Apparently a lot of people don’t read with an analytical eye, though (shocking, I know…). But with this interesting new Jane Eyre project fresh in mind, I said to the conference organizers, “How about a workshop called How to Read Like a Writer?”
Either they loved the idea or were anxious to send their program to the printer, but one way or the other, that’s what I taught. As it was my first time doing that, it was even more off the cuff than usual, but it went well and a number of people told me afterward that they’d found it both interesting and helpful. So I thought I might show y’all a bit of what I was doing there—possibly for the instruction of aspiring writers, and more likely just for the entertainment of people who like to know the hows and whys of writing, as well as the story.
Now, when I taught this, I used extracts from half a dozen different authors, reading the extract aloud and then going back through it, making observations about the techniques characteristic of Charles Dickens, Jim Butcher, James Lee Burke, and a few others. And then I finished up with the “Coda” section from MOBY. I don’t like to overuse my own work, but a) it saves worrying about copyright infringement, if I need to do handouts, b) I don’t have to work very hard at finding suitable excerpts, since I know where everything is, and c) I know for sure what I was thinking or intending when I wrote something.
As those of you who’ve read MOBY know, the “Coda” is a section of three wedding-night interactions: Denzell and Dorothea, Ian and Rachel, and Jamie and Claire (that’s why the section is called “A Coda in Three-Two Time”—three couples, geddit?). I’m not going to do the whole thing here, because it would take days, but here’s 1) the first short scene from Denzell and Dottie’s wedding night, and 2) the annotated version of that scene, with my observations on the craft involved. Hope you find it interesting!
Excerpted from Written in My Own Heart’s Blood
Denzell and Dorothea
It was the best party that Dorothea Jacqueline Benedicta Grey had ever attended. She had danced with earls and viscounts in the most beautiful ballrooms in London, eaten everything from gilded peacock to trout stuffed with shrimp and riding on an artful sea of aspic with a Triton carved of ice brandishing his spear over all. And she’d done these things in gowns so splendid that men blinked when she hove into view.
Her new husband didn’t blink. He stared at her so intently through his steel-rimmed spectacles that she thought she could feel his gaze on her skin, from across the room and right through her dove-gray dress, and she thought she might burst with happiness, exploding in bits all over the taproom of the White Camel tavern. Not that anyone would notice if she did; there were so many people crammed into the room, drinking, talking, drinking, singing, and drinking, that a spare gallbladder or kidney underfoot would pass without notice.
Just possibly, she thought, one or two whole people might pass without notice, too—right out of this lovely party.
She reached Denzell with some difficulty, there being a great many well-wishers between them, but as she approached him, he stretched out a hand and seized hers, and an instant later they were outside in the night air, laughing like loons and kissing each other in the shadows of the Anabaptist Meeting House that stood next door to the tavern.
“Will thee come home now, Dorothea?” Denny said, pausing for a momentary breath. “Is thee…ready?”
She didn’t let go of him but moved closer, dislodging his glasses and enjoying the scent of his shaving soap and the starch in his linen—and the scent of him underneath.
“Are we truly married now?” she whispered. “I am thy wife?”
“We are. Thee is,” he said, his voice slightly husky. “And I am thy husband.”
She thought he’d meant to speak solemnly, but such an uncontainable smile of joy spread across his face at the speaking that she laughed out loud.
“We didn’t say ‘one flesh’ in our vows,” she said, stepping back but keeping hold of his hand. “But does thee think that principle obtains? Generally speaking?”
He settled his glasses more firmly on his nose and looked at her with intense concentration and shining eyes. And, with one finger of his free hand, touched her breast.
“I’m counting on it, Dorothea.”
[And now…the Annotated Version….]
Denzell and Dorothea
It was the best party that Dorothea Jacqueline Benedicta Grey had ever attended. She had danced with earls and viscounts in the most beautiful ballrooms in London, eaten everything from gilded peacock to trout stuffed with shrimp and riding on an artful sea of aspic with a Triton carved of ice brandishing his spear over all. And she’d done these things in gowns so splendid that men blinked when she hove into view.
What’s the first line doing? It’s setting the viewpoint character—Dorothea—in a particular but unspecific place, at a party. (Always a good idea to give the reader a way to fix themselves in reality immediately.) But what else? Why did I use all four of her names? Be cause this is the first note in a riff on her social position (which you see explicated in the rest of the paragraph), and also because it’s an echo of her marriage vows (where people normally recite all their names). And I said only “a party,” because that’s enough for the moment—we’ll get more specific as we move into the scene.
The rest of this paragraph enlarges on Dottie’s social position and experience. To this end, I used a lot of very specific details—in a brief space—to give a visual picture of what her life in London had been like. The thing about using a lot of details, though, is that you a) want to do it gracefully, so the readers don’t feel that they’re having a bucket of chum flung in their faces, and b) want to keep the list kind of contained, not sprawling all over the place. So let’s have a quick look at the internals of that second sentence: She had danced with earls and viscounts in the most beautiful ballrooms in London, eaten everything from gilded peacock to trout stuffed with shrimp and riding on an artful sea of aspic with a Triton carved of ice brandishing his spear over all.
