I really enjoyed this breakdown. I don't often think deeply about word choices an author makes (unless I'm pulled out of the immersion of the story), but found this quite interesting to look the mechanics of prose in this example. Thanks!
In general this is really important for all types of writing both fiction and non-fiction one of the most important thing to convey with your prose is the correct level of ambiguity/uncertainty and especially in non-fiction I often run into people who want prose to be as direct as possible even if it removes real uncertainty from the statement and then you may end up saying things which are wrong/will be misread because of this.
I agree. There seems to be an increasing view that everything must be reductively certain (often at the expense of nuance) and that makes reading an increasingly passive activity, instead of encouraging active engagement and imagination.
So, I'm curious regarding your thoughts on another few "prose rules" I've heard repeated. Apropos, because I'm currently working on a beta/critique for a far...wordier...writer than myself, and I'm trying to be conscious to not imbue too much of my style into the comments. 1. I've always heard that eliminating as many helping verbs as possible makes for stronger prose. In some early drafts, I spent a lot of time trying to eliminate every instance of the word was from my manuscript, but I decided it ultimately made the story weaker and more convoluted, so I don't think it's needed. Still, I think something like "he was kneeling" always reads weaker than "he knelt." 2. Reducing "filter words" in exposition. That is to say, when a POV character sees or hears something just state it, don't bother telling the reader "she saw..." or "he heard..." This is presuming you're not using omniscient POV, of course, where this clarification may be needed. It seems to me that both of these bits of advice are different from what you're discussing (or other, subjective calls, like reducing adverb usage in favor of "strong verbs") as they eliminate redundant verbiage without changing meaning. But I'm open to alternative interpretations.
Again, it all depends on the specific context, the style, the atmosphere being evoked, the type of narrative it is, and the action being depicted in the sequence. So below are some general thoughts, but given in a vacuum they are kind of empty of weight because I don't know the specific context. 1. "He was kneeling" is different to "He knelt". The former describes a continuing position, the latter describes a performed action. "He was kneeling when the guards entered the room" is not the same as "He knelt and then the guards entered the room." So they are actually different things, describing different actions and sequences. They are similar, but not the same. So how it is being used is actually really important. But in general, trying to intuit whether or not the sequence needs to be strong, or needs to be declarative, or needs a certain level of ambiguity, or even works better in terms of passivity, is a better guide than applying a rule. The rule is there to help guide when appropriate, not to be applied without consideration of effect, context, and style. For instance, if it is a wistful dream sequence, it could be strange to have that dreamlike quality evoked in strong, definitive descriptions. A more passive approach would place the character at the whims of the dream and be more reflective of the situation. However a nightmare sequence might want to be more evocative. A combat sequence in which the character is fighting through a horde of evil doers would seem strange to be in the passive. 2. It may depend on where the exposition is falling in that establishing a PoV might require more overt signalling to a reader (similar to the use of dialogue tags in that initially they may be helpful, but can be phased out once the dialogue is established, and occasionally reintroduced to ensure that the reader is keeping up). Or, when the actual act of hearing is the thing that is important not what is heard. So what is the emphasis and context of the usage? Is it being used merely to preface the sound that is heard, or is it trying to emphasise the activity of hearing? "She could see men moving in the distance" is emphasising the character performing the act of seeing and therefore is now in possession of that information. But if the fact that men in the distance is the important thing "Men moved in the distance" implies that she saw them, but this is about that information, not the act of seeing. The issue of redundant verbiage (itself should just be 'verbiage' as the redundant is unnecessary and already contained within the term verbiage) is often over simplified to those principles of reduce adverbs, remove 'filler words', reduce adjectives, be direct, and so on... without any consideration of the fact that redundant means unnecessary, and sometimes those things are very necessary depending on what and why something is being communicated, the desired effect to be created, the point of view and character involved, the type of sequence it is, and where it falls in a scene, chapter, or book, the type of narrative, the genre, and so on. Gothic as a style often luxuriates in the richness of language in a way that is often antithetical to those general rules, but if that is removed then that void needs to be filled with something else in order to address the lack. It is all balance and tension. I am not sure if any of this helps, context is so important for all these things, and the specific narrative and style can upend so many different 'rules' and is right to do so.
