Simply Irresistible

I’ve decided to do a couple of posts on writing styles. The first will be on clean, simple prose as mostly identified with writers like Ernest Hemingway or Raymond Carver.

This kind of writing, where you don’t use long words or complicated sentence structures is easy to read and can build into a powerful way to tell a story. However, simple does not mean simplistic.

Simplicity in writing refers to the external structure, the language you use, the number of events you cover, how you structure the narrative. But that is not the most important aspect for the writer to establish. The writer needs to know about the internal structure, what the story is about.

As a reader this isn’t always clear. You can read a story, enjoy it, find many remarkable and interesting things within it, but have no idea what it’s really about. And as a reader you don’t need to know. But it is about something.

Sometimes the thing it’s about is subtle, or even impenetrable, but it’s always there. Because it’s most important function isn’t for the reader, it’s for the writer. Without an opinion or a viewpoint on your characters and what they do, you will end up with a very flat and pedestrian bunch of stuff that happened.

Many aspiring writers avoid thinking too much about these things. They either hope their subconscious will infuse their words with meaning (and sometimes it does), or they consider it unimportant and it’s just a story. Thing is, even if you read a story without having any idea of the deeper meaning behind it, your enjoyment is driven by that deeper meaning. It seeps into your brain even if you aren’t aware of it. Which is why if you try to emulate the style just using similar syntax and types of words it won’t have the same feeling.

"Last week he tried to commit suicide," one waiter said.

"Why?"

"He was in despair."

"What about?"

"Nothing."

"How do you know it was nothing?"

"He has plenty of money."

This extract from Hemingway’s ‘A Clean, Well-Lighted Place’ is very simple. The language, the characters, the scene are all very sparse and straightforward. But an actual simplistic version of this would be something like:

"Last week he tried to commit suicide," one waiter said.

"Why?"

"I don’t know."

The information being conveyed, that a guy is in a particular state of mind is communicated in both versions, but in Ernie’s version the way the waiter talks about the reason for suicide tells us about the man who tried to kill himself, the waiter, the concept of suicide, the difference in perception of happiness between the haves and the have-nots, and any number of other things.

Meanwhile my version is flat pedestrian exposition. 

How does he do that?  And in such a concise invisible way? 

The opinion he expresses through his characters or through his narrative is more than just objective information. What people do in an objective and well observed manner is not interesting to most people, any more than well-taken holiday photographs are. Some people of course are interested. If you went to the same place last year, or are planning to go next week, you might look closely at those sunsets and swimming pool photos. But for most people the life depicted therein hold no fascination. 

Because the point of story is not to tell you what happened, it’s to tell you what effect what happened had on the people it happened to and the consequences that followed. And if you don't include that, or if how they reacted and what it tells you about them is pretty much what you would expect, it’s not going to mean very much to a reader.

It’s not enough to list events in roughly the order they occurred, you have to have something to say about it. Saying it simply  makes what you have to say clearer, and makes it very, very clear if you’re not saying anything.

It can feel uncomfortable to pass judgements or make assertions about what things mean, especially if you're young or have just started writing, but that’s the beauty of having characters who can speak for you. The waiter’s views on spoilt rich people may or may not be Hemingway’s own, but they are distinct and clear. And provocative. And interesting.

It doesn't have to be blatant or preachy (in fact it definitely shouldn't be), but consider what happens in your story and what you think about those events, and write with that feeling in the back of your head. And then even the simplest prose will feel richer and more complete.

In the next post I’ll discuss more elaborate, sophisticated prose and how that technique can be used to its full potential.

Do you take time to consider your feelings about your characters and what they get up to? Or are you an impartial observer? What kind of writing style do you use?

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