Jonas David's Blog, page 48

How would you describe it?

As a writing exercise, I often try to describe random objects or scenes that I see in my daily life. I don’t type them out–just in my mind. But I try to come up with the words to put exactly what I’m looking at right then into someone else’s head. How do I get across that particular color or shape, the specific way the light reflects there, or the exact way that smell made me feel?

Think of it like a daily work-out for your descriptive powers.

Predator in pathetic guise

I’m a bit more than halfway through Lolita, and am beginning to feel disturbed and disgusted. A slow, sickening feeling has been building for a while, and finally made me realize that Humbert is not a pathetic loser, but a cold predator.

He is telling his story with the object of gaining sympathy. To do this he paints himself as a helpless freak, who knows what he’s doing is gross but can’t help himself. He tries to show how good his intentions are, how much of a sap he is for Lolita, how she has such power over him to make him want to do these things. But in reality he is manipulating and using her as an object purely for his own pleasure.

Little things, little hints, show this to be true.

From the start of the story he tries to show that Lolita has only captured him so because she reminds him of a lost love he had with a girl her age, when he was that age also. It is only her (that lost girl from his past), specifically that does this to him, she is special–a psychological longing for an incomplete romance–and when he sees Lolita she reminds him so much of that girl from his past that he has to be near her, in any way he can. It is possible, dear reader, to be sympathetic with these feelings.

However, as the story progresses we find that Humbert, despite his insistence of Lolita’s singularity, is attracted to–and leers unabashedly at!–every girl-child that crosses his path. Clearly, this is not a one-time occasion for him, as he would have us think.

Humbert claims to care for Lolita, to love her, to want only to please her and make her happy. Yet, when her mother is killed in an accident his first thought is to lie to her about it in order to keep her in a better mood. Not for her own sake, but so he doesn’t have to stop enjoying her presence.

There are so many other instances, subtle phrases or points of view–too many to list, and I’m sure many I haven’t noticed–that show Humbert’s monstrosity. It is fascinating and disgusting at once.

This book is so finely crafted and subtle, despite its blunt subject material, that I imagine I’ll be thinking about it for years to come.

write six billion stories

If you were an immortal, how many stories could you write before you got bored of the whole idea of stories? I can’t imagine ever getting tired of making stuff up… but I suppose there must be a limit.

Every thing that has ever happened, never happened, can’t happen, or must happen–all are stories. How, with the endless universe of imagination, could someone ever get tired of it? The only thing I can think of, is if there was no one to read them, or no one who cared.

Would that be hell? Endless time and resources to write all the stories you could ever desire, but no one interested in reading them…

The Crimson Petal and the White, by Michel Faber

What can I say about this book? It was a journey, an adventure, an endeavor. I loved every page of it and was left aching, (I swear I felt a physical ache) for more at the end.

Every time I read one of Faber’s novels, I say his characters are what make it. And this is no exception. But this one also has the benefit of consistently beautiful prose that paints an amazingly vivid picture of not just the characters, but everything–down to the last buttered scone or piss-stained cobblestone.

This book could have gone on another 900 pages and I would have just kept reading and reading. It could have gone on forever.

Read it!

 

Reading vs performing

Jeremy Irons’ reading of Lolita is really good. I wish more audiobooks would have actors as the narrator, because he is doing way more than just reading the text. It’s a performance.

Tone is so important, timing, enunciation–all these things can change the meaning of something so drastically.  I would be very picky about how my novel were read, if I had any choice in the matter (not likely).

 

Don’t tell me what I already know

There are two ways to reveal a surprise or secret you’ve been hinting at in a story. Well, I’m sure there’s more than two but let’s be black and white for a minute.

There’s a good way, and a bad way.

There’s a way that makes your reader smile and say ‘ah, yes I suspected that’ and feel good about themselves for being so clever to notice what the writer was doing. And there’s a way that makes them sigh exasperatedly and shout I KNOW at the page.

Showing is better than telling, yes, but what’s worse than telling, in my opinion, is when you show very nicely, then tell anyway.

Here are two examples, one from an irritating book, and one from an amazing book that I’m in love with. Both contain spoilers so be warned.

Let’s start with the bad way.

