Interesting language 6

At high noon in a village deep in the marshes, in what seems to Fetter to be the uttermost depths of this wild valley, in a village of three faded-grey tents that doesn’t deserve the name–it has no sentry box and the bicycle ruts approaching it have almost faded away–set in a small area of cleared damp earth surrounded by writhing mangrove swamps on all sides, a familiar face finds him and asks for an exorcism.

The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera

Reading 2023

2023/12/29Ink Blood Sister ScribeEmma Törzs
2023/11/27The Seventh BrideT. Kingfisher
2023/11/23Dead Lions (Slough House, #2)Mick Herron
2023/11/05Lud-in-the-MistHope Mirrlees
2023/10/18The Girl with All the Gifts (The Girl With All the Gifts, #1)M.R. Carey
2023/10/11House of HollowKrystal Sutherland
2023/09/28The Heaven & Earth Grocery StoreJames   McBride
2023/09/16ThornhedgeT. Kingfisher
2023/09/09When the Women Come Out to DanceElmore Leonard
2023/09/07Beneath the Sugar Sky (Wayward Children, #3)Seanan McGuire
2023/09/02RebeccaDaphne du Maurier
2023/08/17The Color PurpleAlice Walker
2023/08/06Cold Welcome (Vatta’s Peace, #1)Elizabeth Moon
2023/08/05Bark: StoriesLorrie Moore
2023/07/29The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1)Carlos Ruiz Zafón
2023/07/13An Unkindness of GhostsRivers Solomon
2023/07/03Never Say You Can’t Survive: How to Get Through Hard Times by Making Up StoriesCharlie Jane Anders
2023/07/02Tumbled TalesMarisca Pichette
2023/06/20To The Bright Edge of the WorldEowyn Ivey
2023/06/07Dawn (Xenogenesis, #1)Octavia E. Butler
2023/06/02The Writer’s Notebook: Craft Essays from Tin HouseDorothy Allison
2023/05/28Scorched GraceMargot Douaihy
2023/05/22Sea of TranquilityEmily St. John Mandel
2023/05/16Hench (Hench, #1)Natalie Zina Walschots
2023/05/16Slow Horses (Slough House, #1)Mick Herron
2023/05/02Falling Free (Vorkosigan Saga, #4)Lois McMaster Bujold
2023/04/27FLASH!: Writing the Very Short StoryJohn Dufresne
2023/04/11The Stranger Diaries (Harbinder Kaur, #1)Elly Griffiths
2023/03/25I Capture the CastleDodie Smith
2023/03/22Down Among the Sticks and Bones (Wayward Children, #2)Seanan McGuire
2023/03/14The Best American Short Stories 2020Curtis Sittenfeld
2023/02/28Epic: Legends of FantasyJohn Joseph Adams
2023/02/08The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar WaoJunot Díaz
2023/01/23What Moves the Dead (Sworn Soldier, #1)T. Kingfisher
2023/01/11A Children’s BibleLydia Millet
2023/01/03The Six Deaths of the Saint (Into Shadow, #3)Alix E. Harrow

Learning from Törzs

I’m still reading ink blood sister scribe, but I recommend it. Emma Törzs is a very good writer. So, naturally, we want to read her for lessons on writing good fiction. Consider this paragraph:

Joanna covered her face with one hand, her back rising and falling, but her other hand reached out and found Esther’s. Despite her grief for her father, despite her exhaustion, despite everything, Esther felt a profound sense of . . . what was it? Something expansive and dizzying, like lying on her back under a night sky sky so filled with ancient stars that she felt the thinness of her own life like a flickering candle beneath them. Awe. That after ten years, Joanna was still her sister.

Emma Törzs, ink blood sister scribe

Even without context (I want to avoid spoiling it for you) there are things to learn. The first sentence is objective and cinematic. Even an objective, cinematic sentence can convey complicated emotions. It does so through specific visual details. Readers know Joanna is feeling something powerful without having access to her inner life. And this is consistent with the point of view of the chapter because that point of view has been a limited third-person close to Esther.

The next sentence reminds readers that we’re seeing Joanna’s reaction from within Esther’s world. The first phrase, from “despite” to “everything,” could describe both women, but “Esther felt” controls the point of view, transitioning back to Esther and reminds readers which character’s inner life we do have access to, at least for this chapter. Esther can’t quiet describe what she’s feeling, which characterizes her. The nature of the metaphor she uses to try and understand her emotions matches what readers already know about her. It seems to be the kind of metaphor Esther would reach for. It is also very different than the kind of metaphor her sister would use. So, the metaphor strengthens readers understanding of the character as the character begins to understand herself. Knowing Joanna wouldn’t use a similar metaphor characterizes her. The sisters are together in a complicated moment but haven’t disappeared. Each remains themselves.

I highly recommend ink blood sister scribe.

Learning from Herron

I’m enjoying Mick Herron’s Slow Horses novels. Herron carefully controls the information given to readers. He misleads them in interesting ways. Characters die. He’s doing fascinating stuff with spy fiction as a genre. The main character Jackson Lamb is so not James Bond, and he leads a team of spies who have failed and been relegated to “Slough House,” as the rest of the agency calls it. The team has been nicknamed “Slow Horses” by others in the agency.

One technique Herron uses in Dead Lions, the second book of the series, is bookends or “a return with a difference.” The are lots of examples of this technique, from The Hero’s Journey generally to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings specifically. (The hobbits return to The Shire changed and are able to make necessary changes there, for example.)

I think as a way to introduce new readers to the Slow Horses team in Dead Lions, Herron begins with a hypothetical cat sneaking into their base of operations. This hypothetical cat moves from room to room in the shabby building where the Slow Horses work. As readers follow the cat, they learn about different characters as they see how the characters inhabit their offices. Setting characterizes. Also, readers learn about the characters as they see their reactions to a hypothetical cat. I think at least one character feeds the cat. Most ignore it. Jackson Lamb drops it out the widow of his third-story office.

The return with a difference occurs as the novel ends. There is a general summary, but also a mouse that makes its way around Slough House. Like the cat, the mouse observes the characters. Those observations provide closure for character arcs and the closing of those character arcs helps close the narrative generally. In some cases, the presence of the mouse allows for characterization. Jackson Lamb, for example, upon seeing the mouse, says “What Slough House needs is a cat.”

I’ll continue reading this series because it’s compelling, and I find myself learning about writing from it.

A kind of awakening

“Good stories slip past our defenses—we all want to know what happens next—and then slow time down, and compel our interest and belief in other lives than our own, so that we feel ourselves in another presence. It’s a kind of awakening, a deliverance, it cracks our shell and opens us up to the truth and singularity of others—to their very being.”

Tobias Wolff