Rules for Writing Well; or, The Author's Toolbox

[Riothamus]

With a world so full of books on writing, I figured the writer's section needed a place to discuss the various tomes. So, here we are. To start with, let's ask two questions: (a) what books on writing have you read, and (b) what books on writing do you reccomend?

For myself, (a):

The Art of Fiction by John Gardner. Very good, with several excersizes, but a bit goddess-art in its approach.


Technique in Fiction by Robie Macauley and George Lanning. I doubt it's in print anymore, but it's a capital technical work, and uses examples from writers who are actually good.

[Currently reading] Fiction Writer's Handbook by Hallie and Whit Burnett. So far, so good. It's not as good as the above work, but it's got some excellent stuff.

As to (b)

If you can find a copy of Technique, it'll be well worth the effort. It's really great.

One book I don't recomend is Sol Stein's How to Grow a Novel (I haven't completely read it, but I'm familier enough with it to make this assertion.) Stein is very superficial, and besides can't get his facts straight (in one chapter he praises Dic-kens as a master and his characters as worthy of emulation,and in another he denounces melodrama. Anyone familier with literature will know that Dic-kens wrote unabashed melodrama.)

That's it for me. Anyone else?

[dinadan]

Riothamus said:

Anyone familier with literature will know that Dic-kens wrote unabashed melodrama.)

What a shameful generalization of Dic-ken's work. True, he wrote some melodrama--"A Christmas Carol" comes to mind (but that, even in its worst moments, never descended to the level of Harriet Beecher Stowe). However, he also wrote some things of surpassing grandeur and impressive dignity--like A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations.

Also, I think you're confusing "melodrama" with "sentimentalist fiction." And, I also think it's just modern prejudice against sentimentatlity (that we've inherited from people like Faulkner and Hemmingway) that colors your reading of Dic-kens. Unlike many of other popular writers of the 1800s, he wasn't just writing sentimentalist crap for money; Dic-kens had issues that he cared about, and used the best means available to get the message out to his hard-hearted Victorian contemporaries.

And, if you doubt that sentimentalist fiction (even when it descends into the worst of melodrama like Uncle Tom's Cabin) did have quite an impact for social change. If you doubt it, remember that when Abrahman Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe, his comment was "So this is the little woman that started the big war."

[laurelin]

I take it you dislike Uncle Tom's Cabin?

What's this about sentimentalism coming from? Obviously you take this very seriously, since Riothamus never actually voiced an opinion on the subject...

[dinadan]

I assumed from his condescending comment on Dic-kens that he had a low opinion of him. I felt the urge (as an English major studying the 19th Century) to take the cross and do battle to reclaim his honor.

And, I really dislike UTC...it's sentimental to the point of vulgarity.

[Riothamus]

Oh, no no no no.... I meant nothing of the sort,a nd my comments weren't meant as condescending. Dic-kens (as I point out elsewhere,) is my favorite author. I practically idolize him, literarily, and much of my own writing bears his influence heavily. Melodrama is not a bad thing--that's my (ill-executed) point. Stein holds two contradictory opinions--he (rightfully) praises Dic-ken's genius, and then denounces melodrama as being transitory and trash. Which it isn't; it's a style of plotting that's fallen out of favor with literateurs.

But Dic-kens did write melodrama, unabashed melodrama, as you should recognize. He wrote for the stage, even in his novels--they're full of towering passion and black-hearted villians. Even Great Expectations is rife with it--Estella's origins, Miss Havisham and her bitterness; what are these but melodramatic? It was his mode, as the sociaty novel was Henry James' mode, and as the historical fantasy novel is Lawhead's mode.

"Melodrama" isn't a slighting term, it's a technical term.

[laurelin]

How exactly DO you define "melodrama?" Or sentimentalism, for that matter?
Terms are so subjective; I think that's why people get so defensive about labeling a thing this or that, because we just label without defining. I think my texts class is finally getting to me...

[Riothamus]

Melodrama is a type of fiction with an emphasis on abnormal--or "stagey"--emotions and abnormal--or "stagey"--events. A perfect example of a melodramatic heroine is Edith Dombey from Dombey and Son, whose bosom is invariably heaving with suppressed emotion as she stares in horror at the melodramatic villian Carker. Characters in a melodrama--at least, in Dic-kens' melodrama--are rarely characters in the Henry Jamesian sense--they are instead types (or as Chesterton would say, gods,) who are the perfect embodiment of whatever passion or idea the author bestows on them, so that there's very little room for "grey" areas (though I hold Dic-kens gets more grey in than many critics give him credit for.) The characters are as a rule either heroically good (Walter in Dombey,) or despicably evil (Carker, or Quilp in The Old Curiosity Shop) (Women are an another story: they tend to be either passive victims--Florence Dombey--or fallen--Edith Dombey, or Nancy in Oliver Twist)

The situations in melodrama are equally clear cut--the famous eviction of Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop is a good example.

