Prose

by Fragon Calfbreaker

When I mention prose, I am referring to the actual text of a certain piece--the "words" and the "sentences"--the chunk of writing that you physically see.

While prose is the simplest part of writing--after all, it's just words strung together, right?--it's also the most difficult to explain, particularly to beginners. Hey, I've been there myself. Crappy writing and good writing--what's the difference if you can understand both of them? They all carry the same meaning, don't they? And this, unfortunately, is where I run into trouble. It is very, very difficult to tell someone something that normally takes years to get an 'eye' for.

I will start off with some basic 'guidelines', some say 'rules', which are standard for writing fiction in the style of Inheritance.

1.) Show, don't tell.

This is a biggie. I'm sure we've all HEARD this before. But what does it exactly mean, and why is it so difficult to understand? I've seen writers say they're not telling, they're showing, but they're doing the exact opposite. And Eragon and especially Eldest are SUCH long books--how can they be telling and not showing?

Let's break this down into several parts.

The most basic understanding of this guideline is, show action, don't summarize.

"A bead of sweat trickled down George's forehead as the purple dinosaur appeared from the corner. His heart began to beat frantically against his chest. Should he run? Should he stand still? As these thoughts raced in his mind, he shifted slightly and felt a warm, moist feeling trickling down his leg..."

Is an example of this particular instance of 'showing'.

"When George saw the purple dinosaur, he peed his pants."

Is an example of this 'telling'.

Now here's the confusing part. Either case is acceptable depending on the context of your novel. That's right, summarizing is not the ehvul. Plenty of books are written with summaries stuffed in-between, and they work amazingly well. An example of this is Ursula Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea. One thing you have to do of course is avoid a boring narrative, but apart from that, this is not necessarily a no-no.

Inheritance, after all, does a lot of the former--and this actually works against it. One thing you have to learn, even when keeping this guideline in mind, is that you do not have to show everything. In some cases, you need to tell. In some cases, telling, or in this case, summarizing what happened, is the only way to go. We will proceed with this discussion in the next session, which has to do with overall pacing.

Now, let me go on with a more comprehensive undertaking on this guideline. Show, don't tell.

"A shiver ran up his spine."

vs.

"He felt afraid."

Not a big difference. In this case, the first option is often preferable to the second. Why? Because when you show in this case, you are essentially giving the reader a chance to get into your character's skin, or in the particular situation. You are making him see and feel what is going on around him, trusting that he knows what is happening, RATHER than simply telling him that this is what he's supposed to be feeling right now. This is what seperates a lot of good books from the bad ones. Readers will often tell you that the reason a certain book is their favourite is because they felt what was happening, they empathized with the characters, the writer managed to turn emotion, events, heartaches, sorrow, and joy into words. This is a great power that writers have over their readers. To take this for granted, in my opinion, is a great shame.

After all, if you told the reader something, why should they necessarily believe you?

A broad row of steps led to the cathedral’s entrance. Eragon solemnly ascended them and stopped before the door. I wonder if I can go in? Almost guiltily he pushed on the door. It swung open smoothly, gliding on oiled hinges. He stepped inside.

This is a solid case of Paolini's prose which 'shows', in that literal sense, but is actually telling. We are told that he solemnly ascended the stairs. We are told that he almost guiltily pushed the door. Why should we believe the writer?

To contrast, a more solid scene might be

A broad row of steps led to the cathedral's entrance. Eragon hesitated at the bottom step, and then slowly inched forward, gazing at the tall steeple with his mouth wide open. He stopped at the edge of the doorway and lightly grazed a calloused hand against the intricate glasswork between the frames.

Both Eldest and Eragon have examples of this in nearly every page. Go and look at them yourself, as an activity, and see how the scene might be written to better portray the events unfolding.

2.) Pacing

Pacing involves the way the words, sentences, and paragraphs--and in a large sense, the chapters and scenes--are placed together in order to give a definite 'feeling'. This is one of the reasons why, in the previous part, I mentioned that there are times when 'summarizing' an event is more advantageous than outright 'showing' us what really happened. To create an analogy, we cannot have a movie that doesn't have 'scenes' and that just goes on and on until the story ends. There are gaps which the reader must fill themselves. There are 'action' scenes and long, drawn out 'sad' scenes, and everything in between.

