I read a really interesting post today about writing voice, by S. Boyd Taylor. I encourage you to go and check it out, but to summarize, it said "finding your voice" was a myth and tried to talk about voice in terms of developing a voice, and in fact developing multiple voices. Since voice is something I deal with a lot, particularly in dealing with aliens and with unreliable narrators, I felt inspired by that discussion to talk about it a bit here.
S. Boyd Taylor's discussion includes steps to take to influence your writing voice. He describes this process in terms of how to emulate a favorite author's voice: by reading, defining what you like about that author, figuring out how he/she does it, and then giving it a try. He says the "figuring out how" part is the hardest.
I've never actually tried to emulate the voice of another author, but I know many writers who have - and I know from my experiences exploring writing forums that for every thread that asks "how do I do X?" there will very likely be at least one person who replies, "Find an author who does X. Read him/her. Learn how." What makes the figuring out tricky, though - and this is Mr. Taylor's observation - is quantifying exactly how an author achieves a particular effect. A further complicating factor is the fact that most literary analysis I've encountered uses complex interpretive filters - like feminism, Marxism, modernism, or deconstructionism - to take patterns of language and imbue them with extra layers of meaning which can confuse the issue for a writer.
Personally, I find the question of voice fascinating, and I try to come at it from a linguistic perspective.
This means that when I read, I'm not necessarily going to be able to predict the "meaning" a particular linguistic pattern will have for someone who is bringing a different set of previous experiences and judgments to the table. But I can still identify its features on various linguistic levels (from phonological to semantic and pragmatic) and talk about what its words evoke for me.
It also means that when I write, I use linguistic concepts and analysis. These serve firstly as guides for my instinctive drive to put words on the page, and secondly as tools for editing after the first draft has been set down.
Your first reaction might be to say, "I can't use analysis when I put words down; it will stop me writing." This is definitely a factor. Especially when I am dealing with an alien or with an unreliable narrator, the very first scene I write in a new point of view can feel like it takes forever. Sometimes I fall right into the new pattern, but other times I'll find myself deviating from my rules and have to go back, and it won't be until I'm looking at the scene for a second or third time time that I start getting a gut feel for how the voice works.
So let's get specific about voices, and the tools I use to differentiate them. I thought I'd introduce you to a few of my characters who have deliberately crafted voices, and talk about the linguistic and other features they have. One thing I can tell you right up front is that the common way of distinguishing points of view by pronoun - "first person," "third person" etc. isn't going to help a lot. Except for one, all of these are first person present tense points of view.
1. Dana (from Through This Gate)
"I swear, [Mom's] trying to make Caitlyn hate me for getting into college. It's working, too - Caitlyn's been looking daggers at me all day, as if it was my fault she got herself depressed and addicted to sleeping pills and had to be dragged home for Mom's special brand of detox."
Dana is an almost "normal" voice, because she's a real-world kind of girl. But I do watch out for her voice all the time. For example, she's less likely to say what she thinks with "I think" than with more emotionally charged phrases such as "I swear." She uses modern-day concepts and vocabulary like addiction and "detox" (a very modern term). Where she uses modern slang, I make sure to check her language use with age-appropriate friends of mine, because slang is very easy to overdo. The most slang-like phrase in this example is "as if" (as if it was my fault). I can usually feel Dana's attitude and get into her voice just by reading a short scene.
2. Tenjiro and Ryuuji (from "Smoke and Feathers")
Tenjiro:
"...my blood turns hot. They've got Ryuuji. I'm whirling to go when Takada-sensei's voice says, 'Tenjiro-kun, wait a second, I want to talk to you.' I must stay and bow, though I want to run. Sensei starts telling me again how he wants me to go out for kendo club after school. I can hardly stand still."
Ryuuji:
"I don't feel like myself tonight. I shut my eyes, drain all the energy from my body, become a puddle in my futon. Maybe this way she will spare me. I hear the door open, and soon Baba's breath blows over my left ear; I breathe slowly, slowly."
Tenjiro and Ryuuji are two Japanese twin brothers. Their culture is reflected in their use of titles (like Sensei) and what they treat as known information (kendo club). The two boys' voices are both first person, but they are distinct from one another because they have different features. Tenjiro's major metaphors are those of fighting, birds, and heat. He uses contractions most of the time. He constantly uses phrases like "try," "struggle," and "have to." Ryuuji's major metaphor is that of water. He is more self-reflective (as when he speaks of his body), and less reactive. He also uses fewer contractions, which makes him sound more formal. I found this story easy to write, but went back through in revision to enhance the differences between the boys' voices.
3. Nekantor (from "The Eminence's Match," forthcoming in Eight Against Reality)
"...the Eminence Nekantor frowned down across his naked ribs. Look: two buttons at the waist of his silk trousers. Fastened, both of them, completely fastened. Deceptively fastened. They had been fastened wrong: lower-then-upper, not upper-then-lower. The difference stuck to the buttons like fingerprints. The difference felt like fingers pressing on his mind."
Nekantor has obsessive compulsive disorder, and his prose is designed to reflect this. He repeats himself (fastened/difference/fingerprints/fingers). He has an obsessive refrain for each scene in which he appears (in this one, it's "fingers"). He never expresses uncertainty. He uses words with insulting, dismissive, or suspicious connotation whenever possible (deceptively, wrong). He frequently uses "must," because he wants everything around him to conform to his altered perception of reality. The first scene I ever wrote in his point of view, I wrote on my gut - then stepped back and analyzed it for features to take forward into other scenes in his point of view. Sometimes he's easy to fall into, but sometimes it can take me an hour just to get into the right head space.
4. Allayo (from "Let the Word Take Me," Analog, July/August 2008)
"The male blasphemes before me: I must avert my face as he allows the sacred Word to escape his mouth in this improper place, so far from the House of Leaves and the Mouth of Singing Crystal. Yet the female is worse. She sits and utters simian calls while a dark box in her lap - O save me! - speaks. Imagine it: to hear the living Word issue from a dead box! My heart quails when I think of it, and I hide my face in atonement for whatever misdeed might have brought me to this test of faith."
Allayo compares everything she sees to sacred stories from her past experience, and to familiar categories (simian, ruff). She uses religious terms for behavior (blasphemes/hide my face in atonement), and religious categories to define things and events (sacred Word, test of faith). Allayo does not use contractions, and this and her use of more archaic or formal vocabulary (avert my face/utters/quails/misdeed) contribute to her sense of general reverence. I wrote this voice mostly from my gut, but my experience with church language was a definite influence.
5. Rulii (from "Cold Words," Analog, October 2009)
"My hackles rise. I know much of unfairness, as the only one of Lowland race on the Cold Council - and also of hidden intent. My own is to use this spaceport to bring Human silver to the Lowlands, thus raising my nape-bitten race. If Parker scents true, this Officer Hada could ruin my hunt before its final pace. 'When will she take foot in La-larrai City?'"
Rulii never uses present progressive forms. The fact that he's always using "do" instead of "am doing" gives him a sense of urgency and constant action, because the use of "am doing" would suggest a sustained state. His major metaphors are those of the hunt (scents true/ruin my hunt before its final pace), and the food chain. He describes interactions in terms of territory dispute and Rank dispute among wolves (nape-bitten). He also uses unusual vocabulary, like "take foot" instead of "arrive," and "show embarrassed" rather than "look embarrassed." His voice also uses unusual meter (rhythm) - I tried to give some of his prose a loping feel (dactyllic/Xxx), and sometimes a striking feel (spondaic/XX). Rulii didn't use contractions in early drafts, but the resulting formal tone actually detracted from the effectiveness of his voice, so I reintroduced them. He was another voice that sometimes took me an hour to get in the right mood for.
6. Tsee (under construction)
"As one, we watch the images shift and move, fishlike, within the sphere. Ship Martials have captured aliens, in fact, truth! They rise homeward to the ship in one of our planet-divers. Four of them, evidently. They are in shock, it seems, no talk among them. But are these four halves, like to other aliens, or are they two wholes, like to us? Not like us, like the Cochee-coco, surely. In the great star pattern with all the races we have met, none have traveled the stars - truth, witnessed - and none have been like us."
Tsee and her brother are twins, never separated, and they never use first person singular pronouns, but speak of themselves as two halves of a whole. This means no "I," "me," or "my." She uses metaphors of music and water. Since alterations in the use of pronouns are extremely marked (difficult for readers to grasp unconsciously) I'm trying not to change much else in her grammar, but I'm trying for a metrical/intonational effect on the phrase and sentence level. Tsee tends to break up her thoughts with short interjections of one or two words, in a call-and-response pattern. Her first scene was extremely difficult to write, because forbidden words kept slipping in (argh!), but I've gone over it and started to get a feel for it now, and it's getting easier.
So after looking at all of these, I'm going to make a list - not an exhaustive list by any means - of some linguistic elements that I use in creating distinct voices.
1. People references.
Names, titles, etc. How characters refer to those around them will reflect how they view them as well as the social structure of their society.
2. Meter/turn-taking patterns
The rhythmic pattern of words, whether it mirrors English, and whether it conforms to expectations.
3. Verb tenses. Affects the sense of time progressing, and gives hints of a character's attitude.
4. Contractions. Contractions aren't actually an on-or-off thing (all vs. none), but the more you use, the less formal your character will sound.
5. Vocabulary. One word alone isn't necessarily going to be enough to affect a character's voice, but if you have lots of words that suggest urgency, rush, or impulsiveness, then your character will start sounding impulsive. The character's choice of vocabulary will reflect the larger metaphors they use as models for their judgments.
