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Attributors

November 6, 2014

Attributors.

Firstly, let’s define what they are.

They’re the bit of narrative that tells you how dialogue is being said.

For example:

said

asked

said

I saw a blog recently, where the blogger suggested you didn’t have to be boring when it came to using attributors, and then she listed about forty alternatives you could use – things like:

Etc.

There is a school of thought that if your dialogue is written well enough, ‘said’ and ‘asked’ are the only two attributors you’ll ever need.

Personally, this is a school of thought I subscribe to. If you have a line like this …

’Stop being such a prude!’ exclaimed Gloria.

… do we really need to be told that Gloria ‘exclaimed’ when the exclamation mark is telling us she exclaimed? That’s the exclamation mark’s job, after all – to signify an exclamation’s been made.

As an editor, though, I’m not as stringent on authors who decide to be versatile with their attributors. I can concede that things like ‘shouted’ and ‘shrieked’ and ‘screeched’ might have their use to try to offer context, so being a bit lateral with attributors is fine … as long as they’re not extravagant.

Ew. That’s all I can say. Ew.

Actually, I can (and will) say more. Do we really need to know Bob’s counter? Isn’t his answer counter enough? Similarly, isn’t Gloria’s dialogue proposition enough that we don’t need to be told she’s propositioning? (I guess you could say the same for ‘asked’, but that’s so simple, it escapes any especial attention.) Isn’t Bob’s answer enough to tell us he’s putting off the proposition? Do we really need to be told he ‘vacillated’?

Usually, you’ll see the more colourful attributors in children’s and young(er) adult fiction, because the language tends to be vivacious. But when you’re writing for a maturer reader, are fancy attributors really necessary? Isn’t there times when they actually become redundant?

Bob reiterated. Or some might write repeated. Why do we need to be told that dialogue was repeated when the existence of the repeated dialogue is all the proof you need it’s repeated? It’s tautological. And Bob stammered? Lots of writers use something like this, or stuttered, when it would be better just to show us in the dialogue itself, e.g. ‘T –t–tom–m–morrow.’ The hissed and mocked are just colorful descriptors telling us a tone we should imply anyway.

Other people like to use adverbs.

When using adverbs, you need to question their necessity. Whilst I guess Gloria could shriek all manner of ways – angrily or hysterically or happily – you need to ask whether the dialogue isn’t communicating the correct emotional state anyway. In this case, we know Gloria isn’t shrieking happily. She could be hysterical, but we’d hope that the whole picture of the story would contextualise whether Gloria’s prone to such abrupt hysterics. That leaves us with her being angry, which the exclamation point and the shrieked imply is occurring. As for Bob answering defensively, isn’t this self-explanatory?

Others throw in an adverb that mightn’t be as closely related to the dialogue, and is trying to show the character’s state.

‘I think I’ve just about had it with you,’ Gloria said wearily.

Yet again, we need to question the necessity of the adverb. Is it telling us something new? Is it adding layers to Gloria’s character? Providing depth?

Some people use actions as attributors.

Uh uh. You cannot sigh dialogue. Try it. A sigh is an exhalation of breath. Words do not – can not – ride it out. And a snort is a sound people make. These are separate actions. However close their relationship to the dialogue, they should be treated as narrative.

Then there’s another school of thought that you can add an adjectival phrase that contextualises not only the dialogue, but the emotional state of the character saying it.

‘You didn’t have to say that.’ Bob’s voice was like sandpaper.

That’s something, isn’t it? And it conjures up an interesting image. Many would argue this adds a new dimension to the dialogue. Whilst I can see why it does (or accept that argument that it does), I’d ask again whether it’s necessary.

Does that mean dialogue needs to be free of any descriptive elements? No. Think about actions that add depth to your characters.

‘You are such a child.’ Gloria tensed, and her shoulders drew up.

This isn’t telling us about the dialogue now, but about Gloria herself. A person might tense when they’re angry or frustrated. You draw your shoulders up when you’re preparing to become aggressive.

As an aside, this little bit here shows us Gloria’s response, and from that we infer our own meaning. All the attributors and adverbs tell us. Which is more effective?

One final thing to consider with dialogue is how often you want to interrupt it – because that’s what attributors, adverbs, adjectival phrases, and actions are doing. You’re interrupting a conversation. In doing that, you need to insinuate yourself as seamlessly as possible to provide whatever additional information you believe is required. Too much becomes disruptive and hurts both the pacing and flow.

Ultimately, we always come back to the same point: how necessary are all these things? If you feel they’re pivotal, the actual query might be that your dialogue itself is not conveying what you want it to.

