Posted on 03/23/2007 11:44:31 AM PDT by Eleutheria5
Maybe we should collaborate!
LOL - I'm willing.
:`)
Bookmarking great advice!
Placemarker ...
Make sure you get on the ping list.
If we make it onto the ping list, do we get a confirmation?
I am not in charge of the ping list, but I will check with the person who is and make sure you are on it.
Descriptive narrative is hard. It’s important, but its not. It slows down a story for most people. I’ll bet you most of us, reading a novel loaded with description, will unconsciously skip it and get to action or dialog.
The trick is to make description very potent, or mix it in with action and dialog. And even more important, consider your audience. If you’re writing a thriller, description should be crisp and brief. If you’re writing chicklit, the audience is going to want to be there, to see it.
I personally can write pages of dialog with little effort. Description slows me way down, and is drudgery.
Do the work of good description for scenes ... your reader will appreciate the help in 'being there' more readily. The most endearing aspect of Mickey Spillane novels is the descriptive work which places the reader squarely in the scene. Reading adventure novels (for instance) sweeps the reader into 'another world' ... escaping for a time the world around them.
I'm like you. I can write page after page of dialoge, but when it comes to descriptive.... I just feel like I'm slogging away. And it reads like that too.
You are on the ping list.
Attempting to write action, on the other hand, I find excruciating. I can't picture action scenes. I'm the same way with movies - in a long action sequence, I have to struggle to keep my focus. My mind just switches off.
Fortunately, there's no one correct way to write. ;-)
I completely agree. Based on your work, description will be different. LM Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables) was a master of description, and she seemed to approach it almost with a formula. The top of every chapter or section break usually has the physical description for the new scene.
Another master of description western writer Louis L'Amour used less description, and had it sprinkled about the chapter or section.
Let me ask you, do you read all of Mickey Spillane’s descriptions, or do you tend to skip them to get back to the action?
I'll bet it isn't as bad as you think. (As long as you're not being corny!). Those hard slogs are sucky, but it's always worth it when you come out on the other end.
You could post some description you've written, and the rest of us could critique it.
Let me find something... I'll be right back.
Action scenes are great in movies, in novels not quite as great. Action scenes are hard to write, partially because they are description on steroids. Take a sword-fighting scene. How much detail do you need? Do you consult a fencing expert, or just write a general description? Action is tough to write.
I read every damn word ... as Patton would say. I do it a bit differently in my own novels, but as I mentioned, I find the scene descriptions to be 'endearing', mostly.
Among modern best-selling type authors, I love Anne Tyler's descriptive abilities. Her books are kind of in the whole "feel good" genre and maybe not highbrow, but she's great at making you feel like you're there. She works in not just color and other visual details, but also scents and sensations, the thoughts triggered by a specific place or person, etc.
I think the trick is not necessarily working in big blocks of description, but weaving it into the story. Blocks tend to get ignored, but by putting little phrases in the right places, you draw the reader in, create a real world for your characters and make your characters feel like people you might bump into in real life.
Easier said than done!
Jackson had many nicknames: Old Jack, Old Blue Light, given to him by the men because of the intensity of his blue gray eyes before battle, or the ever popular Stonewall. Before the war began his students at the Virginia Military Institute called him Tom Fool, but never to his face. For ten years he taught both Natural and Experimental Philosophy and the Arts and Sciences of War at the West Point of the South. He was unpopular with the students for he was a rigid and humorless man. His lectures were wooden and excruciatingly dull -- to be endured rather than enjoyed. His strict sense of right and wrong only complicated the relationship with his young charges. When faced with a disobedient student, he was inflexible and harsh in his punishments. Rules were rules and duty was duty. Major Jackson, as the town of Lexington at the upper end of the Shenandoah Valley knew him, was noted and teased more for his eccentricities than for any military brilliance.
Jackson was born on January 21, 1824, in the western portion of Virginia that had remained faithful to the Union at the start of the war and was even now in the process of forming a new state. Orphaned at the age of seven, he lived with his Uncle Cummins at Jackson Mill, a grist mill situated at the mergence of Freeman’s Creek into the West Fork River. Uncle Cummins proved to be a carefree guardian whose sense of right and wrong was the polar opposite of his nephew.
