Manual For Fiction Writers by Block, Lawrence (classic books to read .TXT) 📗

This particular example is one I've created for the occasion, to illustrate a point. But I'm paraphrasing a short story a friend of mine asked me to read, and I think it's interesting to note that he's a stage director of some reputation. I pointed out to him that he was doing in his fiction what it's his job to do in the theater, telling the characters their motivation and how to deliver their lines. But as a director he doesn't get up there with the actors on the night of the performance, and neither can he get on the page with his characters without blunting the effectiveness of his dialogue.

Dialogue is by no means the only area in which an author can get in the way with words of explanation. I ran across a rather clear example in one of the entries in last year's WD short-story contest. As I recall, one of the characters told a joke, whereupon the author wrote: Paul forced a laugh at Hilliard's weak joke.

The word weak came from the author; he's butting in, assuring us that Hilliard's joke was a stinker. But we already knew that, for heaven's sake. We just heard the joke, and it bombed, and obviously it was a weak joke or Paul wouldn't have had to force a laugh over it, so why on earth shove your way in and tell us it was weak?

Over-explanation can come not only through the intrusion of the author's presence. Sometimes the author uses his characters to tell us more than we need to know. One example of this is what has been called Soap-Opera Dialogue, because one of its functions is to render things crystal clear for those viewers who happened to miss the last couple of episodes. What happens is that the characters have a stilted conversation, explaining things to each other at unnecessary length, in order to convey information not to each other but to the reader.

Like this:

Your brother-in-law Sidney called this afternoon.

Sheila's husband? I haven't spoken to him since I heard he was scheduled for surgery. What did he want?

He's very worried about Rita. He would have called you, Charles, but Sheila told him how busy you've been with the Ackroyd case.

Well, you get the idea. There's no earthly reason for Charles to say Sheila's husband? other than to let the reader know who Sidney is, in case he's forgotten. The whole passage shows us two people talking through each other in order to pass information on, and in the process the conversation ceases to appear realistic.

Another form of over-explanation derives similarly from the writer's inability to trust the reader to keep up with what's happening. I've noted this tendency myself in my early suspense novels. Whenever my lead character began to figure something out, I had him think out loud so the reader would be able to follow what was going on in his mind. Whenever my lead set things in motion, I explained as I went along so the reader wouldn't be lost.

I learned, eventually, that the reader doesn't have to be kept that completely in the picture. Sometimes it's a good deal more fun to watch the lead character go through his paces without knowing exactly what he's getting at; that way you can do a little guesswork and try to figure out just what's going on, and why.

I first got the hang of this in a series of books I wrote about a private detective named Matthew Scudder. Scudder was a great character to work with, quirky and angst-ridden, and he did a lot of things without telling the reader why he was doing them. Some of the time he didn't know himself why he was doing certain things. When he began to dope things out, and set wheels in motion to work out whodunit, he didn't think out loud so that the reader would be with him every step of the way.

Gregory Mcdonald's novels about a reporter named Fletch are an even better example of how to keep the reader in the dark without explanation or apology. In Fletch and Confess, Fletch especially, the hero goes through a great deal of convoluted business, setting up elaborate bits of plot machinery. We know what he's doing but we don't know why he's doing it or what it's supposed to lead to?and that's one of the things that makes the books work so effectively. We keep reading to find out not only how things will work out but why Fletch has been doing thus and so right in front of our eyes.

Earlier I likened the writer to a theatrical director, moving his characters around the stage and telling them how to deliver their lines. In the theater, one important concept is that of the audience as constituting the fourth wall. In other words, the interpretive ability of the audience is part of the dynamic of the theatrical performance.

I think the same thing holds true for fiction. A short story or novel constitutes a subtly different experience for every person who reads it, simply because each reader brings a different perspective and background to bear upon what he reads. A fictional scene about a woman undergoing an abortion in a railroad car traveling across Kenya will differ in its effect upon the reader depending whether that reader is a man or a woman, has or has not had