Write Nekkid

I'm reading one of those stark books (like Kite Runner) where the author writes pretty darned nekkid. What I mean by that is spare, harsh, in-your-face prose, the kind that evokes emotion and curiosity. The book? A recommendation by Mark Bertrand called The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. Hear some of his prose:

"For the most part they carried themselves with poise, a kind of dignity. Now and then, however, there were times of panic, when they squealed or wanted to squeal but couldn't, when they twitched and made moaning sounds and covered their heads and said Dear Jesus and flopped around on the earth and fired their weapons blindly and cringed and sobbed and begged for the noise to stop and went wild and make stupid promises to themselves and to God and to their mothers and fathers, hoping not to die." (p. 19).

Beautiful, ain't it?

When I first started writing, I resembled young Anne of Green Gables (which my young daughter mispronounced and called Anne with Green Bagels). Full of pomp and circumstance, my writing flowered its way through sentences and paragraphs. Adjectives and adverbs were my trusted friends. But worse than that was a weird pompousness that came through, like I was touting my English major, thank you very much. It reminded me of that poetry you read and go "huh?" afterward. Great, effusive words strung together that had very little meaning.

I balked at editorial correction too, thinking myself high and mighty, a wielder of words.

But, as the years wore on, I realized great writing isn't the stuff of prettification. It's not full of bright lipstick and rouge. It's natural, stark, raw. I started concocting sentences that evoked emotion, that kept rich in its description of place, but spare in its contrivance of human emotion.

Ew. Now I just read that last paragraph and it sounds a bit hoity toity. Maybe I'll always have Anne and her green New York rolls lurking inside.

Even so, I want to write nekkid. To grab my reader and thrust her into the lives of my characters. I want my prose to serve the story, not detract from it. I think it's working. To prove it, I'll paste two snippets, one from my first novel (not published) and another from a newer novel (not published). See if you can tell the difference:

Sample one:

When Augusta finished washing the last jelly jar, the sun burst through the mist, and the lake water danced as it did every time the fog dissipated. To call its lifting a miracle might be an exaggeration, but she called it that anyway. Sometimes the house stayed shrouded until suppertime, other days it evaporated all at once. Sometimes it dissipated in tendrils, wild and inconsistent, leaving the valley resembling Grandma Ellsworth’s silvered hair. Today the retreating curtain of fog revealed the fields beyond the lake, their softness in stark contrast to the lake’s prismatic dance.

Sample two:

“We can go up,” he said. “Let’s take the stairs.”

“Why not the elevator?”

“Don’t you remember?”
            

“Refresh my memory.”

            

“We kissed there once . . . in our pajamas.”

            

My memories hung on a broken charm bracelet. Some charms suffered from inefficient clasps, dropping along the streets of life, never to be returned. Some broke apart, like the tiny hind leg of a horse that’d never trot again. Some blackened thanks to time’s tarnish. Yet others remained pristine, happy silver clasped securely to the chain. This memory was like none of those. This was a forgotten charm, one so crammed in between broken and happy charms that I’d forgotten it. Rediscovered, its brilliance startled me.

***

How about you? Can you see transformation in your writing? Are you moving from flowery to nekkid? Or the other way? As you've matured, how has your prose altered? Are your stories simpler or more complex? I'm curious.

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Mary DeMuth is a writer and speaker who is writing this in the third person because she likes to think of herself that way. At this very moment, she is writing next to her smelly dog Pippin who is wet and sleeping. You can find Mary here, here and here.

Comments

[BJ Hamrick]

I loved this, Mary! :)

[Dixie Phillips]

Mary,
Just bumped into this...... Good stuff....

You certainly have a new fan in me.... I understood every word. I'll be thinking about the hind leg of horse that would never trot again all day today.... OH MY!

You've chiseled your thoughts on my heart today.

Dixie

[Mary E. DeMuth]

Thanks BJ!

Dixie, thanks for stopping by! I'm thankful my words made an impact.

[Cathy West]

Okay, call me weird but I kind of like the first example. Maybe I'm just too Jane Austen.
I have seen a definite change in my writing. I'm told it's a good change, so I'll just take that and run with it. I wouldn't dare
post anything I wrote less than two years ago for the world to see! But my writing has only changed, and hopefully improved,
because I've allowed it to. I'd like to say the more I learn, the easier it gets, but...yeah...

