Techniques of the Selling Writer (6 page)

Where do scripts go wrong, language-wise, beyond the points already covered?

Here I have no comprehensive answers, let alone data that can be classed as definitive.
But awkwardness does develop in certain special areas often enough to be worth mentioning.

Thus,

There are more, of course; too many more. But these will do for a start.

The solution to each problem is largely a matter of common sense.

Take monotonous sentence structure, for example.

It demands little genius to recognize that too many short sentences, or long sentences,
or simple, or complex, or periodic, or loose, or what-have-you sentences are likely
to grow tiresome.

The answer, obviously, is to introduce variety—variety of length, form, style, and
so on. Many a tired old declarative sentence (
He stalked off without a word
) has been given a lift via rearrangement of its elements (
Without a word, he stalked off
) . . . rephrasing (
Grim, wordless, he stalked off
) . . . addition of some bit of action (
Pivoting, he stalked off
) . . . or of color (
Face a cold mask of menace, he
etc.), or the like.

On the other side of the fence, beware variety for variety’s own sake. The moment
syntactical acrobatics attract attention to themselves, they also detract from your
story; and that’s a sure road to disaster.

Why do subject and verb become separated?

My guess is that occasionally we all tend to get tangled up in
the maze of our own thinking. How else can you account for some of the monstrosities
you see in print?

Here’s an example from a student manuscript: “The girl, in spite of her confusion
and the hazard offered by the razor-edged shards of glass from the shattered window,
somehow broke free.”

Girl
is the subject in the above sentence;
broke
the verb. Yet they’re separated by twenty words of modification, and the separation
renders the sentence distracting and confusing.

Is the separation needed? Or could our reader perhaps survive a different version:
“Confusion seemed to overwhelm her in that moment. The razor-edged shards of glass
from the shattered window offered an added hazard. Yet somehow, the girl broke free.”

The lesson here is, don’t try to cram too much into one sentence; and the issue lies
less in length than it does in content. Any time you feel the need to explain some
aspect of your basic sentence, take pause. Odds are that what’s bothering you really
calls for an
additional
sentence or two or three, so that you can keep your developing line of thought straight
and clear and simple.

Improper placement of adverbs grows from a failure to understand placement’s effect
on impact, probably.

To get maximum effect, put adverbs at the beginning or end of the sentence: “
Angrily
, he walked away.” Or, “He walked away
angrily
.” Though special cases may justify “He walked
angrily
away,” or the like, most often the effect of the modifier upon the reader is lost.

Unintentional repetition of words or phrases is the product of careless copy-reading.

Thus, in one line, your hero “moved
blindly
up the sagging staircase.” Three lines later, “
Blinded
by the leaping flames,” your heroine falls. Which is a natural enough mistake, but
one that should be corrected as a matter of routine.

What about the occasions when you
want
repetition, in order to achieve a particular effect?

Three’s the charm, as the old folk-saying has it. If the same word appears twice,
it looks like an accident. But the third time (and after, if you don’t carry the device
to absurdity)
your reader assumes it’s intentional and for a reason: “It was a day for color. Not
just one color, but many. The color of Sandra’s lips. The color of Ed’s worn blazer.
The color of sea and sand and sky.”

Grammar as a fetish?

To keep rules in proper perspective, violate them by design only.

That is, make them tools for manipulation of your reader’s emotions. If that takes
sentence fragments, non-punctuation, stream-of-consciousness, and one-word paragraphs,
by all means use them. Winston Churchill blazed the trail for all of us when he spoke
his mind to the purists who insisted that no sentence end with a preposition: “This
is one rule up with which I shall not put!”

So, deviate if you must. But do it with malice and by intent, not accident.

And, most of the time, stay within the rules. Your readers will feel more at home
that way!

Our sixth and final point is all-encompassing, of course.

It’s also the most important of the lot: Meaning
must
be made instantly clear. If your reader has to read a sentence twice to make sense
of it, you’re in deep trouble.

I can’t overemphasize this point. Oh so many would-be writers denounce the stupidity
of readers who won’t or can’t understand. But what do all the screams accomplish?
Stupid or not, the reader still gropes and fumbles and, finally, gives up, unless
the idea gets through.

That incredible, pompous, egocentric gem from the pen of a “literary” novelist, “I
write. Let the reader learn to read,” would be funny, were it not so ridiculous as
to be tragic. To refuse to write so that a mass audience can understand you, and then
rage because that same audience rejects you, is about on a par with insisting that
grade-school youngsters learn their ABC’s from college physics texts. Most professionals
accept it as their job to devise ways to communicate with their readers, regardless
of said readers’ level. After all, if you feel too superior, you can always go hunt
a different market!