I had wondered why I am constantly trying to use the word seems. Ambiguity can be mysterious, mystery can be cool. Must be my own unpracticed attempts at style. Always love the sentence breakdown style videos. Cheers!
One of my gripes with prose nowadays is that it seems that people want to make prose be more efficient and straightforward. That's not entirely a bad thing of course, sometimes you don't have to use 10 words when 5 words will do. There's also authors like Hemingway or McCarthy in his later years who can write very effective prose using terse, straightforward language. But I find this trend of prose being more streamline is taking away what makes prose sing. I want the language of the novel to inspire feeling in me, just telling what's happening isn't going to do that. It takes a good writer to be terse, and manage to evoke those feelings. This trend of simplifying prose makes it feel like the artform is being gelded. What do you think?
Le Guinn comes to mind for a very economical prose in the sci fi I have read of hers. But her writing also really doesn't inspire feelings for her characters who are more of a vehicle for themes she is exploring.
It all depends on the specific narrative, the desired effect, and the amount of information to be communicated. Being economical and concise simply means using the fewest possible words to convey the desired amount of information AND create the desired effect. I can probably do a video specifically on this. But the modern obsession with stripping literature back to rudimentary language and framing this as good in all contexts seems to be rooted in a misunderstanding of the variety of purposes and styles that literature as a whole can have.
This was fantastic!
I really enjoyed this breakdown. I don't often think deeply about word choices an author makes (unless I'm pulled out of the immersion of the story), but found this quite interesting to look the mechanics of prose in this example. Thanks!
This guy grimacing as if in pain must be reading one of our comment threads with a bunch of puns.
He seemed to be reading the comments at least. 😂
Grimacing with the grimmest grimace...
That is more of a wince...
Thank you AP for this video!
In general this is really important for all types of writing both fiction and non-fiction one of the most important thing to convey with your prose is the correct level of ambiguity/uncertainty and especially in non-fiction I often run into people who want prose to be as direct as possible even if it removes real uncertainty from the statement and then you may end up saying things which are wrong/will be misread because of this.
I agree.
There seems to be an increasing view that everything must be reductively certain (often at the expense of nuance) and that makes reading an increasingly passive activity, instead of encouraging active engagement and imagination.
So, I'm curious regarding your thoughts on another few "prose rules" I've heard repeated. Apropos, because I'm currently working on a beta/critique for a far...wordier...writer than myself, and I'm trying to be conscious to not imbue too much of my style into the comments.
1. I've always heard that eliminating as many helping verbs as possible makes for stronger prose. In some early drafts, I spent a lot of time trying to eliminate every instance of the word was from my manuscript, but I decided it ultimately made the story weaker and more convoluted, so I don't think it's needed. Still, I think something like "he was kneeling" always reads weaker than "he knelt."
2. Reducing "filter words" in exposition. That is to say, when a POV character sees or hears something just state it, don't bother telling the reader "she saw..." or "he heard..." This is presuming you're not using omniscient POV, of course, where this clarification may be needed.
It seems to me that both of these bits of advice are different from what you're discussing (or other, subjective calls, like reducing adverb usage in favor of "strong verbs") as they eliminate redundant verbiage without changing meaning. But I'm open to alternative interpretations.
Again, it all depends on the specific context, the style, the atmosphere being evoked, the type of narrative it is, and the action being depicted in the sequence. So below are some general thoughts, but given in a vacuum they are kind of empty of weight because I don't know the specific context.
1. "He was kneeling" is different to "He knelt". The former describes a continuing position, the latter describes a performed action. "He was kneeling when the guards entered the room" is not the same as "He knelt and then the guards entered the room." So they are actually different things, describing different actions and sequences. They are similar, but not the same. So how it is being used is actually really important.
