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mary rosenblum
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Hello all! I hope you had a
great Thanksgiving!
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mary rosenblum
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This is our After Hours Forum,
with me, Mary Rosenblum, your web editor. Tonight we're doing one of our
hands on workshops -- on non narrative description. If you're new here,
remember that you need to click on the 'Ask a Question' button or the 'word
bubble' next to the red question mark at the top of the screen in order to
ask a question. Your regular 'send' bar won't reach me! Or you can use /ask
and type your question into the regular send bar if that works better for
you..
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mary rosenblum
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There was a lot of interest in
our Tuesday Forum on non narrative description...
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mary rosenblum
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and it can be very tough to
'get', although once you do figure it out, it's easy to do all the time.
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mary rosenblum
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So I thought we'd do one of
our hands on sessions, since seeing it done is often the best way to
understand what exactly it is.
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mary rosenblum
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One common misconception by
the way...you can't DO non narrative description in first person...
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mary rosenblum
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first person by definition is
a narrated prose. The first person main character is telling the story!
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mary rosenblum
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We'll do another Forum on
'direct' versus 'narrative' first person...but that's another topic! :-)
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mary rosenblum
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Non narrative description is
something you use in third person in order to remove any sense of 'story
telling' from the prose...
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mary rosenblum
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so that the readers can
immerse themselves in the story and begin to live the adventure along with
the characters.
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mary rosenblum
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It is the foundation technique
of 'show, don't tell'.
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mary rosenblum
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And if you can do it well, it
will make your story absolutely stand out in the slush pile...
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mary rosenblum
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because very few novice
writers do it well at all.
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mary rosenblum
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So it's worth working on.
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mary rosenblum
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I have some examples that were
emailed to me ahead of time. So let's look at our first one. I have to post
it in pieces so if you see numbers after a section, that means it's...
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mary rosenblum
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say, part one of three (1/3)
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mary rosenblum
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Alan was a blacksmith, a
merchant, not to mention a
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Proud of his ability to
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presumed that the poor,
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were just lazy. But that
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Now, there simply were no
jobs.
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in the small midwest county
had any
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do anything. Even the land
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gather the ripening
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mary rosenblum
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Running his fingers through
his thinning hair, he
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He felt like he was falling
down
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A wave of dark
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I can't go on any more,
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once, but always managed to
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depression now, not happy
with
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and
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the demolition of
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mary rosenblum
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He picked at the callouses on
his right hand. He
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older children into the
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Called 'picking on
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to keep half of what you
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went to the owner. His
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camp for a while, which
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to feed, but even then
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gossamer thread on most
days.
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some turnips he
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cabin and peaches picked
from a
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spilled that morning
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supply. He did not know if
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to get them through the
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mary rosenblum
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C Donnell's question was how
to make this piece with no action, 'non narrative'. well, there's not much
you can do with this scene without ADDING action.
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mary rosenblum
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Our character is merely
thinking about all the backstory that the author wants us to know...and
readers will realize this.
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mary rosenblum
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So what can C do with this?
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mary rosenblum
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Well, if I were you, I'd think
up some kind of action. He's a blacksmith, right? A cook. A singer...
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mary rosenblum
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So bring in that big bay
carthorse and let him bang away on that shoe.
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mary rosenblum
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As it sizzles in the water tub
and and clucks reprovingly to the restless horse...
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mary rosenblum
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he can tell it some of his
problems...OR...he talks to the old farmer who brought it in.
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mary rosenblum
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In their dialogue we'll get
some hints that he's in trouble, as the old farmer tells him he can't pay
him until next week...
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mary rosenblum
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and we see the blacksmith's
reaction. You can give us some of these thoughts, put some of the backstory
into dialogue, but hang it all on the interesting actions..
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mary rosenblum
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of shoeing the big horse. Give
us the sensory setting...the smithy, the smell of the charcoal smoke, horse
sweat, and burned hoof as he fits the shoe.
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mary rosenblum
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You're really telling us a lot
all at once right now, and that is a common problem for novice writers.
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mary rosenblum
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We don't NEED to know it all
now.
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mary rosenblum
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We can know that he's strapped
for cash...that he's a hard worker (the old farmer can say so)...
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mary rosenblum
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that there's no food at home
(when the old farmer offers to pay in pumpkins, he's thrilled with even
that much food! )...
