# So what doesn't go?



## Olly Buckle (Jan 22, 2019)

I always say 'No rules', but there are things I avoid generally, and reasons for using them if I do. These are things that I certainly do, but I try to catch when editing.

Tautology, that is saying the same thing in different words, having an idea and putting it different ways. If I do it a little bit, like that, it can be sort of amusing, and it can emphasise the main point, but if I went on it would *not* work, and in the majority of cases it doesn't, even when it isn't that obvious.

Stating the bleeding obvious. "It slashed him across the arm and he slapped his hand on the gash and screamed with the pain". Okay, not an amazing example, but what were those last three words about? Were my readers really going to assume he screamed for some other reason? Give the readers some credit, they have got minds.

Loquacity, You know, when words go on and on pouring out, not necessarily repeating the same stuff, but not actually saying much that is new, rather the writer is simply expressing themselves at some length over something which could probably be expressed in a much more concise way, and is conveying the same basic information in a fashion that is more easily absorbed by the readers than a diatribe. 
Of course sometimes word can add a glow, a colour, to a piece of writing, making more of it, but more often it is simply loquacity.

Editing out these three reduces the length of my writing considerably, about a third gone instantly quite often, and I reckon it makes it more readable, what do you look for?


I am sure there are more


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## Guard Dog (Jan 22, 2019)

"The blade slashed him across the arm. He slapped his hand on the gash, and screamed in pain and rage, his face a mask of absolute hatred."

There's plenty of ways to skin a cat, no? Some shorter, some longer.


G.D.


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## Olly Buckle (Jan 22, 2019)

As I said 'it is not an amazing example', however, adding to it to alter the meaning and bring in rage and hatred to make him scream does not detract from the fact that in the original it is pretty predictable that it is pain that made him scream, and it is the predictable I am on about.


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## Guard Dog (Jan 22, 2019)

Olly Buckle said:


> As I said 'it is not an amazing example', however, adding to it to alter the meaning and bring in rage and hatred to make him scream does not detract from the fact that in the original it is pretty predictable that it is pain that made him scream, and it is the predictable I am on about.



Yes, it's not an amazing example of what you had in mind, but it is a pretty good example of something else:

Sometimes what _seems_ obvious _isn't_.

In your original, ""It slashed him across the arm and he slapped his hand on the gash and screamed with the pain", you say *of course* he screamed due to the pain.

But what if that sentence is telling you something about either the thing that slashed him - say that it was unusually painful - or that the person being slashed is just pussy? Has a low tolerance to pain?

( I've been slashed across the midsection with a skill saw, and barely felt a thing. Had more than one knife wound that I didn't notice until I saw the blood dripping, etc. )

I know the kinds of sentences or arrangements of words you're talking about... the ones with the extraneous words that only repeat what's already been said, or say/add nothing at all.

( And strangely enough, I can't think of any good ones at the moment either, despite having edited out a few of 'em my last go-through of my own work. )

For me, to keep the word count down, I concentrate on weeding out things like "she looked on in abject horror" and instead make do with "she looked on in horror".

Granted, it's not much shorter, but it is one unnecessary word off the stack. And enough of those instances do add up.

( Strangely enough, one of the books I'm currently reading suggests I do certain things that will drive my word count up even more... which makes me wanna bang my head on the table.  )

Here... I found an example of the sort of things I've been going through and getting rid of:

This...

 “And I want to thank you for actually managing to get this hard-head to fully understand what my sister and I have been trying to tell him about how important he is all along,” She finished, lightly swatting J.D. on the arm. 

Becomes this...

“And I want to thank you for actually managing to get this hard-head to fully understand what my sister and I have been trying to tell him about how important he is,” She finished, swatting J.D.'s arm. 

It's only 4 words, but really, they're not doing anything... They don't pass on any information about either the character or situation. 

Probably also not the best example, but fortunately, I've gotten rid of enough of the others that it's what I could find. ( Yay me. Progress. :lol: )



G.D.


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## luckyscars (Jan 22, 2019)

Words that are simply repetitions (singularly or together) should be whittled out without question. That seems fundamental to the purpose of editing. 