6. Metaphor. The imagery used in judgments and descriptions. A person will tend to compare something new in their experience to something more familiar, or to liken parts of their lives to established metaphorical models. So using particular metaphors will establish things like hunting, religion, etc. as known to your character, and also help to establish a "feel."
7. Word Repetition. This is something people will notice, at least on a subconscious level, and it can have different kinds of effects in different contexts (slowing down, speeding up, suggesting obsession, etc.). It's worth looking out for.
Some of these elements I establish intentionally, while others just grow out of the "feel" I get once one or two elements have changed. My general technique is to try a voice for one scene, then run it by some friends to see if it's "working," and then either try to make it more reader-friendly or go, go, go. With the more alien viewpoints, I am careful to ease into them by starting in a place where there's a lot of easy overlap with the existing, familiar patterns of English, and then gradually push them further into the alien.
It's a process I love. You can probably tell - and I hope this post will help you enjoy it, too.
Showing posts with label analysis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label analysis. Show all posts
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
26 Monkeys: Also the Abyss - A Ridiculously Close Look - with Comments from Kij Johnson!
Today I thought I'd look at a wonderful story - the Nebula-nominated "26 Monkeys: Also the Abyss" by Kij Johnson. This is a story that got me interested from the first, then just got better and better until by the end I was going "wow."
For those curious about point of view, I'll focus on the fact that Kij Johnson uses third person omniscient in this story (I've analyzed this POV once before in my Ridiculously Close Look at The Sparrow). Omniscient point of view is less easy than it looks, because you have to choose which heads to dip into - and when - and why - and then you have to consider who you are when you're not dipping into various character perspectives. It might be easy to think that an omniscient point of view automatically means a storyteller narrator, but trust me, it doesn't. Tolkien makes his omniscient third person a grandfatherly guy at whose knee you want to sit, but Mary Doria Russell does not - and neither does Kij Johnson.
By the time we get to the end of this, I hope to show you why the third person omniscient voice she chose is perfectly and brilliantly suited to the purpose of her story.
Let's get to the text, starting with the title:
26 Monkeys: Also the Abyss
This title surprised me. Monkeys are always evocative - and setting them opposite "The Abyss" made me immediately curious. In fact, this title sets my expectations perfectly for the story to follow: the story considers precisely this relationship between the absurd and the dire.
I immediately notice the numbering, and since this scenelet is only a single line long, I notice that the entire story is set up as a numbered list. There are several lists in the story, in fact - a fact I'll return to below. This line gives us an instant snapshot of the main content of the story, and firmly establishes the monkeys as benign in their intent. It also makes me curious in two ways: first, I'm not sure I expect a woman with a name like Aimee to be running a carnival show; and second, now that I know what Aimee's "big trick" is, I'm anxious to find out how she does it. Notice that the phrasing is not internal to any character. Any stranger might tell me this in exactly these words. Aimee is the only person who couldn't say this naturally.
In the second scenelet, Kij Johnson gives us more, zooming us in further toward our subject. We watch the act progress:
For those curious about point of view, I'll focus on the fact that Kij Johnson uses third person omniscient in this story (I've analyzed this POV once before in my Ridiculously Close Look at The Sparrow). Omniscient point of view is less easy than it looks, because you have to choose which heads to dip into - and when - and why - and then you have to consider who you are when you're not dipping into various character perspectives. It might be easy to think that an omniscient point of view automatically means a storyteller narrator, but trust me, it doesn't. Tolkien makes his omniscient third person a grandfatherly guy at whose knee you want to sit, but Mary Doria Russell does not - and neither does Kij Johnson.
By the time we get to the end of this, I hope to show you why the third person omniscient voice she chose is perfectly and brilliantly suited to the purpose of her story.
Let's get to the text, starting with the title:
26 Monkeys: Also the Abyss
This title surprised me. Monkeys are always evocative - and setting them opposite "The Abyss" made me immediately curious. In fact, this title sets my expectations perfectly for the story to follow: the story considers precisely this relationship between the absurd and the dire.
1.
Aimee's big trick is that she makes twenty-six monkeys vanish onstage.
I immediately notice the numbering, and since this scenelet is only a single line long, I notice that the entire story is set up as a numbered list. There are several lists in the story, in fact - a fact I'll return to below. This line gives us an instant snapshot of the main content of the story, and firmly establishes the monkeys as benign in their intent. It also makes me curious in two ways: first, I'm not sure I expect a woman with a name like Aimee to be running a carnival show; and second, now that I know what Aimee's "big trick" is, I'm anxious to find out how she does it. Notice that the phrasing is not internal to any character. Any stranger might tell me this in exactly these words. Aimee is the only person who couldn't say this naturally.
In the second scenelet, Kij Johnson gives us more, zooming us in further toward our subject. We watch the act progress:
2.
This passage fascinates me because it is still quite distant - and it is omniscient, since we are told what the audience can see - yet it is not entirely impersonal. First, Aimee is the only human identified as a named individual in this passage, which naturally puts our focus on her even though we don't experience her thoughts directly. The audience members remain a faceless mass, and the author deliberately uses passive voice to keep the stagehands out of it ("the bathtub is hoisted"). Look also at these details from the passage:
a claw-foot bathtub
people climb in and look underneath
touch the white enamel
run their hands along the little lions' feet
The quirkiness of the claw-foot bathtub definitely draws my attention, as do the people climbing into it, but I'm struck by the quiet sensitivity of "touch the white enamel" and "run their hands along the little lions' feet." I also notice the monkey, Zeb, who is the first entity besides Aimee to get a name - which makes him personal, and prepares him for a key role later in the story.
These details begin to reveal the narrator as a sensitive observer, a person who can notice small intimacies in the midst of a crowded carnival setting. I don't have many options within the story for who these characteristics might belong to, and I can't help but think they come from Aimee. I find this opinion backed up by the opening of the next scene:
3.
She pushes out a claw-foot bathtub and asks audience members to come up and inspect it. The people climb in and look underneath, touch the white enamel, run their hands along the little lions' feet. When they're done, four chains are lowered from the stage's fly space. Aimee secures them to holes drilled along the tub's lip and gives a signal, and the bathtub is hoisted ten feet into the air.
She sets a stepladder next to it. She claps her hands and the twenty-six monkeys onstage run up the ladder one after the other and jump into the bathtub. The bathtub shakes as each monkey thuds in among the others. The audience can see heads, legs, tails; but eventually every monkey settles and the bathtub is still again. Zeb is always the last monkey up the ladder. As he climbs into the bathtub, he makes a humming boom deep in his chest. It fills the stage.
And then there's a flash of light, two of the chains fall off, and the bathtub swings down to expose its interior.
Empty.
She sets a stepladder next to it. She claps her hands and the twenty-six monkeys onstage run up the ladder one after the other and jump into the bathtub. The bathtub shakes as each monkey thuds in among the others. The audience can see heads, legs, tails; but eventually every monkey settles and the bathtub is still again. Zeb is always the last monkey up the ladder. As he climbs into the bathtub, he makes a humming boom deep in his chest. It fills the stage.
And then there's a flash of light, two of the chains fall off, and the bathtub swings down to expose its interior.
Empty.
This passage fascinates me because it is still quite distant - and it is omniscient, since we are told what the audience can see - yet it is not entirely impersonal. First, Aimee is the only human identified as a named individual in this passage, which naturally puts our focus on her even though we don't experience her thoughts directly. The audience members remain a faceless mass, and the author deliberately uses passive voice to keep the stagehands out of it ("the bathtub is hoisted"). Look also at these details from the passage:
a claw-foot bathtub
people climb in and look underneath
touch the white enamel
run their hands along the little lions' feet
The quirkiness of the claw-foot bathtub definitely draws my attention, as do the people climbing into it, but I'm struck by the quiet sensitivity of "touch the white enamel" and "run their hands along the little lions' feet." I also notice the monkey, Zeb, who is the first entity besides Aimee to get a name - which makes him personal, and prepares him for a key role later in the story.
These details begin to reveal the narrator as a sensitive observer, a person who can notice small intimacies in the midst of a crowded carnival setting. I don't have many options within the story for who these characteristics might belong to, and I can't help but think they come from Aimee. I find this opinion backed up by the opening of the next scene:
They turn up later, back at the tour bus[...]
The choice of "the" tour bus (not "a" tour bus, or "her" tour bus) indicates the tour bus is known information. Who could it be known to besides Aimee? So the narrator is giving us glimpses of Aimee in spite of a generally distant tone. This continues through the scene, with her perceptions of the monkeys coming home, leading us to our first glimpses of her state of mind:
Aimee doesn't really sleep until she hears them all come in. Aimee has no idea what happens to them in the bathtub, or where they go, or what they do before the soft click of the dog door opening. This bothers her a lot.
The interesting thing, at least in my view, is that this is about as close as we get to Aimee. We see her in action at various points in the story, but we never hear her internalized thoughts. Much of the story has this kind of detachment - reinforced by the lists and by the use of colons, and simultaneously mitigated by the use of sensitive details. Here are two more passages to demonstrate:
Aimee has: a nineteen-year-old tour bus packed with cages that range in size from parrot-sized (for the vervets) to something about the size of a pickup bed (for all the macaques); a stack of books on monkeys ranging from All About Monkeys to Evolution and Ecology of Baboon Societies; some sequined show costumes, a sewing machine, and a bunch of Carhartts and tees[...]
Aimee's monkeys:
- 2 siamangs, a mated couple
- 2 squirrel monkeys, though they're so active they might as well be twice as many
- 2 vervets
- a guenon, who is probably pregnant, though it's still too early to tell for sure. Aimee has no idea how this happened
- 3 rhesus monkeys. They juggle a little [...]
