COLUMN: The Way the Glue Tasted
- c_nordlander
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COLUMN: The Way the Glue Tasted
Or: concrete details of description and how to put the reader into your world.
Part the first
I'm finishing an exam. I've got over the sheer terror of reading the questions, my pen-hand is weak with writing and my shoulders ache, but it's over. I close the answerbook with a light feeling of giddiness and tick the boxes for the questions I chose to answer. The answerbook cover page is in coloured paper, different colours depending on the subject. Let's say this is the Greek Tragedy exam I'm sitting, so the cover is surgery green. The text on it, under the dotted lines where I've scrawled my student card number and squiggled my course and year, STRICTLY FORBIDS tearing pages out of the answerbook or bringing it out of the examination hall. In the upper right corner is a square for me to sign my name and then seal. It folds diagonally, see, and has a gummed edge to be licked and sticked down, like the flap of an envelope. While putting my hand up so the Invigilator will notice I'm finished, I lick the dark grey gum on that edge. It feels a bit weird to do that; sit in the examination hall and lick a piece of paper. The glue tastes nearly neutral, just a bit chemically bittersweet.
Cut.
Chances are, even if you've never studied the Classics at a British university, the above description will have put you there, if only for a moment. The dull colour of the booklet, the draconically formulated rules, the way the glue tastes. You think: nobody would bother to make these things up if they weren't true.
If a writer can make the reader believe in the story, he's halfway there.
Don't drown your reader in description, but find the details that will hit hard, then use them. Description should put all senses to work. In fact, descriptions involving taste and smell are important, because these senses are almost unique to literature and life. Music or film or sculpture can't stimulate them.
How do we find the details, then? Well, in spite of being writers, we all have, I suppose, lives. We've seen unique things in nature and in works of art. Taking them down in notebooks now and then is great. With our experiences of school, and work, and other people, we already know the tastes of many different glues.
To be continued...
Part the first
I'm finishing an exam. I've got over the sheer terror of reading the questions, my pen-hand is weak with writing and my shoulders ache, but it's over. I close the answerbook with a light feeling of giddiness and tick the boxes for the questions I chose to answer. The answerbook cover page is in coloured paper, different colours depending on the subject. Let's say this is the Greek Tragedy exam I'm sitting, so the cover is surgery green. The text on it, under the dotted lines where I've scrawled my student card number and squiggled my course and year, STRICTLY FORBIDS tearing pages out of the answerbook or bringing it out of the examination hall. In the upper right corner is a square for me to sign my name and then seal. It folds diagonally, see, and has a gummed edge to be licked and sticked down, like the flap of an envelope. While putting my hand up so the Invigilator will notice I'm finished, I lick the dark grey gum on that edge. It feels a bit weird to do that; sit in the examination hall and lick a piece of paper. The glue tastes nearly neutral, just a bit chemically bittersweet.
Cut.
Chances are, even if you've never studied the Classics at a British university, the above description will have put you there, if only for a moment. The dull colour of the booklet, the draconically formulated rules, the way the glue tastes. You think: nobody would bother to make these things up if they weren't true.
If a writer can make the reader believe in the story, he's halfway there.
Don't drown your reader in description, but find the details that will hit hard, then use them. Description should put all senses to work. In fact, descriptions involving taste and smell are important, because these senses are almost unique to literature and life. Music or film or sculpture can't stimulate them.
How do we find the details, then? Well, in spite of being writers, we all have, I suppose, lives. We've seen unique things in nature and in works of art. Taking them down in notebooks now and then is great. With our experiences of school, and work, and other people, we already know the tastes of many different glues.
To be continued...
Pretty little baby
Pretty little monster
Went to the good school
Left with honours
Brand new tycoon
Sitting with a harpoon
-- Mother Mother, "Business Man"
Now offering writing commissions! Fanfiction or original, PM me for more information.
Pretty little monster
Went to the good school
Left with honours
Brand new tycoon
Sitting with a harpoon
-- Mother Mother, "Business Man"
Now offering writing commissions! Fanfiction or original, PM me for more information.
- c_nordlander
- Insane Underling
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- Joined: Fri Aug 10, 2001 2:00 pm
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Re:COLUMN: The Way the Glue Tasted
Part the second
Fine. But what if you're writing isn't part of your experience? What if it takes place in the past, or in the future? What if it's set somewhere you've never been, or never can be? What if it's simply far removed from your workaday life?
