Every once in a while, I look at my WIP and think, I need more dialog. Nobody writes much narrative anymore. Show me, don't tell me.
But if I pick up a book from the past or even a non-crime book, there is a lot of narration. Sometimes I get tired of constant conversation. Tired of constant action. And long for that more restful style.
Will this current style of writing eventually fade, too? Will the new technologies with their emphasis on succinct expression take us in a new direction. Does a page of narration put you off? Sometime introspection is a good thing. Right?
19 comments:
I have been told for a year now that my manuscripts need more showing and more dialogue.
So of course the trend will change - around the time when I have finished stuffing all my manuscripts with dialogue and scrapped the narration. That is what is called fluctuation! ;(
Exactly, Dorte.
I think the style needs to match the story, not the times. I've read stories that are 90% dialogue, 90% narrative, that are slow, fast. Okay as long as it matches the plot and character. Plus, for me, setting is a critical element and that takes narrative.
Like with everything, it depends. I don't mind narration if it contributes something, doesn't snail the pace down, and is well done.
However, I abhor narration where the author is slamming me over the head with their political/social/sexual views and the work becomes a thesis. Likewise, I hate any narration that ventures too close to sounding like a textbook. That's why I never liked Hard SF or pretty much anything by Tom Clancy.
Sure it will, just as previous styles evolved into what we have today. Richard is absolutely right, the style must match the story, but there's a lot of leeway there, and style is never a stagnant thing, it just moves so slowly it's impossible to observe year to year, or even decade to decade, until we can look back and see what lasted, and what had a lasting influence.
Veering excessively towards either pole is dangerous. I believe a lot of the dialogue-heavy fiction of today (especially when it comes to the crime genre) could do away with superficial exchanges and conversation that sometimes feels artificial in that characters explain out loud things people normally keep to themselves. Then again, this reliance on dialogue and leaving description to the reader's imagination is probably the most appropriate for this audiovisually-oriented age.
Yes, I hate it when something that could have been explained by the narrator or have been thought about by the protagonis has to be played out in a conversation that you know would never take place.
There are so many variants. One is stream-of-consciousness narrative. I have a novel coming out in March that is largely that, written from various POVs with each chapter headed with the name of the character.
Narrative can cover ground wonderfully. Try Somerset Maugham or Graham Greene. My instinct is to forget what writers workshops tell you, and tell each story in whatever way maximizes its impact on readers.
The other splendid way to use narrative is to have an observer/narrator tell the tale, as Joseph Conrad loved to do. That has the advantage of adding the narrator's judgments and asides to the story. See Lord Jim, narrated by Marlow, but about the seaman, Jim.
I think things will change & mutate. You bring up an interesting point about the new social network culture. How long before the vernacular of the Tweet and the Facebook update works its way into books?
I know some teacher friends who are already getting essays from students with common abbreviations used in texting. Crazy.
I agree that a break in constant dialogue is good. Some stuff I read I think, "Why not just write a screenplay?"
It is important to the overall pace of a story to mix it up a bit.
George V. Higgins' novels are pretty much all dialogue. It was jarring when I first read FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE, but once I adjusted to Higgins' mode of story-telling, I marveled at his skill.
The novel I am writing is two POV: one first person (daughter), the other third (mother). But there are some passages that seem to fall uneasily between the two. There the ones that bedevil me and can read like biographical detail if I am not careful.
Eric - how long before the Facebook and Tweet references are as dated as making a call on a party line, or buying ice in blocks from a cart?
All I can say is I certainly hope so. I hardly read any new books anymore. One thing I'm really tired of is so much dialogue. I want to see the world through the writer's eyes, not hear a bunch of yapping coming out of people's mouths.
dialogue is not showing, btw. It's telling if you ask me. Of course, no one really has.
Write in the style that you prefer to read. Why capitulate to editors' and other readers' "tastes"? Why be someone you are not. If you have something worth saying, your style--because you embrace it and believe in it--will (eventually) find an audience.
Oh, that the agents and editors in this land were as generous as all of you.
Richard - I agree. I heard Twitter once described as the "digital macarena" which is a great way to describe the fad aspect of it. It may stick around, may be obsolete in two months. I tend to think that latter. The idea will stick, the application will change. But will it change language with it?
I like the dialog when I am reading. Even of not so wrapped up in on character or the other I like the "fly on the all" feeling conversation gives.
Narration or narrator?
I see it a little as part of the trend away from "experts" and towards the idea that anyone can be an expert. If the narrator is the author it's one thing, but if the narrator is a character it's different.
When Chad says he doesn't want the narrator slamming him over the head, I agree, but for me that's because I don't like to read views that are different from my own (that's likely not the case with Chad). I used to, but I don't anymore.
Unless there is tremendous insight into people that a believable story can back up.
Jane Austen can start a book with, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife," and I'm interested. The story that follows is all about what happens when people aren't satisfied by the social conventions. And Jane Austen has real insight into those characters.
Alice Munro does that today.
Too much narration isn't a problem, it's just really freakin' hard.
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