[Michelle Pendergrass]

I've been reading The Things They Carried for over a year now. I keep going back to read it again.

I think I've always been naked. People have been trying to shove clothes on me for the longest time. It's just now that I've been able to tell them to shove their clothes where the sun don't shine. :)

[Michelle Pendergrass]

I had to grab my copy--this is my favorite part:

"They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love, longing--these were intangibles, but the intangibles had their own mass and shameful memories. They carried the common secret of cowardice barely restrained, the instinct to run or freeze or hide, and in many respects this was the heaviest burden of all, for it could never be put down, it required perfect balance and perfect posture. They carried their reputations. they carried the soldier's greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as to not die of embarrassment."

(and if you like this book, you should read A Good Scent From A Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler)

[Christopher Fisher]

Good recommendation from Mark. The Things They Carried is an excellent book. Excellent. I still go back to read sections from time to time. And I'll never think of "Lemon tree" the same way again.

If you're still taking reading recommendations, Mary, I've got a few.

A Prayer for the Dying, by Stewart O'Nan

The Weatherman, by Clint McCown

Another Perfect Catastrophe, by Brad Barkley

All three of these are lean, naked muscle.

[Heather Goodman]

I adore that story, how you know those soldiers through that one aspect of their life. Brilliance.
I think Anne Tyler does an amazing job of getting to the heart of a character in interactions. No fluff in her stuff, if you ask me. Or Russo's Nobody's Fool.

[Carla]

Great examples, Mary, although I do see some of "you" in the first example as well. You have a gift for creating emotional images--something I strive for constantly. The charm bracelet metaphor left me breathless, so I hope that's what you intended.

[Kristi Holl]

Great writing examples, and truly a contrast! I like to read things with power and punch--during the day. But I still want at bedtime some Jane Austen or that kindred spirit, Anne (with an "e".)

[christa Allan]

I love this book. The chapter how how to write a good war story is really a chapter on how to write any good story. I've also used the book with my students as a writing exercise. Have them dump out their backpacks and/or their purses. Write about the things they carry, what those things reveal about them. Try it. It's very nekkid.

[Reese]

"To grab my reader and thrust her into the lives of my characters" is about as nekkid as it gets! I read that line and inwardly cried YES!!!! That's what this is about, really, grabbing with purpose. Yes, yes, yes.

[Donna J. Shepherd]

You know I like all your writing, but I have to say, I'm drawn more to the first example. There's a lilt to it - like music, with the second example being more staccato.

I guess I'm flowery. :)

Good post!

[Michelle Van Loon]

My vote goes to contestant number 2. There's no room for overgrown foliage in pointed dialogue like this. And the charm bracelet imagery gives your readers a history without pages and pages of plot-slowing history.

Anne with Green Bagels, eh? Love it!

[ChestertonianRambler]

I like #2, but I'll go with the general consensus that there still is something to be said for decorative language. One of my favorite narrative devices is the way Tolkien introduces Lothlorien--first a magnificient, flowery description (from Frodo's poetic perspective) ending with "upon the land, there was no stain." Then he gives us Sam's thought, a simple sentence beautiful in its nakedness about how he "always thought Elves were about the starlight and moonlight" but "this place is as elvish as any I've seen, if you take my meaning." Because of the conjunction of beauty and nakedness, I did--if I didn't have Frodo's description first, I wouldn't.

Actually, that may be why I like #2. It starts with narrative as (literally) naked as it can get--plain dialog without even markers. Then it moves into the mind and gathers up a bunch of poetic images: the lame horse, the broken and lost charms. The combination is stronger than mere eloquence or mere nekkidness, at least in my mind.

[ChestertonianRambler]

Aha! Found the actual Sam quote:

"I thought that Elves were all for moon and stars: but this is more elvish than anything I ever heard tell of. I feel as if I was inside a song, if you take my meaning."

[Dee Stewart]

Mary, I love minimalist writing. I took a year long writing workshop on minimalism. I am a southern romance writer by just being me, but I love a newer, tighter kind of writing. Nigerian authors are great at it and of course I'm a big fan of Chimamanda Aditchie because of it. Can't stop talking about her enough. So of course, I like your latter most. :)