She had danced—anchoring our frame of reference in the past; with earls and viscounts—she’s either a member of the aristocracy or at least was accustomed to move in such social circles; in the most beautiful ballrooms in London—specifying the place, giving a vague picture of elegance (and note the alliteration: beautiful ballrooms; overt and internal alliteration is one of the things you use—carefully—to make a long sentence flow). Vide, eaten everything and then stuffed with shrimp and riding on an artful sea of aspic (say that last bit over to yourself; do you hear the rhythm of it? STUFFED with SHRIMP and RIDing on an ARTful SEA of ASpic. That rhythm carries on through a TRIton CARVED of ICE). The imagery of the sentence overall goes from a gilded peacock—easily envisioned but generic—to the shrimp-stuffed trout riding on a sea of aspic, and then we see the icy Triton brandishing his spear—that’s unique, and while we need a moment to build the image, it’s one worth having, as it impresses us with the style of party to which Lady Dorothea has been accustomed. This is a lot of work for one sentence to do, and it was a lot of work to construct it elegantly so it would do that—but worth it.
The final sentence then brings us back to Dorothea herself (thus closing the paragraph artfully, as we began with her), and we see her in gorgeous dresses, admired by all these earls and viscounts who are already in our mind’s eye.
But then…
Her new husband didn’t blink. He stared at her so intently through his steel-rimmed spectacles that she thought she could feel his gaze on her skin, from across the room and right through her dove-gray dress, and she thought she might burst with happiness, exploding in bits all over the taproom of the White Camel tavern. Not that anyone would notice if she did; there were so many people crammed into the room, drinking, talking, drinking, singing, and drinking, that a spare gallbladder or kidney underfoot would pass without notice.
Her new husband didn’t blink. Okay, now we know what kind of party this is; it’s a wedding reception of some kind. (Observ
e the rhyme/repetition of blink and drinking/drinking/drinking—that’s rhythmic, as well as funny, as well as being descriptive of the party.) And the fact that her husband doesn’t blink carries us from the last sentence of the preceding paragraph and tells us something about how he feels about his new wife. But what does he feel? Why is he not blinking? (That’s one of the little subliminal questions that one wants to keep raising throughout a scene, making the reader want to know the answer even without realizing that you’ve given them a question. Along those lines, note that we mentioned only a party in the first line of this scene and then told you what kind of party she’s used to—but we should be wondering idly just what kind of party this is, since there are sufficient grounds for thinking it probably isn’t the sort she’s used to.)
He stared at her so intently through his steel-rimmed spectacles that she thought she could feel his gaze on her skin, from across the room and right through her dove-gray dress, and she thought she might burst with happiness, exploding in bits all over the taproom of the White Camel tavern.
Okay, let’s look at that. He’s not blinking, because he’s staring at her intently—we may still be wondering what his intent is—but by the time we get to the end of this sentence, we know he’s staring intently because he’s enraptured by her; we know this because the effect of his stare is to make Dorothea think she might burst with happiness. So that’s the cause/effect of this sentence: he’s staring at her and it makes her happy. That’s the main thing we want to get across. But we can do more with that. We’d like to know a little about what these people look like (even though we’ve met them before in this book, we want to know what they look like now, at this party), and naturally we are not crass enough to just start off with a police Identi-Kit description of them. No-no-no…we use carefully chosen single details: the steel-rimmed spectacles and the dove-gray dress (I ought really to have said gown there, for the alliteration—but I chose dress as sounding modest in contrast to the gorgeous gowns she’s used to wearing, because that’s what I want to get across here—the contrast between her former life and the one she’s chosen now). Likewise, Denny’s spectacles aren’t anything a London beau would be wearing, but they add to our mental image of the intensity of his gaze (and we’ve used his spectacles before as a useful prop for his character—since, like anyone who habitually wears glasses, he’s constantly wiping them, taking them off, putting them on, peering through them, etc. So we’re using them here also as repetition, to recap and strengthen our mental notion of Denny).
Okay, she thought she might burst with happiness is a perfectly reasonable description of her feelings, but it’s also a cliché. You can use clichés, but when you do, you want to subvert, deconstruct, or enhance them. In this instance, I subverted it in this sentence and in the next enhanced it and, in the process, got across the subtext of Denny’s being a doctor (and Dorothea having assisted him in his profession—thus her casual familiarity with gallbladders and kidneys). AND this last bit gives us our first sense of who Dottie really is and what her “voice” is like.
We also now pin down the place where the party’s taking place (part of the answer to the question raised by the word “party” in the beginning): the taproom of the White Camel tavern. This was a real tavern in eighteenth-century Philadelphia, but that’s just to give me a quiet feeling of gratification at the excellency of my research—I don’t really expect the reader to recognize it. Even if it had been a made-up name, though, it’s important to give the tavern a specific name. This is how details work in a story: you don’t want to overwhelm the reader by having tons of them; you want to pick specific, vivid ones that will give the reader mental landmarks to use in visualizing things.
Just possibly, she thought, one or two whole people might pass without notice, too—right out of this lovely party.
