Yzabel / August 7, 2005

Recently, I’ve laid my hands on several books related to writing techniques, including the one I’ve just finished yesterday evening and the one I’ve started right after. I must say that these have already taught (or reminded me of) quite a deal of good things about writing, about how to make the readers dive in stories, rather than just placing words under their noses. This has really been most instructing; I seriously needed to get out of my rust.I remember how, ten or so years ago, we had to read the famous “classics” at school. I remember reading Honoré de Balzac, and how we used to joke about how he would take ten pages to describe a single house. While this is exaggerated, it can also give a glimpse on the way writing has changed; what was accepted and recognized in the 19th century wouldn’t work anymore nowadays, especially not for young writers who haven’t been published yet. When it comes to fiction, people want action, people want dialogue; people want to feel involved in stories along with their protagonists, and not being constantly placed at a distance by the author.This reminds me of my post here about purple prose, when I mentioned my convictions of youth that long descriptions were good. I’ve quite changed my views on this, and the books I’m currently reading are helping a great deal with what kind of techniques to use. One of the chapters I’ve lent a particular attention to so far has been one dealing with the use of scenes to convey descriptive information, rather than of narrative speech. The difference is astonishing: while a whole novel can’t of course be made only of fast-succeeding scenes, there are numerous times when replacing descriptions by more action (in its large meaning—”something happening”, not necessarily at a fast pace) will make the story more vivid.Let’s say we want to describe the main personality traits of a character: instead of writing a few paragraphs in narrative style telling the reader how mysterious he is, we can instead use a dialogue about him that takes place between a few people. These people’s words and reactions will just reveal as much about him, and with the added flavor of putting us, readers, in the scene as well. (Yes, this is the example given in the book I’m reading; it’s right out of The Great Gatsby.)So what did I do? I tried my hand at the exercise, taking a few short scenes out of the novel I’m working on, and did my best to make my descriptions “happen” through action, even action as simple as two characters walking in the street and discovering an area of town they hadn’t visited yet. My conclusion is that it worked wonders. I’m aware that this can’t be used all the time, I’m aware that it may seem like an evidence to most writers, and yet, I’m also aware that this mistake is probably committed numerous times, before entire pages go through the edition and rewriting processes.In other words, if something can be shown rather than told, go with showing. I won’t end up becoming the next Balzac, but readers also won’t feel that starting my story is like having a tooth pulled out.narrative, scene, writing