The one that really made me think, though, was the list that begins as follows:
These are some ways that Aimee's life might have come apart:
a. She might have broken her ankle a few years ago, and gotten a bone infection that left her on crutches for ten months, and in pain for longer.
Look at the details of the ankle incident and you can't doubt that this is a list of actual events of Aimee's life - yet they're all couched in modal sentences using "might."
When I was first reading the story, I hadn't had a firm handle on the narrator until this point, but this one sealed it for me. The narrator handles the events of Aimee's life, not dispassionately, and not broken-heartedly, but stand-offishly. This voice is not Aimee, precisely. It is not a vehicle for her feelings. Yet it reflects her emotional sensibilities, approaching the most painful areas of her past with a diffidence that suggests she is afraid to approach them too closely. This feels real to me.
I don't really want to provide spoilers here - I want you to go and read the story yourself - so I'll resist my inclination to push my textual analysis any further. However, I do want to share some thoughts on how this narrative voice fits into the story as a whole.
Kij Johnson has chosen to juxtapose Aimee's carnival act - absurd, quirky and inexplicable as it is - with Aimee's terrible grief as a result of terrible events in her life. As the story progresses, Johnson manages to bring the two sides together in a marvelous way, so that they are less contrasting and more congruent.
If she had gone another route, and taken us closer to Aimee's point of view, it would have been easy for us to get mired in the grief itself - and this would have made it far more difficult to grasp the thematic content of the story. By keeping narrative distance, Johnson avoids the trap of protesting too much. She allows us to share Aimee's sensitive observations of the details of her life, and by showing us Aimee's fear of touching her own grief, Johnson allows readers to add their own depth to her story by accessing personal experiences of grief, and of the grieving.
This is more than just a wonderful story. It kept me guessing, and it made me think. And now it has also given me an opportunity to think about third person omniscient in a whole new way.
-----
After I posted this last night, I was lucky enough to exchange messages with Kij Johnson herself, and she gave me her own personal comments on my analysis and the story as a whole, which follow below.
-----
"26 Monkeys" is a very technical story, and as you figured out, almost everything in the story is done with conscious intent. Your thoughts about the distanced narrative voice are solid: we seem never to get far into Aimee's head, except in a clinical way. Except that we do, actually: the narrative voice is entirely into her thoughts and feeling, and the outbursts -- "Because there's always a reason for everything, isn't there?" "Nothing is certain" -- are Aimee's core existential crisis, speaking to the reader without the intervention of Aimee.
People in pain tend to distance themselves from immediate engagement with the pain. Here's an example of displacing: I might be describing a deeply embarrassing moment from my childhood, telling you, "I was telling Eric how terrible the trumpet playing in that song was and he said that was him playing and you just don't know what to say after that. You feel like an idiot." I am uncomfortable enough with what I am saying/feeling that I am trying to push it off onto You.
The narrator is DEEPLY engaged, enmeshed, in Aimee’s feelings; and every time Aimee comes to a really painful realization or memory, the voice pulls back, either into the outbursts, which are clearly You statements -- or, most interestingly (I think) the list of the ways her life might have changed.
The truth of what did happen to take her to this state is the most powerful thing in Aimee's life, so painful and powerful that she (and/or the narrator) not only distances herself by list-making and by switching into the "might have" statements, but even conceals the true reason among a handful of possibilities.
Aimee is most present, and the narrative is at its most conventional, when she's with Geof and Zeb -- who are not part of the core pain.
***
You say the narrator is "standoffish," and that's very insightful. The narrator is intentionally pushing you away from the painful parts, which sets me as writer a really interesting set of challenges. How am I going to keep you, the reader, interested, when Aimee is apparently distanced from the narrative, and my narrator is saying, "Nothing to see here! Move along!" Three things in play here: The intensity of Aimee's experience compensates for the clinical voice. Also, the narrator isn't doing a very good job of directing you away from the pain: her crafted perspective slips frequently into the angry, anguished outbursts. The third tool is the very concrete, specific detail the story is built upon, as you pointed out. The story doesn’t work without the lion’s feet and the rest of it.
There’s another reason for the highly specific, concrete details that are given, especially the lists and the careful descriptions. Aimee – and the narrator, and I – are fixated on these little immediate details, for all the reasons people in deeply-felt pain get caught up in immediate sensation or observation. The numbers heading each section distance us as readers -- the story rejects immersion by coming to you in small segregated chunks – even as it offers itself as a series of “highly specific, concrete details.”
***
There’s all sorts of stuff happening with the language and the sentence structures, as well. But I’ll tell you a way that craft sometimes goes right by the board. The story was called “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” because I had to pick an arbitrary number of monkeys, and there were 26 letters in the alphabet. Zeb’s name ends with a Z because it was the last letter of the alphabet. The theory at first was that there would be 26 sections, as well. I cut some of the sections as I wrote, but I never renumbered the monkeys. And that’s cool. The story includes the notion that not everything in life is going to wrap up perfectly. Even if you read the story carefully, you don’t know exactly how many monkeys there are in it.
***
Thanks for letting me talk about this! :(|)
----
Thank you, Kij Johnson!
The choice of "the" tour bus (not "a" tour bus, or "her" tour bus) indicates the tour bus is known information. Who could it be known to besides Aimee? So the narrator is giving us glimpses of Aimee in spite of a generally distant tone. This continues through the scene, with her perceptions of the monkeys coming home, leading us to our first glimpses of her state of mind:
Aimee doesn't really sleep until she hears them all come in. Aimee has no idea what happens to them in the bathtub, or where they go, or what they do before the soft click of the dog door opening. This bothers her a lot.
The interesting thing, at least in my view, is that this is about as close as we get to Aimee. We see her in action at various points in the story, but we never hear her internalized thoughts. Much of the story has this kind of detachment - reinforced by the lists and by the use of colons, and simultaneously mitigated by the use of sensitive details. Here are two more passages to demonstrate:
Aimee has: a nineteen-year-old tour bus packed with cages that range in size from parrot-sized (for the vervets) to something about the size of a pickup bed (for all the macaques); a stack of books on monkeys ranging from All About Monkeys to Evolution and Ecology of Baboon Societies; some sequined show costumes, a sewing machine, and a bunch of Carhartts and tees[...]
Aimee's monkeys:
- 2 siamangs, a mated couple
- 2 squirrel monkeys, though they're so active they might as well be twice as many
- 2 vervets
- a guenon, who is probably pregnant, though it's still too early to tell for sure. Aimee has no idea how this happened
- 3 rhesus monkeys. They juggle a little [...]
The one that really made me think, though, was the list that begins as follows:
These are some ways that Aimee's life might have come apart:
a. She might have broken her ankle a few years ago, and gotten a bone infection that left her on crutches for ten months, and in pain for longer.
Look at the details of the ankle incident and you can't doubt that this is a list of actual events of Aimee's life - yet they're all couched in modal sentences using "might."
When I was first reading the story, I hadn't had a firm handle on the narrator until this point, but this one sealed it for me. The narrator handles the events of Aimee's life, not dispassionately, and not broken-heartedly, but stand-offishly. This voice is not Aimee, precisely. It is not a vehicle for her feelings. Yet it reflects her emotional sensibilities, approaching the most painful areas of her past with a diffidence that suggests she is afraid to approach them too closely. This feels real to me.
I don't really want to provide spoilers here - I want you to go and read the story yourself - so I'll resist my inclination to push my textual analysis any further. However, I do want to share some thoughts on how this narrative voice fits into the story as a whole.
Kij Johnson has chosen to juxtapose Aimee's carnival act - absurd, quirky and inexplicable as it is - with Aimee's terrible grief as a result of terrible events in her life. As the story progresses, Johnson manages to bring the two sides together in a marvelous way, so that they are less contrasting and more congruent.
If she had gone another route, and taken us closer to Aimee's point of view, it would have been easy for us to get mired in the grief itself - and this would have made it far more difficult to grasp the thematic content of the story. By keeping narrative distance, Johnson avoids the trap of protesting too much. She allows us to share Aimee's sensitive observations of the details of her life, and by showing us Aimee's fear of touching her own grief, Johnson allows readers to add their own depth to her story by accessing personal experiences of grief, and of the grieving.
This is more than just a wonderful story. It kept me guessing, and it made me think. And now it has also given me an opportunity to think about third person omniscient in a whole new way.
-----
After I posted this last night, I was lucky enough to exchange messages with Kij Johnson herself, and she gave me her own personal comments on my analysis and the story as a whole, which follow below.
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"26 Monkeys" is a very technical story, and as you figured out, almost everything in the story is done with conscious intent. Your thoughts about the distanced narrative voice are solid: we seem never to get far into Aimee's head, except in a clinical way. Except that we do, actually: the narrative voice is entirely into her thoughts and feeling, and the outbursts -- "Because there's always a reason for everything, isn't there?" "Nothing is certain" -- are Aimee's core existential crisis, speaking to the reader without the intervention of Aimee.
People in pain tend to distance themselves from immediate engagement with the pain. Here's an example of displacing: I might be describing a deeply embarrassing moment from my childhood, telling you, "I was telling Eric how terrible the trumpet playing in that song was and he said that was him playing and you just don't know what to say after that. You feel like an idiot." I am uncomfortable enough with what I am saying/feeling that I am trying to push it off onto You.
The narrator is DEEPLY engaged, enmeshed, in Aimee’s feelings; and every time Aimee comes to a really painful realization or memory, the voice pulls back, either into the outbursts, which are clearly You statements -- or, most interestingly (I think) the list of the ways her life might have changed.
