I am thinking a lot about writing lately, the mechanics involved in narrative storytelling. My head was really firmly in academic space for so long that I still feel awkward and displaced now that I'm shifting out of it, and too formal all the time, and engaged in prolepsis that often verges on the frantic. One of my old profs once told me I constantly apologized for what I had to say before I ever opened my mouth, and that I could get away with it
sometimes in person, because I had enough charisma to make it charming, but textually it was annoying and passive-aggressive. So now I try to be less passive and more aggressive, and it sometimes works and more often does not. I am a very awkward creature, like a beached whale, and my awkwardness is making me think of writing's awkwardness, and how writing
works, its processes and functions.
I've said before, when I beta for others, that the most important thing by my reckoning in storytelling is pacing. Or timing, or getting the rhythm right. It's not actually entirely true; there's too much involved in storytelling to privilege one aspect or technique over others. A very strong and engaging voice will make a reader forgive almost any faux pas on the part of the writer, as will clever hooks or humorous set ups.
But I focus a lot on pacing because it's one of those invisible things that no one really notices when it is working as it should be, and that when it is not, screws with everything and makes the whole story fall apart. Grammar is a bit the same in that when you do it well, it should be invisible; and when you mess it up, it is glaring.
The thing about pacing is that so much of it is instinctual. There aren't really exercises to practice to fine-tune pacing ability; you just have to write, and write, and write some more. And you have to read. A lot. Reading is the most helpful thing a writer can do, honestly, because of how it trains your brain to recognize style, because of how it trains your eye to move across a sentence, because of how it fine-tunes your "this is good/this is awful" judgment. I read (heh) somewhere that not all readers are writers, but all writers are readers. Reading teaches you pacing, teaches you how a story should move, and you learn pacing by attempting it. By telling a joke. Because a joke can be horrible, but, if it's timed perfectly, hilarious; or hilarious, but, timed incorrectly, fall flat.
I think that is my problem with both of the things I am writing right now. One of them, its pacing is all over the place, which is annoying me so much. The other one has a definite momentum going on but I worry about how fast to pick up that momentum, and how to really deal with the huge conflict scene that is coming up. I honestly think about pacing probably more than I think about any other aspect of my writing, including characterization and dialogue.
I started reading Ursula K. Le Guin's book on writing this morning. It is basically for workshopping, and is a little dated (it was written in 1996 or thereabouts). I don't usually read books about writing because I don't find them very helpful, but I really love Le Guin's fiction - I admire it, because it is near flawless, and I wish I could steal it - so I trust in her advice, and it's pretty good advice. So far there isn't much that I haven't already figured out for myself, but there are some things she points out that are interesting and helpful, and the examples she pulls from extant texts and the exercises she lists to expand writing skill are useful, so there's that. Probably the thing that is most relevant to me so far is her stance on tenses.
I have one thing I'm writing that is past tense third person limited, and another thing that is present tense third person omniscient. The first one was more planned than the second, and I'm actually much happier with it; the second one is kind of a hot mess, and has some sections that honestly make me despair but some that I really truly love (it's like a bipolar story or something, idk). I think a lot of the discrepancy between my satisfaction levels with these stories comes from the tense form. Past tense third person limited feels more rigid, like I'm working around and with a frame (and actually it is also a more structured story in that it comes with numbers and mini headers where relevant, etc); present tense third person omniscient feels more flexible, and like I can take risks. But that's illusory, or so Le Guin says. She doesn't really like present tense because she feels it fakes a sense of immediacy - that when writers write in present tense, they are trying to create that sense of now that is ultimately a lie. I think the way she put is that if present tense were truly being used to convey immediacy, there would be no 'then's; like, "Sara puts on her shoes and then goes out for a jog" should actually be "Sara puts on her shoes, now she goes out, now she jogs" etc. There's a lot more fakery in-built with present tense stylings than there is with past tense; past tense is more honest, in a way, because it isn't trying to trick its readers.
And, when I think about it, present tense is more visible. The verbs are more noticeable, the eye is more drawn to how a sentence is constructed than what a sentence says. Past tense is so unassuming. It just fades into the background. Present tense is like its bratty little sibling, demanding attention at every turn. People are more likely to comment on stylistics when present tense is used than when past tense is used, because they notice the mechanics of the writing - when those mechanics should be pretty much invisible.
Of course this is Le Guin's opinion on narrative storytelling, which is a different genre from short stories or poetry, and is subjective besides. But it is interesting from a functional standpoint, and it's helping me pick apart what is bothering me so much about the one thing I am writing (that is getting so huge, wtf, it is also a whale, we are flopping side by side on the beach together, why is it so big).
