known for being easy or accessible, but is known for lean, spare, numinous, even poetic voice.
He said himself, that he was influenced by ancient Latin and Greek, and the way in which things are hinted, not spelled out, and this is part of the challenge reading his books.
I read this as a teen, and tame, it ain't.

There is violent death. There is rape. One rapist knows the woman in question and is fond of her, 'now Madge, who would you rather?' he says, as meanwhile, the men of the village are put to the sword. The rapist afterwards saves both her and her husband.

But everything that happens later is actually foreshadowed in this opening. The knickers, the earth, and the cosmic thing. Looking back, if you ever read the novel, you'd see it was all there, right at the start.
It's a ghost story in reverse. The Roman soldier, the man in the Civil War see the future...and the tragedy of Tom.

Alan Garner’s Red Shift is a book I have practically memorised, which makes re-reading it weirdit’s more like reading poetry than prose, because my brain keeps filling in the whole line from the first word. The reason I know it so well is because I like it a great deal, and also because it’s a very difficult book (again like poetry) and one that I first read as a teenager and kept coming back to and back to in an attempt to understand it.

Source

and a REVIEW published in the Independent.


“Shall I tell you?”
“What?”
“Shall I?”
“Tell me what?” said Jan.
“What do you want to know?”
Jan picked up a fistful of earth and trickled it down the neck of his shirt.
“Hey!”
“Stop fooling, then.”
Tom shook his trouser legs.
“That’s rotten. I’m all gritty.”
Jan hung her arms over the motorway fence. Cars went by like brush marks.
“Where are they going? They look so serious.”
“Well,” said Tom. “Let’s work it out. That one there is travelling south at, say, one hundred and twenty kilometres per hour, on a continental shelf drifting east at about five centimetres per year—”
“I might’ve guessed—!”
“—on a planet rotating at about nine hundred and ninety kilometres per hour at this degree of latitude, at a mean orbital velocity of thirty kilometres per second—”
“Really?”
“—in a solar system travelling at a mean galactic velocity of twenty-five kilometres per second, in a galaxy that probably has a random motion—” “Knickers.”
“—random knickers of about one hundred kilometres per second, in a universe that appears to be expanding at about one hundred and sixteen kilometres per second per megaparsec.”
Jan scooped up more earth.
“The short answer’s Birmingham,” he said, and ducked.

 

[Howard]

Jim and I quite liked that intro, actually. A lot of the others fell flat as they were too busy trying to sell me on emotion, or the even more vapid "character". This at least sounded like it had somewhere to go and was about actual people. I also heavily approve of any writing that just, if you'll pardon my French, gets the fuck on with it!
So few writers do that, these days, as they are all, quite frankly, deeply in love with themselves.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I do pardon your French @Howard. I do. I do. On y va. And also it would be totes fine, and only instructive, if everyone hated it to leetle peeces. @MaryA picked up on 'cosmic' and how right she was about that too. Yes, he gets on with it, so it might seem it doesn't try very hard.
Like a poem, a lot of the work is in the spaces.
All that about wowsers, grab em quick. Did it position itself as literary? I don't think so but @AgentPete might have his own take on that aspect of Garner.
This opening has no wowsers. Maybe a bit of quondam geekery wowsers, Tom and his vital statistics.

In fact, by the end, I suspect Garner, unless a total arch-plotter, might well have written that opener last.

I don't remember how it grabbed me the very first time I read it, but I could understand new readers going 'meh'. I'd previously read The Owl Service, though so I knew he had a plan, and he'd be taking me somewhere uncomfortable, probably pretty austere and spooky.

This lean, spare voice demands nothing on the face of it, but I couldn't take it anything but seriously.

 

[Amber]

I really liked it Katie and I'm not surprised to find out it's a love story. I thought the two people were close and knew one another very well.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Yes, the joshing about The voice itself though, @Amber? What did you reckon to that? I just read his last one Boneland, and it scares me to bejeezus, but I'm damned if I know why, or exactly what I think about it

 

[Amber]

Yes, the joshing about The voice itself though, @Amber? What did you reckon to that? I just read his last one Boneland, and it scares me to bejeezus, but I'm damned if I know why, or exactly what I think about it

I suppose I'm confused. The general attitude seemed to be that it couldn't be voice .... maybe because it was dialogue? But I'm not sure dialogue can't be voice.