I realize that to a certain extent I'm generalizing in my statements on Dic-kens--though not by much--but I'm at a loss to understand why the term "Melodrama" has fallen into such disrepute. It's an honorable method of writing, and affords possibilites to the author that the Henry James school of writing does not (though I understand that even James indulged in melodrama at times; can't be dogmatic on this, though....)

As for sentimental fiction, I can't say what dinadan means. To me it conveys weepy accounts of death and lovers. Dic-kens was, in this reading, certainly sentimental (the deaths of numerous fictional children lay upon his ink-stained hands.) But I don't hold it against him--I revel in everything Dic-kens, both comic and sentimental. It's harder to write good sentimental fiction than good melodrama--and Dic-kens did both.

[EDIT: Here's an article on Melodrama by someone who ought to know more about it than I:
www.labyrinth.net.au/~muffin/melodramas_c.html ]

[Riothamus]

So. That's run its course (though even as I say it, I suspect not....) Back to the main topic:

Does anyone have any books on writing they wold like to discuss? Or should we change the topic to "Rules of good writing" and bring in the books tangentally?

[twyrch]

Riothamus said:

Or should we change the topic to "Rules of good writing" and bring in the books tangentally?

I like that idea... I'll be back with some thoughts on it later though.

[Riothamus]

I look forward to seeing 'em.

[Riothamus]

Let's talk point of view. What's your preferred p.o.v.? Stein insists that third-person is too easy, and that first-person is the way to go. Personally, I think Stein is too full of himself to know the difference; and if he thinks good third-person is easy, he's got another think coming. But that's not to denigrate first-person--after all, if I thought first-person was for hacks, I wouldn't be here, would I?

I've lately been very much intregued with Jamesian third-person, where you have an omnicient narrator, free to comment on the action, who sees things through a flawed "reflector."

Anyone else?

[laurelin]

I find writing in first person easier; I naturally fillter through characters. The reason I usually write in limited third is 1)because it's what I normally read and 2)because I have multiple characters to filter, and limited third is the most practical choice for that. One think I love about Martin's Song of Ice and Fire is how he uses first person with multiple narrators. I've been seriously thinking about writing my next project in First Person. As for third omniscient, I'm a little hesitant about. In some contexts it's very good, but I don't like to remind the reader I'm actually the one talking, rather than my characters.

[Riothamus]

The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins is another excellent example of multiple first-person narrators, as is his The Woman in White.

One of the virtues of the omnicient voice, done well, is that it allows the author perfect control in a way that subjective does not. The Rhetoric of Fiction by Wayne Booth, examines this very idea. The subjective (or objective-subjective, the non-commenting author,) too often risks unintentional ambiguity. An example he uses is The Turn of the Screw, but even the Pendragon Cycle can show this: does Lawhead intend the Summer Realm to be merely a dream, or is it a lost opportunity? To what extent does he intend us to believe in the Summer Realm? The "Merlin" thread indicates that various readers have various answers on this score, and the ambiguity certainly arises from Lawhead's method of objectivity.

So let me ask: how do you maintain control in limited third or first person narrative? How do you make the reader see your ambiguities?

[laurelin]

The thing about ambiguities, IMO, is that no matter how clear you think you are, they're going to be there. I'm a little postmodern in this sense; I figure as long as people are going to misinterpret me, I may as well have fun with it. Sometimes, I like to leave things with intentionally more than one meaning. But my point is that even "objective" writing is based on language which is not and never will be perfect. A writer can express his opinion with a character as easily as he can step outside and address the reader directly. I guess it's more difficult, especially if you haven't got a reliable narrator, but an unreliable narrator is generally unreliable for that purpose: to call the narrative into question. I think it's a preference for style rather than a question of ambiguity.

[Riothamus]

Well, ambiguities, like the poor, will always be with us, especially in this post-James/Joyce/Hemmingway world.

I guess it's more difficult, especially if you haven't got a reliable narrator, but an unreliable narrator is generally unreliable for that purpose: to call the narrative into question.

Exactly. But the author calls the narrative into question because he has a "point" of some sort to get across (I don't mean a didactic point--I mean, the essence of his fiction.) But when you say

I think it's a preference for style rather than a question of ambiguity.

you contradict yourself. Ambiguity is a style. It's a very modern style. My point is, how do you get your point across if you are determined to remain behind the curtain, to maintain authorial distance. (I don't mean the question to sound as agressive as it does....)

(By the way, "objective" writing, properly understood as a lable, belongs more to your literary style than to the authorial-intrusion school. It refers to the unimpassioned detailing of events by the author, often from a subjective character p.o.v.; hence my own term, objective-subjective p.o.v. The other school, in its extreme form, would use the subjective-objective point of view--subjective on teh author's part, with an objective view of the action. I know, I'm making it up, but it makes sense to me. )