Bad Writing: Creating Unnecessary Distance

A request Titling “Midwinter” with John Donne

Bad Writing: Creating Unnecessary Distance

So, a question came up on Quora recently that caused me to say that as far as I’m concerned, Terry Brooks is not a great writer — with explanations about why I don’t think so.

The thing is, taking apart an excerpt of one of Brooks’ more recent books turned out to be interesting, in that I noticed a problem that I don’t think I clearly understood before, a problem which has to do with creating unnecessary distance from the reader. So, let me take a more extended excerpt of one of Terry Brooks’ books and actually look at it in some detail here. This is the beginning of The Last Druid. Scroll down past the excerpt for the commentary; I don’t want to bias your ability to look at this selection more than I already have. I realize that just saying, “Hey, I’m going to criticize this” will make everyone read it more critically than you might otherwise. Even so, here’s the selection. This is 1400 words or so, enough to see the style properly. Italics in original.

***

Tarsha Kaynin was not dead. She should have been, but she was not.

It surprised her when she woke from the blackness into which she had fallen when she had gone over the cliffs of Cleeg Hold and dropped toward the churning waters of the Mermidon several hundred feet below. She could feel sheets of hard rain beating down on her, soaking her clothing and chilling her body. She could hear the sounds of the storm all around her—the staccato slap of raindrops against the stone walls of the Rock Spur cliffs, the howl of the wind, and the thunder of the rain-swollen river as it surged wildly down its narrow channel. She was dangling from something that had snagged her and now held her fast. Yet as the buffeting winds set her swaying back and forth, she was reminded of how precarious her situation was.

Still, she was not dead.

Her aching, throbbing head provided further proof. She must have hit it as she fell. Perhaps the blow was even responsible for saving her. Perhaps it had slowed her just enough, arresting her fall sufficiently to allow the cliffs to catch hold of her. She could not remember, and she would likely never know for certain. But one thing she did know: She could not remain where she was. Sooner or later, the winds would tug her loose and she would begin falling once more.

Her eyes were tightly closed—in part to shut out the fury of the storm, and in part to protect her vision. The rain was falling so hard that each drop stung the skin of her face, and she did not want to chance what it might do to her eyes if she opened them. But the darkness allowed her the space and time to regain herself, to recall the events that had led to this moment. Her memory was momentarily fuzzy—a result not only of the blow to her head, but of something more . . .

Tavo!

Then a blow of such force—a strike of dark magic launched by Clizia Porse before either she or Tavo could prepare for it—and she was thrown through the air and over the cliffside into . . .

Unconsciousness, emptiness, the dark.

What had happened to her companions? She had no way of knowing.

Carefully, so as not to jar her position, she lifted one hand to shield her eyes from the rain so she could peer upward. She could see the cliff wall behind her and the rocky projection that had caught the collar of her heavy cloak to stop her descent and hold her fast. A one-in-a-million chance of this happening, and yet it had. Again, she recalled Parlindru’s words, foretelling her future: Three times you shall die, but each time you shall come back to life. Surely, this qualified as one of those times. Was this the last of the three? Tavo had nearly killed her twice, so mustn’t it be?

She forced herself to concentrate, to stop the rambling flow of her thoughts, and to study the rain-slickened rock she must somehow climb to safety. She could not see the edge she had tumbled over; it was too far above her and lost in blackness. But it didn’t matter. She knew she had to find a way to reach it.

What skill did she possess—what magic—that would allow her to do this? She tried to ignore the aching in her head; the pain made it hard for her to think.

Drisker had helped her to develop a considerable range of talents, and she had taught herself others. Yet she saw no projections on which she could gain any handholds save for the one that had snagged her, and one was not enough. She searched for foliage or vines she might grip, but there was nothing. She could try calling for help, but that would be dangerous. If Clizia was still up there, she might hear—although the sounds of the storm were so furious that she couldn’t imagine anyone hearing anything.

Then, as if in response to nothing more than contemplating the possibility, lightning flashed and a dark figure stood at the edge of the cliff, leaning over. Tarsha’s glimpse of this apparition was fleeting, but she knew instinctively it was the witch. She kept watching. Looking away now would not help; either she had been seen or she hadn’t. So she waited, eyes fixed on the point where she had spied the other woman. Then the lightning flashed again, illuminating the cliff edge, and Clizia Porse was gone.

Tarsha held her breath. Had Clizia seen her dangling against the cliffside? Was she visible from above? She waited, the minutes ticking away in her head. She imagined her death dozens of times over—a drop into the abyss of the canyon, everything brought to an abrupt end. She imagined what it would feel like.

Then she heard a new sound, one she recognized—the whine of power generated from diapson crystals as thrusters engaged and an airship lifted off. The sound heightened then slowly died away as the airship moved farther off. Clizia was gone.

Tarsha waited until she was certain, then cried out for Tavo and Drisker, one after the other, over and over. When there was no response and she realized no help was coming, she knew she was going to have to save herself.