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mary rosenblum
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Now you don't have to use
these particular details, but they are ways in which you can convey a few
bits of necessary information...
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mary rosenblum
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We can find out about the kids
in the field (the farmer has hired 'em that way) and the depression through
the conversation.
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mary rosenblum
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The way the blacksmith handles
his tools, his behavior with the horse will all help reveal his mood of
despair...
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mary rosenblum
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as he works. That is the non
narrative description part. As he leans his head against the horse's
shoulder and his shoulders slump..
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mary rosenblum
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we'll see a defeated man.
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catydorr
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The dirt road along the river
jarred off through the bare harvested field. Marci could see the village
buildings ahead. Once so beautiful, she thought. The church spire had stood
proud and gracious, jutting into the sky. Now, partially gone, it stood a
tribute to four years of war bitterly waged on this soil. Bombed out
buildings, pockmarked streets, the market once so bustling. Farmers just
beginning to bring produce to sell again.
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mary rosenblum
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Nice bit of backstory here.
There are some things you can do to make this less narrative.
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mary rosenblum
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Oh...and I'd use veered rather
than jarred...or jogged even... Jarred does mean bumped to most people. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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For example, I'd leave out the
'church spire had stood proud and gracious." Marci thinks it was once
so beautiful and we know what a spire looks like...
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mary rosenblum
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so I'd let her look at the
ruins. 'Once so beautiful, Marci thought. The timbers of the shattered
spire pierced the gray sky. Bombed out buildings and pockmarked streets
made her want to cry.
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mary rosenblum
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Telling us about the four
years of war is your voice, caty, and not our POV character. Does she
really look at that spire and think, It stands a tribute to four years of
war bitterly wages on this soil' ?
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mary rosenblum
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But if these are not her words
they are yours.
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mary rosenblum
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This is what makes it hard to
learn non narrative description...
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mary rosenblum
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we REALLY want the reader to
get these little gems of information and you can't be SURE the reader gets
'em when you don't tell them. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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But you know what? The more
you do this, and the more reader feedback you get, the more you realize
that readers are pretty sharp and you're better at conveying information
than you think.
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mary rosenblum
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As to the market...
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mary rosenblum
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I would let her exchange a few
words with a farmer selling cabbages. "G'morning Mr. Brown'.
"Aye, it is, and did you see? Ten of us here today." He chuckled
as he stacked fat cabbages into a neat pyramid... "
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mary rosenblum
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"I hear the Mayor plans
to rebuild the Town Hall next spring'...
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mary rosenblum
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That sort of thing will give
us the sense of being in the market and give us a lot of information as she
makes her way down the street, too.
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mary rosenblum
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This is our After Hours Forum,
with me, Mary Rosenblum, your web editor. Tonight we're doing one of our
hands on workshops -- on non narrative description. If you're new here,
remember that you need to click on the 'Ask a Question' button or the 'word
bubble' next to the red question mark at the top of the screen in order to
ask a question. Your regular 'send' bar won't reach me! Or you can use /ask
and type your question into the regular send bar if that works better for
you..
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t green
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could he be talking to his wife
at the breakfast table?
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mary rosenblum
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T was this about the
blacksmith, I assume?
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mary rosenblum
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Well, he could be, but only if
his wife didn't know these things.
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mary rosenblum
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'as we all know' dialogue is
something to be wary of.
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tory
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Mary, Are you just showing us
alternatives here? Is there really anything wrong with Caty's 4 lines of
description if that is what someone returning to this town after years of
war might see?
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mary rosenblum
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There is Tory, and the
difference is between selling and not selling.
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mary rosenblum
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Essentially narrative prose is
a lot weaker than non narrative prose.
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mary rosenblum
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If your story is very
powerful, you can get away with it.
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mary rosenblum
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But if your story is NOT
tremendously powerful, or if your narrative voice is bland...well, it
simply is not likely to compell a reader.
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mary rosenblum
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And yes, you can find tons of
narrative prose out there...
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mary rosenblum
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but I guess the question is,
do you want to write as strongly and powerfully as you can, or do you just
want to sell a couple of stories?
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catydorr
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Mary this may sound silly-but
what is the difference between narrative and non-narrative
description--could you give an example
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mary rosenblum
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Sure, Caty.
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mary rosenblum
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Anne Marie walked into town.