The first example is from Borne, a book I’ve recently read and posted about here. At this point in the story, we have already been shown multiple times that Borne is able to change his shape. In one scene, one of the characters, Wick, enter’s the viewpoint character, Rachel’s, room. We are told that he’s looking odd, sickly and kind of green / purple in color. These are Borne’s colors, so I think–as I’m sure the author intended–‘oh, Borne can impersonate a human? This is interesting.’ So far so good. The character doesn’t guess it, and that’s okay. I know, and her not knowing makes it a bit creepier. She goes about her day unsuspecting, but then later goes into Wick’s room and witnesses herself talking to Wick. Creepier still! However, the author then feels the need to turn to the camera and say ‘It was Borne!’ as a dramatic way to end the chapter. Cue me shouting I KNOW at the page (or in my case at the dashboard of my car). All the impact was taken from the scene, and the whole thing became ridiculous as I’m thinking to myself ‘was that supposed to be a surprise?’ I was surprised he could take human shape, but really, what else could it possibly be talking to Wick? It was obviously not Rachel, who was standing there watching…

Now a good example, from The Crimson Petal and the White. One of the main characters is a prostitute early in the story, and has much unprotected sex as a consequence (it’s the  1870’s.) She has a concoction she mixes up to pour into herself after each encounter. Later in the story she’s moved to a new location, without her things, and doesn’t have her mixture, and is still having sex. I’m thinking ‘uh oh, she’s going to get pregnant’. It isn’t mentioned or hinted at for a long time, and I’ve almost forgotten about it. Then we start hearing how tight her clothes are–why do people keep getting her size wrong? She’s feeling sick randomly. She feels like her chest is getting bigger. ‘Oh no,’ I think, ‘she is pregnant after all! I was right!’ The character doesn’t suspect yet, but I know. Later, with no dramatic reveal, no ‘gasp, I’m pregnant! Oh no!’ or the narrator saying ‘she was pregnant!’ to end a chapter–the character simply starts trying to take care of her problem through various ways (one of them, throwing herself down a staircase D: ) There is no point where we’re told she’s pregnant, until much later when the character thinks something like ‘such and such hasn’t happened since I’ve been pregnant’. It is not a dramatic surprise reveal, because we already know. And the author knows we know, because he knows we aren’t a daft, mouth-breathing set of brainless eyes that needs every word explained to them.

So, there you have it. More examples of why you shouldn’t tell your readers what’s going on as if they are an idiot. It’s very annoying, and makes you seem like an idiot and a bad writer.

Obsession

Since the current thing I’m working on has a lot to do with obsession, I was recommended to read Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov. I got the audible version and so far am impressed by both the writing and the reading of it (narration by Jeremy Irons).

It’s always been interesting to me how people justify their actions to themselves. Rarely does anyone perceive themselves as a monster or a villain, yet people do monstrous and villainous things every day.

I’m only just at the beginning, and don’t know what terrible acts await, but so far Humbert Humbert comes across as awkwardly pitiable. An ordinary child doing ordinary childish things sends him into an internal frenzy he can barely contain. It’s humorous, in a sinking kind of way, imagining him tensing and sputtering as she sits innocently on his knee. Yet in his own words he paints such a dramatic picture of these events–every turn of her head, every look, every move, is impactful and powerful in his eyes. It’s very similar, actually, to listening to an adult extol the deep and powerful meaning and effect on them, of a child’s cartoon show(you know the one)–in a word: embarrassing.

I’m enjoying it a lot, and just from the start I can already tell why this is near the top of so many ‘best books’ lists. Quite a refreshing breath after my last read.

Borne: why?

Finally finished this book, and I’m left with a lot of question. Mainly: what was the point? This post contains spoilers.

 

What was Borne’s purpose? What was Morde’s purpose? What was the magician trying to do, other than kill Morde? Was the whole story just an essay against scientific meddling? Borne, the most interesting part of the story, is not in it for the second half of the book, except to be involved in a giant off-screen monster fight–so why does he get the title of the story? Why is everything suddenly great once Morde is gone? If Rachel and Wick are ‘not people’ but instead ‘biotech’ what does this mean? How can I care if it has no effect on them or anything they do? Rachel’s parents died in such a horrible way that she chose to have her memory erased–so, how did they die? Is Rachel having her memory erased just a lazy way to avoid having a backstory? The surprise of this reveal is not worth the lack of development it causes in the viewpoint character.

On the verge of interesting most the time, but overall very frustrating to follow this along and see it reaching for, but not quite grasping, a good story.

 

Alien Covenant: why

There’s a first time for everything, and I guess people who haven’t seen any alien movies might find this interesting and exciting. But can you even make it into adulthood without being exposed to the xenomorph and the chest burster and face hugger? Is it going to be shocking or scary in the least to see these things again and again? Why? Why can’t you just create something new?

Money, that’s why.

Money: the bane of art.

avoiding definition

I find that I dislike when things are concrete, black and white, yes or no. I like when things are open for interpretation, when there are many ways to see something, multiple directions to look. So when I’m writing, I often leave things vague, so they can be seen in multiple ways.

I have a pile of puzzle pieces that I’ve created, and they could be arranged in many ways. Sure, I could fit them all into a shape, glue them that way, frame them, then show everyone and say ‘this is how they go together!’, but letting the reader put them together seems more fun to me. Especially if there is a lot of ways for them to work…

Annoying to some? Maybe. But I like it