There are choices authors make, thousands of little decisions and I think it's possible voice could be seen by what the writer doesn't do as much as what they do. This author decided to leave out dialogue attributions, in the beginning of a novel. Fuck me if that isn't ballsy. He chose to throw us directly into the dynamic of their relationship and he doesn't hold back. It has music and rhythm and whimsy. It's flirtatious and visceral. I'd stick around to see what these two were about.

It's also, the essence of media res. Which I think is worth noting because media res is hardly ever understood. He throws us right into the middle of a conversation between these two people. But we don't need an explanation. We've seen people like this before, or been people like this before, and it's joyful. In the opening pages, he makes us part of their relationship and it's more because of what he leaves out than what he puts in. He doesn't explain any of it and relies on us to already know it.

Probably more than you were asking for and I don't know how much of it has to do with voice. I'm not sure how to define voice. Although, I thought the workshop was great. I like the idea of intimacy, of telling your readers secrets.

Also ... how gorgeous is this:

Cars went by like brush marks.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Mmm. I hadn't considered that @Amber, but I think dialogue can be part of the authorial voice, yes, the way it's handled.
And we get told how we need to orientate the reader almost immediately, who, where, when, what etc.

Y-e-s-, to a point. I want a bit of who, what, where and a sense of when...but I don't need all of them to decide to stick with a story. No, so long as I'm not bored, or annoyed (Philippa Gregory annoys me, and Terry Pratchett) I'll wait...exploration, innit?

 

[Howard]

It did seem that the general consensus on this piece, with Pete agreeing, was that it didn't have voice. There was no author there to speak of because it is just dialogue. Now, whether you have an issue with that is another matter, of course. I don't. I love the (normally sci-fi) trope of just having voices in the void.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

It did seem that the general consensus on this piece, with Pete agreeing, was that it didn't have voice.

Yes, indeed, that was what I meant about it not going down so well, and I don't disagree. There is a style to that opening, I'd say, for sure, very characteristic of Garner, but where does voice take over from style? Does Austen's Pride and you know what.... have a voice, or style? He, Garner as a writer, definitely has a particular world view, informed partly by his struggle with bipolar disorder. Do we need a few pages to get our ear in on 'voice,?

Though the terms ‘author’s style’ and ‘author’s voice’ are sometimes used interchangeably, the truth is they are two separate concepts. The term ‘voice’ is evasive, even more evasive that ‘style,’ especially for beginners.

While an author’s style relates to words and the way he puts them together, an author’s voice is the way the author looks at the world, a unique sensibility that pertains to that particular author. An author’s voice comes deep within the soul and heart of that author.

Besides an author’s style and voice, there’s also the voice of your main character. You must have heard it from agents and editors: “We want a strong character voice.”

Read More Here

 

[Amber]

It did seem that the general consensus on this piece, with Pete agreeing, was that it didn't have voice. There was no author there to speak of because it is just dialogue. Now, whether you have an issue with that is another matter, of course. I don't. I love the (normally sci-fi) trope of just having voices in the void.

I'd hope this was painfully obvious but dialogue is something the author writes. The author has things they need their characters to say. How they say it, I'm not sure that isn't part of voice. I wouldn't carve it in stone, but I'm pretty sure it is.

 

[Amber]

It did seem that the general consensus on this piece, with Pete agreeing, was that it didn't have voice.

Yes, indeed, that was what I meant about it not going down so well, and I don't disagree. There is a style to that opening, I'd say, for sure, very characteristic of Garner, but where does voice take over from style? Does Austen's Pride and you know what.... have a voice, or style? He, Garner as a writer, definitely has a particular world view, informed partly by his struggle with bipolar disorder. Do we need a few pages to get our ear in on 'voice,?

Though the terms ‘author’s style’ and ‘author’s voice’ are sometimes used interchangeably, the truth is they are two separate concepts. The term ‘voice’ is evasive, even more evasive that ‘style,’ especially for beginners.

While an author’s style relates to words and the way he puts them together, an author’s voice is the way the author looks at the world, a unique sensibility that pertains to that particular author. An author’s voice comes deep within the soul and heart of that author.

Besides an author’s style and voice, there’s also the voice of your main character. You must have heard it from agents and editors: “We want a strong character voice.”

Read More Here

So, I guess the question is, and it would be best to ask someone who has almost memorized the book, do the opening pages play true the theme of the rest of the book -- are they authentic representations of what you would guess is the author's 'world view'?