The truth of what did happen to take her to this state is the most powerful thing in Aimee's life, so painful and powerful that she (and/or the narrator) not only distances herself by list-making and by switching into the "might have" statements, but even conceals the true reason among a handful of possibilities.
Aimee is most present, and the narrative is at its most conventional, when she's with Geof and Zeb -- who are not part of the core pain.
***
You say the narrator is "standoffish," and that's very insightful. The narrator is intentionally pushing you away from the painful parts, which sets me as writer a really interesting set of challenges. How am I going to keep you, the reader, interested, when Aimee is apparently distanced from the narrative, and my narrator is saying, "Nothing to see here! Move along!" Three things in play here: The intensity of Aimee's experience compensates for the clinical voice. Also, the narrator isn't doing a very good job of directing you away from the pain: her crafted perspective slips frequently into the angry, anguished outbursts. The third tool is the very concrete, specific detail the story is built upon, as you pointed out. The story doesn’t work without the lion’s feet and the rest of it.
There’s another reason for the highly specific, concrete details that are given, especially the lists and the careful descriptions. Aimee – and the narrator, and I – are fixated on these little immediate details, for all the reasons people in deeply-felt pain get caught up in immediate sensation or observation. The numbers heading each section distance us as readers -- the story rejects immersion by coming to you in small segregated chunks – even as it offers itself as a series of “highly specific, concrete details.”
***
There’s all sorts of stuff happening with the language and the sentence structures, as well. But I’ll tell you a way that craft sometimes goes right by the board. The story was called “26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss” because I had to pick an arbitrary number of monkeys, and there were 26 letters in the alphabet. Zeb’s name ends with a Z because it was the last letter of the alphabet. The theory at first was that there would be 26 sections, as well. I cut some of the sections as I wrote, but I never renumbered the monkeys. And that’s cool. The story includes the notion that not everything in life is going to wrap up perfectly. Even if you read the story carefully, you don’t know exactly how many monkeys there are in it.
***
Thanks for letting me talk about this! :(|)
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Thank you, Kij Johnson!
Thursday, April 16, 2009
A Visit to the Academic World
Yesterday I made a visit to the academic world. I was invited to make an appearance - as an author! - at a class taught by my former Ph.D. advisor, Claire Kramsch.
She made me feel wonderful by inviting me, and I had a great time.
I got to read the opening scene of my forthcoming story, Cold Words, and then ask her students to analyze it - just in the same way that I do my own editing analysis, and the way I do Ridiculously Close Looks here on the blog. I asked the students to look through the words I'd written and find places where I'd given cues to the Aurrel's invented language and how it worked, and cues for alien point of view.
It was nothing like going to a convention, or even talking with friends who enjoy science fiction. It was all serious. But it was marvelous, geeky fun for me. It really made me feel like I've been doing the right thing all this time by applying my knowledge to science fiction and fantasy. And it made me feel like an author.
Both of those feelings were a thrill.
She made me feel wonderful by inviting me, and I had a great time.
I got to read the opening scene of my forthcoming story, Cold Words, and then ask her students to analyze it - just in the same way that I do my own editing analysis, and the way I do Ridiculously Close Looks here on the blog. I asked the students to look through the words I'd written and find places where I'd given cues to the Aurrel's invented language and how it worked, and cues for alien point of view.
It was nothing like going to a convention, or even talking with friends who enjoy science fiction. It was all serious. But it was marvelous, geeky fun for me. It really made me feel like I've been doing the right thing all this time by applying my knowledge to science fiction and fantasy. And it made me feel like an author.
Both of those feelings were a thrill.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Dinosaurs Before Dark: A Ridiculously Close Look
Today I thought I'd look at story drive and point of view in a bit of an unusual context.
Both story drive and point of view can be tricky to achieve. A story without a consistent point of view will often feel all over the place, and one without drive makes us sigh and put it down, wondering why we couldn't get caught up in a story whose premise seemed so interesting.
My point today, though, is that though we may be tempted to make our stories more complex in order to create drive or to create point of view, complexity is not at all necessary to create interest or forward momentum. Similarly, point of view does not require a mature and sophisticated text.
My excerpt today is the opening of Dinosaurs Before Dark by Mary Pope Osborne, one of the Magic Tree House books that I just got for my son for Christmas. This book has drive on page one. It has third person limited point of view, also on page one. And my five-year-old can read it. I have immense respect for an author who can achieve that.
Let's take a look at how she does it.
Line 1:
"Help! A monster!" said Annie.
And we're off. Five words, and already I'm curious whether this is a real monster or not, where Annie is and why she'd be saying that. The style is simple. The content is compelling.
Line 2:
"Yeah, sure," said Jack. "A real monster in Frog Creek, Pennsylvania."
Instantly we have conflict, with the boy and girl disagreeing. I become curious about the relationship between Jack and Annie, and while I wonder which of them to trust, I still can entertain the possibility that a real monster is coming. Notice also that the context of conflict allows Jack to bring up Frog Creek, Pennsylvania. Without any conflict, you'd get one of those cringe-worthy "as you know, Bob" sentences - but here it sounds totally natural because the location itself is not in question, only the plausibility of finding a monster there.
Line 3:
"Run, Jack!" said Annie. She ran up the road.
Annie could have argued with Jack, saying "No, really" - but then the reader would become certain this was just an argument. Annie's willingness to take action in spite of her brother's attitude keeps us guessing about monsters, and also develops Annie's character and her relationship to Jack.
Line 4:
Oh, brother.
One line, and suddenly we sense point of view. With no quotes, this can't be spoken, but it's such an idiosyncratic expression of frustration that we have to conclude it's someone's thought. Mary Pope Osborne accomplishes this without ever using the word "thought," or italics, or any other stylistic indicator. She just gives us something that can't be construed as anything but thought. The question then becomes, "Whose?"
Which is the curiosity leading us to the next line.
Line 5:
This is what he got for spending time with his seven-year-old sister.
Suddenly we realize we're in Jack's head. Although the pronouns are third person, the sentence clearly centers on him. "This" refers to the situation he's in, describing it as close and immediate to him much as I do when I think to myself. Also, this conflict situation again allows Osborne to give us critical information - "seven-year-old sister" - without resorting to an unrealistic line of dialogue or thought.
Something else, too: this sentence radiates attitude, through the expression "this is what he got." It's clear now that Jack doesn't believe what his sister is saying. The question then becomes whether he's reliable in his judgment. Osborne gives us that information in the very next line.
Line 6:
Annie loved pretend stuff. But Jack was eight and a half. He liked real things.
Coming on the heels of Jack's other thoughts, even a sentence beginning with Annie doesn't pull us into her point of view. The juxtaposition of Annie and Jack (see the word "but") gives us Jack's justification for his opinion. It also places him as only slightly older than his sister. I couldn't tell you what my son thinks, precisely, but from an adult's point of view, this is fascinating because I see that he's reliable in his judgment of the monster situation, but not necessarily reliable in his attitude toward his sister. It also places him at the age where kids stop believing in magical stuff – and given that this is a Magic Tree House book, we can sense already that he's got a surprise coming. This leaves us asking when, and what that surprise will be.
Line 7:
"Watch out, Jack! The monster's coming! Race you!"
Here we see Annie's persistence in wanting to play with her brother (after all, he hasn't answered her last invitation). But interestingly, the words "race you" suggest that Annie also knows she's making things up. "Race you" reflects her desire to engage and compete with her brother, but she'd never say it if there were a real monster coming.
Line 8:
"No thanks," said Jack.
Jack is staying out of the competition, and the conflict ends here – but we're still waiting for the final turn of the interaction, because the conflict is only over if both parties agree to let it go. Annie's response in the next line changes the momentum of the story completely:
Line 9:
Annie raced alone into the woods.
Suddenly we've ramped up the conflict. Not only has Annie refused to accept Jack's lack of involvement, she immediately runs off into a location which is a classic for adventures. I'd have to guess that by the age of five my son has already seen enough instances of kids alone in woods and trouble ensuing (through fairy tales, children's books, etc.) to think that Jack was wrong to let Annie leave by herself, and to wonder whether she's going to be okay, and what she's going to find.
And that's how Osborne keeps us driving ahead into the rest of the story.
The tools she uses here are content and juxtaposition – tools of the utmost simplicity, yes, but they are highly effective. This story drives forward with every line. It lets us share Jack's thoughts and feelings – and evaluate them – without the need for lots of extra words. The expressions she chooses are evocative of highly familiar knowledge (even for five-year-olds), and the conflict situation she sets up allows her to dispense critical information smoothly.
Now there's a good story.
Both story drive and point of view can be tricky to achieve. A story without a consistent point of view will often feel all over the place, and one without drive makes us sigh and put it down, wondering why we couldn't get caught up in a story whose premise seemed so interesting.
My point today, though, is that though we may be tempted to make our stories more complex in order to create drive or to create point of view, complexity is not at all necessary to create interest or forward momentum. Similarly, point of view does not require a mature and sophisticated text.
My excerpt today is the opening of Dinosaurs Before Dark by Mary Pope Osborne, one of the Magic Tree House books that I just got for my son for Christmas. This book has drive on page one. It has third person limited point of view, also on page one. And my five-year-old can read it. I have immense respect for an author who can achieve that.
Let's take a look at how she does it.
Line 1:
"Help! A monster!" said Annie.
And we're off. Five words, and already I'm curious whether this is a real monster or not, where Annie is and why she'd be saying that. The style is simple. The content is compelling.
Line 2:
"Yeah, sure," said Jack. "A real monster in Frog Creek, Pennsylvania."
