Description Described

Ah, description. I have quite a lot of thoughts on it,and generally I think I still struggle with it, but my insight was requested, so here it is.

I've always felt that I'm quite austere with description, and only occaisionally punctuate it with more poetic flourishes. Generally I don't go looking for an image if I don't have one, but if an image comes to mind as I'm writing I aim to incorporate it, and will sometimes reshape a scene with it in mind.

I try never to do a full paragraph of pure description, or if I must I try and add a bit of immaterial incidental activity or some thematic element to make it more dynamic; even something as simple as following a raindrop as it breaks over the stone parapet of a castle and trickles down the sandstone, is cast briefly back into freefall as it passes the window of the young lord's nursery, traces the contour of a gargoyle and finally joins the muddy slough of the courtyard, where it's abruptly spattered by the boot of the smith's apprentice, our POV character for the chapter. (And as an aside, I made that up on the spot as an example. I'm aware it's bollocks and contrived.)

I never ever give a full description of a character when he or she first appears in the narrative. This to me always recalls the days of primary school creative writing lessons, and a full biometric run down of leg measurements, bust size and eye colour according to the handy Dulux reference sheet bespeaks to me preteen dabbling in storytelling like nothing else. Instead, I go for just a couple of words to give the reader a sketch, then a few more hints and mentions throughout that scene when they fit to flesh things out. By the end of the first scene the reader should have a good portrait in their mind's eye of what the character looks like, but not enough to construct a Crimebusters photofit. Later, I'll generally only add further embellishment if it flows naturally, usually in the form of callouts to particular features where that feature is the focal point of a particular gesture or act.

Location setting is more needy, and usually I do open up with multiple lines of description, but I'll almost always try to go for incidental action or thematics to enliven it. For example in Red Flag, the opening description of Darken's fortress takes in its appearance, its local, and its atmosphere, but does so with a distinct emphasis on the imposing, impenetrable fortress-qualities of the place. Then the action kicks off with Hel immediately puncturing these defenses, making the description feel more like a set up for this pay off - which in turn describes to us some facet of Hel without saying anything - and less like a simple verbal painting in of the stage.

For me the hardest description is in pronouns and adverbs. The technical stuff. You know you don't want to keep doing 'He said, she said, he did, she did' but this stuff is very hard to give flow and character without being gruesomely overstated and flowery. In truth almost all dialogue does have to be a 'he said' job, but when things are clicking just right I'll spot without thinking the opportunities for a 'whispered' or a 'hissed' or maybe a 'said with a thin smile' or something. One of those will colour a lot of conversation; like a dye only a drop is needed.

Another skill I'm trying to grasp is the art of description, narrative digression and action amid dialogue. A lot of my stories are really minimal two-hander playscripts with the stage directions rewritten as narrative. I need to work better at realising the potential in prose.

Related to that is long-form sections of speechless action. I'm a speaky writer, no doubt about that, and I sometimes find myself grasping when I need to convey a couple of thousand words with negligible discussion (though I do find myself to have a knack for actual action scenes). I've had to actively study how this is done in 'real' books and again it's almost always about narrative digression. You segue into more conceptual or thematic or conversational prose for a bit as you coast along the action, drawing jumping off points from the events you detail whilst angling your theme to flow in the same direction as the story is heading. It's a good skill, the skill I'm most keen to hone. Narrative voice is where it's at. I generally pinpoint my main struggle with the actual words these days at not having a fully formed voice, and so having to actively work at each line. I can't simply start to 'talk' in narrative on the page. This is why I often favour first-person narration. I'm much better at naturalistic character dialogue and can rapidly assume an in-character narrator. I've also tried to muddy the water with characterful third person narration, but that's tricky and will often come out annoying. It's generally best suited to humour but doesn't have to be. Funnily enough when I was a writing machine back in my teens and stuff would just flow for me, I felt - and I still do feel - that my narrative voice was keenly honed. I had no plot in those days, so my writing was just meandering stylistics, and yet it flowed and had a certain attraction I still can't deny. Somehow over time I've completely lost that skill whilst picking up the (probably more needed) insight into plot mechanics. Characters I've always been good at, although I sometimes find it hard to kick the pebble down the mountain. My experiments in a shared universe have come so much more easily for me because AO'M had already set the shale scattering and all I had to do was jump on and surf down the quarry pit, pulling elaborate ollies and 360s of characterisation with my borrowed board.

...You see? That's what happens when an image hits me. Although it usually helps when it's less stupid.

I Hope We'll Be Here When They're Through With Us

Realised finally why I am so resistant to getting an eye test. Have so little identity that I am clinging even to negative traits. ('That's Phil, his eyesight is shit.')

My most distant friends are the closest to me.