 

[Howard]

I'd hope this was painfully obvious but dialogue is something the author writes

Yeah, that's exactly what I said. Dialogue is 'a' voice, but it's a character voice. Authorial voice is a different bag of terrapins, and we were discussing the later, not the former.

 

[Amber]

Yeah, that's exactly what I said. Dialogue is 'a' voice, but it's a character voice. Authorial voice is a different bag of terrapins, and we were discussing the later, not the former.

I suppose it depends on whether you describe a novel as gestalt or expect the dialogue, narration, and all of its other parts to stand as discreet but unrelated entities. I'm going to go with gestalt and say dialogue is part of author voice.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

@Amber says, do the opening pages play true to the theme of the rest of the book?

Yes, they absolutely do, but how is a casual reader to know? No-one would know, till they read it, when they would look back and see that first dialogue is a foreshadowing of something far greater than it yet appears.
The knickers too.

 

[Howard]

I suppose it depends on whether you describe a novel as gestalt or expect the dialogue, narration, and all of its other parts to stand as discreet but unrelated entities. I'm going to go with gestalt and say dialogue is part of author voice.

If the dialogue were heavily stylised and therefore representative of a given author, I could maybe agree, but while I find this dialogue pleasant and intriguing, it is hardly unique. Moreover it is all dialogue, with no hint at all as to what style or even genre of book lurks behind it. That speaks very definitely to a lack of authorial voice by my understanding of the term.

 

[Amber]

If the dialogue were heavily stylised and therefore representative of a given author, I could maybe agree, but while I find this dialogue pleasant and intriguing, it is hardly unique. Moreover it is all dialogue, with no hint at all as to what style or even genre of book lurks behind it. That speaks very definitely to a lack of authorial voice by my understanding of the term.

Eh. It's not glitzy but it's definitely unique if only because of the place it occupies in terms of the whole.

But it's easy isn't it, from our lofty position of having never written anything as good, as original, as unique as what this author has written and say, "Dialogue! Who cares! Anyone can do that." Then, not do it at all. I think about that a lot. How arrogant it is, to criticize at all.

 

[AgentPete]

The recording has just gone up (but will take about an hour to render):
Seminar - Thinking About Voice: Part One of Litopia's DEVELOP YOUR VOICE seminars

 

[MaryA]

As @Katie-Ellen Hazeldine knows, I'm also a big fan of Alan Garner. I don't know this book, but was immediately caught up in the opening. There's a scene with a fence and a highway which tells me these two are on their way somewhere. The way they talk to each other is easy, teasing, intimate. Lovers who are close friends, although I wondered about brother and sister because Garner shows that warm sibling connection in other books.

But when the 'where?' goes cosmic, it is like an explosion into another great galactic whirling reality. I have a word for what happens here which is that this writer is touching on archetype, something bigger and deeper and more profound than I'd expect in a more straightforward novel. Here comes the Uncanny, the revolutionary, the wizard.

There's something else. 'Cars went by like brush marks.' Just before Tom riffs off on the cosmic location, we're told that this scene Jan observes is a painted canvas. Cars go sweeping past but they are soundless, they are brushstrokes of colour, passing at great speed but insignificant. Garner is a very subtle and oblique author at moments and I've learned to pay close attention to his metaphors and throwaway lines. Here he's saying that this painted scene created for us, is not really where things are happening. It's just the surface. We're going to be moving into Elsewhere and that isn't a literal geographic Birmingham.

Full of voice. No question about it.

 

[Howard]

But when the 'where?' goes cosmic, it is like an explosion into another great galactic whirling reality. I have a word for what happens here which is that this writer is touching on archetype, something bigger and deeper and more profound than I'd expect in a more straightforward novel. Here comes the Uncanny, the revolutionary, the wizard.

Archetype means a very typical example of something. It doesn't mean bigger, deeper or more profound. How is he 'touching on' a very typical example of anything in this section? Do you mean it more as it is defined in Jungian Theory? That it is something deep-seated in the collective, unconscious mind? If so...well, again, the whirling cosmos is not that, is it? Stars are - the changing patterns of the heavens - but this is cold description of facts unobserved, not painted imagery. The imagery the speaker describes is a very recent model of how the universe works. Our ancestors would not recognise it.