Instantly we have conflict, with the boy and girl disagreeing. I become curious about the relationship between Jack and Annie, and while I wonder which of them to trust, I still can entertain the possibility that a real monster is coming. Notice also that the context of conflict allows Jack to bring up Frog Creek, Pennsylvania. Without any conflict, you'd get one of those cringe-worthy "as you know, Bob" sentences - but here it sounds totally natural because the location itself is not in question, only the plausibility of finding a monster there.
Line 3:
"Run, Jack!" said Annie. She ran up the road.
Annie could have argued with Jack, saying "No, really" - but then the reader would become certain this was just an argument. Annie's willingness to take action in spite of her brother's attitude keeps us guessing about monsters, and also develops Annie's character and her relationship to Jack.
Line 4:
Oh, brother.
One line, and suddenly we sense point of view. With no quotes, this can't be spoken, but it's such an idiosyncratic expression of frustration that we have to conclude it's someone's thought. Mary Pope Osborne accomplishes this without ever using the word "thought," or italics, or any other stylistic indicator. She just gives us something that can't be construed as anything but thought. The question then becomes, "Whose?"
Which is the curiosity leading us to the next line.
Line 5:
This is what he got for spending time with his seven-year-old sister.
Suddenly we realize we're in Jack's head. Although the pronouns are third person, the sentence clearly centers on him. "This" refers to the situation he's in, describing it as close and immediate to him much as I do when I think to myself. Also, this conflict situation again allows Osborne to give us critical information - "seven-year-old sister" - without resorting to an unrealistic line of dialogue or thought.
Something else, too: this sentence radiates attitude, through the expression "this is what he got." It's clear now that Jack doesn't believe what his sister is saying. The question then becomes whether he's reliable in his judgment. Osborne gives us that information in the very next line.
Line 6:
Annie loved pretend stuff. But Jack was eight and a half. He liked real things.
Coming on the heels of Jack's other thoughts, even a sentence beginning with Annie doesn't pull us into her point of view. The juxtaposition of Annie and Jack (see the word "but") gives us Jack's justification for his opinion. It also places him as only slightly older than his sister. I couldn't tell you what my son thinks, precisely, but from an adult's point of view, this is fascinating because I see that he's reliable in his judgment of the monster situation, but not necessarily reliable in his attitude toward his sister. It also places him at the age where kids stop believing in magical stuff – and given that this is a Magic Tree House book, we can sense already that he's got a surprise coming. This leaves us asking when, and what that surprise will be.
Line 7:
"Watch out, Jack! The monster's coming! Race you!"
Here we see Annie's persistence in wanting to play with her brother (after all, he hasn't answered her last invitation). But interestingly, the words "race you" suggest that Annie also knows she's making things up. "Race you" reflects her desire to engage and compete with her brother, but she'd never say it if there were a real monster coming.
Line 8:
"No thanks," said Jack.
Jack is staying out of the competition, and the conflict ends here – but we're still waiting for the final turn of the interaction, because the conflict is only over if both parties agree to let it go. Annie's response in the next line changes the momentum of the story completely:
Line 9:
Annie raced alone into the woods.
Suddenly we've ramped up the conflict. Not only has Annie refused to accept Jack's lack of involvement, she immediately runs off into a location which is a classic for adventures. I'd have to guess that by the age of five my son has already seen enough instances of kids alone in woods and trouble ensuing (through fairy tales, children's books, etc.) to think that Jack was wrong to let Annie leave by herself, and to wonder whether she's going to be okay, and what she's going to find.
And that's how Osborne keeps us driving ahead into the rest of the story.
The tools she uses here are content and juxtaposition – tools of the utmost simplicity, yes, but they are highly effective. This story drives forward with every line. It lets us share Jack's thoughts and feelings – and evaluate them – without the need for lots of extra words. The expressions she chooses are evocative of highly familiar knowledge (even for five-year-olds), and the conflict situation she sets up allows her to dispense critical information smoothly.
Now there's a good story.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Not far from the tree...
I went to my Ph.D. advisor's Christmas party last night. They're always potluck, and they're always fun, and they're always full of people who love to talk about what they're studying/researching/working on. Last night there were a lot of people working on language learning and technology. Lots of discussion of foreign countries and languages and cultural differences.
The great thing is, I still fit in with this group. My advisor and the folks there loved hearing about writing science fiction. Thing is, I'm still doing a lot of what I was doing then: working with foreign culture and subtleties of misunderstanding in communication; looking closely at language and analyzing it for how the message is delivered and all that. I told several people that I really have gotten where I am with my writing because I took Claire's (my advisor's) discourse analysis class. Yes, Claire said, but you also have the creativity and imagination.
I see her point, but the fact of the matter is, she really contributed something crucial to where I am today. I gave her a copy of Analog magazine containing my story, "Let the Word Take Me."
For the title and illustration page of that story, Dr. Stan Schmidt wrote an exceedingly astute summation, namely:
Language is more than just words. Sometimes much more.
Whether in academia or science fiction writing, fundamentally, that's what it's always been about.
The great thing is, I still fit in with this group. My advisor and the folks there loved hearing about writing science fiction. Thing is, I'm still doing a lot of what I was doing then: working with foreign culture and subtleties of misunderstanding in communication; looking closely at language and analyzing it for how the message is delivered and all that. I told several people that I really have gotten where I am with my writing because I took Claire's (my advisor's) discourse analysis class. Yes, Claire said, but you also have the creativity and imagination.
I see her point, but the fact of the matter is, she really contributed something crucial to where I am today. I gave her a copy of Analog magazine containing my story, "Let the Word Take Me."
For the title and illustration page of that story, Dr. Stan Schmidt wrote an exceedingly astute summation, namely:
Language is more than just words. Sometimes much more.
Whether in academia or science fiction writing, fundamentally, that's what it's always been about.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Critique, and the Writer's Compass
I'm thinking about critique today.
No single thing has been more critical for my progress as a writer. Showing my work to other people and asking what they think helps me to step back from the words and look at them from the outside. I can work and work and make a story the best I think it can be, but then when I show it to others I find my eyes opened to entirely new parameters of consideration. This is why I always, always have my work critiqued before I submit it anywhere.
Taking critique is an acquired skill. It's not just a matter of listening to someone tell you what they think you should do with a story, and then doing it. If that were all, then you'd never have a finished product, because everyone who reads it has different tastes, different preferences, and brings something different to their reading of the story. You'd just get pushed around. This is why it's important to have what I call the Writer's Compass.
The Writer's Compass is basically an instinct that holds onto your own idea for what you want the story to do. You want character A to come across as sympathetic. Or you want the city to be impressive. Or you want the scenery to be bewilderingly complex. When you set down a first draft, you make your first shot at achieving an effect, and you (hopefully) achieve it at least partially.
Then people start to critique. Remember that a great deal of the meaning of a story does not come from the story itself, but from the mind and experience of the reader. A reader will say, "I'm confused." Or they'll say, "I pictured him with black hair." Maybe they'll say, "The dialog sounded stilted to me." Or "I don't like him/this whole story."
This is part of where writers develop their thick skins. The other part is of course from the editors who say the same kind of things, along with the words "alas" or "I'm sorry."
But let's not think about editors yet - or at least, consider them as another voice in the process of critique. Say you wanted a particular effect, and you didn't achieve it for one of your readers. The next step is not to do what they think you should do. The next step is to try to figure out why they said what they said. Dig in and analyze the critique along with the manuscript. They may have pictured a character with black hair simply because you didn't specify his hair color early enough. Or because they found dark elements in his character. They may have felt the dialog was stilted because of the dialect that you used when writing it. Or because there was something unnatural about the situation in which the dialog occurred, which made the words themselves come out oh-so-slightly funny.
What I'm trying to say is that the effect you want to achieve should never be forgotten, and a critiquer isn't always going to suggest exactly the way to get there. So evaluate your manuscript with an eye for the difference between what you wanted, and what the reader wanted, and try not to say, "They just didn't get it." Try to ask yourself, "Why didn't they get it?"
It's a hard question to ask, but if you can find the answer, sometimes it can raise the story to a new level.
No single thing has been more critical for my progress as a writer. Showing my work to other people and asking what they think helps me to step back from the words and look at them from the outside. I can work and work and make a story the best I think it can be, but then when I show it to others I find my eyes opened to entirely new parameters of consideration. This is why I always, always have my work critiqued before I submit it anywhere.
Taking critique is an acquired skill. It's not just a matter of listening to someone tell you what they think you should do with a story, and then doing it. If that were all, then you'd never have a finished product, because everyone who reads it has different tastes, different preferences, and brings something different to their reading of the story. You'd just get pushed around. This is why it's important to have what I call the Writer's Compass.
The Writer's Compass is basically an instinct that holds onto your own idea for what you want the story to do. You want character A to come across as sympathetic. Or you want the city to be impressive. Or you want the scenery to be bewilderingly complex. When you set down a first draft, you make your first shot at achieving an effect, and you (hopefully) achieve it at least partially.
Then people start to critique. Remember that a great deal of the meaning of a story does not come from the story itself, but from the mind and experience of the reader. A reader will say, "I'm confused." Or they'll say, "I pictured him with black hair." Maybe they'll say, "The dialog sounded stilted to me." Or "I don't like him/this whole story."
This is part of where writers develop their thick skins. The other part is of course from the editors who say the same kind of things, along with the words "alas" or "I'm sorry."