Young Tom managed the best he could with no strict rules to follow and no male role model to emulate. He went to school when there was a teacher willing to endure the unruly children of the neighboring communities but mostly he taught himself. He was good at math and realized early that education was the key to a better life. Jackson aimed to go to West Point, the prestigious military academy on the Hudson River in New York.
Candidates for West Point were nominated by the Secretary of War on the recommendation of members of Congress. Jackson made his application to his representative but Congressman Hays chose another deserving candidate. It did not take that candidate long to discover West Point was not the ideal place for his talents. When Jackson learned that his competitor was home with no plans to return to the academy, he wasted very little time. Hurrying through town he collected a series of personal endorsements from local dignitaries and leaders. He rushed to Washington City and argued his case before Hays who immediately took him to see the Secretary of War. Disarmed by Jackson’s initiative and persuasiveness, the Secretary gave him the spot.
Never was a student so ill-prepared for the academic rigors of West Point. He barely passed the entrance exam and began his career among the “Immortals,” those students confined to the bottom of the class rankings. When he stood at the chalkboard agonizing to solve the difficult mathematical equations, he erased and erased his work so often his gray uniform was turned white with chalk dust, while rivers of sweat poured down his face.
Among his school books he carried a small notebook filled with personal maxims. The one he lived by was simple. “You can be whatever you resolve to be.” He resolved to be an excellent student.
Never going on to the next lesson without understanding the preceding one, at night he would pile coal high in the fire place and lying prone before the grate would study well into the early morning while his roommates snored beside him. His progress was amazing. Upon graduation, he ranked seventeenth out of fifty-nine students in the class of 1846, a class historians have called the greatest ever graduated from the academy. His peers commented that if West Point was a five year program instead of four, Cadet Jackson would have graduated first in his class.
Be gentle with me! And don't mind the grammar.
Margaret's neighbor stood at the kitchen sink, washing dishes. She saw a dark figure enter the Cleary house, so she called the police. Three minutes later a Tuscaloosa cruiser in stealth mode—no lights and siren—eased to a stop at the curb in front of the Cleary home. One officer with weapon drawn hurried to the back entrance, while a second officer with his weapon ready positioned himself at the front. The Israeli came out through the back door before either officer could enter.
The policeman at the back switched on his heavy flashlight and pointed his weapon at the suspect's chest, ordering him to halt.
Simeon raised his hands immediately but casually. The second officer approached the pair and ordered the suspect to kneel with his hands behind his head. Simeon did as he was ordered. One wrist was cuffed then both were pulled down and cuffed together behind his back.
The Israeli wouldn't respond to any of the officers' questions, so they each grabbed an arm, jerked the suspect to his feet, and led him toward their cruiser. Five feet from the curb, the officer on Simeon's left released his hold and stepped in front to open the back of the car. The naive police were no match for Mossad training.
As the policeman in front bent over, the Israeli shot a kick into his butt, sending the officer, head-first, hard into the side of the cruiser.
The policeman on the right tried to pull Simeon around, to sling him to the ground. The move only served to turn the Israeli face-to-face with the officer.
Simeon snapped forward from the waist up, slamming his forehead solidly against the officer's nose. The policeman released his grip and staggered backwards in the yard. The Israeli launched a spinning roundhouse kick to the side of the officer's head. He dropped to the grass, unconscious.
From a cramped kneeling position, with one leg under the cruiser and the other trying to push up, the second officer grabbed at his weapon.
The Israeli closed the distance with one agile leap and fired his trailing foot up and under the policeman's chin. The officer's head slammed back against the cruiser. He fell forward on the sidewalk and didn’t move.
Simeon dropped to the ground on his back and pulled his arms under him, bringing his wrists to the front. He located the key on the officer's belt and released the cuffs, then patted his jacket pocket for assurance that the mics were still there. Sim left both policemen dazed in the yard and fled in their cruiser. Training had taught him not to lead someone back to the nest.
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