There's something else. 'Cars went by like brush marks.' Just before Tom riffs off on the cosmic location, we're told that this scene Jan observes is a painted canvas. Cars go sweeping past but they are soundless, they are brushstrokes of colour, passing at great speed but insignificant. Garner is a very subtle and oblique author at moments and I've learned to pay close attention to his metaphors and throwaway lines. Here he's saying that this painted scene created for us, is not really where things are happening. It's just the surface. We're going to be moving into Elsewhere and that isn't a literal geographic Birmingham.

One interpretation. Here's my thing, though. Brushes are not silent; at least it it is not their defining characteristic. If something is 'brushed', it is blurred and indistinct. While he was obviously using metaphor, what I took away is that the cars were indistinct and streaked - like a brush mark would be. To spin that one comment out from where it nestles in a sea of dialogue...? Well, if it amuses to do that, then by all means.

Again, I like the writing, but I feel far more is being read into this due to the readers outside knowledge of the author. Taken as it is - which is the point of these criticisms - this is just dialogue. Intriguing? Sure. Enticing? Definitely. But possessing Authorial Voice? Not one jot.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I don't quite know myself, what I think about the voice in that extract. I'm too close to it, knowing the book. I had to leave the seminar early, unfortunately, so came back and put up the thread to say why I chose that piece. I had to read all his books several times to feel I really got them, even The Owl Service. I did read and re-read them though, so I must have smelled something that interested me enough to keep going.

All responses 'pro' and 'against' the presence of 'voice' here, valid and very welcome. I held no brief for this piece of text other than to say here is a potential problem. The opener might not grab, but it's doing a bigger job than might be easily apparent. Does this bat and ball dialogue, this voice- or lack of it, represent a barrier for people coming new to it with fresh eyes?

Archetypes are indeed very typical examples of something, but @MaryA's not wrong either, that their other definition is that these are numinously loaded, primal images from the collective unconsciousness.

 

[Amber]

As @Katie-Ellen Hazeldine knows, I'm also a big fan of Alan Garner. I don't know this book, but was immediately caught up in the opening. There's a scene with a fence and a highway which tells me these two are on their way somewhere. The way they talk to each other is easy, teasing, intimate. Lovers who are close friends, although I wondered about brother and sister because Garner shows that warm sibling connection in other books.

But when the 'where?' goes cosmic, it is like an explosion into another great galactic whirling reality. I have a word for what happens here which is that this writer is touching on archetype, something bigger and deeper and more profound than I'd expect in a more straightforward novel. Here comes the Uncanny, the revolutionary, the wizard.

There's something else. 'Cars went by like brush marks.' Just before Tom riffs off on the cosmic location, we're told that this scene Jan observes is a painted canvas. Cars go sweeping past but they are soundless, they are brushstrokes of colour, passing at great speed but insignificant. Garner is a very subtle and oblique author at moments and I've learned to pay close attention to his metaphors and throwaway lines. Here he's saying that this painted scene created for us, is not really where things are happening. It's just the surface. We're going to be moving into Elsewhere and that isn't a literal geographic Birmingham.

Full of voice. No question about it.

Yeah.

 

[Carol Rose]

I find the discussion concerning an author's voice coming through in dialogue as opposed to narrative, very interesting because my stories are character driven. When I write their dialogue, I strive to make it unique, and to match it to the personality I've written for them. That way they don't all sound the same. But, I also strive for that in the narrative, since I'm in their heads when I write it. What I mean by this is I'm writing in third person, not omniscient POV. So I try to avoid having that step back moment, as I call it, where the author intrudes and "tells" the reader what's going on in the scene, or in the POV character's head or world.

EXAMPLE:

John was having a very bad day. HIs ex-wife had called three times about the upcoming birthday party for their daughter, even though John had already explained he would be there. She wanted him to bring far more than he was able to, and it was pissing him off.

Not only is this kind of passive, but it's all tell. There's no real characterization except on the surface, and no voice. I'm in John's POV but this reads more like an omniscient narrator looking down on the scene, telling the reader what John is feeling and thinking.

John slammed his fist down on the table as his cell phone rang for the third time that morning. Fuck off! "What is it this time?"

"Why do you have to be that way?"

"Because you've called about this already. Twice. I told you I'd be there."

"And I told you I need you to bring enough chips and dip for ten kids. You didn't say whether you would."

He closed his eyes and tried to get his breathing under control. Ginger, their daughter was turning ten. He would be there because she was his daughter, not because John had any desire to see Sally again. Divorce didn't mean you no longer had to look the person you hated most in the eyes. Not when there were kids involved.