But let's not think about editors yet - or at least, consider them as another voice in the process of critique. Say you wanted a particular effect, and you didn't achieve it for one of your readers. The next step is not to do what they think you should do. The next step is to try to figure out why they said what they said. Dig in and analyze the critique along with the manuscript. They may have pictured a character with black hair simply because you didn't specify his hair color early enough. Or because they found dark elements in his character. They may have felt the dialog was stilted because of the dialect that you used when writing it. Or because there was something unnatural about the situation in which the dialog occurred, which made the words themselves come out oh-so-slightly funny.
What I'm trying to say is that the effect you want to achieve should never be forgotten, and a critiquer isn't always going to suggest exactly the way to get there. So evaluate your manuscript with an eye for the difference between what you wanted, and what the reader wanted, and try not to say, "They just didn't get it." Try to ask yourself, "Why didn't they get it?"
It's a hard question to ask, but if you can find the answer, sometimes it can raise the story to a new level.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Dune: A Ridiculously Close Look
Here I am to look at Dune, as promised. But I've decided not to do the very opening of the book, where Frank Herbert starts with a piece of an (ostensibly) historical document. What I want to concentrate on here is the omniscient narrator and the phenomenon of "head-hopping." Head-hopping, of course, is what people call it when it irritates them, but it's essentially the tendency of an author to switch points of view continually through the narrative.
This is a contrast to my earlier entry on The Sparrow, because in that case I was looking at a segment that used a disembodied external narrator who knew everything about the story. On the other hand, the deeper you go into The Sparrow, the more you get this head-hopping thing, where the omniscient narrator dips into one character's viewpoint or thoughts after another.
The most common criticism I've heard of head-hopping is that you can never tell whose head you're in. So I thought I'd start churning through a piece of Dune and taking a look at where and how the POV switches happen.
"The Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam sat in a tapestried chair watching mother and son approach."
Here we have a sentence with three characters, but only one of them gets a name - the one who is currently the subject of the verb. This puts us in the Reverend Mother's viewpoint by keeping "mother and son" demoted to identities that are non-unique, defined relative to one another. Here's the next piece:
"Windows on either side of her overlooked the curving southern bend of the river and the green farmlands of the Atreides family holding, but the Reverend Mother ignored the view. She was feeling her age this morning, more than a little petulant."
I think the "windows" sentence is interesting because it describes a view that Reverend Mother is ignoring. Okay, so it could be the omniscient narrator pointing out the view to us, but it still makes the description relative to Reverend Mother's position, and gives her opinion on it. "She was feeling her age" definitely gives us privileged information that only she could know. So we're still with her point of view. Next piece:
"She blamed it on space travel and association with that abominable spacing Guild and its secretive ways. But here was a mission that required personal attention from a Bene Gesserit-with-the-Sight. Even the Padishah Emperor's Truthsayer couldn't evade that responsibility when the duty call came."
Blame is another POV-internal piece of information, and I love how Herbert takes us into a description of "that abominable spacing Guild and its secretive ways." The adjective "abominable" keeps us solidly in the Reverend Mother's point of view for the remainder of that sentence by showing us her judgment of the Guild as she describes it. Then when Herbert describes the mission, he says "here" was a mission. This again links the mission with the Reverend Mother, implying both that it's her mission, and that we're witnessing her thoughts about it. The "Padishah Emperor" sentence is the least aligned with the Reverend Mother, but it still uses the verb "came," implying that the call to the mission came toward her. So after a complete paragraph that uses the Reverend Mother's viewpoint and judgments, it's easy to accept the following:
"Damn that Jessica! the Reverend mother thought. If only she'd borne us a girl as she was ordered to do!"
Now, here's where it starts to shift:
"Jessica stopped three paces from the chair, dropped a small curtsy, a gentle flick of left hand along the line of her skirt. Paul gave the short bow his dancing master had taught - the one used 'when in doubt of another's station.'"
Here, suddenly Jessica and Paul both have names. Jessica's actions are of a type easily observable by outsiders, but though Paul's special bow may be something the Reverend Mother knows about, it seems less likely to me that she would know his dancing master had taught it to him. So in these two sentences, Paul is coming into sharper focus.
"The nuances of Paul's greeting were not lost on the Reverend Mother. She said: 'He's a cautious one, Jessica.'"
Okay, so here the Reverend Mother is noticing Paul's caution. Because we've had the Reverend Mother earlier, I think here we're probably inclined to think we're in the Reverend Mother's head, but consider this: what the Reverend Mother says can be considered externally observable evidence of what Herbert gives us in the sentence about nuances. Which is to say that we haven't landed solidly back in the Reverend Mother at this point. The next piece takes us still further away from her:
"Jessica's hand went to Paul's shoulder, tightened there. For a heartbeat, fear pulsed through her palm. Then she had herself under control. "Thus he has been taught, Your Reverence."
Though Jessica's action of tightening her hand is observable by everyone present, the fear pulsing through her palm is observable only by Paul, not by the Reverend Mother. The measurement of time, "a heartbeat," is very personal - it could be just a generically counted heartbeat, but it could also be Paul's heartbeat, given this context. Thus Herbert prepares us for the following:
"What does she fear? Paul wondered."
I find this interesting because Herbert doesn't just give us Paul's thoughts whenever he feels like it, but he subtly transitions us to his internal perceptions and judgments before he does it - making this point of view shift less of a "hop" and more of a glide.
It certainly worked for me.
This is a contrast to my earlier entry on The Sparrow, because in that case I was looking at a segment that used a disembodied external narrator who knew everything about the story. On the other hand, the deeper you go into The Sparrow, the more you get this head-hopping thing, where the omniscient narrator dips into one character's viewpoint or thoughts after another.
The most common criticism I've heard of head-hopping is that you can never tell whose head you're in. So I thought I'd start churning through a piece of Dune and taking a look at where and how the POV switches happen.
"The Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam sat in a tapestried chair watching mother and son approach."
Here we have a sentence with three characters, but only one of them gets a name - the one who is currently the subject of the verb. This puts us in the Reverend Mother's viewpoint by keeping "mother and son" demoted to identities that are non-unique, defined relative to one another. Here's the next piece:
"Windows on either side of her overlooked the curving southern bend of the river and the green farmlands of the Atreides family holding, but the Reverend Mother ignored the view. She was feeling her age this morning, more than a little petulant."
I think the "windows" sentence is interesting because it describes a view that Reverend Mother is ignoring. Okay, so it could be the omniscient narrator pointing out the view to us, but it still makes the description relative to Reverend Mother's position, and gives her opinion on it. "She was feeling her age" definitely gives us privileged information that only she could know. So we're still with her point of view. Next piece:
"She blamed it on space travel and association with that abominable spacing Guild and its secretive ways. But here was a mission that required personal attention from a Bene Gesserit-with-the-Sight. Even the Padishah Emperor's Truthsayer couldn't evade that responsibility when the duty call came."
Blame is another POV-internal piece of information, and I love how Herbert takes us into a description of "that abominable spacing Guild and its secretive ways." The adjective "abominable" keeps us solidly in the Reverend Mother's point of view for the remainder of that sentence by showing us her judgment of the Guild as she describes it. Then when Herbert describes the mission, he says "here" was a mission. This again links the mission with the Reverend Mother, implying both that it's her mission, and that we're witnessing her thoughts about it. The "Padishah Emperor" sentence is the least aligned with the Reverend Mother, but it still uses the verb "came," implying that the call to the mission came toward her. So after a complete paragraph that uses the Reverend Mother's viewpoint and judgments, it's easy to accept the following:
"Damn that Jessica! the Reverend mother thought. If only she'd borne us a girl as she was ordered to do!"
Now, here's where it starts to shift:
"Jessica stopped three paces from the chair, dropped a small curtsy, a gentle flick of left hand along the line of her skirt. Paul gave the short bow his dancing master had taught - the one used 'when in doubt of another's station.'"
Here, suddenly Jessica and Paul both have names. Jessica's actions are of a type easily observable by outsiders, but though Paul's special bow may be something the Reverend Mother knows about, it seems less likely to me that she would know his dancing master had taught it to him. So in these two sentences, Paul is coming into sharper focus.
"The nuances of Paul's greeting were not lost on the Reverend Mother. She said: 'He's a cautious one, Jessica.'"
Okay, so here the Reverend Mother is noticing Paul's caution. Because we've had the Reverend Mother earlier, I think here we're probably inclined to think we're in the Reverend Mother's head, but consider this: what the Reverend Mother says can be considered externally observable evidence of what Herbert gives us in the sentence about nuances. Which is to say that we haven't landed solidly back in the Reverend Mother at this point. The next piece takes us still further away from her:
"Jessica's hand went to Paul's shoulder, tightened there. For a heartbeat, fear pulsed through her palm. Then she had herself under control. "Thus he has been taught, Your Reverence."
Though Jessica's action of tightening her hand is observable by everyone present, the fear pulsing through her palm is observable only by Paul, not by the Reverend Mother. The measurement of time, "a heartbeat," is very personal - it could be just a generically counted heartbeat, but it could also be Paul's heartbeat, given this context. Thus Herbert prepares us for the following:
"What does she fear? Paul wondered."
I find this interesting because Herbert doesn't just give us Paul's thoughts whenever he feels like it, but he subtly transitions us to his internal perceptions and judgments before he does it - making this point of view shift less of a "hop" and more of a glide.
It certainly worked for me.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Genly Ai: A Ridiculously Close Look
Today I thought I'd take a look at Ursula LeGuin's The Left Hand of Darkness. This is possibly my favorite book of all time; certainly it's a source of inspiration to me in my own writing. The opening is actually quite complex, because it involves three different voices. The first one appears in the title of the first chapter:
"1. A Parade in Erhenrang"
Let's start with the phrase "in Erhenrang." This gives us a location with an entirely foreign name, so it's clearly some alien place (assuming that we've come to the first page knowing we're looking at science fiction).
