Rich Writing

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The Power of Repetition

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Paul Whybrow

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Jun 20, 2015
Cornwall, UK
I've just started reading The Horseman, by Tim Pears, which is the first part of a trilogy of stories set in the world of working horses on farms in the West Country in the early 20th-century. I have a wide vocabulary, but in the first ten pages, I encountered a dozen words new to me, mainly to do with saddlery and blacksmithing. The pacing of the action is slow, contemplative and absorbing, so much so, that it's impossible to gallop through the page. Pears arranges words poetically. This Guardian review comments on the dense texture of the language used by the author:

The Horseman by Tim Pears review – West Country pastoral

Personally, I don't mind slow reads that entice me into thinking about what's going on. It's not necessarily a formula aimed at making huge sales—as I've previously commented, many bestsellers are written at a level a 10-year-old could understand—but such rich writing is definitely in the running for literary prizes. Tim Pears' eleven novels have won at least six awards.

I read another award-winning novel recently, The Orchardist, by Amanda Coplin which happily took me six weeks to get through, slowed not by unusual language, more savouring the depth and breadth with which the author explored the internal dialogue of her characters, as they contemplated their relationships with loved ones, wondering what to do to make things right. I'll remember them for a long time.

I may have developed a liking and a tolerance for rich writing, by tackling the intimidating Thomas Wolfe as a teenager. Wolfe was wildly prolific, given to dashing off vast novels on whatever came to hand...receipts, menus, tissue, proper paper—only loosely organised into chapters, leaving the hard work for his publisher to do. He only published four novels in his lifetime but is the only author to have left two completed novels with his publisher before dying, one of which was one million words long. Reading Look Homeward Angel at the age of 17, I was struck by how voluminous his descriptions were of places, a real cosh to the senses, as sights, sounds and odours crowd around the reader. Truman Capote dismissed Wolfe's writing as, "all that purple upchuck", but William Faulkner described him as the greatest writer of their generation.

Try this description of food, which makes me feel like going on a diet!

In the morning they rose in a house pungent with breakfast cookery, and they sat at a smoking table loaded with brains and eggs, ham, hot biscuit, fried apples seething in their gummed syrups, honey, golden butter, fried steak, scalding coffee. Or there were stacked batter-cakes, rum-colored molasses, fragrant brown sausages, a bowl of wet cherries, plums, fat juicy bacon, jam. At the mid-day meal, they ate heavily: a huge hot roast of beef, fat buttered lima- beans, tender corn smoking on the cob, thick red slabs of sliced tomatoes, rough savory spinach, hot yellow corn-bread, flaky biscuits, a deep-dish peach and apple cobbler spiced with cinnamon, tender cabbage, deep glass dishes piled with preserved fruits-- cherries, pears, peaches. At night they might eat fried steak, hot squares of grits fried in egg and butter, pork-chops, fish, young fried chicken.”

This style of writing has fallen out of favour in the 21st-century, where there's pressure to move the action forward, especially in much of genre writing, though Fantasy and Science Fiction allows an author to linger as they build worlds. I'm currently enjoying Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea: The First Four Books, which has thrown me into an alternative realm of islands set in an uncharted ocean. Robin Hobb's Farsee Trilogy also immersed me in a world that was both familiar and unfamiliar.

We're advised to 'kill your darlings'...which means one sometimes has to eliminate flowery sections where you were showing off, but what if that perfect little bouquet of a phrase adds to the atmosphere of a paragraph? You might be striking out something that readers would have loved, that became quotable.

In my crime writing, I emulate authors such as James Lee Burke and Dennis Lehane, who include plenty of their protagonist's internal dialogue and observations on people and places they interact with, where the landscape and weather become characters, making the reader feel that they're there with the detective—not simply following the actions of a cartoon character.

As Barbara Kingsolver observed:

Good fiction creates empathy. A novel takes you somewhere and asks you to look through the eyes of another person, to live another life.

If I edited my manuscript with word count as a priority, I'd remove some of the flavoursome ingredients in favour of a fat-free, low calorie, ready meal of a story consumable by the masses and with no nutritive content.