Color? I don't really believe in color for the sake of color. I think defending over-the-top description as 'adding color' is generally an excuse for people wanting to make excuses for [their] bad writing. I allow there are occasions when more flamboyant prose style is warranted. The key qualifier there "is warranted". 

So what makes it warranted? I think a good approach is to always assume that every additional word has the propensity to weaken the others, that everything that does not definitely add impact will likely detract. 

So to to answer your question *Were my readers really going to assume he screamed for some other reason? *The answer is going to be "...maybe?" I mean, it is possible to scream for other reasons than pain, right? Of course it is. People scream in shock or fright or laughter. I appreciate context will probably suffice for making it clear but sometimes it isn't. It may also be that the use of this literary steroid, this 'hammer it home' might be needed for sentence rhythm or just to really shove it in their faces. It depends.


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## Guard Dog (Jan 22, 2019)

luckyscars said:


> So to to answer your question *Were my readers really going to assume he screamed for some other reason? *The answer is going to be "...maybe?" I mean, it is possible to scream for other reasons than pain, right? Of course it is. People scream in shock or fright or laughter. I appreciate context will probably suffice for making it clear but sometimes it isn't. It may also be that the use of this literary steroid, this 'hammer it home' might be needed for sentence rhythm or just to really shove it in their faces. It depends.



Not to keep beating a dead horse, but to be honest, unless something is unusually painful - like having one's fingers slowly crushed - a person is far more likely to scream for emotional/psychological reasons concerning some trauma, than due to physical pain.
( Seeing someone slashed rather than being slashed themselves. )

The blonde bimbo in the horror movie always screams her head off at seeing someone get killed, and then is usually silenced when the killer turns around and rams the knife into HER middle, even though she lives long enough and still has the ability to continue for a while longer.

...which is why I brought up the point in the first place.



G.D.


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## bdcharles (Jan 23, 2019)

Anything that messes with the flow gets cut. If I have a fast-paced scene and there's a meandering aside in there, it goes. If it's a slower, pastoral scene, for example, and there's some bit in there that seems all tense at the wrong moment, that goes too.


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## Olly Buckle (Jan 23, 2019)

> For me, to keep the word count down, I concentrate on weeding out things like "she looked on in abject horror" and instead make do with "she looked on in horror".


I call this 'Qualifying words'. words which qualify the main subject or proposition are usually added to try and make a stronger statement, and end up making it a weaker one. They are usually , but not always, adjectives, but I don't mean those that are part of a general description. A good example 'for me' at the beginning of your comment. Straight in with 'To keep the word count down I concentrate...' is not only a stronger beginning, it gets rid of the hesitant commas around 'to keep the word count down, stronger two ways if you see what I mean?
'...he is all along,” She finished, lightly swatting J.D. on the arm.' By the bye , and nothing to do with the thread, That 'She' follows a comma and does not need a capital.


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## Olly Buckle (Jan 23, 2019)

luckyscars said:


> Words that are simply repetitions (singularly or together) should be whittled out without question. That seems fundamental to the purpose of editing.
> 
> Color? I don't really believe in color for the sake of color. I think defending over-the-top description as 'adding color' is generally an excuse for people wanting to make excuses for [their] bad writing. I allow there are occasions when more flamboyant prose style is warranted. The key qualifier there "is warranted".
> 
> ...


It really was not a good example, I will keep an eye out for a better one, and yes, sometimes it does pay to hammer a point home, but the rule with anything like that is use it sparingly, or it stops working.


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## Guard Dog (Jan 23, 2019)

Olly Buckle said:


> By the bye , and nothing to do with the thread, That 'She' follows a comma and does not need a capital.



I know... But I haven't done an edit for punctuation yet on that section. Or much of any of it, really.

( I'll be a week just cleaning up it's/its. )( The brain knows the difference. The hands? Not so much. )

And yes, I try to keep my editing sessions 'task-oriented' not general or global.


G.D.


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## luckyscars (Jan 23, 2019)

Since Dickens was mentioned, a good example of necessary-overwrite is in the famous quote from A Tale Of Two Cities:

*"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”*

A purist might say it should be written like this:

*"What I am about to do is uncharacteristically positive and result in better sleep."*

^ Which is obviously crap and absent of the poignancy and meaning that is partly delivered by these lines being delivered in the style Dickens chose.