But in general, trying to intuit whether or not the sequence needs to be strong, or needs to be declarative, or needs a certain level of ambiguity, or even works better in terms of passivity, is a better guide than applying a rule. The rule is there to help guide when appropriate, not to be applied without consideration of effect, context, and style.
For instance, if it is a wistful dream sequence, it could be strange to have that dreamlike quality evoked in strong, definitive descriptions. A more passive approach would place the character at the whims of the dream and be more reflective of the situation. However a nightmare sequence might want to be more evocative. A combat sequence in which the character is fighting through a horde of evil doers would seem strange to be in the passive.
2. It may depend on where the exposition is falling in that establishing a PoV might require more overt signalling to a reader (similar to the use of dialogue tags in that initially they may be helpful, but can be phased out once the dialogue is established, and occasionally reintroduced to ensure that the reader is keeping up). Or, when the actual act of hearing is the thing that is important not what is heard. So what is the emphasis and context of the usage? Is it being used merely to preface the sound that is heard, or is it trying to emphasise the activity of hearing? "She could see men moving in the distance" is emphasising the character performing the act of seeing and therefore is now in possession of that information. But if the fact that men in the distance is the important thing "Men moved in the distance" implies that she saw them, but this is about that information, not the act of seeing.
The issue of redundant verbiage (itself should just be 'verbiage' as the redundant is unnecessary and already contained within the term verbiage) is often over simplified to those principles of reduce adverbs, remove 'filler words', reduce adjectives, be direct, and so on... without any consideration of the fact that redundant means unnecessary, and sometimes those things are very necessary depending on what and why something is being communicated, the desired effect to be created, the point of view and character involved, the type of sequence it is, and where it falls in a scene, chapter, or book, the type of narrative, the genre, and so on. Gothic as a style often luxuriates in the richness of language in a way that is often antithetical to those general rules, but if that is removed then that void needs to be filled with something else in order to address the lack. It is all balance and tension.
I am not sure if any of this helps, context is so important for all these things, and the specific narrative and style can upend so many different 'rules' and is right to do so.
I had wondered why I am constantly trying to use the word seems. Ambiguity can be mysterious, mystery can be cool. Must be my own unpracticed attempts at style.
Always love the sentence breakdown style videos. Cheers!
He seemed to enjoy the video, despite the occasional grimace that flashed across his face. 😂
One of my gripes with prose nowadays is that it seems that people want to make prose be more efficient and straightforward. That's not entirely a bad thing of course, sometimes you don't have to use 10 words when 5 words will do. There's also authors like Hemingway or McCarthy in his later years who can write very effective prose using terse, straightforward language. But I find this trend of prose being more streamline is taking away what makes prose sing. I want the language of the novel to inspire feeling in me, just telling what's happening isn't going to do that. It takes a good writer to be terse, and manage to evoke those feelings. This trend of simplifying prose makes it feel like the artform is being gelded.
What do you think?
Le Guinn comes to mind for a very economical prose in the sci fi I have read of hers. But her writing also really doesn't inspire feelings for her characters who are more of a vehicle for themes she is exploring.
@@EricMcLuen Huh, I've heard the exact opposite, in terms of her characterization anyway.
It all depends on the specific narrative, the desired effect, and the amount of information to be communicated.
Being economical and concise simply means using the fewest possible words to convey the desired amount of information AND create the desired effect.
I can probably do a video specifically on this.
But the modern obsession with stripping literature back to rudimentary language and framing this as good in all contexts seems to be rooted in a misunderstanding of the variety of purposes and styles that literature as a whole can have.
Wasn't Grimace a sesame street character? Grimace grimaced. Grimace seemed to grimace.
McDonald's add - big fluffy purple thing.
He only grimaced when he had to eat Burger King.
He grimaced. Was it pain? Anger? It could be both given the flatulent nature of both his mind and bowls.
I am assuming he was looking at the comments on a terrible writing advice video. 😂