The same is with writing. This, again, is another problem that Christopher Paolini has. He cannot pace things properly. We must recall once more that there are many cases in which Paolini 'shows' us events almost action by action, even when they are unecessary. Many people have complained that the saddlemaking chapter in Eragon is completely redundant because even when the dragon-saddle was mentioned later on, it did not refer to the particular chapter at all. Much of Eragon's training was badly paced--it usually starts out as long descriptions of what Eragon was doing, and then peters out and ends in a quick "So Eragon did this and that" summary. It leaves many readers confused and disoriented, attempting to figure out what the writer is trying to tell them.

When a novel is paced properly, the reader swallows every single word the writer throws at them because they know they are being taken care of. They are captivated because they can hardly feel the passage of time as they read, as the writer takes them through each scene as they should be taken, with their heart pounding at some pages, and their tears flowing at others. Many writers compare their work to movies, and in a sense this is true, as long as they understand that it is not in describing everything and making sure the reader 'visualizes' what's happening that works, but rather, in pacing scenes and events.

It goes without saying that Eldest is even more atrociously paced than Eragon was, and possibly the worst-paced book I have ever read. You need only realize that a good 60% of the book involves Eragon's 'training' which is very little story, and the rest random events that happened to Roran and co. that have very little to do with the main plot.

3.) Tone

Paolini: I envy you, Mr. Pullman, the ability to hear the beats in the sentences, the rhythm, because I happen to be rather tone deaf and I find it incredibly difficult to manipulate those types of rhythms. Alliteration and repetition are no problem, but beyond that I'm at a loss.

Paolini's quote, at least at the end, shows truthfully how ignorant he is of what 'tone' is. I don't blame him. If the previous two examples were difficult to explain, tone is just...argh.

Tone, the way I define it anyway, is poetry in prose. It is the writer knowing each and every word he writes into his story and their effect on the reader. I liken writing to music. Like Paolini said in the beginning of the quote, there are beats and rhythm in sentences. They are directly connected with the writer's voice, which is another thing I will talk about further down.

It is not alliteration and repetition, however. It is far more than that. Words are like notes, or the strokes of a brush. They should be written so they make sense, and more than that, so they strike a certain chord, and make a certain sound or image in the entire composition. Now let me refer you to the other articles in this website, particularly the ones involving Paolini's overuse of a thesaurus. That by itself indicates that he has no knoweldge of how to use words to his own advantage. He confuses the reader rather than taking them by the hand and guiding them through.

Many writers can get away without tone, and for Paolini's case, it may actually be forgiveable given he is a beginner in writing. It is however a mark against him all the same. Words written without thought is not a mark of a good writer. It can be the mark of a writer, but that's where it really ends...

4.) Voice

Arguably similar to tone, but I define voice as the writer's soul leaking through the pages. You might have heard someone saying, "He's a good writer, but he hasn't found his voice yet." Let me refer you to a certain group of writers (and I know, I know, we're biased because they're our favourite, but it's all relative):

Ursula K. Le Guin

Guy Gavriel Kay

Gregory Maguire

Print out this part of the page and go to the bookstore. You can usually find Le Guin in the Science Fiction section, Kay in the fantasy section, and Maguire in general fiction. They also will usually have a number of novels under their names. Flip through a few of them (more than two certainly) and read several passages. Compare them to each other. If you cannot tell the difference, you are yet too inexperienced (you young Padawan) and I suggest you perhaps close this site before you get an early heart attack.

But if you can, even just a semblance, a feel of how each writer's novels seem to be the same and so obviously written by them, you, my friend, have heard their voice.

A writer's voice is his soul. It is what makes him or her different from all other writers, even when these same people write about the same exact subjects, in the same exact manner, in the same exact style. Furthermore, because they have a voice, they will have something to say.

Paolini, again, because he is a very young writer, does not have a voice. His entire prose is flat and lackluster because he does not seem to know where he is headed or truly, what his inner self really wants to say, apart from 'tell a story'. And while 'tell a story' may be a noble thing to do, it is not enough to consider yourself a true, dyed in the wool, good writer with it. Again, I cannot blame him. Most writers just never find their voice. Most have a feel for it, but it croaks out in random times. Again, most will need maturing before it reveals itself.