It was a day shrouded in winter.
Talun buried his face in the wool of his hood.
*sigh* They say writers struggle with ‘showing’ instead of ‘telling’ their whole lives. I guess I’m getting better at dodging exposition, but sometimes I’ll write something like the snippet above and have to correct myself.
Then there’s rhythm, clarity, ‘slow death’ control, LS/V, and sooo much more. Paying attention to this stuff is cumbersome, but it pays off greatly in the final draft.
I believe I’ve covered ‘show, don’t tell’, rhythm, and clarity here. But you might be wondering what ‘slow death’ is.
It’s a problem I experience quite frequently–
I often manage to work in too many mannerisms between lines of dialogue. I experienced this problem with the earlier drafts of Big Blue, where a character says something and scoots up in his seat, then another character says something and brushes aside her hair, etc.
(Heck, I even had my first ‘name drift’ in Big Blue (where you name a character something, then later on in the story their name changes—how embarrassing!!!).)
It’s been a struggle letting the lines of dialogue speak for themselves. I literally had to force myself to get better at it.
Then there’s LS/V, which is its own can o’ worms.
It stands for ‘long and short view’, which is a bit of an abstract idea. The basic premise is when you’re writing a story (and this usually doesn’t work for 3rd Person Omniscient because it’s less personal), you can break off to write about a random daydream a character has, or somebody noticing the beauty of the moon, or a distant herd of cattle. Whatever it is, it can’t have anything to do with the plot development, but should complement either character or plot in some way.
A(n) (bad) example could be: your main character is dying of thirst in the middle of a desert. Then he notices how unconcerned a nearby iguana appears to be.
If used properly, something like this can really enhance stories, but using it wrong could liken to ‘slow death’.
[Reply]
Comment by RG Sanders — February 20, 2009 @ 8:42 pm
[Reply]
Comment by Nick Enlowe — February 21, 2009 @ 12:15 am
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All my collegues in my writing groups have never heard of this term, and some claim that Writers’ Journal is a rag. :(
Well, I can’t seem to find other sources on this abbreviation, other than the article I originally read about this:
“THE LONG AND SHORT VIEW – Make Your Writing Come Alive” by Glenn G. Dahlem.
I can’t find much information on the phrase ‘long and short view’, either. And can find precious little on the author.
But to the author’s credit, the article was well-written and personally, I’m glad I now have a term to put to this very real writing phenomenon.
Anyway, I just thought I’d mention this as a warning. If you ever try to mention this term, nobody’ll have a clue what you’re talking about! :P
[Reply]
Comment by Nick Enlowe — February 23, 2009 @ 1:27 pm
I’ve been away from my own blog for so long that I’m ashamed. But I see that you’ve been very productive. I find your Novel Push Initiative very interesting and would join in myself, only I don’t count words when I write, I rather count pages or chapters. But it’s not so important what we count, it’s important that we keep writing!
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Comment by packsister — February 23, 2009 @ 2:12 pm
I’ll be running the NPI in May as well so christopher can join in, but the goal is to write at least 250 words per day in March.
Since I’d love for you to join, let’s say either 250 words or half a page is the minimum each day. Is that okay? :)
I think getting words on the page will be great for both our stories; it’ll force us to stop researching so much and just write.
[Reply]
Comment by Nick Enlowe — February 23, 2009 @ 7:18 pm
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Comment by packsister — February 24, 2009 @ 6:08 am
[...] this and learning about literary ‘terms’ that don’t even exist, this magazine and I aren’t on the best terms. I doubt I’ll be renewing my subscription [...]
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