Gary Inbinder's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"
Shelved Manuscripts--Vintage or Vinegar?
Manuscripts can be compared to bottles of wine. You shelve them and age them, “turning” occasionally to keep the wine from going bad. Sometimes they improve; sometimes they sour. Case in point: I’m currently working on the fourth revision of a novel I began five years ago. The story began as a Gothic Romance inspired by Jane Eyre and Rebecca. But I wanted more of the paranormal along the lines of The Turn of the Screw, which can be read two ways: as a traditional haunted house ghost story, or as a psychological thriller, a story told by an unreliable — possibly mad — narrator.
After much tinkering,or "turning," including a change of narrative from First Person Parallel to Third Person with a shifting point of view, I decided to go whole hog paranormal so that the supernatural elements, both good and evil, are neither the figment of a character’s imagination nor the result of mass hysteria. Will all this careful “aging” result in a prize-winning classic, a bottle of vinegar, or something in between? I’m afraid I don’t know, and won’t until it’s ready for “tasting.”
After much tinkering,or "turning," including a change of narrative from First Person Parallel to Third Person with a shifting point of view, I decided to go whole hog paranormal so that the supernatural elements, both good and evil, are neither the figment of a character’s imagination nor the result of mass hysteria. Will all this careful “aging” result in a prize-winning classic, a bottle of vinegar, or something in between? I’m afraid I don’t know, and won’t until it’s ready for “tasting.”
Kill Our Darlings?
The catch-phrase "Kill your darlings" entered the critic's lexicon a while back and its popularity seems to have increased since the release of the film "Kill Your Darlings" about the beat generation poets and writers. However, there seems to be some confusion about the source of the phrase and its original meaning. According to my research, it first appeared as "Murder your darlings" in a series of Cambridge University lectures given about a century ago by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch.
Sir Arthur was a well-regarded British man of letters who sometimes wrote under the pen name Q. He was prolific and his literary career spanned several decades, from the 1880's to the 1930's. "Murder your darlings" is taken from his lecture on Style:
"To begin with, let me plead that you have been told of one or two things which Style is not; which have little or nothing to do with Style, though sometimes vulgarly mistaken for it. Style, for example, is not—can never be—extraneous Ornament. You remember, may be, the Persian lover whom I quoted to you out of Newman: how to convey his passion he sought a professional letter-writer and purchased a vocabulary charged with ornament, wherewith to attract the fair one as with a basket of jewels. Well, in this extraneous, professional, purchased ornamentation, you have something which Style is not: and if you here require a practical rule of me, I will present you with this: ‘Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.’
Notice that Sir Arthur was not damning all ornamental prose, just the "extraneous" or superfluous ornament, what might be called ornament for ornament's sake. Perhaps the professional letter-writer in his example was paid by the word. I can imagine him writing ostentatious flattery such as "thine eyes shimmer like twin limpid pools of liquid lapis lazuli." However, if the letter-writer had not penned such flowery stuff the young man, and the object of his affection, might have felt cheated. Under the circumstances, would such ornament be "extraneous"? After all, the purpose of the letter would be to "convey" the young man's passion to the young woman in a culturally acceptable manner. "I got the hots for you, baby" would have been direct, but highly inappropriate.
Practically speaking, the presumably perfumed prose of the Persian letter-writer would be more suitable to the particular time, place and manner than the tough, lean style of Mickey Spillane or Elmore Leonard.
Before writers accede to demands that we "kill our darlings", we should consider the suitability of our language to the genre, the story, the characters—the literary gestalt. What's right for a hard-boiled thriller could be wrong for an historical romance, and vice versa.
I would also distinguish between Sir Arthur's original use of the word "murder" and the "kill" into which it has morphed. Strictly speaking, murder is an unjustified homicide. Killing can be justified when done in self-defense or defense of others. "Killing darlings," in literary terms, can be justified in the editing of extraneous ornament. However, taking a blue pencil to all ornament, much of Shakespeare for example, because the editor or critic prefers a terse style to the Bard's poetic effusiveness could be akin to an act of "murder."