No one wants to make their story difficult to digest, and it's not necessary to use complicated words that add density to a text, but surely we can write in a way that makes our readers think about something differently and which leads to them learning something new? As a child, I learnt much of what I know from reading books and looking up word meanings in dictionaries—I continue to do so.

An International Literacy Association report published in 2017 suggested that sometimes reading should be hard:

Reading Should Be Hard

If all someone reads is bland pap, what are they going to learn? Concentrating and persevering with a challenging read rich with ideas will create a sense of achievement—even if you disagree with what's written!

How do you deal with what to leave in and what to take out?

Have you ever written anything that was too stodgy? I did, with my first Cornish Detective novel, which had too many information dumps, as I tried to explain the thinking of a traumatised war veteran turned serial killer. Trimming 40,000 words helped it flow rather than stagnate.

Are there any authors whose work you love for its concision, devoid of tasty morsels? I love Elmore Leonard's crime stories, but he really makes the reader do the work of imagining what's happening, following his own cryptic advice of: 'If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.'

Which book overwhelmed you, by being too richly written?

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Paul, thank you! I agree wholeheartedly - the whole push towards minimalism is, I feel, contrary to the art of what we do. They say that writing is both a craft and an art, and reading almost any source of writing advice you get reams of education on the craft of writing and virtually none on the art. A lot of the 'art' of a novel lies in the word pictures, the use of language, the similes and metaphors, perhaps even the reflection of modern society and the human condition through examination of the specific characters and situation. Much of the time, these things are in diametric opposition to the craft, to the advice that every line must contain a single thought or action that leads the MC step by step towards The End. How many writers remove the spice from their work because a critique partner advises that this memorable line is not in third person close? Or that a particular flavoursome word can be replaced by a simpler one?

A perfect writer might be able to find a way to merge 'artistic' language into the voice of their well-crafted page-turner of a bestseller - but I'm not sure I've ever seen it. Some of my favourite books and authors - Stephen R Donaldson and Reginald Hill come to mind - write, or wrote, books that wouldn't pass muster by today's 'bestseller' standards. For me, Donaldson, with a very 'slow' approach and a vocabulary very much wider than other fantasy authors of the time (and orders of magnitude greater than anything published now) was a revelation, a series of books full of searing imagery but also a love of language. From these I learned many new words, an appreciation for a dictionary and thesaurus, and a love of writing.

What's worse is that the dichotomy between polished-glass best-seller novels, with not a word wasted, every line carefully calibrated to be as simple and direct in telling the story as possible, and language that's not going to turn away any potential reader - and 'literary' reads, means that we'll lose any kind of a middle ground. A new author writing like Donaldson wouldn't get published now. Genre writing in particular (and most of what I try to do is genre writing) seems to effectively rule out a literate approach.

Obviously I'm speaking in generalisations here; some authors will get to publish their literate science-fiction opus, probably after tossing off half a dozen 'best-sellers' first. Stephen King and Dean Koontz both seem to be taking this trajectory in their writing. But for those of us not yet prominent enough to be allowed to publish without the services of an editor, we're being trained very effectively to avoid words with more than three syllables (Flesch-Kincaid is important, dontyaknow!) and it's very uncertain whether, having been trained, we'll ever get to write the books we grew up reading.

(BTW, I've never read Wolfe, but that passage about food did not do anything for me. The problem with art is that it's so subjective and what works for one won't work for another. Probably that's why artistic literature so rarely overlaps with best-seller sales.)
 
Seredipitously (which is a word with six syllables and ends in -ly, and so is disqualified on so many counts) - Stephen R Donaldson's new book just came out! The War Within, follow-up to Seventh Decimate.

I found Seventh Decimate, honestly, a little underwhelming. It lacked some of the Covenant series' depth of characterisation and inner monologue, and it was a shorter and simpler book. The language was easier, the plot snappier. In short, a lot of what I'm speaking of above - it's a more contemporary approach to fiction and it felt less substantial as a result. It felt like a prologue. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with the series now Donaldson's got that out of the way.
 
