The Telling Circle

Hi, everyone. It’s Thomas, back again with some more about writing.

In my previous post I discussed Sense of Place. And at the end I mentioned that writers can use a strong sense of place to help “flesh out” characters and so avoid author intrusion. Today let’s look at author intrusion to see just what we’re avoiding and how to avoid it.

When we read a story in the newspaper, or in a book or magazine, or online, there are ideally two participants: the protagonist, who acts out the story as its main character, and the reader, who constructs something like a moving picture in his mind, based on the words and letters — little marks on a surface. This is amazing.

And that last sentence is author intrusion.

Readers do not generally want (nor well tolerate) somebody telling them something is amazing, or terrible, or giving to that same something any other unobservable attribute. (You can’t observe a judgmental quality; you can only see, taste, feel, smell or hear the evidence of it.) Readers want to see “amazing” for themselves, in that little moving picture — the one in their mind. It’s the author’s job to tell of evidence that can be directly observed, and only that. Pretty simple. Yeah, sure.

Do you want your protagonist to be strong? Two ways run parallel from this fork in the road: objects or actions the author can actually observe inside the story he constructs, and/or dialogue involving the protagonist (even indirectly is OK). Our hero sprinted past, muscles rippling and dust kicking up behind her is an example of something directly observable. An example of dialogue might be, John turned to Mary and whispered, “Remember that day our hero wrestled a runaway bull to the ground?” “Yes,” Mary replied. “The strongest man in our town.”

You want your protagonist to be angry? Happy? Sad? Interesting? Same deal. Description/narration or dialogue.

Once in a while it is possible to sneak our desired attribute in as an adjective immediately preceding the hero, as in Our very strong hero smiled at the crowd. The key here is once in a while.

So if we’re writing about the beautiful autumn leaves, or the peaceful covering of snow, or even the lady’s intriguing smile (all three are author intrusions) we need to describe or narrate, or else put it into dialogue. When your high school English teacher, or a writing instructor, or perhaps an extremely patient and accommodating editor says “show, don’t tell,” this is what they are talking about.

One way to understand (and avoid) author intrusion is to think of your reader sitting in the audience, watching a play or a movie. The reader, or the audience, dislikes interruption. Imagine the owner of a movie theatre stopping the movie to tell the audience how to feel about it, or think of the turn-off we feel regarding TV commercials. So when somebody (the author) steps in front of the reader (audience) to tell them what they should be thinking or feeling, it is a serious turn-off. Avoid it.

One trick some writers use to help show emotions is a mirror. At times I even have one on my desk. If I want to write about an angry (or happy) character, then maybe I will look at my face in the mirror and assume an angry (or happy) expression, and describe how the face changes to display angry or happy (or most any other feeling). For example, “The corners of her mouth twitched slightly as she looked away.”

Another trick is writing in a place where you observe lots of people but don’t interact with them. I sometimes write in coffee houses or other public places. Some writers prefer working in the food court of a shopping mall. In such places you can write without much interruption, and if you’re writing about people, there are models all around you. Writing about nature or animals would, by the same token, be easier in a setting surrounded by nature or animals.

These are simple-seeming hints that can prove more difficult when it comes down to the actual writing. That’s largely because teachers, in an effort to coax written expression from recalcitrant students, rarely dwell on the finer points of writing that any serious writer must observe. The people who taught us to write, back in elementary school (or high school) were interested in our being able to merely communicate. Consequently, most folks can write reports or memos or letters to a friend, but poems or stories they submit seem to always be rejected. To practice writing as an art, or a profession, communicating is just not enough. A sign painter can communicate (and some are artists in their own right) but a painter of portraits or landscapes communicates at a different level.

Writing a memo or a letter communicates a limited amount of information to a small audience, usually only one person. A brilliantly written story or poem, or even a news report, can change the lives of hundreds, maybe thousands, or perhaps millions of readers.

In my next post I’m hoping to discuss the difference between active and passive writing. But earlier in this post, I mentioned “sneaking” a character’s attributes into a piece of writing as adjectives. Even though much remains to be said about author intrusion, perhaps next time I can touch on the mechanics of language, including adjectives and other modifiers. In fact, a combination of both topics might prove interesting. We’ll see….