But how could she manage it? Even if there were hand-and footholds to be found on the cliff face, she would have to swing close enough to the rock wall to grab onto them before her cloak tore loose. It was a faint hope at best, but without any way to gain purchase on the cliffside, it was unthinkable.

For a while she just hung there, a steady erosion of any hope breaking down her failing confidence, certain that—with the next gust of wind—she was going to die. She tried to tell herself that she just needed to think it through, that something would occur to her if she did.

But her situation suggested otherwise, and she began to despair.

Then, still running through the list of skills she had acquired while mastering the wishsong’s magic, she paused momentarily when she remembered her ability to appear in one place while actually being in another. Like the Skaar almost, but . . .

She caught herself, stumbling over a possibility that seemed so remote and unlikely that she almost dismissed it out of hand. But desperation forced her to consider it further.

If she could make herself appear to be in one place when she was really in another, might it not be possible to actually move herself elsewhere? To transport herself, in the flesh? Was it not a logical extension of how the wishsong could make the impossible manifest? Logic and life experience told her otherwise, but her understanding had progressed beyond both of these barriers. If necessity was the mother of invention, then why couldn’t her desperation make the impossible real? Just because she had never tried it didn’t mean it couldn’t be done.

And what other choice did she have now?

She closed her eyes once more and began to hum softly, summoning the magic. She had to be very careful. She had to both free herself from her cloak and place herself in virtual form back atop the rocky shelf. And she had to accomplish this and hold it all in place while she took it one step further and moved her corporeal form into her apparition. She was not even sure how she would do this—only that she must find a way.

Even more daunting, she could not experiment, but must make it happen on the first try.

Three times you shall die, but each time you shall come back to life.

Let it be so.

***

Okay, so, first, I do think the use of italics is MUCH less obtrusive and silly than in last week’s example of bad writing. This excerpt is bad in a totally different way from that one, and by “bad” I mean not THAT bad, because that excerpt from last week was terrible. But let’s take a look at this excerpt again. This time, I’m going to strike allllllll the words I think shouldn’t be there and adjust the prose just a tiny bit along the way to enhance flow.

***

Tarsha Kaynin was not dead. She should have been, but she was not.

~~It surprised her when~~ She woke from the blackness into which she had fallen. ~~when she had gone over the cliffs of Cleeg Hold and dropped toward the churning waters of the Mermidon several hundred feet below. She could feel sheets of~~ Hard rain beat down. ~~on her, soaking her clothing and chilling her body.~~ ~~She could hear the sounds of~~ The storm surrounded her—the staccato slap of raindrops against the stone ~~walls~~ of the ~~Rock Spur~~ cliffs, the howl of the wind, and the thunder of the rain-swollen river as it surged wildly down its narrow channel. She was dangling from something that had snagged her and now held her fast. ~~Yet as the buffeting winds set her swaying back and forth, she was reminded of how precarious her situation was.~~

Still, she was not dead.

***

Let’s pause for thought right here. Two things are pushing the reader away to a distance in the opening paragraph. One is the overuse of specific place names that are unfamiliar and do not matter. The other is that this is a report of a girl in a hazardous situation, by a narrator standing at a distance. The narrator is telling the reader: She is surprised. She can feel this. She can hear this. She pauses to consider how precarious her situation is, and this last bit is practically unforgivable in my opinion, because nobody, nobody in the entire universe, who was actually in this situation would need to be reminded of how precarious her situation is. That part is something that should be viscerally felt.

Visceral reactions are totally missing from the above. That’s the problem. That is what I meant when I said this writing style is distancing. I’m also cutting, what, about half the words? This is verbose, wordy in a way I specifically dislike. I’m trying to cut everything that pushes the reader away from the scene and the experience.

Let’s go on.

***

~~Her aching, throbbing head provided further proof.~~ Her head ached, a sharp pain. She must have hit it as she fell. Perhaps the blow was even responsible for saving her. Perhaps it had slowed her just enough, arresting her fall sufficiently to allow the cliffs to catch hold of her. She could not remember, and she would likely never know for certain. But one thing she did know: But she could not remain where she was. ~~Sooner or later,~~ The winds tugged at her; she swayed with the force of gusts, precariously near falling. ~~threatening to pull her from her precarious perch, and she would begin falling once more.~~

~~Her eyes were tightly closed—in part to shut out the fury of the storm, and in part to protect her vision.~~ The rain was falling so hard that each drop stung her skin. The wind shoved her toward the unseen sea below her, but as she fumbled for a grip on the slick rocks, she suddenly thought — of her face, and she did not want to chance what it might do to her eyes if she opened them. But the darkness allowed her the space and time to regain herself, to recall the events that had led to this moment. Her memory was momentarily fuzzy—a result not only of the blow to her head, but of something more . . .

Tavo!