Totally agree, but as a reader I enjoy both styles. Pillars of the Earth encapsulates the more detailed style. I did find it heavy going, but I found listening to it easier (and I could consume it faster, I couldn't read as fast as I wanted) . I loved it so much, I purchased the ebook too so I could highlight the parts I'd like to emulate. I loved the detail.

As a complete opposite, I found Silence of the Lambs tight and streamlined.

Both were compelling for different reasons. I enjoyed the journey of each. It's the story that matters. That's why I think the kind of reader style feedback offered here is so important. It lets a writer grow into the author they want to become.
 
I think titles like 'Reading Should Be Hard' are a little click baity. 'Reading Should Be Challenging' isn't as exciting. Challenging and hard aren't the same thing to me. Reading something that's not written very well is hard. It's diplomatic to say it's challenging because it implies a reward. Reading something that's well written and also challenging isn't hard. It's exciting and stimulating. That's a challenge easy to embrace. Not hard at all.

Also, I don't consider the excess words or heavy use of language a measure of difficulty, depth, or richness. Everyone repeats what Stephen King says about 'kill your darlings' because he's right. Writers need to write for 2019 while maintaining what is unique about their writing.

Word count matters because everything matters. The goal for me is to get someone from this time period to read my book, not someone from 1910 or even 1980. A 220k from someone I've never read before, and someone who isn't traditionally published by one of the big ones, better be the unequivocal word of god. I'd be super impressed if it caught fire when I opened the cover while never burning the paper--sort of like a supernatural baked Alaska. I'd read that book no matter how many words it was. But I don't think that is going to happen and believe it's misguided to encourage one another to let our wordy flag fly.
 
@Kirsten Tad confused, the hanging wasn't the carpenter. The important take away from the hanging is the curse. The story is intertwined with the result of the curse. The story hits really deep seated emotional moments. Had me crying.
 
Fair assumption, but no. Though, to be fair, it's a story where you need to read to see that baby born. From there, it had me hooked, if for nothing to learn from the author.
 
Paul, thank you! I agree wholeheartedly - the whole push towards minimalism is, I feel, contrary to the art of what we do.

Despite my family's reports that my words and moods are a force of nature worthy of coastal reinforcements, I am constantly reminded that I know nothing. Being able to put words together in a logical and powerful way is no indication of rightness, even if one has no barrier against the deluge of syllables. The other day I argued for an abolition of the separation between the federal government and state government in the United States. Only someone in favor of an autocratic government would want such a thing. Truthfully, I couldn't freaking care less. Government isn't something I care about. But I argued for it and I did it well because I was disgusted by the fact that we (all of us breathing two legged mammals) appear to forever be lost about what's important. That day, I thought the solution was everyone being on the same page.

My own blowhardy skills gives me an impeccable eye for it in others. Well, at least in their writing.

I made the word blowhardy up but believe it has a certain something that makes it understandable.

So.... as long we we're talking about it ... and I have a free moment.... I invite you and anyone else who is interested to examine what you've said.

It will only take a moment of your time. That's how easy it is.

Is minimalism contrary to art?

I think the words minimalism and art must be defined before that sort of assertion can be made.

But, unless you've come up with a definition I have not anticipated, and one which really sheds new light on what it is to be minimalist (which is certainly possible and would be welcomed), I do not think minimalism is contrary to art. Minimalism is a style. That's all. It's a legitimate style and while considering the question, I had to ask myself additional questions.

Is minimalism used in older works of literature?

If minimalism is understood to mean brevity then yes, it's been used. It's been used in longer works of fiction within the prose.

Additionally, there are shorter works of fiction where it's used.

A great deal of allegorical writing lends itself to brevity and sparseness.

Here are some short and sweet examples I looked up:

"Maybe ever’body in the whole damn world is scared of each other." - Steinbeck 1937

“Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.” - Ellison, a genre writer - 1952

"Terror made me cruel." - Emily Bronte - 1847

""We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edges of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories." - Margaret Atwood - 1985

Please notice how many of these quotes are from genre authors. I'm not one hundred percent certain but its possible the Bronte's weren't considered literature on first reading. Or second.