The second thing I'd like to point out is "a parade." The word "a" has a special function, that of introducing something that is new - specifically, something that is new to the reader. It's the word "a" here that gives me a sense of a narrator, and a subtle sense of "once upon a time." So this is the over-narrator's voice: as close as we'll get to hearing the voice of the author herself.
Then we hit the second voice:
"From the Archives of Hain. Transcript of Ansible Document 01-01101-934-2-Gethen: To the Stabile on Ollul: Report from Genly Ai, First Mobile on Gethen/Winter, Hainish Cycle 93, Ekumenical Year 1490-97"
This is a voice of ultimate authority, the notes that would head a scientific report, and thus it gives us the sense that what will follow is a completely factual account. Notice that there are no verbs in this excerpt. No verbs means no subjects, and thus no actors - the sense of agency, of identity and intent is completely removed, leaving us with a sourceless truth. This impression is strengthened by the word "archives," a place where history is recorded, and "transcript," a completely accurate re-copying of something not originally in text form.
Along with this we get "Hain," another unfamiliar place but obviously the source of this authority. The word "ansible" may be unfamiliar but it clearly must produce documents, and in particular, messages ("To the Stabile on Ollul...").
Think about the number of alien names in these few sentences. The feeling I get from all of this is that the protagonist, clearly indicated to be Genly Ai, is a small individual in the context of a very large and complex overarching institutional structure. This structure not only incorporates separate planets (notice the use of "on" in "on Ollul" rather than "in" which we saw in the chapter title) but it also dictates its own measurement of time.
So from the chapter title we've backed off to the voice of the greater institution, and then LeGuin takes us into this:
"I'll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling..."
Here, beginning with the word "I," suddenly we hear our point-of-view narrator's voice. LeGuin indicates that this voice belongs to Genly Ai by linking back to the previous piece with the phrase "my report." We get confirmation of the outer space setting in the world "homeworld." But rather than starting to recount events immediately, Genly Ai says, "Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling..."
This is a fascinating move. Le Guin sets us up to receive facts, using the lines from the Archive notes, and then immediately has her narrator question the nature of truth and fact. (By the way, we don't actually get to the parade until the fourth paragraph on page 2).
It strikes me that this is intended to be deliberately disorienting. It sets the reader up to take the story seriously, but to be prepared for alienness and a great deal of ambiguity. It prepares us for the voice of Genly Ai, who comes out of an Earth-born storytelling background, but does have the skills of a linguist and anthropologist, as well as (to some extent) a political negotiator. It also fits well with the way Genly Ai himself feels disoriented a lot of the time.
Throughout the novel, we get the very succinct chapter titles which give us a calmly reflective sense of the story's progress, but the complexity of the characters, the world, and the situation just grows and grows. That LeGuin is able to keep it all driving forward and pointing to a dramatic conclusion is a measure of her skill.
There's a reason this book won the Hugo and Nebula awards. Read it.
"1. A Parade in Erhenrang"
Let's start with the phrase "in Erhenrang." This gives us a location with an entirely foreign name, so it's clearly some alien place (assuming that we've come to the first page knowing we're looking at science fiction).
The second thing I'd like to point out is "a parade." The word "a" has a special function, that of introducing something that is new - specifically, something that is new to the reader. It's the word "a" here that gives me a sense of a narrator, and a subtle sense of "once upon a time." So this is the over-narrator's voice: as close as we'll get to hearing the voice of the author herself.
Then we hit the second voice:
"From the Archives of Hain. Transcript of Ansible Document 01-01101-934-2-Gethen: To the Stabile on Ollul: Report from Genly Ai, First Mobile on Gethen/Winter, Hainish Cycle 93, Ekumenical Year 1490-97"
This is a voice of ultimate authority, the notes that would head a scientific report, and thus it gives us the sense that what will follow is a completely factual account. Notice that there are no verbs in this excerpt. No verbs means no subjects, and thus no actors - the sense of agency, of identity and intent is completely removed, leaving us with a sourceless truth. This impression is strengthened by the word "archives," a place where history is recorded, and "transcript," a completely accurate re-copying of something not originally in text form.
Along with this we get "Hain," another unfamiliar place but obviously the source of this authority. The word "ansible" may be unfamiliar but it clearly must produce documents, and in particular, messages ("To the Stabile on Ollul...").
Think about the number of alien names in these few sentences. The feeling I get from all of this is that the protagonist, clearly indicated to be Genly Ai, is a small individual in the context of a very large and complex overarching institutional structure. This structure not only incorporates separate planets (notice the use of "on" in "on Ollul" rather than "in" which we saw in the chapter title) but it also dictates its own measurement of time.
So from the chapter title we've backed off to the voice of the greater institution, and then LeGuin takes us into this:
"I'll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling..."
Here, beginning with the word "I," suddenly we hear our point-of-view narrator's voice. LeGuin indicates that this voice belongs to Genly Ai by linking back to the previous piece with the phrase "my report." We get confirmation of the outer space setting in the world "homeworld." But rather than starting to recount events immediately, Genly Ai says, "Truth is a matter of the imagination. The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling..."
This is a fascinating move. Le Guin sets us up to receive facts, using the lines from the Archive notes, and then immediately has her narrator question the nature of truth and fact. (By the way, we don't actually get to the parade until the fourth paragraph on page 2).
It strikes me that this is intended to be deliberately disorienting. It sets the reader up to take the story seriously, but to be prepared for alienness and a great deal of ambiguity. It prepares us for the voice of Genly Ai, who comes out of an Earth-born storytelling background, but does have the skills of a linguist and anthropologist, as well as (to some extent) a political negotiator. It also fits well with the way Genly Ai himself feels disoriented a lot of the time.
Throughout the novel, we get the very succinct chapter titles which give us a calmly reflective sense of the story's progress, but the complexity of the characters, the world, and the situation just grows and grows. That LeGuin is able to keep it all driving forward and pointing to a dramatic conclusion is a measure of her skill.
There's a reason this book won the Hugo and Nebula awards. Read it.
Friday, September 26, 2008
The Sparrow: A Ridiculously Close Look
I've been meaning for the last week to get back to looking at narrators, so today I'll do a short entry on the opening of Mary Doria Russell's The Sparrow. Fascinating book. One of the things that always surprised me about it was the omniscient narration. I think I was sensitized to it by the fact that I'd begun writing tight third person narrators, and kept expecting to find them all around. But the omniscient narration in this book is well done.
I'll start with the first sentence, the way I did with my last post, because an opening has to tell so much about what is to follow:
"It was predictable, in hindsight."
The first thing I notice is that this is not a personal sentence. This sentence isn't giving us a person to relate to, because it has no content pronouns at all, only the word "it" which refers obliquely to a situation.
On the other hand, "it was predictable" does imply a narrator - because it expresses an opinion, and therefore must involve someone to opine. This someone is left deliberately absent, so we have to wait for further information to identify where the opinion comes from.
"In hindsight" also implies a narrator, because it also expresses judgment. Judgment is something that does not require POV pronouns, but can be used well in something as simple as this five-word sentence.
Look, too, at the juxtaposition. "Predictable, in hindsight." Something was predictable, perhaps even should have been predicted, but since we are "in hindsight", obviously it was not. What does this give us? Curiosity, of course. A desire to read the next sentence, which is this:
"Everything about the history of the Society of Jesus bespoke deft and efficient action, exploration and research."
I don't want to discuss every word on this one, but I will note a few things. First off, this sentence depends crucially on the one before it. If we didn't know that there was some event, predictable but not really predicted, this would make less sense and do less to draw us in. But since we do know, we can gather here that the event in question also involved deft and efficient action, exploration and research.
We can gather from the brevity of the phrase "everything about the history of" that the history itself is not relevant, but that if we were to ask, it would serve to support the narrator's contention that the Society has a tendency toward the aforementioned deft action, etc.
The last things I'll point out are the words "Society of Jesus" and "bespoke". They do fit together well. Bespoke to me has a distinct biblical feel, particularly when it accompanies Society of Jesus (without that phrase I might accidentally interpret it as the particular type of telepathy used by Ursula LeGuin).
Also, I'll point out that the word "Jesuit" doesn't appear in the book until sentence number three. Since that word is probably more commonly known to the general population, why wouldn't she use it first? Well, because in saying "Society of Jesus," which is what the Jesuits call themselves, she gestures toward their point of view. The story itself is about a group of Jesuits who go to another planet, about their judgments and the consequences thereof. So the implication here is entirely appropriate to set up reader expectations.
Even when you're in a third person omniscient, point of view never goes away. Don't forget that even tiny alterations in choice of words can tell you a whole lot about what's coming.
I'll start with the first sentence, the way I did with my last post, because an opening has to tell so much about what is to follow:
"It was predictable, in hindsight."
The first thing I notice is that this is not a personal sentence. This sentence isn't giving us a person to relate to, because it has no content pronouns at all, only the word "it" which refers obliquely to a situation.
On the other hand, "it was predictable" does imply a narrator - because it expresses an opinion, and therefore must involve someone to opine. This someone is left deliberately absent, so we have to wait for further information to identify where the opinion comes from.
"In hindsight" also implies a narrator, because it also expresses judgment. Judgment is something that does not require POV pronouns, but can be used well in something as simple as this five-word sentence.
Look, too, at the juxtaposition. "Predictable, in hindsight." Something was predictable, perhaps even should have been predicted, but since we are "in hindsight", obviously it was not. What does this give us? Curiosity, of course. A desire to read the next sentence, which is this:
"Everything about the history of the Society of Jesus bespoke deft and efficient action, exploration and research."
