At one time, I aspired to be a decent chess player and asked a friend who played well to help improve my game. We played a few games so he could judge my skill level. Then he made me play dozens of games without my rooks. In those diagnostic games he had noticed that, like many beginner-level players, I over-relied on my rooks. Once they were taken, I was helpless. When I was forced to get by without them from the start, my skill at using the other pieces improved and my game dramatically improved once I got them back.
In my current short story in progress, I’m doing the literary equivalent of giving up my rooks: I’m writing the story without using any internalization. I do not allow myself to tell the reader what the protagonist is thinking or feeling. It’s a strategy that suits the story well, since it’s a hardboiled kind of tale. But it’s also helping me hone my skills. Instead of using bland narration, I’m forced to rely on Hazel’s actions, words, and perceptions of the setting to convey what’s going on in her head. I have to think more deeply about how she perceives her surroundings and, as a result, write more clearly about the setting than I normally would. These are skills I know I’ll need for my next novel. Already, the prose is more powerful than anything I’ve written before.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Kaye George // Jul 15, 2009 at 10:30 pm
What a good idea, Sam! Let us know how this turns out. It sounds like it might work.
2 Terry Odell // Jul 16, 2009 at 8:20 am
I would LOVE to see how you’ve managed that, because I’m always nagging my crit partner that he doesn’t have nearly enough internalization and everything seems flat to me.
Or course, “Perceptions of the setting” are also ‘internalizations’ I would think.
What would it take to see a bit of your story?
3 Sam // Jul 16, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Terry – Think of THE MALTESE FALCON. We never get inside Sam Spade’s head; we have only his actions, the things he says, and the details of the things he notices to indicate what’s going on in there. For example, after the detective punches Spade and then leaves, Spade curses him loudly and then explains that he hates to let someone slug him and get away with it. But Hammet doesn’t tell us “Spade felt cheated of the chance to get even with the detective,” or anything like that. That’s what I’m going for.
By “perceptions of the setting,” I mean that the choice of setting details to reveal, and how they are described, are determined by the character’s state of mind. I suppose it would have been more accurate to say, “what the character perceives of the setting.”
When this draft is done, I’ll be happy to share.
4 Terry Odell // Jul 17, 2009 at 9:17 am
I think you’ve described “Show don’t tell.” One should never say, “He was angry.” Show the character putting his fist through the wall, or clenching his jaw, or whatever coping mechanism you have given him. To me, that’s internalization.
And movies aren’t ever really ‘telling’ unless there’s an outside narrator. That’s why so often I’ll go read the book if I’ve seen a movie — so I can see how the author handled a scene where we’re left to interpret a character’s feelings by his actions. Some actors are better than others at conveying those inner thoughts!
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