I don't like all of Donaldson's writing but he is one of the best author's I've ever read. It's not the Thomas the Convenant series I got hooked on but his Gap Series. To me it was stunning, flat out beautiful--partly because it was so ugly. I can't recommend it enough. He indirectly addresses a theme near and dear to my heart, the assumptions we make. My guess is that Thomas the Covenant might have some similar themes but i could never get into to. From I recall is that Thomas is somehow doomed. Whenever I think about Donaldson, I'm reminded he was raised in a leper colony. I bet that makes you look at the world differently.
 
I have long been a fan of Donaldson.
I read all of the Thomas Covenant series when they first came out (when I was in my early teens) and enjoyed them immensely. I didn't think (at that time) that they were particularly verbose or wordy, they told the story in great depth and colour which was what I wanted. However, I picked up Lord Foul's Bane recently for a quick reminder and now see it as being a bit slow to start and get going. How my perceptions and expectations have changed over the intervening years is quite an eye-opener.
They would likely struggle to find a publisher in today's markets for that reason.
Sad in a way. How much more depth of world building was available to writers then, but now time-poor readers loose interest after a couple of pages if "nothing happens".
I'm not saying it isn't possible to write interesting novels with brevity, but sacrificing all the wonderful imagery and depth that can be achieved if the reader would only make the effort to read it, seems a shame. Lord of the Rings could have probably been told in a quarter of the word count, but would it have been as good?
 
I've been reading something from Orson Scott Card recently and he makes a very good point about Tolkien. LOTR was what Card calls a "milieu book" - a story whose main purpose is in the telling of the world it is set in. Frodo and company travel through mountains, swamps, forests, cities - a whirlwind tour of Middle Earth. A lot of the story doesn't directly contribute to the plot ("get the Ring to Mount Doom). Tom Bombadil, the fall of Denethor, long digressions into poetry and language and history. The characters are generic (can you describe one salient point about Legolas' character beyond "he's an Elf"?) Tolkien put a single Elf and a single Dwarf into the company because they were archetypes, not because they were fully-fleshed characters. Tolkien is far more interested in exploring the world and history his characters move about in than the prosaic adventures on the way to Mordor.

Milieu stories are endemic to science fiction and fantasy but I suspect publishing trends and reader habits will get in the way of many more being published. World-building remains an important part of such stories, but if readers primarily want an "event" story - where a tight, streamlined plot resolving a situation is the driving force - then world-building has to take a back seat. That's some kind of tragedy for a science-fiction author.
 
read all of the Thomas Covenant series when they first came out (when I was in my early teens) and enjoyed them immensely. I didn't think (at that time) that they were particularly verbose or wordy, they told the story in great depth and colour which was what I wanted. However, I picked up Lord Foul's Bane recently for a quick reminder and now see it as being a bit slow to start and get going. How my perceptions and expectations have changed over the intervening years is quite an eye-opener.
Totally agree with @Tim James, it's such a shame because someone could be writing a beautiful world that will never see the light of day.

To offer a different genre, I've just begun The Good Daughter, a thriller. This is a 2017 publication and the richness of the writing is simply staggering. Karin Slaughter builds the world with heartbreaking action. I know she can't carry that intensity of action throughout the book, she wouldn't want to either, it'd ruin the pace, but she had my trust on the first page and I'm keen to read on. All because of her rich world building. Just use the 'look inside' feature to see the modern day form of rich writing.
 
I've been reading something from Orson Scott Card recently and he makes a very good point about Tolkien. LOTR was what Card calls a "milieu book" - a story whose main purpose is in the telling of the world it is set in. Frodo and company travel through mountains, swamps, forests, cities - a whirlwind tour of Middle Earth. A lot of the story doesn't directly contribute to the plot ("get the Ring to Mount Doom). Tom Bombadil, the fall of Denethor, long digressions into poetry and language and history. The characters are generic (can you describe one salient point about Legolas' character beyond "he's an Elf"?) Tolkien put a single Elf and a single Dwarf into the company because they were archetypes, not because they were fully-fleshed characters. Tolkien is far more interested in exploring the world and history his characters move about in than the prosaic adventures on the way to Mordor.