The village was small, and not very prosperous. Ever since the Departure,
many of the houses had stood empty, inhabited only by rats. Stray dogs
scavenged in packs in the deserted streets, dangerous at night. The wind
blew down the empty streets with the sound of a thousand sighs.
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mary rosenblum
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That's narrative. The author
is telling us about the town. It's a nice haunting narrative and there is
nothing wrong with writing in narrative...
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mary rosenblum
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as long as the narrative voice
is strong enough to carry the story or the plot is strong enough not to
need characters.
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mary rosenblum
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BUT..if you are writing a
character driven story...
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mary rosenblum
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narrative is not going to
benefit your story, strength wise...
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mary rosenblum
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and most people, to be honest,
write weak narrative.
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mary rosenblum
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It is the difference between
standing on a Hawaiian beach and listening to your neighbor tell you about
standing on a Hawaiian beach.
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mary rosenblum
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If your neighbor is a great
story teller and HER version of that beach leaves you laughing
hysterically, that's fine...
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mary rosenblum
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but if the beach is what is
the most important part ...being there is usually a whole lot nicer than
hearing about it. So here's the non narrative verson of the above:
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mary rosenblum
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Anne Marie slowed as she
reached the first houses. The empty windows gaped at her, full of darkness
and the scuttle of rats. She hesitated, groping for the gun Webster had
given her. Dogs? She held her breath, heard only the wind. She shivered.
Sounded like a thousand sighs, like ghosts.
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mary rosenblum
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She doesn't think about the
Departure because she lives with it. She doesn't think about the feral dogs
in detail, just clutches her weapon.
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catydorr
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so non narrative comes fromthe
character's pov? through the characters eyes? Thank you
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mary rosenblum
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Exactly.
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mary rosenblum
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What you do is simply to
filter everything that goes on through the character's perceptions.
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tory
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so in the non narrative we
experience Anne Marie. In the other we just see the town.
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mary rosenblum
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Exactly, tory.
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mary rosenblum
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Because we are looking through
Anne Marie's eyes.
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mary rosenblum
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This is what non narrative
description does.
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mary rosenblum
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It puts us literally into the
character's head so that we BECOME that character in terms of what we
see/hear/smell/taste.
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mary rosenblum
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And it makes us perceive the
story as if we are living it.
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mary rosenblum
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It is what Orson Scott Card
calls 'deep penetration' POV
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mary rosenblum
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Which is a good name for it.
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tory
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Is the difference between
narrative and non narrative prose dialogue?
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mary rosenblum
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Not necessarily.
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mary rosenblum
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You can certainly use dialogue
in order to convey the information that you need the reader to get, but it
in itself doesn't make it non narrative.
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mary rosenblum
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The key is to ask yourself: is
this what my character would see/hear?
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mary rosenblum
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Let's look at Anne Marie
again.
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mary rosenblum
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Anne Marie walked into town.
Now this CAN be from inside her POV...if she has been somewhere else and
decides to walk into town.
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mary rosenblum
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But then we get into the
narrative: The village was small and empty...and so forth. Would our
character, who clearly lives around here, think that?
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mary rosenblum
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That is the perspective of
someone who doesn't know anything about this place...would SHE think about
it right now? She is worried about feral dogs...she certainly knows that
people have left...
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mary rosenblum
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so this is clearly author
speaking to reader.
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mary rosenblum
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But in the second example, we
don't learn that directly, but we can guess from the empty houses and her
clutch of the gun that the village is empty and the dogs are dangerous.
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gskearney
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Funny, you should bring up
Scott. I was just re-reading the start of Ender's Game to see if he did
things the way you describe, and that's exactly it. He's certainly
successful and one of my favorites, so anything I can learn about his
technique is great. --gk
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mary rosenblum
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He's the one who taught me to
do this, gary, and he very nearly despaired because it took me forever to
figure out HOW. LOL
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mary rosenblum
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He's VERY good at it.
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mary rosenblum
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Let's look at the old It was a
dark and stormy night cliche.
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mary rosenblum
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Jeremiah shielded his face
against the slashing rain as he groped his way to the barn through the
howling darkness...
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mary rosenblum
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translation...
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mary rosenblum
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It was a dark and stormy
night.
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mary rosenblum
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Which one puts you in a scene?
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bobbi
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please explain dialogue is
something to be wary of Thanks
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mary rosenblum
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Bobbi, I think you're
referring to my comment about 'as we all know' dialogue?