Another example, same book, opening line:

*"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."*

Could be translated to the far more economical:

"The times then, as now, consisted of multiple contradictions regarding morality, intelligence, rationality, lighting, morale, prosperity and spiritual well-being."

I think the important thing here is that most of Dickens writing isn't like this at all. I consider him relatively simplistic compared to other writers of his era. Regardless, you can't write a story with this level of inflated language and its when people think you can they tend to end up with 200,000 words plus of mumbo jumbo.


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## Guard Dog (Jan 23, 2019)

luckyscars said:


> ...you can't write a story with this level of inflated language and its when people think you can they tend to end up with 200,000 words plus of mumbo jumbo.



Yeah, a word count like that in one book/novel would be a mess.

...and it's one of the reasons I wonder, every time I look at my own word count, how many volumes it's gonna take to tell the entire story.

Especially when I'm certain that at the rate I'm going, and the place I'm at in the story, that it's likely to be between half and three quarters of a million words by the time I get to "The End".



G.D.


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## Kyle R (Jan 24, 2019)

Olly Buckle said:


> Loquacity, You know, when words go on and on pouring out, not necessarily repeating the same stuff, but not actually saying much that is new, rather the writer is simply expressing themselves at some length over something which could probably be expressed in a much more concise way, and is conveying the same basic information in a fashion that is more easily absorbed by the readers than a diatribe.
> 
> Of course sometimes word can add a glow, a colour, to a piece of writing, making more of it, but more often it is simply loquacity.



This is a tricky one, especially in fiction. I mean, the readers aren't just reading your words to be informed, but also to be _moved_, entertained, and taken to new emotional places.

Sometimes loquacity can nudge an otherwise sterile passage toward something more immersive and meaningful—especially if, by being loquacious, the author manages to find a new angle to drive in that emotional knife.

A kiss can be just a kiss—but every now and then you come across someone who writes it in such a unique way that it leaves the reader awed and breathless. And, usually (in my reading experiences, anyway) that kind of writing is accomplished through _more_ words, rather than less, with the author lingering on something that other authors would've merely brushed over and moved past.

Sometimes, loquacity is actually the author mining for a deeper truth. :encouragement:


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## Olly Buckle (Jan 25, 2019)

Kyle R said:


> This is a tricky one, especially in fiction. I mean, the readers aren't just reading your words to be informed, but also to be _moved_, entertained, and taken to new emotional places.
> 
> Sometimes loquacity can nudge an otherwise sterile passage toward something more immersive and meaningful—especially if, by being loquacious, the author manages to find a new angle to drive in that emotional knife.
> 
> ...



Okay, there is loquacity and loquacity, if it is 'entertaining your readers', 'mining for a deeper truth', or 'finding a new angle to drive in an emotional knife' it is not the same thing I am describing as ' but not actually saying much that is new, rather the writer is simply expressing themselves at some length over something '. The problem is distinguishing between the two. The reader can usually do it fairly instantly; writers on the other hand have an unfortunate tendency to regard everything they write as 'gold', and an extraordinary ability to justify almost anything.


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## luckyscars (Jan 25, 2019)

Olly Buckle said:


> The reader can usually do it fairly instantly; writers on the other hand have an unfortunate tendency to regard everything they write as 'gold', and an extraordinary ability to justify almost anything.



So this is essentially about how to identify and edit out redundancies rather than classifying whether or not something is redundant?

Pretty interesting and difficult to pin down. Some thoughts:

- Focus on longer sentences. Longer sentences are by definition more prone to superfluous words. That's not to say longer sentences aren't valid - they are absolutely essential for rhythm, but that a long sentence should be looked at as an opportunity to add _meaning. _If words do not add meaning, whether through the direct transmission of an idea or through coloring an idea to create its emotive content (i.e what Kyle is talking about) then they should be reviewed for purpose: A fifteen word sentence should be capable of providing, let's say, at least eight or ten unique pieces of information, allowing for bind-words like 'the', 'you', etc. If it doesn't come close to that, chances are it is just waffle.

- Focus on exposition sections and look for 'info dumps': Sometimes these are important or vital. Mostly they are not. Everything in moderation but if its 1000 words describing a room, chances are there's a lot of it that will be tautologous and/or unnecessary. 