And so it goes with words and language. They’re tools. All your writing life, you
work with them . . . using them to tie your reader to your story.

This book will touch on words and the use of words a hundred times, in a hundred different
contexts. And it still won’t say one one-hundredth of what needs to be said.

But for now, let’s assume that you’re properly impressed with words’ significance,
and therefore stand ready to move on to a related but somewhat more involved aspect
of the subject . . . the application of language to the manipulation of reader feelings.

Is that important?

I won’t kid you. It’s the foundation stone on which you as a writer stand or fall.

CHAPTER 3

Plain Facts about Feelings

The preceding chapter tells you how to communicate with your readers.

With words.

What should you as a fiction writer communicate?

Feelings.

Feeling is a thing you build through manipulation of motivation and reaction. To handle
it properly is a matter at once both simple and complex.
How
and
why
intermesh. Problems arise that involve orientation, psychology, chronology, procedure.

Once you’re made aware of basic principles, however, application becomes well-nigh
instinctive: easy and natural as breathing.

The key is to understand completely where each and every step fits in.

What are these steps?

Here we go!

How to tell good from bad

How do you decide whether a thing is good or bad?—Everything
is
good and/or bad, you know, in varying degrees and depending on circumstances.

Take a rainstorm, for instance. Is it good or bad?

How about a bombing raid? A strike? A seduction? A divorce? A marriage? A cigarette?
A chocolate bar? A job?

Now it doesn’t matter whether you’re living with the abovementioned phenomena, or
merely writing about them. In either case, before you can answer any queries intelligently,
you need two things:

Thus, in the case of our rainstorm, we must consider such items as how much rain,
how severe a storm, where, when, and so on. Specifics all. Added together, they constitute
the specific instance.

Every story deals with a specific instance: this girl, that boy, the murder down the
block, old Mrs. Martin’s death, the wifeswapping of those couples out on Little River.
A story that attempts to stay at the level of generality is both impossible and a
self-contradiction.

But no matter how specific you get; no matter how tightly you nail your topic down,
the data have no meaning until you find a yardstick—a standard by which to measure
and, above all, evaluate them.

Because we’re men, humans, we consider each phenomenon that touches us in terms of
its immediate and/or ultimate effect on man.

Opinion as to what constitutes man’s welfare varies markedly from time to time and
place to place, however. St. Augustine
hews to one line, Adolf Hitler to another. And as for Norman Mailer—!

In the case of our rainstorm, are we to view it through the eyes and feelings of carnival
owner or farmer? Power-company trouble-shooter or umbrella salesman? Housewife-with-a-batch-of-clean-clothes-to-hang-out,
or housewife-looking-for-an-excuse-not-to-wash-today? The issue is never the event
itself; never what happens. A thing matters only insofar as it relates to and affects
and is judged by people.
Meaning
and
significance
are virtual synonyms in this context. We decide how significant a thing is by the
way a particular somebody behaves when faced with a specific instance.

In other words, a thing isn’t just significant. It’s significant to
somebody
.

Next question:
Which
somebody?

Most of us draw our conclusions about the good, the true, and the beautiful according
to how the specific event involved affects our individual situation. The bombing raid
is rated by whether we or our enemies are on the receiving end. The strike, by our
personal attitudes toward unions. I view seduction one way if I’m the seducer; another,
if it’s my sister or wife or daughter who’s seduced. Chocolate bars are good, if I’m
hungry; bad, if I’m trying to reduce; and so on.

Thus, all value judgments are, in the last analysis, highly personal. We can never
be sure where the individual stands until we check him out in detail.—Which last may
not prove the easiest task in the world, incidentally, as witness government’s periodic
failures in security screening. The secret thought walled up within the human mind
still stands well-nigh impregnable against external onslaughts.

But if the individual is the yardstick, how does he make his evaluations? Does he
go by intelligence and logic?

Well, hardly. I may marry because a girl dances like a dream . . . divorce because
her snoring gives me nightmares . . . take or quit a job on no better grounds than
the company’s coffee-break policy . . . and smoke up a storm in the face of tons of
research findings and the dire predictions of my physician.

So, again, how does the individual make his value judgments?

He responds to facts with feelings.

What is a fact?

A fact is data upon the interpretation of which we (or a considerable number of us,
at least) agree. It’s a consensus of opinion: The world is round, the United States
has 200,000,000 population, certain disorders of the pancreas result in diabetes,
sirloin steak ordinarily proves more tender than round.