Sir Arthur was a well-regarded British man of letters who sometimes wrote under the pen name Q. He was prolific and his literary career spanned several decades, from the 1880's to the 1930's. "Murder your darlings" is taken from his lecture on Style:
"To begin with, let me plead that you have been told of one or two things which Style is not; which have little or nothing to do with Style, though sometimes vulgarly mistaken for it. Style, for example, is not—can never be—extraneous Ornament. You remember, may be, the Persian lover whom I quoted to you out of Newman: how to convey his passion he sought a professional letter-writer and purchased a vocabulary charged with ornament, wherewith to attract the fair one as with a basket of jewels. Well, in this extraneous, professional, purchased ornamentation, you have something which Style is not: and if you here require a practical rule of me, I will present you with this: ‘Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.’
Notice that Sir Arthur was not damning all ornamental prose, just the "extraneous" or superfluous ornament, what might be called ornament for ornament's sake. Perhaps the professional letter-writer in his example was paid by the word. I can imagine him writing ostentatious flattery such as "thine eyes shimmer like twin limpid pools of liquid lapis lazuli." However, if the letter-writer had not penned such flowery stuff the young man, and the object of his affection, might have felt cheated. Under the circumstances, would such ornament be "extraneous"? After all, the purpose of the letter would be to "convey" the young man's passion to the young woman in a culturally acceptable manner. "I got the hots for you, baby" would have been direct, but highly inappropriate.
Practically speaking, the presumably perfumed prose of the Persian letter-writer would be more suitable to the particular time, place and manner than the tough, lean style of Mickey Spillane or Elmore Leonard.
Before writers accede to demands that we "kill our darlings", we should consider the suitability of our language to the genre, the story, the characters—the literary gestalt. What's right for a hard-boiled thriller could be wrong for an historical romance, and vice versa.
I would also distinguish between Sir Arthur's original use of the word "murder" and the "kill" into which it has morphed. Strictly speaking, murder is an unjustified homicide. Killing can be justified when done in self-defense or defense of others. "Killing darlings," in literary terms, can be justified in the editing of extraneous ornament. However, taking a blue pencil to all ornament, much of Shakespeare for example, because the editor or critic prefers a terse style to the Bard's poetic effusiveness could be akin to an act of "murder."
Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules
“Elmore Leonard's Ten Rules of Writing
1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said”…he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.
If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”
The late Elmore Leonard was an outstanding crime novelist; one of the best in the genre. Consequently, anything he had to say on the subject of writing was taken seriously—perhaps too seriously. For example, his often-quoted "Ten Rules of Writing." I suspect Leonard promulgated these rules with tongue firmly planted in cheek and we should therefore take them with a grain of salt. Tongue in cheek? Grain of salt? Are those clichés to be avoided like those referenced in Rule 6? If you want to get nit-picky, how about Rule 9, "Don't go into great detail...." Do you need the adjective "great" to modify "detail"? Maybe, in this context. Maybe not.
I believe most of the rules are questionable. Rule 7: "Use regional dialect, patois. sparingly." Better rewrite "Huckleberry Finn" Mr. Clemens. Rule 8: "Avoid detailed descriptions of characters." Take that, Charles Dickens. Rule 10. "Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip." That's right. Just do the Cliff's Notes version, or better yet, the Classic Comics version with cool illustrations. On the other hand, perhaps just scan the cover art, read the jacket blurb and forget the book. It'll save you time and money.
However, I'm fond of Number 4...he said affectionately.
I'll concentrate on Numero Uno, since that's of primary importance in a Decalogue, and finish fittingly with the summa.
1. Never open a book with weather.
I suppose Leonard was thinking of Bulwer-Lytton and Snoopy's infamous "It was a dark and stormy night." Fair enough. But what about this?
"When Chili first came to Miami Beach twelve years ago they were having one of their off-and-on cold winters: thirty-four degrees the day he met Tommy Carlo for lunch at Vesuvio's on South Collins and had his leather jacket ripped off. One his wife had given him for Christmas a year ago, before they moved down there."
Elmore Leonard, Get Shorty
Did Leonard violate his own First Commandment in the opening paragraph of one of his best novels? Granted, the reference to a day in Miami Beach that was so cold a hoodlum got his best leather jacket ripped off is a clever use of weather, but literally speaking it's still opening a book with weather. If you're going to have rules, Valjean, you had better follow them to the letter, said Inspector Javert officiously.
How about this?