Dialogue
With Trimmings		Without Trimmings
‘Hello,’ Bob said. ‘Are you coming over today?’ Gloria asked. ‘I don’t know that I should,’ Bob said. ’Stop being such a prude!’ exclaimed Gloria. ‘I’m just a little tired,’ Bob countered. ‘Would you like to go out?’ propositioned Gloria. ‘Maybe tomorrow,’ Bob vacillated. ‘What?’ Gloria hissed. ‘Maybe tomorrow,’ Bob reiterated. ‘Tomorrow?’ Gloria mocked. ‘Tomorrow,’ Bob stammered. ‘It’s always tomorrow with you!’ Gloria shrieked angrily. ‘No, it’s not,’ Bob said defensively. ‘I think I’ve just about had it with you,’ Gloria said wearily. ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you,’ Bob sighed. ‘You’ve gone beyond a disappointment,’ Gloria snorted. ‘You snort like a pig.’ Bob chuckled. ‘You’d know, being one and all.’ Gloria smirked. ‘You didn’t have to say that.’ Bob’s voice was like sandpaper. ‘You are such a child.’ Gloria tensed, and her shoulders drew up.		‘Hello,’ Bob said. ‘Are you coming over today?’ Gloria asked. ‘I don’t know that I should,’ Bob said. ‘Stop being such a prude!’ ‘I’m just a little tired.’ ‘Would you like to go out?’ ‘Maybe tomorrow.’ ‘What?’ ‘Maybe tomorrow.’ ‘Tomorrow?’ ‘T –t–tom–m–morrow.’ ‘It’s always tomorrow with you!’ ‘No, it’s not.’ ‘I think I’ve just about had it with you.’ ‘I’m sorry to disappoint you.’ Bob sighed. ‘You’ve gone beyond a disappointment,’ Gloria snorted. ‘You snort like a pig.’ Bob chuckled. ‘You’d know, being one and all.’ ‘You didn’t have to say that.’ ‘You are such a child.’ Gloria tensed, and her shoulders drew up.

LZ.

A Partially Weeded Garden

November 4, 2014

In my last post I talked about ‘weeds’ in writing – extra adverbs, dangling plot threads and so on. They’re all derided almost universally as pests, and able to overrun your garden of words if left unchecked. That post was the practical advice – the list of things to watch out for to prevent your garden and lawn being turned into an unappealing landscape of thickets.

Does this seem like a common theme? That’s because it is. Adverbs in particular – it’s practically fashionable to hate them.

But what if we stepped outside of that viewpoint for a moment?

Weeds, talking literally for a moment, aren’t always straight-out villains with no purpose other than ruining a perfectly manicured lawn. Some common weeds can be used for medicinal and health purposes – just a few examples in this article if you’re interested – and sometimes they can have a beneficial impact on the soil. They still ruin the garden if left to grow unchecked, but single-mindedly running them over with a mower may be ignoring their possible virtues. You can even make wine from dandelions – God knows how it would taste, but it’s a done thing.

The catch is that any visitors who see a dandelion in the backyard will instantly assume you’re a messy gardener – or at least one who doesn’t fit in with their perspective of the basic rules in maintaining a garden. The same is true for writing. Drop a ‘suddenly’ into a sentence and many professional readers and editors will treat it with derision, as an amateur’s fallback.

The unconventional can sometimes be irrelevant, or even part of a particular book’s charm. Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep is a favourite of mine. It’s full of dangling plot threads, and a pretty central scene with a murder that ends up being a total and jarring dead end. Chandler later admitted he had no idea who killed that chauffeur, and it’s a scene that modern editors would ravage for its lack of utility.

Despite this and what other flaws may be picked out of the book, The Big Sleep often features in top 100 lists for books written in the 20^th century. What it did get right – the tone and atmosphere, the characters, the loose but weighty narrative voice – outweighed the smaller faux pas and the otherwise crippling mishandling of plot elements. That’s a great big weed to have to work around without just ripping the damn thing out altogether. And yet it’s now part of the garden. Not everyone likes it, but it’s there and the garden has plenty of admirers nonetheless.

And as far as the structure of expressing detail is concerned, the long and winding history of writing and literature are filled with examples of where new tricks have been implemented. Have a quick look at this article to see how some household names in classic literature have used punctuation in ways that would still be considered novel, or at least not standard. Whether you like these particular books or not is a moot point if their less conventional methods of handling detail has something to offer in your writing.

The lesson here is that there are always new ways to express things, and sometimes more maligned elements of one’s writing style can be turned into an advantage. If we all blindly follow every small rule that is proliferated without question or variance – kill every instance of ‘suddenly’, shun the passive voice, regulate your characters to fulfil certain roles and requirements – then we face a growing culture of institutionalisation in literature.

Always look for new ways to express things, and don’t shy away from incorporating some dandelions or nettle in your grand scheme if it fits. If you can find ways to use the weeds to your advantage, or to integrate them so well into your writing that they’re part of the package, then by all means experiment and see what you come up with that can bend the unwritten rules a little. It’s the same as any discipline – the rules and guidelines are there for a reason, and moving away from their guidance is a risk. But innovation can’t occur without some risk.

As always, there’s the word of warning: don’t necessarily expect the result to be marketable. Maybe it will be. But it might also get savaged by an editor for playing with fire on adverbs or passive language. Your garden is your own. Never stop dreaming of ways to make it both appealing on a base level to guests, and identifiably unique. How so-called weeds can fit into that scheme and create a unique style of writing is something that will require a dedicated spirit of experimentation. And maybe a glass of dandelion wine to get the creative juices flowing.

Beau Hillier | Editor, page seventeen

Month: November 2014

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