Research is the watchword. When I was younger, I dreaded the word research, so I add a disclaimer: you're not studying for a paper at school. (Yes, yes, I know I sound like your schoolteacher. Bear with me.) You need to put yourself into your world before you do the same thing to your reader. Research can be as fun as the actual writing. More often than not, it will give you additional ideas.
Go places you wouldn't normally go (budget permitting). Do things you wouldn't normally do. Use them. I have only fired a rifle a few times, but I'm not going to forget the shop class smell of oily metal when I loaded it, or the way the kick pulled my cheek back and made my lower lip bleed... see?
If you're writing a historical novel, look at things. History books with lots of pictures are great, but museums and the like are even better. Actually, seeing artifacts, whether it's an ox tongue press from the 19th century or a child-sized full suit of armour with a little dragon hissing on the helmet, it's worth gold.
Also read literature from the time in question, if possible. Fiction, philosophical works, anything you can get your hands on. Even more important than the shapes of material things, they give the shapes of people's thoughts.
To be concluded... sometime later...
Fine. But what if you're writing isn't part of your experience? What if it takes place in the past, or in the future? What if it's set somewhere you've never been, or never can be? What if it's simply far removed from your workaday life?
Research is the watchword. When I was younger, I dreaded the word research, so I add a disclaimer: you're not studying for a paper at school. (Yes, yes, I know I sound like your schoolteacher. Bear with me.) You need to put yourself into your world before you do the same thing to your reader. Research can be as fun as the actual writing. More often than not, it will give you additional ideas.
Go places you wouldn't normally go (budget permitting). Do things you wouldn't normally do. Use them. I have only fired a rifle a few times, but I'm not going to forget the shop class smell of oily metal when I loaded it, or the way the kick pulled my cheek back and made my lower lip bleed... see?
If you're writing a historical novel, look at things. History books with lots of pictures are great, but museums and the like are even better. Actually, seeing artifacts, whether it's an ox tongue press from the 19th century or a child-sized full suit of armour with a little dragon hissing on the helmet, it's worth gold.
Also read literature from the time in question, if possible. Fiction, philosophical works, anything you can get your hands on. Even more important than the shapes of material things, they give the shapes of people's thoughts.
To be concluded... sometime later...
Pretty little baby
Pretty little monster
Went to the good school
Left with honours
Brand new tycoon
Sitting with a harpoon
-- Mother Mother, "Business Man"
Now offering writing commissions! Fanfiction or original, PM me for more information.
Pretty little monster
Went to the good school
Left with honours
Brand new tycoon
Sitting with a harpoon
-- Mother Mother, "Business Man"
Now offering writing commissions! Fanfiction or original, PM me for more information.
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Re:COLUMN: The Way the Glue Tasted
Good points made along with a perfect example at the start.
Before continuing, it may be in your best interest, dear reader, to stop and ponder this. Picture it in your mind's eye. An evil one-eyed midget named Cheatum swam across the Gulf of Mexico wearing a shark fin on his back and then planted a bomb on a boat. Think about that. Let that sink in. Now. Wouldn't you want to buy a wrestling show after seeing this?
Dance Epidemic tonight!
Liverpool European Champions 2005. Go on the Kop!
Dance Epidemic tonight!
Liverpool European Champions 2005. Go on the Kop!
- SirMustapha
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Re:COLUMN: The Way the Glue Tasted
I like it so far! I hope to see more of this. That's a good topic to talk about, and I believe you're the best one to talk about it.
"I know that the bourgeoisie stinks, but it has money to buy perfume."
-- Falcão
-- Falcão
Re: COLUMN: The Way the Glue Tasted
Test bump (the topic for some reason is not displaying where it should, and it'd be nice to know where it is)
EDIT: Ah, good, it's back. Eveyrone read and inwardly digest the wise words of Chris!
EDIT: Ah, good, it's back. Eveyrone read and inwardly digest the wise words of Chris!
Last edited by D.B. on Thu Sep 08, 2005 9:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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- c_nordlander
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Re: COLUMN: The Way the Glue Tasted
Hooray! Thanks for helping me out, Pat and Graham.
Pretty little baby
Pretty little monster
Went to the good school
Left with honours
Brand new tycoon
Sitting with a harpoon
-- Mother Mother, "Business Man"
Now offering writing commissions! Fanfiction or original, PM me for more information.
Pretty little monster
Went to the good school
Left with honours
Brand new tycoon
Sitting with a harpoon
-- Mother Mother, "Business Man"
Now offering writing commissions! Fanfiction or original, PM me for more information.