- Focus on dialogue: This one is trickier because natural dialogue can actually contain effective tautologies, however its a measurement thing. Often I see dialogue that consists of multiple broken up lines that could easily be condensed:

_"I saw him Roderick," said Sue, "he was outside with Sean."
"You saw him? I can't believe it." Roderick shook his head.
"Yes I saw him. Isn't that crazy? Just sitting out there."
"And he was with Sean? That little pipsqueak."
"Mom's going to be so mad. He's not allowed to see Sean."
"What were they doing?"
"I don't know. They were outside, that's all I know. Isn't that crazy?"
"He's going to get into such trouble. What should we do?"
"I got an idea..."
"What?"
"Let's go get him."
"Get him?"
"Yeah."
"You mean, now?"
"Yeah, now."
"But..."
"Come on. There'll be hell to pay otherwise."
"Guess you're right."_

^ This kind of thing screams of a writer in love with 'the moment', enjoying the 'mind movie' a little too much, and thinking that by essentially regurgitating the same information they are writing a suspenseful interchange, when in reality it is overkill. We know we could achieve much the same thing with:

_"I saw him Roderick," said Sue, "he was outside with Sean."
"You're kidding me? That little pipsqueak!"
"Yeah." Sue nodded. "You know he's not allowed to see Sean."
"He's going to get into such trouble. Let's go get him."

^ _Same basic information, less words.

- Focus on knowing the point and getting there: Often times excessive words come in when writers are wanting to paint a scene as opposed to tell a story. Painting a scene is fine but it should be directed toward the story as an active partner, not a passive 'lets make it seem real'. It should be possible to make a place, face, costume, etc present while constantly tying it to the characters onstage and the greater point being made. So if one wants to bring 1940's New York to life in a noir thriller it should be reasonable to do this from a character's perspective while simultaneously continuing to tell the story. Perhaps focusing on the journey of a car through the street as opposed to the street in which a car is driving.


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## bdcharles (Jan 25, 2019)

Kyle R;2202342
Sometimes said:


> Very well said! I'd add that loquacity can also be part of the character's voice.


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## Myk3y (Jan 25, 2019)

luckyscars said:


> *Words that are simply repetitions (singularly or together) should be whittled out without question.* That seems fundamental to the purpose of editing.
> 
> Color? I don't really believe in color for the sake of color. I think defending over-the-top description as 'adding color' is generally an excuse for people wanting to make excuses for [their] bad writing. I allow there are occasions when more flamboyant prose style is warranted. The key qualifier there "is warranted".
> 
> ...



As Mike read luckyscars prose, all he could think of was 'cut, cut, cut' and the colour 'red, red, red' 

Sometimes repetition is a useful device.


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## Myk3y (Jan 25, 2019)

luckyscars said:


> - Focus on dialogue: This one is trickier because natural dialogue can actually contain effective tautologies, however its a measurement thing. Often I see dialogue that consists of multiple broken up lines that could easily be condensed:
> 
> _"I saw him Roderick," said Sue, "he was outside with Sean."
> "You saw him? I can't believe it." Roderick shook his head.
> ...




Whenever I feel in the least loquacious, or feel dialogue getting out of hand, I remember No Country for Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy:

(formatting as per the novel, including line placement)



> He handed her the cigarettes and went on back to the bedroom.
> Where’d you get that pistol? she called. At the gettin place.
> Did you buy that thing?
> No. I found it.
> ...



And when I think I might have been too 'Kiwi' in my slang, I remember Irvine Walsh and his phenomenal Glasgae:

(edited to preserve the sensibilities of those who don't encounter 'c***' every day)



> Ah thought he wis being harsh, flippant and show–oafy, until ah got sae far in. Now ah ken precisely what the c*** meant. Johnny wis a junky as well as a dealer. Ye hud tae go a wee bit further up the ladder before ye found a dealer whae didnae use. We called Johnny 'Mother Superior' because ay the length ay time he'd hud his habit.
> Ah soon started tae feel f***ing shan n aw. Bad cramps wir beginning tae hit us as we mounted the stairs tae johnny's gaff. Ah wis dripping like a saturated sponge, every step bringing another gush fae ma pores. Sick Boy wis probably even worse, but the c*** was beginning no tae exist fir us. Ah wis only aware ay him slouching tae a halt oan the banister in front ay us,



I guess it helps that the first British language I heard in the wild was Gorbels Glaswegian, as my first job was driving a truck from Bath to Glasgow and back.