I don't want to discuss every word on this one, but I will note a few things. First off, this sentence depends crucially on the one before it. If we didn't know that there was some event, predictable but not really predicted, this would make less sense and do less to draw us in. But since we do know, we can gather here that the event in question also involved deft and efficient action, exploration and research.
We can gather from the brevity of the phrase "everything about the history of" that the history itself is not relevant, but that if we were to ask, it would serve to support the narrator's contention that the Society has a tendency toward the aforementioned deft action, etc.
The last things I'll point out are the words "Society of Jesus" and "bespoke". They do fit together well. Bespoke to me has a distinct biblical feel, particularly when it accompanies Society of Jesus (without that phrase I might accidentally interpret it as the particular type of telepathy used by Ursula LeGuin).
Also, I'll point out that the word "Jesuit" doesn't appear in the book until sentence number three. Since that word is probably more commonly known to the general population, why wouldn't she use it first? Well, because in saying "Society of Jesus," which is what the Jesuits call themselves, she gestures toward their point of view. The story itself is about a group of Jesuits who go to another planet, about their judgments and the consequences thereof. So the implication here is entirely appropriate to set up reader expectations.
Even when you're in a third person omniscient, point of view never goes away. Don't forget that even tiny alterations in choice of words can tell you a whole lot about what's coming.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Phedre no Delaunay: a Ridiculously Close Look
I've been talking a lot here about how people tend to speak and act in accordance with their histories, their culture and their language background. As a person who has always been somewhat frustrated to hear intangible things described on a general level, I thought it was about time for me to take this discussion to the level of words. So what I'm going to do is take a sample of a character's point of view and tell you why I think it works the way it does. In ridiculously close detail.
One of the nice things about real human discourse, i.e. the way people talk under normal circumstances, is that people can't stop representing themselves as they speak. They may try to influence that representation one way or another, but you can take almost any sample of recorded speech and pull meanings out of it.
My immediate thought: shouldn't the representation of a character's point of view be as rich, and as full of hints about background, world, and attitude? Well, it sure can be. I think this is what they call narrative voice.
Let's take a look at the character of Phedre no Delaunay, from Jacqueline Carey's novel Kushiel's Dart. I'll just start where her voice starts and give you a few analytical musings.
"Lest anyone should suppose that I am a cuckoo's child, got on the wrong side of a blanket by lusty peasant stock and sold into indenture in a shortfallen season, I may say that I am House-born and reared in the Night Court proper, for all the good it did me."
This is awesome in terms of multi-layering. It's effectively a statement saying "This is who I am." Not much, right? But it's so much more.
First word: "Lest". This already places us in a particular type of environment, with historical/classic overtones. Add to this the use of "got" for "conceived," and the appearance of the words "peasant," and "shortfallen season." These are uses of dialect to place the protagonist in a historical setting, specifically one where there there are peasants working the land. That's pretty precise already, for never having said anything explicitly about the historical time period. These dialectal words also place the protagonist as a member of the culture in this time period, as opposed to someone observing it from the outside. Maybe even implies that she's a bit earthy, to be talking about the circumstances of her conception with such gusto. (Earthy doesn't begin to describe it, of course.)
Next: "cuckoo's child." This phrase places us pretty solidly on earth, because though there might be birds roughly translatable as cuckoos elsewhere, the metaphor drawn from the way the cuckoo places its egg in another bird's nest is uniquely earthly, and also historical. (As is the associated "cuckold.")
Next: "House-born." The idea of a great House is one that many people are familiar with, and it has appeared in many SF/F contexts, but it does reliably suggest nobility of some kind (an unusual kind, in this case), a keen sense of pride in breeding in the protagonist, and the importance of lineage in the culture surrounding her. Since the association with nobility is so strong, Carey does well to follow this with:
"and reared in the Night Court proper." This phrase immediately answers the question of what kind of nobility we're looking at - her choice to use the word "the" suggests that the Night Court is both unique and well-known to our protagonist, while the word "Night" rouses curiosity. What could the Night Court be? How can I find out? (Keep reading, of course.) Establishing curiosity is one of the most important things an author can do in the first paragraph of a book.
Okay, so far so good. Let's look at some of the larger constructions in the sentence.
"Lest anyone should suppose..." For this one I'm less concerned with "lest" and much more with "suppose." To use a phrasing like this implies that whoever this protagonist is, there is a distinct possibility that someone actually might suppose that she's "a cuckoo's child." Otherwise, she wouldn't even mention it. Funny how the denial of a thing admits that it is a possibility.
Next: "sold into indenture" If this phrase were less specific, we might be inclined to think that something bad happened to Phedre but that we're looking at a metaphor for her unfortunate status. But "sold into indenture" is so specific that I think we can reasonably assume from this alone that she actually has been sold into indenture. Another big source of curiosity, at least for me. I shake my head and say, "She got sold into indenture? How?" And I keep turning pages.
Finally (but not exhaustively!): "for all the good it did me." Love this. It says "I have good breeding and noble upbringing but despite this I'm in big trouble." And what is more compelling than an interesting (not to mention attractive), well-grounded protagonist in trouble?
So in one single sentence Carey has given us:
1. historical setting
2. culture of protagonist
3. attitude of protagonist toward: nobility, breeding, sex, servitude
4. current employment of protagonist
5. sense of urgency (being in trouble)
6. curiosity, curiosity, curiosity
It's no wonder I was hooked.
One of the nice things about real human discourse, i.e. the way people talk under normal circumstances, is that people can't stop representing themselves as they speak. They may try to influence that representation one way or another, but you can take almost any sample of recorded speech and pull meanings out of it.
My immediate thought: shouldn't the representation of a character's point of view be as rich, and as full of hints about background, world, and attitude? Well, it sure can be. I think this is what they call narrative voice.
Let's take a look at the character of Phedre no Delaunay, from Jacqueline Carey's novel Kushiel's Dart. I'll just start where her voice starts and give you a few analytical musings.
"Lest anyone should suppose that I am a cuckoo's child, got on the wrong side of a blanket by lusty peasant stock and sold into indenture in a shortfallen season, I may say that I am House-born and reared in the Night Court proper, for all the good it did me."
This is awesome in terms of multi-layering. It's effectively a statement saying "This is who I am." Not much, right? But it's so much more.
First word: "Lest". This already places us in a particular type of environment, with historical/classic overtones. Add to this the use of "got" for "conceived," and the appearance of the words "peasant," and "shortfallen season." These are uses of dialect to place the protagonist in a historical setting, specifically one where there there are peasants working the land. That's pretty precise already, for never having said anything explicitly about the historical time period. These dialectal words also place the protagonist as a member of the culture in this time period, as opposed to someone observing it from the outside. Maybe even implies that she's a bit earthy, to be talking about the circumstances of her conception with such gusto. (Earthy doesn't begin to describe it, of course.)
Next: "cuckoo's child." This phrase places us pretty solidly on earth, because though there might be birds roughly translatable as cuckoos elsewhere, the metaphor drawn from the way the cuckoo places its egg in another bird's nest is uniquely earthly, and also historical. (As is the associated "cuckold.")
Next: "House-born." The idea of a great House is one that many people are familiar with, and it has appeared in many SF/F contexts, but it does reliably suggest nobility of some kind (an unusual kind, in this case), a keen sense of pride in breeding in the protagonist, and the importance of lineage in the culture surrounding her. Since the association with nobility is so strong, Carey does well to follow this with:
"and reared in the Night Court proper." This phrase immediately answers the question of what kind of nobility we're looking at - her choice to use the word "the" suggests that the Night Court is both unique and well-known to our protagonist, while the word "Night" rouses curiosity. What could the Night Court be? How can I find out? (Keep reading, of course.) Establishing curiosity is one of the most important things an author can do in the first paragraph of a book.
Okay, so far so good. Let's look at some of the larger constructions in the sentence.
"Lest anyone should suppose..." For this one I'm less concerned with "lest" and much more with "suppose." To use a phrasing like this implies that whoever this protagonist is, there is a distinct possibility that someone actually might suppose that she's "a cuckoo's child." Otherwise, she wouldn't even mention it. Funny how the denial of a thing admits that it is a possibility.
Next: "sold into indenture" If this phrase were less specific, we might be inclined to think that something bad happened to Phedre but that we're looking at a metaphor for her unfortunate status. But "sold into indenture" is so specific that I think we can reasonably assume from this alone that she actually has been sold into indenture. Another big source of curiosity, at least for me. I shake my head and say, "She got sold into indenture? How?" And I keep turning pages.
Finally (but not exhaustively!): "for all the good it did me." Love this. It says "I have good breeding and noble upbringing but despite this I'm in big trouble." And what is more compelling than an interesting (not to mention attractive), well-grounded protagonist in trouble?
So in one single sentence Carey has given us:
1. historical setting
2. culture of protagonist
3. attitude of protagonist toward: nobility, breeding, sex, servitude
4. current employment of protagonist
5. sense of urgency (being in trouble)
6. curiosity, curiosity, curiosity
It's no wonder I was hooked.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Ridiculously Close Looks - Index
A Ridiculously Close Look, for those of you who don't know, is when I do a line-by-line analysis of some aspect of a previously published work. These posts deal with voice, tension, point of view, worldbuilding, and other useful aspects of writing - from a perspective that is both useful and best described as "ridiculously close."
- 26 Monkeys: Also the Abyss by Kij Johnson - includes comments from the author!
- Dinosaurs Before Dark by Mary Pope Osborne
- Dune by Frank Herbert
- The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin
- The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
- Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey
- A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
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