A Look At Four Books

Previously published as a post in January 2011.

I occasionally look back over books I used to love and shake my head, unable to understand what I ever saw in them. Those are generally shuffled off to the used bookstore in short order, to be replaced by more works by the authors I still (or now) love the most. And of course, because I’m a writer, I tend to pull those books out and analyze just why I love them. My favorites collection ranges from Dick Francis to Mary Gentle, so there’s quite a range of styles to winnow through.

So here are excerpts from four of my current most-loved list, with attached analysis and random thoughts provoked by the excerpt. In fact, I’m going to steal a page from the Page 69 Test, so to speak, and pick an excerpt from the tenth page (story count) of each book–by which point the action certainly ought to be swinging right along. One would think, anyway.

I’ll start with Neil Gaiman, Stardust:

Dunstan Thorn was not in the Seventh Magpie that evening: he was a practical lad, who had, for the last six months, been courting Daisy Hempstock, a young woman of similar practicality. They would walk, on fair evenings, around the village, and discuss the theory of crop rotation, and the weather, and other such sensible matters; and on these walks, upon which they were invariably accompanied by Daisy’s mother and younger sister walking a healthy six paces behind, they would, from time to time, stare at each other lovingly.

Hmm. Not much action moving there. The previous paragraph, however, wraps up a bar fight over a different village girl; and this paragraph itself is essential for supporting Dunstan Thorn’s later actions and decisions. Two sentences to a single paragraph, and the second one is incredibly long; but it all flows so smoothly you hardly notice until you sit down to analyze it. You know the setting, the town, the character of the people on and off camera; you can practically see the grass they’re walking across and hear the crickets chirring as the evening deepens. Yep. Gaiman’s a genius. It should be a boring paragraph. It isn’t. What can I learn here? If I’m going to make a paragraph out of two sentences, make every word of those sentences count.

Moving on to Gaiman’s former partner-in-crime, Terry Pratchett, here’s an excerpt from Men At Arms:

Eventually, one of the audience said: “Very well. So what is your point?”

“You’ve seen the likeness. Isn’t it ob-vious?”

“Oh, come now–”

Edward d’Eath pulled a leather case toward him and began undoing the thongs.

“But, but the boy was adopted by Discworld dwarfs. They found him as a baby in the forests of the Ramtop mountains. There were some b-urning wagons, corpses, that sort of thing. B-andit attack, apparently. The dwarfs found a sword in the wreckage. He has it now. A very sharp sword.”

“So? The world is full of old swords. And grindstones.”

Hmm. Maybe page ten wasn’t such a great place to start after all. Well, it’s my restriction, I’ll stick with it. This part is mainly dialogue; the voices are very distinctive, though. You can hear the nervous, hiccupy speech of a man intent on proving himself to a panel of skeptical listeners; you can tell he’s going to take every little thread and spin it into what he wants to see. The name is typical Pratchett humor: Edward d’Eath. The flat, no-superstition response of the audience keeps the story based firmly in realism. What can I learn here? Keep dialogue realistic. Listen to how people really talk, and use that rhythm and phrasing, especially if it’s a touch odd.

Moving right along to the next, I picked up Mary Gentle’s Ancient Light:

“Pathrey told me that an offworlder ship had come. And that you would speak of what your people found in the Elansiir mountains.” She seated herself again, and gestured for us to do the same. There was a stone table beside her that stood only a few inches above the floor, and on it were ceramic bowls containing a hot liquid. Droplets of steam coiled in the air, and there was a sharp strong scent: arniac-herb tea.

So in that paragraph, we have smell, temperature, drink, moisture, speech, and a cultural conflict inherent in the situation: offworlder. The woman speaking is clearly a native, and in charge at the moment. One clash: I’ve been told to avoid using was/were as much as possible. Given that restriction, I find myself reworking the sentence in my head as:

A low stone table beside her held ceramic bowls containing a hot liquid. Droplets of steam coiled in the air, carrying a sharp strong scent: arniac-herb tea.

I like my style better in this instance, because my phrasing feels more dynamic; but Mary Gentle’s style isn’t wrong by any stretch of grammar. What can I learn here? Well, for one, that a few carefully chosen details can convey an entire culture. But mainly, that it amuses me no end to look at writing I once worshipped and say “my way is better–for me.“

And finally, I come to C.J. Cherryh, The Pride of Chanur:

She was getting soft. She patted her belly again, decided against shoreleave at voyage’s end, another lying-up and another Mahn offspring to muddle things up. Decided against retreat. She drew in a great breath and put on a grim smile. Age came and the young grew old, but not too old, the gods grant. This voyage, young Hilfy Chanur was going to learn to justify that swagger she cut through the corridors of the ship; so, indeed she was.

Short-long-fragment-short-long-longest. I didn’t even notice the “was” until the third read-through. Lovely. This paragraph manages to nail the character of Pyanfar Chanur so perfectly it’s eerie: older woman who’s just been shocked out of comfortable complacency and is ready to take on the current emergency head-on and kicking, with an eye to teaching her younger colleagues how it’s done. Very dynamic writing here; propels you forward to find out what’s coming next. Yes. This is great writing; I want to write this well. Mind you, I don’t want to write like Cherryh; I just want to write as well as Cherryh, with my own style. What can I learn here? Break up sentence lengths, mainly. Toss in the odd fragment to spike things a bit.

Someone told me (so much advice over the years!) that commercially viable writing ought to go by a regular rhythm: each paragraph built of sentences that are short, slightly longer, then slightly longer, and then the longest of all at the end. Rinse and repeat. And, you know, I’ve followed that to some extent, because it is an appealingly rhythmic way to write. Routinely starting out a paragraph with a long sentence is hard on many readers. But.

But. Overusing that approach feels like soaking my brain in cheap and overcooked oatmeal. I like a challenge when I read. I don’t want everything fed to me; that’s boring. So: that’s how I write.

And now–I’m done. Except for one challenge, for the writers out there: go through this exercise yourself. If you have a blog, post the results and put the direct link to that blog entry in the comments for this post. If you don’t have a blog–wait, aren’t you a writer? Get a damn blog already! Nothing quite like blogging to improve your writing…but that’s a topic for another blog post. (To take tongue back out of cheek, if you don’t have a blog, just write the exercise up for yourself.) In any case, please feel free to post here about what you discover! I’d love to hear about it.

Now go forth and read! (If questioned, tell ‘em you’re working. Trust me, you are.)