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## Terry D (Jan 25, 2019)

Okay! This from your Friday pedant:

Loquacious, by definition, refers to the spoken language. When discussing overly wordy writing, the term is verbose.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled discussion.

Loquacious:  [h=3]_adjective_[/h]talking or tending to talk much or freely; talkative; chattering; babbling; garrulous:_a loquacious dinner guest._
characterized by excessive talk; wordy:

_easily __the __most __loquacious __play __of __the __season.

_Verbose:
 [h=3]_adjective_[/h]characterized by the use of many or too many words; wordy:_a verbose report._


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## Periander (Jan 25, 2019)

Dialogue is one of the most challenging aspects of writing, at least for me.  I want my characters to speak as though they were standing out of the page, but at the same time, not to waste too much breath.  Word counts are such a bother!  Sometimes it seems that there's a fine line between saying too much or saying too little.

One of the things I love most about Hemingway is that he doesn't feel the need to use fancy dialogue tags.  "He said" or "she said" is sufficient, because I'm rarely in doubt about how the characters are delivering their lines.  His dialogue is that good.


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## Ralph Rotten (Jan 25, 2019)

Olly Buckle said:


> I always say 'No rules', but there are things I avoid generally, and reasons for using them if I do. These are things that I certainly do, but I try to catch when editing.
> 
> Tautology, that is saying the same thing in different words, having an idea and putting it different ways. If I do it a little bit, like that, it can be sort of amusing, and it can emphasise the main point, but if I went on it would *not* work, and in the majority of cases it doesn't, even when it isn't that obvious.
> 
> ...


"It slashed him across the arm and he slapped his hand on the gash and screamed with the pain".



For something like this I always fall back on brush strokes: those little details that 'speak to the nature of the character or the scene.'

The original sentence:
"It slashed him across the arm and he slapped his hand on the gash and screamed with the pain".

But* 'screamed in pain*' does not speak to the nature of the character or the scene. It is hollow action.
And *'slapped his hand on the gash'* does nothing to illustrate the character.

So I's go with something like:
I slashed him right across that ugly-ass dragon tattoo on his left shoulder. Right away he screamed like a girl-scout, slapping his skinny little hand over the wound like it'd slow the flow of blood.  

Or
I slashed him across the arm, and right away he screamed so high that bats could hear him.  The whole time he's got one of his fat little hands over the wound like he's trying to stop the bleeding.

The first example spoke not only to the nature of the other guy, but to the narrator as well.
The 2nd example kept the illustration to the character.


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## Olly Buckle (Jan 25, 2019)

The point was not expanding the bad example I made up on the spur of the moment, but that stating obvious things, such as that a physical injury hurts, is taking your readers for idiots and should be edited out. Maybe I should have titled the thread 'What goes', meaning what gets deleted, rather than 'What doesn't go', but I was thinking 'doesn't go' in terms of 'does not work, does not help the story go'. That example sure did not work.


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## Ralph Rotten (Jan 25, 2019)

Yes, I understand.
My response was how I keep from doing those things.


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## Olly Buckle (Jan 28, 2019)

I am reading a detective story, and keep getting passages like 'The flame had gone out in his eyes, but she could still see an ember there, perhaps it was just a heap of embers which would simply collapse if she poked them rather than burst back into flame.' All very well, occasionally, but he seems to manage it every page, and always extends them a bit too far. 
Waiting for someone to come out of the house with a drink, 
'Annie settled herself in one of the deck chairs, stretched out her legs and luxuriated. She could feel the heat on her bare shins, warm and sensuous as a lovers caress. The sensation took her back to St.Ives where she had grown up and spent many a summers day with her father, whose job it had been to rent out the deck chairs to holidaymakers.' 
There are about another seven or eight lines of this sort of stuff, which has nothing to do with the story, before she comes out with the drinks and they start talking. I can guarantee that her father and St. Ives never get more than a passing mention, if that, ever again. It is just rambling on and filling space. Quite pleasant rambling at first, but after a bit I start thinking 'Come on, get on with it, I don't need a description of her budgie and all the different flowers in her garden on top of every item of her clothing and what she is doing with her spare time, this is only talking to a minor witness.'


