Manual For Fiction Writers, Block, Lawrence [best books to read for beginners txt] 📗

an abortion, is or is not familiar with railroad cars, and has or has not been to Kenya. Further, its effect will depend on the nature of the reader's particular experience?on the abortion table or in Kenya, or whatever.

To that extent, then, we cannot control how the reader will receive our fictional message, nor should we be able as writers to assert such control. The best we can do, I believe, is write as carefully and as honestly as we can and let the reader make of our work what he will. If we write well, enough people will get enough of the message.

The idea of fiction as a reader-participation medium is certainly not original with me. Here's a passage from Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, published in 1760:

Writing, when properly managed, (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation: As no one, who knows what he is about in good company, would venture to talk all, so no author, who understands the just boundaries of decorum and good breeding, would presume to think all; The truest respect which you can pay to the reader's understanding is to halve this manner amicably, and leave him something to imagine, in his turn, as well as yourself.

For my own part, I am eternally paying him compliments of this kind, and do all that lies in my power to keep his imagination as busy as my own.

'Tis his turn now. I have given an ample description of Dr. Slop's sad overthrow, and of his sad appearance in the back parlor?his imagination must now go on with it for awhile.

Isn't that lovely? I could explain at this point that the punctuation is Sterne's, and that they handled the odd comma and semicolon a bit differently in the eighteenth century. Or I could explain that I've never actually read Tristram Shandy, although I was once presumed to have done so for a course in the early English novel, but that I happened on this passage just last week in London. I was in the library of the British Museum, you see, and there was a case of first editions of important books, and while looking them over this passage leaped out and caught my eye, the copy of Tristram Shandy having been left open to this particular page. I promptly copied it down, and I might tell you as much and go on to talk about serendipity, and the manner in which that happenstance gave me the theme for this chapter. I might even go on to write yet another chapter on the manner in which serendipitous browsing can lead to ideas for fiction.

But I won't, because I've learned not to explain too much.

CHAPTER 37

He Said She Said

LAWSON CLEARED his throat. Bollinger was in to see me this morning, he drawled laconically.

Oh? Jarvis mouthed. What did he want?

Lawson's eyebrows crawled skyward as his eyes took the measure of the man opposite him. What do you think he wanted? he wondered aloud, the sarcasm dripping from his tones. He's upset about Myrna. Seems she told him where you went the other night.

Jarvis was alarmed. That's crazy, he insisted gamely.

Lawson seemed unconvinced. Is it? he wanted to know.

Jarvis was adamant. You know it is, he asserted, stressing his point by pounding the tabletop.

Maybe, murmured Lawson. But Bollinger doesn't think so.

We don't have to concern ourselves with the problems and identities of Myrna and Bollinger and Lawson and Jarvis in order to appreciate that something is very wrong with this passage. A quick reading would suggest that it's rotten dialogue, but that's not really the case. The dialogue itself is fine; it's just gummed up with a ton of unnecessary sludge.

The simplest way to write good dialogue is to let it stand by itself. When we let our example stand alone it looks like this:

Bollinger was in to see me this morning.

Oh? What did he want?

What do you think he wanted? He's upset about Myrna. Seems she told him where you went the other night.

That's crazy.

Is it?

You know it is.

Maybe. But Bollinger doesn't think so.

The actual dialogue, then, works well enough when left alone. But the excesses in our first example are no worse than what lands on editors' desks every day, and (sad to say) not significantly worse than what occasionally finds its way into print. All of this asserting and mouthing and drawling just gets in the way, and the silly adverbs just make everything worse.

There is no more important component of fiction than dialogue. The words your characters speak to one another do more to convey their nuances to the reader than any words you can employ yourself to sketch them. Dialogue advances and defines a plot, renders complicated developments fathomable, and permits fiction to raise its voice, speaking not merely to the mind but to the ear as well. It's not an exaggeration to maintain that a novel's readability?not its worth or quality, but its sheer readability?is in direct proportion to the amount of conversation it contains. The more nearly a novel resembles a play in prose form, the simpler it is for the average reader to come to grips with it.

Which brings us to Rule 1: If your characters are good, and if the dialogue you hand them is natural, you should leave it alone as much as possible. Put them onstage and let them talk to each other. And stay the hell out of their way.

The first thing