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mary rosenblum
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That is when two characters
tell each other something they both know...it sounds VERY phony.
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mary rosenblum
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The old episodes of Star Trek
provide many wonderful examples! :-)
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mary rosenblum
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'As we know, Captain, we're on
our way to Alhambiran to deliver a vital vaccine to the colony world
there'.
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mary rosenblum
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Well, if they all know it, why
are they saying that? They aren't...not in the real world.
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mary rosenblum
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When was the last time you sat
down at the dinner table and said, 'As we all know, we're sitting here at
the dinner table after a long day raking leaves'...
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mary rosenblum
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Just make sure that your
characters NEED to be saying the things they're saying, that's all. :-)
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tory
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Clueless here, Mary. Is this an
example you can work with? At her townhouse she dropped off the box and
picked upt the bags she'd thrown together the night before. By one o'clock
she was driving south on I-95, moon roof open, her long hair glying in the
wind. Not bad for someboyd who most mornings can't decide what to wear.
Sure hope this isn't a mistake. Well, too late now. She stopped in Richmond
for gas, the tank still half full; she wanted to "make sure." She
shuddered at the thought of being stranded as she paid for a bottle of
water and bag of almonds. She drove hard and with a purpose, wanting to get
to her destination before dark if she could. She couldn't.
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mary rosenblum
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This is fine, tory. You give
us a strong backbone of action ...dropping off the box, picking up the
bags, stopping for gas, buying food, driving hard...
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mary rosenblum
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and on that backbone, you give
us the needed information in words that sound like thoughts rather than a
narration.
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mary rosenblum
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Not bad for somebody who
couldn't decide what to wear most mornings...
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mary rosenblum
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That's her thought, not your
words. Or it sounds enough like her thought that we'll accept it, rather
than hearing your voice.
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mary rosenblum
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Non narrative is really
sleight of hand.
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mary rosenblum
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Of course you ARE narrating
the story as author! But you make that description seem to be the
character's own thoughts and sensory input..and we believe it.
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mary rosenblum
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So we begin to feel as if we
are living the story with that character.
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mary rosenblum
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This is our After Hours Forum,
with me, Mary Rosenblum, your web editor. Tonight we're doing one of our
hands on workshops -- on non narrative description. If you're new here,
remember that you need to click on the 'Ask a Question' button or the 'word
bubble' next to the red question mark at the top of the screen in order to
ask a question. Your regular 'send' bar won't reach me! Or you can use /ask
and type your question into the regular send bar if that works better for
you..
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arfelin
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Sunday afternoon and the Red
Wings were kicking butt at THE JOE. A frenzy of wind and snow howled
outside the comfort zone of Fred's livingroom. Myrna stomped in through the
front door veiled in white after blowing snow for the last two hours.
Sipping a beer he watched her pull off her wet layers and spotted something
on her he had never seen before--a waist. She walked instead of waddled
towards him. Her crisp wintry smell cut through his smoke. "Need
another beer before I put the chicken in the oven?" she asked,
scraping his cheek with her cracked lips.
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mary rosenblum
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Nice scene, arfelin.
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mary rosenblum
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I'd change a few things here,
but not a lot. Once Joe starts looking at Myrna we're solidly in his POV as
he noticed that she has changed.
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mary rosenblum
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I would fix a couple of things
up front... That's your voice in the beginning...Does Fred think... 'that
frenzy of wind and snow is howling outside the comfort zone of my living
room?'
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mary rosenblum
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Probably not. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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He might pump his fist as
Barrymore intercepts and goes for a first down...
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mary rosenblum
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maybe stare out the window as
the commercial comes on and think, 'nasty storm'...
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mary rosenblum
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A lot of the time, we want to
describe the scene in a lyrical language that the character would never
use...
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mary rosenblum
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And that is exactly what you
do when you're doing a narrative...
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mary rosenblum
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a narrative piece IS in your
voice, you use your words to describe everything that is going on...
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mary rosenblum
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BUT the narrative needs to be
the main strength of the story.
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mary rosenblum
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Not the characters.
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mary rosenblum
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But if the story is character
driven and Fred is our POV, then he sees 'nasty storm', rather than a
frenzy of wind and snow...not a frenzy of
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mary rosenblum
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because he doesnt' think in
those words. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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Well..he doesn't seem to in
this brief glimpse, at least. :-)
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bobbi
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Is there anyway to save these
workshops to review later?
