I’m the worst person to talk about prose. As far as I’m concerned, the horrible stuff is something that has to be slogged through in order to get on with the story. Often, very often, I’m tempted to bequeath my narrators to the William McGonagall Society for Artistic Excellence, and from then on stick to a film-script format. Which I would certainly do. Except that there’s one small hitch: I’m as crap at dialogue as I am at prose. Damn. So, while waiting for a Muse of Fire (or a Muse on fire – I’m not picky and own a large watering can) to forklift me up to the brightest heaven of invention, I’ve been learning how to write a sentence that doesn’t sound like the culprit was a student with a caffeine high and a finger resting permanently on the ‘,‘ key. In other words, I’m learning to be a master of disguise. My efforts have not so far met with much success.
But, you’ll be pleased to learn, manifest incompetence hasn’t stopped me coming up with some helpful tips on writing good prose. Three tips. Yes. Be grateful! I was tormented by creative indecision for at least – oh – ten seconds before the lightning struck. In the unlikely event that these gems don’t instantly transform you into a clutch of Salman Rushdies, you are free to share some of your own tips about prose and style in general.
Lo!
The Commandments:
1) vary sentence length
2) vary syntax
3) consider the effect
And that’s that.
…or it would be if I hadn’t just typed another thousand words.
The stuff about varying sentence length and style is self-explanatory and, in any case, the first two points are slaves to the third. A lot of the issues relating to prose are also dependent on point of view, genre, style and, in short, on the individual character of the work itself. What follows is mostly just a conventional set of guidelines rather than rules, of the sort that you can find on any internet site. (And I’ve broken all of them. All the time and sometimes when I shouldn’t. Sometimes horribly.)
Active and passive sentences
As a general rule of thumb, it’s best to go for the active sentence. Passive sentences slow the pace, make the story feel turgid when overused and are liable to add rather more wases and bys than is really necessary. However, they can occasionally be good if you want to shift the emphasis from subject to object, while still keeping the object as an object. Thus, it may suggest a sense of victimhood:
Now, it happened that poor Biler’s life had been, since yesterday morning, rendered weary by the costume of the Charitable Grinders. (Dombey and Son)
On the other hand, sub-clauses based on past participles I find to be very useful. (e.g. “I sing of arms and the man, exiled by fate…”)
Adverbs…
…should be used with extreme moderation when describing dialogue. And if the adverb restates something already implied in the dialogue and verb, it should be stuffed in a sack and drowned. So
“But I like adverbs!” she wailed despairingly
is verboten.
Repetition and Variation
Some authors feel that if they use a word once, they shouldn’t repeat themselves within a certain number of lines. The result is sometimes a series of steadily more elaborate synonyms or epithets which draw attention to themselves in place of the original, innocuous word; this practice can also negatively affect clarity and create purple prose. e.g. ‘Sand poured wine into his cup. The dark liquid sloshed around the goblet, as the little alchemist tilted the gold chalice from side to side.’
Admittedly, this is a very loose guideline. For instance, I sometimes replace character names with short descriptions, in preference to stopping the narrative in order to deliver something more lengthy. It is also a guideline which applies particularly to nouns and useful little verbs like ‘said’. The adverb ‘suddenly’ is one of a number of words that can be worn out very quickly.
Point of View
If you are using a third limited point of view, consider letting the prose reflect the nature, history and interests of the character. e.g. You might decide that an Ammon p.o.v. chapter would use military and cosmological imagery, but avoid similes, or that Casavir’s p.o.v. would use theological language, but also contain a lot of subjunctives.
The same and more is true of the first person.
Avoid cliché and everyday idiom
Unless you’re writing in first person, when clichés may be part of your narrator’s persona. Clichés occur in speech because they add fluency. They’re old thoughts, in old words, so familiar that both the speaker uses them and the listener understands their meaning on an almost sub-conscious level. In contrast, a writer has the leisure of time to plan. (Excepting Nanites.) You don’t have to construct a coherent sentence in a few seconds. (Again, excepting Nanites.) Consequently, it’s possible to renew your language and keep the reader’s attention by throwing out stale clichés. Examples follow:
to flog a dead horse, to stretch one’s legs, a skeleton in the closet, to play into the hands of, at death’s door
On the other hand, some expressions are so useful that it’s hard or impossible to do without them. e.g . here and there, hither and thither, to catch someone’s eye etc.
Strike a balance…
…between banality and showing off. George Orwell thought that good prose was simple in terms of vocabulary and construction. Never go for a long word if there’s a short one that can do the job just as well. This makes him an excellent essayist, but his style in his fiction is generally thought to be rather too plain and stark. I’m not sure I agree with that, but in any case, sticking to a simple, unaffected style of prose is probably a good idea for a novice writer. (If only I had will-power and some kind person took away my thesaurus, I might even try it myself.)
Sound and Rhythm
Assonance, alliteration, sibilance, rhyme – all things that need to be kept in mind as you write. You could try reading your work aloud to yourself to get a better idea of the flow.
Strunk and White
A good investment.
***
One of my personal bugbears concerns emotion: how to show or hint at it without saying ‘Zhaevje felt sad’, ‘Casavir felt determined’ etc. On the whole, my solution is to go into the character’s interior world and stage some kind of monologue, elaborating on their thoughts and suchlike. Unfortunately, that isn’t something that works in the middle of a busy or dramatic scene, when the character is normally focused on the externals. Similarly, getting the character to do something – e.g. dropping a glass, clutching a chair, sighing – is rather overwrought and unsubtle, or at least it feels that way.
Any tips, whether about that or about any other prose-related issue, would be much appreciated, as would corrections to the above load of nonsense.
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