Recurring dreams are very rare, and occur only when I am truly obsessing over something.

Fantasy scenario is theoretically a possibility, but practical costs and likely ruinous. I keep circling it.

Have discovered a new identification figure.

I have incredible ideas every day. I am convinced of their brilliance. I can't execute on any of them.

Recently I've been reminded of all the things I wanted to pursue that were cut short. I had mostly forgotten about them until now.

I don't write about myself very often. Afraid of spiralling. Will probably stop now?

Why all of this? Because I wanted to write and was struggling.

Snatching the Pebble

This is a fantastic book. It touches on an area I'm specifically fond of - gaming - but actually its appeal is far broader than that. Suits sums it up in his opening, when he says:

"It is the attempt to discover and formulate a definition, and to follow the implications of that discovery even when they lead in surprising, and sometimes disconcerting, directions."

-p21

This was the aspect that really fuelled my interest unexpectedly, the definitional side of the argument, dressed often as a refutation of Wittgenstein. I might now have to follow up on this, but I wonder if I'll find other books on the subject that are even half as entertaining a read as this one.

That's the great strength of the book. It's as enjoyable as the best fiction, really, laugh-out-loud funny in places, and even dramatic and characterful at times. Suits chooses to address his points in the form of a socratic dialogue between anthropomorphic insects drawn from Aesop's fable. The inherent humour of the idea is obviously just one joke, and would fast become tired, but Suits infuses the ongoing discourse with so many amusing twists and turns and flourishes, and his mouthpieces become characters in their own right. The triumphant return of the Grasshopper in the final chapters is, absurdly, genuinely thrilling.

And as if that wasn't enough, the conclusion reached in those chapters is really jaw droppingly intriguing. It's stated right at the beginning, but in a deliberately riddled form which gives the meat of the book its pretext for unpicking the meaning of 'games'. When things finally come full circle, the moment of comprehension makes the price of entry worthwhile alone.

If only there were more philosophical texts like this. Fantastic, 10/10 stuff.

(I found an abridged exceprt of one of the best chapters online. Check it out, then buy the book!
http://www.senia.com/2006/11/21/ivan-and-abdul-by-bernard-suits-part-i/
http://www.senia.com/2006/11/22/ivan-and-abdul-by-bernard-suits-part-ii/ )

Now reading The Book of Unholy Mischief. Only a scant few pages in, but I don't expect much from it. Seems to suffer badly by being an almost identical tale to Locke Lamora, but without the gift for plot, characters or prose possessed by Lynch.

And on that note, sometime soon I really want to get dug into The Republic of Thieves. The Lamora series has been pretty fun so far, and it quietly promises to become something rather notable.

Similarly, I find myself more eager to pick up A Clash of Kings than I expected to be. Though I found a few elements offputting when I read Game, the strengths of the good characters have lingered in my mind beyond the flaws of the weak ones. So I'll probably get on with that at some point.
And in digital news, I got snared again in Desktop Dungeons tonight. What an amazing game. It's got the most finely tuned balance of depth, elegance, ease of learning, challenge and everything else that I've found in a game. It also succeeds admirably in conjuring up the feel of the best parts of roguelikes without any of the barriers to entry. The new update has tarted things up a bit too, and I'm liking the change to dieties. No sooner had I mentioned it to a friend than I had to dive back in and I didn't stop until I'd ran a monk and a paladin through Normal mode. Now I've got designs on a Gnome Warlord for the next. I only hope the guy behind this doesn't leave it a one off.

What else? I'm sure there was something. Oh yes, a project has finally got legs. I may have a new boardgame prototyped by the weekend.

Fun times.

---

Bonus Credit Question:

If you could replace your body with a synthetic body which would look and feel indistinguishable from a real body, and would never fall prey to illness, would you do it?

And We'll All Be Lonely Tonight, And Lonely Tomorrow

There's a scene at the top of the first episode of Moffat and Gatiss' new 'Sherlock' in which invalided Watson discusses his blog with the therapist who encouraged him to start one.

'You need to learn how to be a civillian again; keeping a record of everything that happens to you will help,' she tells him. He glances up and gives her an empty smile.

'Nothing happens to me,' he says.

I think this is my problem too. I find it incredibly hard to write anything, compared to everyone else I know. And what I do write is pretty impersonal in contrast with others, too. But then, every one of my days is exactly the same as the last: I wake up at a stupid time, sit in front of a computer, eat some crap food, and go back to bed. So what's to write?


Anyway, another year another Holmes. So what's this one like? Well, it's an improvement over last Christmas' Downey Jr attempt which, whilst entertaining and well directed, was using the Holmes name as little more than a marketing tool. Should have been the start of a new and potentially promising IP, but no dice. Moderate spoilers follow.