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mary rosenblum
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You bet, Bobbi. I post them to
Writing Craft: Forum Transcripts afterward. :-) You can copy and save them
if you want.
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ducky
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This is off topic, but it's
bugging me. Re: the Holiday contest. Can you do an example of say, a
sentence using the 'to be' verbs and the same sentence changed to eliminate
them?
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mary rosenblum
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Sure, ducky.
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mary rosenblum
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For one thing...take a look at
the 'dark and stormy night' example. That's exactly what I did there...
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mary rosenblum
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and if you suddenly think
maybe there's a connection between the 'to be' verbs and non narrative
description...aha! You're right. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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There were three lighted
Christmas trees outside the Miller's house.
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mary rosenblum
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Three small Christmas trees
twinkled and gleamed outside the Miller house.
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mary rosenblum
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This is our After Hours Forum,
with me, Mary Rosenblum, your web editor. Tonight we're doing one of our
hands on workshops -- on non narrative description. If you're new here,
remember that you need to click on the 'Ask a Question' button or the 'word
bubble' next to the red question mark at the top of the screen in order to
ask a question. Your regular 'send' bar won't reach me! Or you can use /ask
and type your question into the regular send bar if that works better for
you..
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ducky
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It's the difference between a
photo and a video, right? You animated the landscape.
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mary rosenblum
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Exactly, ducky. It requires
you to use a verb that 'shows' the reader something.
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mary rosenblum
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One thing that is not
particularly obvious to most novice writers...
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mary rosenblum
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the information, the idea, is
not the most important part of the story, most of the time.
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mary rosenblum
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Information on its own is not
compelling. It is compelling when it becomes experience.
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mary rosenblum
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Which is where 'show, don't
tell' comes in.
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mary rosenblum
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You make the reader believe
that he/she is experiencing that information for himself/herself.
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mary rosenblum
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Here's another example:
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mary rosenblum
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She was so caught up in the
sights and sounds around her she didn't even realize she was near the local
high school. Martina came out of the wooded path and onto the sidewalk
right near the parking lot entrance. She no longer heard birds singing, but
she thought she heard crying coming from somewhere near the school. The
closer she got to the parking lot the
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the corner entering the
parking lot, and looked over towards the teachers lot where the sound was
coming from, but there were no cars, and no one milling around. Martina
decided to sprint over and see if there was an injured cat with a litter of
kittens. The closer Martina got the the end of the parking lot the louder
the cries got, but Martina saw nothing. 2/3
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mary rosenblum
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this is only the middle
section of a very long piece, but we're almost out of time...
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mary rosenblum
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This is mostly action and
we're following Martina as she looks for what is making the sounds here.
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mary rosenblum
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Me, I'd leave the first
sentence out...who is thinking this?
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mary rosenblum
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You can let martina show us
that. Martina emerged from the woods and blinked. The school! How had she
come this far?
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pan
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is it ok to say "she said
angrily" or would it be better...
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pan
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to say "she said with her
fists clenched"
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mary rosenblum
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If you show us those clenched
fists, pan, then we KNOW she's angry...
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mary rosenblum
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and you don't have to tell us.
:-)
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mary rosenblum
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And actually, you don't need
the 'she said'...
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mary rosenblum
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You're using an action tag.
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mary rosenblum
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"Stop that." She
clenched her fists.
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mary rosenblum
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Who said 'stop that'? 'She'.
So you don't need, she said.
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mary rosenblum
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Action tags are a great help
with non narrative description.
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galatyne
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Regarding those holiday
shorts... do we have to keep the passive verbs out of character dialogue as
well? Ban them from speaking a 'to be' verb?
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mary rosenblum
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Oh, sorry. Of course you don't
have to keep them out of dialogue, if you use dialogue.
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mary rosenblum
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People DO talk like that. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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Here's another example.
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mary rosenblum
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Gravity wrestled her champagne
bottle to the floor. Still in one piece,
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wicker table between us.
Mother swayed and hummed
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"I use to be Daddy's
sweet...tart till he start
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She hiccupped the greenery
of her eyes
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timbered foreward.
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chair to catch her. She
toppled me onto my back. My
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I hollered for our
housekeeper. "Aino!"