"I'll take care of it, Sally." Sometimes, compromise meant giving in for the sake of keeping the peace. It wasn't Ginger's fault her mother was a raving lunatic.

Apologies because this was written on the fly, but I'm trying (and I hope with some success!) to illustrate writing dialogue to fit the character, and being careful to also tailor the narrative to that character as well. And of course balancing all this with allowing your natural voice to come through both!

And if this muddies the waters even more, feel free to ignore me.

 

[Amber]

Archetype means a very typical example of something. It doesn't mean bigger, deeper or more profound. How is he 'touching on' a very typical example of anything in this section? Do you mean it more as it is defined in Jungian Theory? That it is something deep-seated in the collective, unconscious mind? If so...well, again, the whirling cosmos is not that, is it? Stars are - the changing patterns of the heavens - but this is cold description of facts unobserved, not painted imagery. The imagery the speaker describes is a very recent model of how the universe works. Our ancestors would not recognise it.



One interpretation. Here's my thing, though. Brushes are not silent; at least it it is not their defining characteristic. If something is 'brushed', it is blurred and indistinct. While he was obviously using metaphor, what I took away is that the cars were indistinct and streaked - like a brush mark would be. To spin that one comment out from where it nestles in a sea of dialogue...? Well, if it amuses to do that, then by all means.

Again, I like the writing, but I feel far more is being read into this due to the readers outside knowledge of the author. Taken as it is - which is the point of these criticisms - this is just dialogue. Intriguing? Sure. Enticing? Definitely. But possessing Authorial Voice? Not one jot.

If you’re painting a room, or a house, brush strokes make noise. But I’m not as familiar with those sort of brush strokes as I am with brush strokes artists make because my mother was an artist. Those brush strokes are silent and full of color, just like blurred cars would be like brush strokes — silent and full of color. And to be totally fair, you could say there is a whisper, or a murmur, or to be clinically precise, a SMALL sound, which would be discernible if everything around you is silent as you paint. Maybe, there’d be a whoosh, a whoosh you’d miss, a whoosh you’d miss if there were other sounds to distract you. The silence around you would be required, making silence a necessary element. It was painstaking explaining this. It’s like, explaining a really great joke to someone without a sense of humor, making it not just a point of disagreement but a point of grief. So, allow me a moment, to grieve for an apparent lack of imagination, maybe even vision. Is it on purpose? I hope so. I hope it’s all about a stubborn need to be right. But I don’t know the truth. My most fervent prayer is that the lack of vision, imagination, and understanding of possibilities manifested is on purpose, and not real.

I saw the word archetype used here in a negative sense a while ago. It’s the first time I’d ever seen it used that way. I’ve always used stereotype for how archetype was used in that particular post. I thought about responding but I don’t think I did. I had a hard time figuring it out.

To me, an archetype is a representation of something which is primal, which doesn’t need explanation, and which speaks to, if not to every single person on the planet, a large enough percentage of our world so as to make it reasonable to call the exceptions outliers. So, powerful shit. But, it doesn’t speak to you. See above. Hopefully, it’s on purpose.

And I know Agent Pete asked us if there was voice. But I never considered the possibility that any of the excerpts people had chosen didn’t have voice. Most of them were classics. There were a few I hadn’t heard of, which didn’t mean they weren’t classics. We might not like an excerpt but if it’s writing people continue to read decades after it was written, it has voice. A voice we like? Maybe not. A voice we can describe? Maybe not.

I’ve also given the idea of dialogue as voice a lot of thought over the last 24 hours. I think dialogue does have authorial voice. If you don’t think so, then consider all of the different ways that dialogue could have been written. In fact, I’ll take it further, I think something as small as punctuation can go to voice. These are reflectionso of the authors value system, their beliefs, their personality, and who they are. Maybe — only as a writer. But still, who they are, someone who can grab hold of our attention and pull us along, sometimes even when we don’t want to go. That’s what voice does.

For example, these three sentences aren’t the same:

Maybe, only as a writer.

Maybe — only as a writer.

Maybe only as a writer.

....and they aren’t only stylistic choices, they’re expressions of different values — the sound and noise of different people. The message they convey, isn’t the same. The person who would write the first example, isn’t the same as the one who would write the third.