The first two paragraphs were essentially “backstory”—establishing who, what, where, when—and the need to know the answers to those things got the reader this far. But now we need to be getting on with the action. This one-sentence paragraph is our transition. (See the internal alliteration again? Possibly/people/pass/party. And there’s a rhythmic couplet in the middle: one or two whole people/might pass without notice, too. Rhythmic structure is one of the tools you use to hold up a long or complex sentence (punctuation is another—important—one). And now…on with the action!
She reached Denzell with some difficulty, there being a great many well-wishers between them, but as she approached him, he stretched out a hand and seized hers, and an instant later they were outside in the night air, laughing like loons and kissing each other in the shadows of the Anabaptist Meeting House that stood next door to the tavern.
What a character—or characters—want is what drives a story. Your protagonist needs to want something in the beginning of the story, and the story then is about what he or she will do to get it—and about whether he or she does get it, gets it but then wants something else, doesn’t get it but is better off without it, or changes his or her mind about what he or she wants. You can also use what a character wants in a much lesser context, though, to drive a scene. What Dorothea and Denny both want here is to get the heck out of the party and be alone with each other. They do it with considerable dispatch, but the doing of it raises yet another (small) question for the reader: what’s going to happen next?
The art of making people turn the page is the art of raising a cascade of such small questions; the desire to have those questions answered will draw the reader’s eye right down the page and on to the next one. So we answered the first question—what does Dorothea want—and Denny immediately asks another:
“Will thee come home now, Dorothea?” Denny said, pausing for a momentary breath. “Is thee…ready?”
She didn’t let go of him but moved closer, dislodging his glasses and enjoying the scent of his shaving soap and the starch in his linen—and the scent of him underneath.
Watch those “s”s. Watch also the sudden invocation of the sense of smell. Most of our details so far have been purely visual or audible. Using scent this way—and, again, being specific about scent; not just “he smelled good”—not only brings Denny into sharper focus, it gives us a sense of intimacy.
“Are we truly married now?” she whispered. “I am thy wife?”
“We are. Thee is,” he said, his voice slightly husky. “And I am thy husband.”
These people are Quakers: he’s a lifelong Quaker; she’s converted in order to marry him. So they use plain speech (“thee/thy”). Otherwise, note the basic rules of dialogue: keep it short/make it individual. Short sentences, short paragraphs; the things they say are specific to these particular people and their situation.
She thought he’d meant to speak solemnly, but such an uncontainable smile of joy spread across his face at the speaking that she laughed out loud.
“We didn’t say ‘one flesh’ in our vows,” she said, stepping back but keeping hold of his hand. “But does thee think that principle obtains? Generally speaking?”
He settled his glasses more firmly on his nose and looked at her with intense concentration and shining eyes. And, with one finger of his free hand, touched her breast.
Besides the simple physical actions—smiling, keeping hold of his hand, touching her breast—we’re using small visual cues to intensify the sense of connection between them: uncontainable smile of joy; intense concentration and shining eyes.
Note also that we’re firmly in Dorothea’s point of view through this passage; we see what she sees. None of this “she pushed her fingers through the honey-blond tangle of her curls” nonsense. Nobody runs their hands through their hair and thinks anything conscious about it, unless they suddenly encounter the sticky lollipop that their kid left on his parents’ pillow that morning. What we know about Dorothea’s appearance is indirect and given in a way that provides an excuse for the detail other than the obvious desire on the author’s part to describe the person: i.e., we know that gentlemen us
ed to blink when she hove into view (and the fact that she’d use an expression like hove into view tells us that she’s maybe not your usual young lady of quality), and then when her husband doesn’t blink, she imagines his gaze passing through her dove-gray dress. We don’t feel that dove-gray as an authorial intrusion, because we’re seeing Dorothea thinking of the contrasts between parties of the past and this one, so it’s natural for her to observe in passing the contrast of her modest dress (specific, because it’s vivid to her) with the earlier (nonspecific) beautiful ball gowns (which are vaguely referred to, while the food is described in great detail—telling us something else about Dottie’s personality and proclivities). But we come away from this passage (I hope) with the impression that Dottie is young, pretty, and has a noticeable sense of humor.
“I’m counting on it, Dorothea.”
And Denny has a sense of humor to match, though his is quieter.
Okay, that’s as far as I’m going with the annotation here, not to bore anyone. But I will provide the rest of Dorothea and Denzell’s initial encounter, since it seems rather mean to stop there…. Having seen how it’s done, you might want to try to pick out the various techniques on display yourself.
She’d been in his rooms before. But first as a guest, and then as an assistant, coming up to pack a basket with bandages and ointments before accompanying him to some professional call. It was quite different now.
He’d opened all the windows earlier and left them so, careless of flying insects and the butcher’s shop down the street. The second floor of the building would have been suffocating after the day’s heat—but with the gentle night breeze coming through, the air was like warm milk, soft and liquid on the skin, and the meaty smells of the butcher’s shop were now overborne by the night perfume of the gardens at Bingham House, two streets over.
The Companion to the Fiery Cross, a Breath of Snow and Ashes, an Echo in the Bone, and Written in My Own Heart's Blood Page 82