This is excellent advice for writing. Actually, that whole blog is excellent, I'm currently doing an archive trawl because it's really incredibly helpful.

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A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket.
~Charles Peguy



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 07/19/11 04:33PM by ocean cat.

I understand the author's point, and I agree with him on that front; but the problem I have with it is that he's unnecessarily clogging up his sentences and making them look rather awkward.





A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people- Thomas Mann




My writing blog: [aspiringpen.blogspot.com]

THAT is freakin awesome.

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Var is awesome!

I like it (and I've been given similar advice before, at least re: is and has) but I wonder how well it translates to first person. Aaaaand while I'll agree it makes whatever you're saying stronger, what about when you don't want to dwell on something or take the time/words to unpack it?

...Well, I guess then it's probably not important enough to mention in the first place, but. Hm.

Meh, I think I'm just crankily protesting for the sake of protesting. I'm looking forward to doing this when I edit, but I already know it's going to be brutal. There are a LOT of thought verbs in my current thing. XD

What do you guys think about his little comment re: characters being alone? Because while I'll agree it makes one more prone to use thought verbs (speaking from experience), I think a good author could fix that; I don't think a character HAS to play off of another character to make the narrative interesting. ...I don't think I'M a good enough author to make it interesting, but I mean, hypothetically, SOMEONE could. IMO.

*waffles around*

I didn't find it terribly helpful, but I suspect that's at least partly because something about the way it was written irritated me, though I don't know why. But I can't think of any other reason for me to have been so irritated at it. Perhaps partly because there wasn't much of an explanation of why, at least not that I noticed. Still, there's a point to it, and I'm sure it's something to consider, at least. I don't think it works for first person, though.

As for the bit about characters being alone, I disagree. A character by himself will probably tend to be less interesting, sure, but that doesn't mean you always need to avoid it. And while I can see where it would make you more prone to use thought verbs, that doesn't necessarily make it bad. I don't know, though; I don't have much experience with writing myself, and I never think to pay attention to how authors handle things like this when I'm reading.

HERMIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! please stay forever

It's good advice, and would make a good excercise, but I doubt you could get completely away from it. Just look at how much we use language like that in everyday life. Just looking back over this thread--what, six posts? Seven if you count mine--I see 28 such "thought" and "have/has/is" type phrases, just at a rough glance. And that may need to be recounted after I finish this post. It certainly won't work--or at least not easily--in first person, and while it may be good writing ethics, I doubt it makes good practical sense when it comes to word count. Far too easy to be too wordy. One must find a balance between being too unshowy--He thought, she felt, they wondered, etc--and too long winded, like some of his illustrations.

i think it all comes down to what the story needs. there maybe be a part were a concise:
"Joe remembered the day he died." is more powerful than if you explained it in detail. it really comes down to good judgement. but i actually think it is very practical if done well. the more verb focused your writing the better. when it starts getting wordy is when you start throwing in all those adverbs and modifiers ;p

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Var is awesome!

What L said. As in all things, especially writing "rules," there are exceptions.

(Re: my post above, though, I've been trying with my current story--which is entirely first-person--and it's actually easier than I expected on the whole, though there are places where it's difficult.)

I took the article somewhat differently than most of you seem to be. I took it less as "all thought verbs are bad" and more as "here is a simple and straightforward way to turn telling into showing". Personally, I get annoyed when people say things like "show don't tell" and then fail to give any practical advice on how to do so. In that sense, his method is tremendously helpful.

Maybe this is a good thing, maybe not, but I've gotten so that when I read or hear advice (of any kind, really, but particularly when it's about writing) I kind of tune out words like "never" and "always". My natural tendency is to want to argue with people who use universal statements. (This is partly a result of such peoples' tendency to 'splain things: for example, I once had a conversation with a guy about religion and morality and how they can get compartmentalized from everyday life, and I started trying to make a point about how that tendency can vary between cultures, only to be cut off with, "No sweetie, it's universal." >.< Mostly, though, it's because universal statements are nearly always false.) However, I've found that I tend to miss the point when I do that because I'm so focused on disagreeing with their phrasing that I don't even bother to pay attention to what they're actually saying. It's much easier for me to just try to find whatever help I can regardless of how stupidly it's worded.

...usually, that is. Sometimes the content is even more retarded than the phrasing, like with sweetie-it's-universal.

Re: showing vs. telling, Limyaael has a rant that I think explains pretty much what Var and L were saying about balance. I think I agree with all of it, though there are a couple of things in there that I'm a bit unsure about. Anyway. Discuss, please.

Oh also, Mum, do you have the link handy for Lim's rant on Darlings? I was looking for it when I ran across this one and it made me think of this discussion, but I wasn't actually intending to post here when I started out.

Edit: Never mind, I found it.

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A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket.
~Charles Peguy



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 08/09/11 07:15AM by ocean cat.