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## Jack of all trades (Jan 28, 2019)

Olly Buckle said:


> The point was not expanding the bad example I made up on the spur of the moment, but that stating obvious things, such as that a physical injury hurts, is taking your readers for idiots and should be edited out. Maybe I should have titled the thread 'What goes', meaning what gets deleted, rather than 'What doesn't go', but I was thinking 'doesn't go' in terms of 'does not work, does not help the story go'. That example sure did not work.



One thing I have learned here is that sometimes things that seem blatantly obvious are not at all obvious to some. The screaming in pain might actually be necessary to prevent a reader from thinking it was just screaming in anger or frustration. I'm not saying I would have been confused if the "in pain" had been dropped, but I can see how a few might. Maybe they skim rather than read, I don't know. It is a puzzle. 

In response to your post about lengthy and irrelevant passages, I agree completely. Sometimes it seems writers are just adding to the word count and not progressing the story.


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## Ralph Rotten (Jan 28, 2019)

Olly Buckle said:


> I am reading a detective story, and keep getting passages like 'The flame had gone out in his eyes, but she could still see an ember there, perhaps it was just a heap of embers which would simply collapse if she poked them rather than burst back into flame.' All very well, occasionally, but he seems to manage it every page, and always extends them a bit too far.
> Waiting for someone to come out of the house with a drink,
> 'Annie settled herself in one of the deck chairs, stretched out her legs and luxuriated. She could feel the heat on her bare shins, warm and sensuous as a lovers caress. The sensation took her back to St.Ives where she had grown up and spent many a summers day with her father, whose job it had been to rent out the deck chairs to holidaymakers.'
> There are about another seven or eight lines of this sort of stuff, which has nothing to do with the story, before she comes out with the drinks and they start talking. I can guarantee that her father and St. Ives never get more than a passing mention, if that, ever again. It is just rambling on and filling space. Quite pleasant rambling at first, but after a bit I start thinking 'Come on, get on with it, I don't need a description of her budgie and all the different flowers in her garden on top of every item of her clothing and what she is doing with her spare time, this is only talking to a minor witness.'




I wonder how old the writer of that book is? The style you describe hearkens back to the 70s.
Out of curiosity, was it an eBook, and what price range was it in?


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## Kevin (Jan 28, 2019)

He screamed so high the bats could hear.  - Sorry. Go on...


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## midnightpoet (Jan 28, 2019)

it also depends on the writer and how he handles things that don't always go - using the weather is often criticized, but for example James Lee Burke and his detective stories set in Louisiana. He often starts with a storm blowing in from the gulf; to me he is setting up foreshadowing but also creating a mood as well as making the location part of the story.  However, I do agree that you should stick with the story and if it doesn't affect the plot deep-six it.  Also, established authors often get away with stuff beginners can't.


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## Olly Buckle (Jan 28, 2019)

Ralph Rotten said:


> I wonder how old the writer of that book is? The style you describe hearkens back to the 70s.
> Out of curiosity, was it an eBook, and what price range was it in?



Peter Robinson 'In a dry season'. Like most of my books I found it in a charity shop, first published as hardback 2000, as paperback 2004. This edition 2014, cost UK £7.99. There is a list in the front of fifteen books by him about the same detective, but I can't tell if they predate this one. It's not terrific, but it's not bad either. Since I started writing and learning about it I have got a lot pickier in a different sort of way, though I probably end up liking the same sort of things.