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I pushed the words through
my weighted lungs.
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mary rosenblum
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It's a great example of direct
first person, arfelin...But as I said at the beginning of this, non
narrative description is really a third person POV technique.
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mary rosenblum
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I'll do a forum on first
person, but his is what I call direct...vivid and as if it is happening in
front of us. Nice scene. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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Marsha
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into the phone. "How
could you be so stupid?
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the room putting a gouge in
the wall. Another blunder and now Judy was dead. Vince was going to pay for
that. At least he had taken that smart mouthed son of her’s out of
commission for a while if not permanently.
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property soon, he was going
to lose everything. It was getting harder to put off the investors he had
convinced to back the venture. They were threatening to withdraw their
support within a month if he couldn’t move the deal forward.
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mary rosenblum
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Well, we only have the phone
action and then it's all thought.
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mary rosenblum
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I would add a bit more action
to this. The only description we have here is the phone goughing the wall
and that's nice non narrative description all right. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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I'd break up that long thought
with him pacing, picking up the yammering phone, pouring a stiff drink,
what have you...
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mary rosenblum
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She was excited! This was the
first day of her new job. Her supervisor gave
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She finished it accurately
and completely and then
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in its place. She again
completed
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it to her supervisor.
"Don't work so quickly or
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can accomplish more and
give us more work to do,"
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a minute, but only for a
minute because she knew she
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She was going to do her
best, whatever the
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coworker, Peggy, was often
up walking
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workers. After Adele had
been on the job for
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by her work cubicle.
"How can you stand to sit
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day?" 1/2
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mary rosenblum
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The start of this piece could
read like narrative or like non narrative description. If you break this up
with action, then it seems like her thoughts.
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mary rosenblum
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She was excited. Adele sat
down at the keyboard. The first day of her new job and her supervisor had
given her her first assignment. She began to type, tongue clamped between
her teeth. Pleased with her accuracy, she finished it and marched into Mr.
Rupert's office to delier it. He smiled at her and handed her another.
Julie scowled at her as she returned to her desk. "Don't work so
quickly..."
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mary rosenblum
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By adding glimpses of action,
this sounds less 'told' and more like her thoughts as she works. I moved up
Julie's scowl to her first return with a new assignment...
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mary rosenblum
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So that the action
predominates rather than the long, running monologue.
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mary rosenblum
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The main way to improve is to
simply look at each sentence in a scene..
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mary rosenblum
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Is this how my character would
say this? Is this how he/she would see this? Would she think that? Would he
notice this?
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mary rosenblum
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You can convey less
information in non narrative description, you make the reader to the work
of figuring out what is going on while you supply the clues...
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mary rosenblum
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but guess what? In the real
world, we DO figure out what is going on from things we hear, see and so
forth!
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mary rosenblum
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You are mimicking reality!
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mary rosenblum
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Well, thanks for coming all.
Judging by the contest questions, I'm going to get an avalanch!
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mary rosenblum
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Do come to our Sunday casual
chat, right here on Sunday, same time same place.
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ducky
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Yep, you are going to get buried
as if you were in a Rocky Mountain blizzard. :-) Thanks, Mary
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mary rosenblum
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Yeah, I know it! Oh well, it's
IS winter after all...avalanch season!
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tory
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Thanks again, Mary. Very
helpful--I think Caty and I finally get it! (In theory, anyway!)
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mary rosenblum
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Don't feel badly if you don't
quite get it yet. It is a LOT harder to figure out than it seems once you
HAVE figured it out. Then you simply do it all the time from habit because
it's easy. :-)
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tory
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Maybe another hands on woill be
beneficial?
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mary rosenblum
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Oh I'll definitely do one
again. It's the foundation of show don't tell and worth repeating.
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mary rosenblum
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Good night all!
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mary rosenblum
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See you Sunday !
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mary rosenblum
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Lil-duv go ahead and ask your
question.
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mary rosenblum
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I'm still here. :-)
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mary rosenblum
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I think your spam filter is
eating it lil-duv...
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mary rosenblum
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there should be a way to tell
your spam filter to allow it through...
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mary rosenblum
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What is your email address
lil?
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mary rosenblum
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I would try a different
address if you have more than one.
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mary rosenblum
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That shouldn't trigger the
serve list 'anti spam' list... I'd try your other addresses..
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mary rosenblum
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one should work!
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