This adaptation is Holmes, anyway. It's not pure Holmes - it is, after all, modern day set - but it's Holmes at the heart. So that's good. I'm glad we're not being saturated by empty-but-bankable names. I wasn't really concerned for this respect, though. Moffat and Gatiss have more artistic integrity than that.

The modernisation was a concern, but is actually pretty good. Holmes' technophilia is fitting and interesting. We see how Holmes changes to fit into the new world of forensics and connectivity. This is ultimately what I feared would be missed, but it wasn't. Good!

I run hot and cold on Cumberbatch (he keeps asking me not to). At times he is very good, and very holmely (Sorry). At other times he doesn't quite work for me. He's a bit younger than I expected them to cast, but this seems to be Moffat's way at the moment, and it's working out alright. Cumberbatch does add a slightly disaffected modern-batcherlor-with-cash arrogant layabout undercurrent to the character. It's good and interesting, another nice manifestation of the modern translation, although occaisionally it spills over too far.

I have more trouble with Martin Freeman's Watson. Is this surprising? Nobody seems to be able to get Watson right. At the least, he is not so far gone as to be a New-Watson-Likes-Jam, but he's a bit dull. He's not dim, mostly, but he is the butt of the jokes sometimes, and whilst he retains the moral compass aspect, it surfaces less often and in milder ways. The flaring arguments of the pair are absent. Freeman plays him fine, in fact he's rather good - particularly in Episode 3 where he solves the Bruce Partington Plans mystery for Mycroft. It's just that I don't think he's written particularly interestingly. He's like Watson with the saturation turned down.

The real issue, might fall between them. Discussing with DJS the point came up that this Holmes has no real pain. So he's really not a sociopath - his behaviour is just 'a bit of a dick' (said with a sideways smile). And because he has no real pain, there is no real source of trouble and concern for Watson, and no conflict between them. And this weakens both.

Meanwhile, everybody hates Moriarty. My own reaction was actually less harsh than most, but I think that was largely because I had been braced for him to suck bollocks from the beginning. He's a charicature, and not remotely Moriarty. That said, the core of the character is not terrible of itself, and would have worked as an original villain, except that the panto performance added to it goes far too far over the top. The problem with portrayals of Moriarty, I think, is that he gets about three lines of dialogue in the entirety of the original source material. The Final Problem is so utterly terrifying because Moriarty is all but invisible, a wraith and an assassin, pursuing Holmes but barely glimpsed.

An unexpected highlight for me was Gatiss' Mycroft. Notsomuch in Episode 1, where he's a bit too much of a comic device, but in Episode 3, where he is actually a character in his own right. I fell for the (somewhat contrived) Moriarty misdirection, and I'm glad he wasn't. But then, he would actually have been better than what we got. (It seems obvious to me that it'll be Mycroft who pulls them out of the fire in the cliffhanger resolution.)

Three episodes isn't much, and I still haven't made a settled opinion on the series. Part of the problem is all three scripts have had their flaws, which makes judging the tone and direction harder. But there's enough there to make some fairly solid judgments.

The modern, high-tech aspect is a winner. It's used judiciously, and captures the cerebral mind-workings of Holmes. The floating phone text device is a good one, as long as they keep using it with restraint. And visually it all looks pretty good. The golem scene is a bit bizarre, sort of tripping into expressionism. Quite nice on its own, utterly unlike the rest. Interesting to imagine what the show might be like if it goes further that way.

But the real problem, the generalised issue that really stems into all of the others, is that the tone of the thing is too whimsical. Just like all the modern Holmes stuff. It takes the idiosyncracies of the character and the cases and plays them lighthearted. Now, this worked well in the sly references to canon (The five pips was inspired), but in terms of the actual vibe of the show it was too light. If I ever adapted Holmes it would be a dark, dark thing. Not humourless: There is plenty of humour in Holmes. But dark. This man is, really, a very unhealthy character, whilst Watson is disaffected and has issues of his own. And many of the crimes they handle are borne out of severe depravity and moral bankruptcy. Holmes should be dark.

For me, the radio adaptation remains head-and-shoulders the best. Merrison and Williams ARE Holmes and Watson. I think it's as good as a straight adaptation could be. So for my money, the real merit in any new adaptation is going to be putting another angle on things, finding something different. 'Sherlock' had the potential to do that, and it still does. I really hope it goes for it.

(Ratings, because I love rating stuff:

A Study in Pink - 8/10
The Blind Banker - 7/10
The Great Game - 8/10, by a whisker.)

Beh

You know, there is a friend of mine who often links to a blog for people with disabilities, where they basically hammer everyone without a disability for being 'ableist'. Thing is, as someone with some of the conditions they talk about, I find them far more offensive than anyone else. I wonder what they'd do if I told them that.