"It was the rainy season in Bangkok. The air was saturated with a continuous fine drizzle, and often drops of rain would dance in a brilliant ray of sunlight. Rifts of blue were always visible here and there; and even when the clouds clustered most thickly round the sun, the sky at their circumference was dazzlingly blue. Before an approaching squall, it would turn ominously dark and threatening. A foreboding shade would shroud the predominantly green, low-roofed city dotted with palms."
Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn
Mishima violated the hell out of Leonard's First Commandment, and ran afoul of 9 & 10, too. So I guess, according to Leonard's rules, we should consign all literature that uses "great" descriptive detail to set the mood and tone for a particular time and place to the literary scrap heap. And, you crime writers who enjoy quoting Leonard's rules ad nauseum, that would include Conan Doyle's fog-shrouded descriptions of Sherlock Holmes's Victorian London and Raymond Chandler's moody, atmospheric descriptions of pre-World War II Los Angeles.
Now let's cut to the summa: "If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it" What does "writing" sound like? Damned if I know, but here's a guess. "If it sounds like someone else's writing, I rewrite it." I can't say for sure that's what Leonard meant, but I think it's a reasonable educated guess.
A passage from Woody Allen's Comedy/Fantasy "Midnight in Paris" might shed some light on what Elmore Leonard was doing with his Ten Rules. In the movie, a contemporary wannabe novelist travels back in time to 1920s Paris, where he meets a host of creative luminaries, including his idol, Ernest Hemingway. In the scene, Gil, the wannabe novelist, asks Hemingway to read his manuscript.
GIL
Would you do me the biggest favor
in the world - I can't even ask •••
HEMINGWAY
What?
GIL
Would you read it?
HEMINGWAY
Your novel?
GIL
It's only about four hundred pages -
if you could just give me your
opinion.
HEMINGWAY
My opinion is I hate it.
GIL
You do?
HEMINGWAY
If it's bad I'll hate it because I hate bad writing and if it's good
I'll be envious and hate it all the more. You don't want the opinion of another writer.
The Hemingway character admits that writers are competitive. Hemingway had many imitators, good, bad and indifferent. Should writers follow Elmore Leonard's rules? Go ahead, be my guest. My prediction for your writing career? At best, you'll be a successful hack who imitates Leonard, just like all the hacks, good, bad and indifferent, who imitated Hemingway. That brings me to my summa, my one and only rule for writers.
Be yourself.
1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than "said" to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb "said”…he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words "suddenly" or "all hell broke loose."
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don't go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.
If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”
The late Elmore Leonard was an outstanding crime novelist; one of the best in the genre. Consequently, anything he had to say on the subject of writing was taken seriously—perhaps too seriously. For example, his often-quoted "Ten Rules of Writing." I suspect Leonard promulgated these rules with tongue firmly planted in cheek and we should therefore take them with a grain of salt. Tongue in cheek? Grain of salt? Are those clichés to be avoided like those referenced in Rule 6? If you want to get nit-picky, how about Rule 9, "Don't go into great detail...." Do you need the adjective "great" to modify "detail"? Maybe, in this context. Maybe not.
I believe most of the rules are questionable. Rule 7: "Use regional dialect, patois. sparingly." Better rewrite "Huckleberry Finn" Mr. Clemens. Rule 8: "Avoid detailed descriptions of characters." Take that, Charles Dickens. Rule 10. "Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip." That's right. Just do the Cliff's Notes version, or better yet, the Classic Comics version with cool illustrations. On the other hand, perhaps just scan the cover art, read the jacket blurb and forget the book. It'll save you time and money.
However, I'm fond of Number 4...he said affectionately.
I'll concentrate on Numero Uno, since that's of primary importance in a Decalogue, and finish fittingly with the summa.
1. Never open a book with weather.
I suppose Leonard was thinking of Bulwer-Lytton and Snoopy's infamous "It was a dark and stormy night." Fair enough. But what about this?
"When Chili first came to Miami Beach twelve years ago they were having one of their off-and-on cold winters: thirty-four degrees the day he met Tommy Carlo for lunch at Vesuvio's on South Collins and had his leather jacket ripped off. One his wife had given him for Christmas a year ago, before they moved down there."
Elmore Leonard, Get Shorty
Did Leonard violate his own First Commandment in the opening paragraph of one of his best novels? Granted, the reference to a day in Miami Beach that was so cold a hoodlum got his best leather jacket ripped off is a clever use of weather, but literally speaking it's still opening a book with weather. If you're going to have rules, Valjean, you had better follow them to the letter, said Inspector Javert officiously.
