tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4025264318423694875.post3633304697519888001..comments2024-02-05T10:41:31.777-05:00Comments on I Saw Lightning Fall: Walker on Storytelling and WritingLoren Eatonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12488412683340389286noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4025264318423694875.post-31345249076524277402012-08-06T17:23:10.227-04:002012-08-06T17:23:10.227-04:00*land of Lothlorien*land of LothlorienChestertonian Ramblerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01550643992523840950noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4025264318423694875.post-79829645173212419792012-08-06T17:22:19.621-04:002012-08-06T17:22:19.621-04:00A litmus test, for me, is how one remembers a text...A litmus test, for me, is how one remembers a text. When I think of Chandler, Tolkien, or VanderMeer, I link the key scenes to the words that embody them:<br /><br />"She tried to sit in my lap, but I was standing up at the time."<br /><br />"'I will take the ring,' he said, 'though I know not the way."<br /><br />(Or "Such are the deeds that turn the course of history; small hands do what they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere." Or "on the lands of Lothlorien, there was no stain.")<br /><br />"He sits in the rowboat next to her and watches the end and beginning of history."<br /><br />On the other hand, I tend to remember other stories in terms of actions and plot, divorced from the language that expresses it.<br /><br />So in Sanderson--That sword that was made to smite evil, but given limited intelligence so that it understands the concept "smite" better than "evil"!<br /><br />Or in Moon--that space battle where within 15 minutes so much ordinance was in the air that astronavigation became more important than the ability to shoot at people.<br /><br />Or Niel Stephenson (not mentioned above)--that early scene in Anathem in which monks use carefully calibrated singing to overcome the friction coefficient and get their gigantic bells to start moving.Chestertonian Ramblerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01550643992523840950noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4025264318423694875.post-8014234481340964212012-08-06T17:11:30.256-04:002012-08-06T17:11:30.256-04:00Good article.
I'll repeat what I said there, ...Good article.<br /><br />I'll repeat what I said there, though. I think that Chandler's language (and more literary language by people like VanderMeer, Mieville, Chesterton, Tolkien, Murakami, Wolfe, Valente, and dozens of others) is excellent, and well crafted. I think that all these folks give us delicious prose, veering at moments towards prose-for-prose sake, akin to the painterly backgrounds of Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. This is good, and requires great craft.<br /><br />Yet to continue my analogy, sometimes a blank background serves better. So too, I think some authors actually have a prose style that is very effective at *not* drawing attention to itself, that seeks to be so normal-feeling that a reader never takes the time to notice it, only the story. This, too, takes craft. It's just a different kind of craft.<br /><br />This is probably the default writing style for folks like Sanderson, Moon, Scalzi (when he's not making brilliant jokes), and McCaffrey. It has a different purpose, but that isn't to say that it has no purpose.Chestertonian Ramblerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01550643992523840950noreply@blogger.com