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## luckyscars (Jan 29, 2019)

Olly Buckle said:


> I am reading a detective story, and keep getting passages like 'The flame had gone out in his eyes, but she could still see an ember there, perhaps it was just a heap of embers which would simply collapse if she poked them rather than burst back into flame.' All very well, occasionally, but he seems to manage it every page, and always extends them a bit too far.
> Waiting for someone to come out of the house with a drink,
> 'Annie settled herself in one of the deck chairs, stretched out her legs and luxuriated. She could feel the heat on her bare shins, warm and sensuous as a lovers caress. The sensation took her back to St.Ives where she had grown up and spent many a summers day with her father, whose job it had been to rent out the deck chairs to holidaymakers.'
> There are about another seven or eight lines of this sort of stuff, which has nothing to do with the story, before she comes out with the drinks and they start talking. I can guarantee that her father and St. Ives never get more than a passing mention, if that, ever again. It is just rambling on and filling space. Quite pleasant rambling at first, but after a bit I start thinking 'Come on, get on with it, I don't need a description of her budgie and all the different flowers in her garden on top of every item of her clothing and what she is doing with her spare time, this is only talking to a minor witness.'



I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment (frustration?) of this kind of writing. Pointless flashbacks are probably the most annoying, but over-engineered descriptions are a big one too.

I think the problem is there are so many opposing forces in play here. On the one hand we all agree (right?) that there is a place for it sometimes. Scene-setting is important - the creation of the visual, the mind-movie or whatever. Character development is important too. I do like to know about character's pasts - I just don't want to feel like I'm being fed information for the sake of it. The inability of the writer to understand the difference is how you end up with these 400,000 word magnum opuses that still, somehow, manage to have very little story to them.

Jack Of All Trades makes a valid point, that just because it might be obvious/boring to you does not mean it would be to everybody. I can respect that, though I would definitely question that logic if it was applied to every instance of rambling nowhere. A lot of time this stuff is really obvious...and even if it isn't the question has to be what purpose does it actually serve to tell us (the reader)? Does the writer not trust us to imagine the color of flowers or what an English seaside town looks like?

I think a lot of the problem is caused by contemporary writers trying to emulate older styles of writing, either consciously or not. See this all the time in fantasy or gothic, when the writer is clearly trying to capture a classical feel with paragraphs on paragraphs of background and sinewy description and fifteen words to say something that could just as clearly be said in five. The problem is there were good reasons why writers in the old days could get away with that kind of writing and those reasons are mostly no longer applicable. Fewer people have all winter to labor over a single book by an oil light It's a faster paced world and there are plenty of other options available - even if a reader has the time they may no longer have the patience and no should they.


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## Olly Buckle (Feb 6, 2019)

"I did the research, and now I am going to use it , by golly"

You know the sort of thing, a character is travelling from Devon to Norwich, say, during the war. He has researched travel in wartime and what London was like during the blackout, and having spent time on it he is going to get it all in there, the routes, stopping for freight traffic, the London stations, what London looked like during the blitz, the underground with stations used as air raid shelters, everything, relevant or not, he read it all and found it fascinating, so now, instead of a quick summary of the interesting bits you are getting an info dump of the whole lot.


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## Terry D (Feb 7, 2019)

Olly Buckle said:


> "I did the research, and now I am going to use it , by golly"
> 
> You know the sort of thing, a character is travelling from Devon to Norwich, say, during the war. He has researched travel in wartime and what London was like during the blackout, and having spent time on it he is going to get it all in there, the routes, stopping for freight traffic, the London stations, what London looked like during the blitz, the underground with stations used as air raid shelters, everything, relevant or not, he read it all and found it fascinating, so now, instead of a quick summary of the interesting bits you are getting an info dump of the whole lot.



One of my favorite writers, Dan Simmons, does this, but he usually does it very well. Most of his newer works are historical fiction and it's not uncommon for him to research a book for a couple years before starting to write. He gives his readers a hefty dose of that research during the story. For instance, in his book _The Terror_, about the lost John Franklin expedition (the Erebus and the Terror were the two ships lost) to find the North-West Passage, he goes so far as to detail a ship's manifest of supplies. While such details make his books very long, he usually does a great job of keeping the story vital as well. I say "usually" because he has, in my opinion, gone a bit too far sometimes. In his book, _Black Hills_, the story seemed to get smothered by the minutia. I did learn much about George A. Custer, the culture of the Lakota tribes, the construction of Mount Rushmore, the Chicago Exhibition of 1893, and the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, but, again in my opinion only, the actual story line suffered. _Black Hills_ is the only one of Simmons historical novels to disappoint me however.


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