How about this?
"It was the rainy season in Bangkok. The air was saturated with a continuous fine drizzle, and often drops of rain would dance in a brilliant ray of sunlight. Rifts of blue were always visible here and there; and even when the clouds clustered most thickly round the sun, the sky at their circumference was dazzlingly blue. Before an approaching squall, it would turn ominously dark and threatening. A foreboding shade would shroud the predominantly green, low-roofed city dotted with palms."
Yukio Mishima, The Temple of Dawn
Mishima violated the hell out of Leonard's First Commandment, and ran afoul of 9 & 10, too. So I guess, according to Leonard's rules, we should consign all literature that uses "great" descriptive detail to set the mood and tone for a particular time and place to the literary scrap heap. And, you crime writers who enjoy quoting Leonard's rules ad nauseum, that would include Conan Doyle's fog-shrouded descriptions of Sherlock Holmes's Victorian London and Raymond Chandler's moody, atmospheric descriptions of pre-World War II Los Angeles.
Now let's cut to the summa: "If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it" What does "writing" sound like? Damned if I know, but here's a guess. "If it sounds like someone else's writing, I rewrite it." I can't say for sure that's what Leonard meant, but I think it's a reasonable educated guess.
A passage from Woody Allen's Comedy/Fantasy "Midnight in Paris" might shed some light on what Elmore Leonard was doing with his Ten Rules. In the movie, a contemporary wannabe novelist travels back in time to 1920s Paris, where he meets a host of creative luminaries, including his idol, Ernest Hemingway. In the scene, Gil, the wannabe novelist, asks Hemingway to read his manuscript.
GIL
Would you do me the biggest favor
in the world - I can't even ask •••
HEMINGWAY
What?
GIL
Would you read it?
HEMINGWAY
Your novel?
GIL
It's only about four hundred pages -
if you could just give me your
opinion.
HEMINGWAY
My opinion is I hate it.
GIL
You do?
HEMINGWAY
If it's bad I'll hate it because I hate bad writing and if it's good
I'll be envious and hate it all the more. You don't want the opinion of another writer.
The Hemingway character admits that writers are competitive. Hemingway had many imitators, good, bad and indifferent. Should writers follow Elmore Leonard's rules? Go ahead, be my guest. My prediction for your writing career? At best, you'll be a successful hack who imitates Leonard, just like all the hacks, good, bad and indifferent, who imitated Hemingway. That brings me to my summa, my one and only rule for writers.
Be yourself.
Chasing The Great White Whale
A while ago, I reviewed Hermann Melville’s “Moby Dick” on GR. It’s a great novel and well worth reading, but it had the same effect on Melville’s career that the great white whale had on Ahab and the Pequod.
Melville had early success as a writer, drawing on his experiences at sea for popular adventures like “Typee” and “Omoo”. With success came money, an advantageous marriage, and acquaintance with the leading New England literati of his day. Good fortune spurred the young writer’s ambition. He would write a book that would make a big splash in the literary sea. Drawing on folklore, his own experiences, and a real event, the ramming and sinking of the whaler Essex by a great sperm whale, the ambitious young writer produced what he hoped and believed would be The Great American Novel. But things did not turn out as he hoped. The following is from my review:
“Published in 1851, the original printing of 3,000 did not sell in Melville's lifetime (He died in 1891).
Prior to writing Moby Dick, Melville was the successful author of South Seas adventures (Typee and Omoo) based on his experiences in the merchant marine and whaling. That's what his publisher and the public wanted. Instead, Melville gave them the story of Captain Ahab's vengeful pursuit of the Great White Whale that ends in death and destruction, with only one among the crew (Ishmael) left to tell the cautionary tale. That might have worked in a book half the length. But I believe Melville wanted much more than another best-seller; he wanted to write the "Great American Novel," a book for the ages, something to rival Homer, Shakespeare, and the King James Bible.
Melville filled the novel with powerful imagery; gorgeous, poetic, quasi-biblical prose; allegories, digressions, and obscure metaphysical allusions. In the process, Melville morphed into Ahab, and the novel became his "White Whale." As a result, he produced a masterpiece that few wanted to read.