Milieu stories are endemic to science fiction and fantasy but I suspect publishing trends and reader habits will get in the way of many more being published. World-building remains an important part of such stories, but if readers primarily want an "event" story - where a tight, streamlined plot resolving a situation is the driving force - then world-building has to take a back seat. That's some kind of tragedy for a science-fiction author.

What Card says about LOTR isn't all wrong but it's hardly the most right. LOTR set the standard for epic fantasy fiction and as far as I know, was the first of its kind. He created a genre and it is somewhat reductive to state the main purpose of LOTR was to tell the story of a world. There's lots that can be said... the plot is intricate ... he had to establish context before moving forward with the plot ... but whatever.

However, there is something I've thought about for a long time. Genres are worlds. They are context. Readers acceptance of a certain genre signals what's plausible. Not very long ago, vampires, werewolves, and other naughty creatures were only acceptable as horror. Now they're heroes and heroines. I can see this most strongly in romance. Things which are not likely in real life, which would not be considered plausible, or even interesting, are sold to a group of people full scale with very little world building effort by the author because the idea of the world already has it's foundation in the collective culture--or the collection unconscious if you like. This is not the operation of one book, although there's usually one book which breaks through (or one series of books). One of the genres or worlds in romance which has changed over time is the regency romance. You can see this by the range of styles. Look at a romance from thirty years ago and one from today. You'll see the books in the genre have a common language, often common themes--the older the book, the more earnestly it tries for historical accuracy. The language, manners, and behavior of the people of the time often has little to do with historical accuracy but what readers are willing to believe about regency England.

Fantasy writers have authors like Tolkien to thank for the relative ease they have in creating middle earth, middle ages type of epic fantasy books acceptable. Vampire and supernatural creature lovers have Anne Rice to thank for creating the world they now write in. Yes, these books are longer and more intricate. But I'd argue that the world is part of what happens and I don't think there are many elephants stomping through the kitchen without purpose.
 
I have long been a fan of Donaldson.
I read all of the Thomas Covenant series when they first came out (when I was in my early teens) and enjoyed them immensely. I didn't think (at that time) that they were particularly verbose or wordy, they told the story in great depth and colour which was what I wanted. However, I picked up Lord Foul's Bane recently for a quick reminder and now see it as being a bit slow to start and get going. How my perceptions and expectations have changed over the intervening years is quite an eye-opener.
They would likely struggle to find a publisher in today's markets for that reason.
Sad in a way. How much more depth of world building was available to writers then, but now time-poor readers loose interest after a couple of pages if "nothing happens".
I'm not saying it isn't possible to write interesting novels with brevity, but sacrificing all the wonderful imagery and depth that can be achieved if the reader would only make the effort to read it, seems a shame. Lord of the Rings could have probably been told in a quarter of the word count, but would it have been as good?

I think time or cultural receptivity is always a factor in a book's success. It's always true that books which do well wouldn't necessarily do as well if they emerge during a later time. Aslo, a books success is an operation of many factors, including our culture. I think one of the things writers ask is, "What can I do? How can I control this?" Well, we can't. To some extent, we need to stay in our own lane. We need to write something worth reading. Keeping one ear open for what's going on in the world and how it relates to our own life experience is probably a good idea. Paying more attention to those things rather than perfecting our writing probably isn't a good idea. But then... I think a writer is a writer is a writer. We will do these things instinctually if we're writers because writers aren't made in a day or a year or even a few years. We may not credit or pay attention to our natural instincts because another thing people do, and I'd like to assert this is a characteristic of people rather than of writers, is we often fail to believe in ourselves.

I really like Donaldson and can never figure out why I couldn't get into Thomas the Covenant. Sometimes a book just doesn't catch my interest.
 
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