I noticed in the excerpt I posted something I’d never noticed before. Chapter 1 of Stranger in a Strange Land is one sentence. My copies are different from the pdf I copied. Yet, I don’t doubt the .pdf is correct. I’m confident it was edited out. I know an author who has written one sentence chapters. It’s brilliant. It’s part of his voice and it’s a moment of perfection — something which makes sense and communicates perfectly without us being able to say why no matter how much we scramble. Well, that’s punctuation — pretty much. Of course, it was edited out. What publisher wouldn’t edit out a one sentence chapter? All that paper and ink, going to waste. And it makes no sense — edit it out.

When people say dialogue isn’t part of voice, they're almost saying anyone could have written that piece of dialogue. Which might come close to being true if the only purpose of dialogue is for us to hear what characters say - was to impart information. But there’s how its said, when it’s said, where it’s said. Where are the pauses, what are the movements... a thousand little decisions.... only one combination of decisions equaling one particular voice. Any other combination would be someone else.

 

[Amber]

I find the discussion concerning an author's voice coming through in dialogue as opposed to narrative, very interesting because my stories are character driven. When I write their dialogue, I strive to make it unique, and to match it to the personality I've written for them. That way they don't all sound the same. But, I also strive for that in the narrative, since I'm in their heads when I write it. What I mean by this is I'm writing in third person, not omniscient POV. So I try to avoid having that step back moment, as I call it, where the author intrudes and "tells" the reader what's going on in the scene, or in the POV character's head or world.

EXAMPLE:

John was having a very bad day. HIs ex-wife had called three times about the upcoming birthday party for their daughter, even though John had already explained he would be there. She wanted him to bring far more than he was able to, and it was pissing him off.

Not only is this kind of passive, but it's all tell. There's no real characterization except on the surface, and no voice. I'm in John's POV but this reads more like an omniscient narrator looking down on the scene, telling the reader what John is feeling and thinking.

John slammed his fist down on the table as his cell phone rang for the third time that morning. Fuck off! "What is it this time?"

"Why do you have to be that way?"

"Because you've called about this already. Twice. I told you I'd be there."

"And I told you I need you to bring enough chips and dip for ten kids. You didn't say whether you would."

He closed his eyes and tried to get his breathing under control. Ginger, their daughter was turning ten. He would be there because she was his daughter, not because John had any desire to see Sally again. Divorce didn't mean you no longer had to look the person you hated most in the eyes. Not when there were kids involved.

"I'll take care of it, Sally." Sometimes, compromise meant giving in for the sake of keeping the peace. It wasn't Ginger's fault her mother was a raving lunatic.

Apologies because this was written on the fly, but I'm trying (and I hope with some success!) to illustrate writing dialogue to fit the character, and being careful to also tailor the narrative to that character as well. And of course balancing all this with allowing your natural voice to come through both!

And if this muddies the waters even more, feel free to ignore me.

No I don’t think it muddies the waters some. You’re showing us your decision making process. I have a decision making process too. I imagine all writers do ... and I think the sum total of all of our decisions is our voice .... although, I think looking at one decision doesn’t explain voice .... all of them together would. But it’s not possible to look at all of our decisions or even a different authors decisions and see all the working parts all at one time. I think voice must be the gestalt of all of those decisions. Although, not sure I’m using gestalt correctly.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Wonderful comments, I like that use of gestalt.

Haecceity, Garner's voice is about haecceity. It has an irrevocable thusness.

You just helped me articulate it for myself, thanks @Amber.

 

[Amber]

Haeccity? An acronym? Now I’m confused.

But I’m laughing.... so.... no complaints from me.

 

[Sea-shore]

Again, can we reminded to 'be nice' to each other? Thank you.

 

[Carol Rose]

I'm asking all parties involved to discuss this without badgering or baiting each other. Discussion includes asking questions to clarify. It involves agreeing to disagree.

This feels like it's getting out of hand once again, and that's why @Sea-shore stepped in. It's also why I'm stepping in now. When the posts devolve like this, the discussion is no longer productive.

If it continues, the thread will be pulled permanently this time.

Thank you.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I've been finding this really interesting, and thank you all, who've commented on this thread. Fabulous feedback and insights, thank you all so much, but what's this here now? No likey!

I do know what you mean about the voice @Howard. It's partly why I had put it on the list for Sunday.

But also it's a broad church, none broader, there is no one final verdict, not when we're talking about something so subjective, when the writer's skill, craft and success is not in question, and we're trying to bottle a genie.

Thank you all

 

[Howard]

Well, it got me to buy Red Shift, @Katie-Ellen Hazeldine! The man clearly has something going for him if a sample so small can intrigue me that much