He paid the price. His publisher dropped him; other publishers ran from his manuscripts as if they carried the plague; his wife's family urged her to leave him; he drank; his eldest son killed himself. Melville died a lonely, forgotten old man living on a civil servant's pension. Another cautionary tale. To quote Clint Eastwood aka Dirty Harry: "A man's got to know his limitations."
Moby Dick is indeed a cautionary tale, and so is the author’s biography. I think about both every time I start work on a new book. I also think of another novel, Zola’s “The Masterpiece,” the story of a talented artist whose vision of a “masterpiece” drives him to destruction. Anyone who works in the creative arts must deal with a certain amount of insecurity, a lack of confidence that he or she has the ability to realize a great artistic vision. For some, that insecurity can become mentally, emotionally and physically debilitating.
Here’s some good advice from the late, great Spanish tenor Alfredo Kraus:
''Let me tell you,'' he said, ''I know singers who are in terror before they perform, because their technique is not secure, they are singing beyond themselves, they do not know what will happen, any little thing can throw them into a disaster. If I am well, I have no problem at all to sing. I have a natural tension because I know I am going before the public, but this is very easy to control. Why should I change and give myself trouble?''
Singing beyond oneself. The same goes for writers. Don’t write beyond yourself. If you’re secure in your technique and have a clear vision of what you want to accomplish, go ahead with confidence. With persistence and effort, you can produce something good, maybe even great if the stars align correctly. But beware the Great White Whale; it might sink your ship, and you with it.
Melville had early success as a writer, drawing on his experiences at sea for popular adventures like “Typee” and “Omoo”. With success came money, an advantageous marriage, and acquaintance with the leading New England literati of his day. Good fortune spurred the young writer’s ambition. He would write a book that would make a big splash in the literary sea. Drawing on folklore, his own experiences, and a real event, the ramming and sinking of the whaler Essex by a great sperm whale, the ambitious young writer produced what he hoped and believed would be The Great American Novel. But things did not turn out as he hoped. The following is from my review:
“Published in 1851, the original printing of 3,000 did not sell in Melville's lifetime (He died in 1891).
Prior to writing Moby Dick, Melville was the successful author of South Seas adventures (Typee and Omoo) based on his experiences in the merchant marine and whaling. That's what his publisher and the public wanted. Instead, Melville gave them the story of Captain Ahab's vengeful pursuit of the Great White Whale that ends in death and destruction, with only one among the crew (Ishmael) left to tell the cautionary tale. That might have worked in a book half the length. But I believe Melville wanted much more than another best-seller; he wanted to write the "Great American Novel," a book for the ages, something to rival Homer, Shakespeare, and the King James Bible.
Melville filled the novel with powerful imagery; gorgeous, poetic, quasi-biblical prose; allegories, digressions, and obscure metaphysical allusions. In the process, Melville morphed into Ahab, and the novel became his "White Whale." As a result, he produced a masterpiece that few wanted to read.
He paid the price. His publisher dropped him; other publishers ran from his manuscripts as if they carried the plague; his wife's family urged her to leave him; he drank; his eldest son killed himself. Melville died a lonely, forgotten old man living on a civil servant's pension. Another cautionary tale. To quote Clint Eastwood aka Dirty Harry: "A man's got to know his limitations."
Moby Dick is indeed a cautionary tale, and so is the author’s biography. I think about both every time I start work on a new book. I also think of another novel, Zola’s “The Masterpiece,” the story of a talented artist whose vision of a “masterpiece” drives him to destruction. Anyone who works in the creative arts must deal with a certain amount of insecurity, a lack of confidence that he or she has the ability to realize a great artistic vision. For some, that insecurity can become mentally, emotionally and physically debilitating.
Here’s some good advice from the late, great Spanish tenor Alfredo Kraus:
''Let me tell you,'' he said, ''I know singers who are in terror before they perform, because their technique is not secure, they are singing beyond themselves, they do not know what will happen, any little thing can throw them into a disaster. If I am well, I have no problem at all to sing. I have a natural tension because I know I am going before the public, but this is very easy to control. Why should I change and give myself trouble?''
Singing beyond oneself. The same goes for writers. Don’t write beyond yourself. If you’re secure in your technique and have a clear vision of what you want to accomplish, go ahead with confidence. With persistence and effort, you can produce something good, maybe even great if the stars align correctly. But beware the Great White Whale; it might sink your ship, and you with it.