It all came rushing back in a flurry of terrible images. Drisker, her brother, and herself landing on a rocky shelf high on the cliffs of the Rock Spur at the entrance to Cleeg Hold. Clizia Porse, using her magic to attack them from hiding, striking Tavo so hard he went down in a heap. Drisker rushing to strike back. A gap in time opening as she cradled her brother fearfully, willing him to wake once more. But she could not remember what had happened because this is totally the wrong time for a summary of past events, sorry for the interpolation. The storm all around her—the flashes of lightning and the booming of thunder, the darkness and the rain, the overwhelming sense of failure ~~everything having gone wrong~~ … she was alone. She had no idea where her brother was, whether he had fallen past her, whether he was lost, drowned, dead.

~~Then a blow of such force—a strike of dark magic launched by Clizia Porse before either she or Tavo could prepare for it—and she was thrown through the air and over the cliffside into . . .~~

~~Unconsciousness, emptiness, the dark.~~

~~What had happened to her companions? She had no way of knowing.~~

Carefully, so as not to jar herself loose from her position, she lifted one hand to shield her eyes from the rain ~~so she could peer upward~~. She could see the cliff wall behind her and the rocky projection that had caught the collar of her heavy cloak to stop her descent and hold her fast. A one-in-a-million chance of this happening, and yet it had. Again, she recalled Parlindru’s words, foretelling her future: Three times you shall die, but each time you shall come back to life. Surely, this qualified as one of those times. Was this the last of the three? She hadn’t actually died, so maybe not. Tavo had nearly killed her twice, so mustn’t it be?

~~She forced herself to concentrate, to stop the rambling flow of her thoughts, and to study the rain-slickened rock she must somehow climb to safety.~~ She could not see the edge she had tumbled over; it was too far above her and lost in blackness. ~~But it didn’t matter. She knew she had to find a way to reach it.~~

What skill did she possess—what magic—that would allow her to ~~do this~~ climb to safety? She tried to ignore the aching in her head; the pain made it hard for her to think.

Then, ~~as if in response to nothing more than contemplating the possibility,~~ lightning flashed and a dark figure stood at the edge of the cliff, leaning over. Tarsha’s glimpse of this apparition was fleeting, but she knew instinctively it was the witch.

***

Let’s stop so I can just mention that she most certainly did not know this instinctively, and I WISH WITH ALL MY HEART THAT PEOPLE WOULD QUIT USING INSTINCTIVELY WHEN THEY MEAN SOMETHING ELSE. Usually, what people mean is “reflexively.” In this case, what Brooks means is “intuitively” or “magically” or “she was afraid it was.” What he does not mean is instinctively, because that means something else.

I think I’ll stop here. The above is plenty to notice that I’m cutting A LOT OF WORDS, and this in spite of the obvious fact — I think it’s surely obvious — that I have no trouble with long books that contain lots of words, that I have no trouble with a slower pace, that I’m fine with prolixity as long as those words are doing something for the narrative. I mean something good.

Yes, the author should work in the backstory. But it should be more subtle and it should happen in moments of leisure. If your protagonist is clinging to a cliff above a high drop to certain death, in a thunderstorm, with enemies possibly lurking, then this is not the time to think about the backstory. She has enough to think of that is of far more immediate importance. Trying to summarize the ending of the previous book prevents you from drawing the reader into the story at this present moment.

Worse, you should NEVER, EVER say “She forced herself to concentrate to stop the rambling flow of her thoughts,” because that is just clumsy and unnecessary. She shouldn’t need to concentrate because she shouldn’t have been rambling on about whatever backstory nonsense in the first place. Do you know what actually serves wonderfully well to concentrate the thoughts? Hanging above a high drop to certain death, in a thunderstorm. This sort of thing is exactly like a YA heroine fighting for her life and getting distracted because the guy trying to kill her is cute. Nothing is sillier than cramming in unnecessary musing upon the backstory or the cuteness of the enemy while the protagonist is literally trying not to die at that very second.

But the part that was new to me was realizing I also wanted to take out all the She was surprised and She heard the rain and One thing she knew and It was likely she would never know, all those phrases. And I do think, I’m pretty sure, that this is not just because those words are unnecessary. I think, on the spectrum of telling versus showing, that this is a kind of telling. And, while telling is fine when you want to summarize something unimportant, it’s not fine when you want a scene to feel urgent and immediate.

This is what’s happening here: a narrator is reporting about the protagonist, rather than the protagonist herself telling the story. This situation should be exciting, but the only way it can be is if the reader skims across it fast and uses their imagination to compensate for pretty bad storytelling. That’s what I think, and that’s what I think has to happen for a writer who is not that great at the sentence level to be popular.

***

It’s not that I can’t enjoy books that aren’t written all that well, because I can. Not Terry Brooks particularly, because The Sword of Shannara is so purely a derivative of TLotR, except badly written, and from what I understand, his books in general are derivative cookie-cutter fantasy novels, and that doesn’t interest me at all. But other books by other authors, sometimes, yes.

I’ll be doing a workshop pretty soon, though, and so I wanted to pull out what I think is bad about the writing here because I think the problems here are pretty common, and it helps me think about what those problems actually are when I write a post like this.

Here’s the original Quora question and answer, if you’re interested.

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