Thanks for coming to the party. I am pleased to present our fifth and final graf:
An uncanny fog that morning lay all along the route across the northern New Jersey marshes to New York City. It was an impossibly comprehensive fog, a fog to embarrass any meteorologist who might have predicted mere everyday fog; a fog to gauze a landscape somewhere else in the world, at some other time, but not here and at this point in history, where the general rule for mountainous grey entities required them to be angular and solid and above all man-made; a fog that roiled across the marsh grass beneath the elevated roadbed of the Amtrak rails, roiled further across the Hudson and collided with a similar fog spreading into Manhattan from the East River, piling up in a thick granite bedrock of fog from which the upper stories of skyscrapers protruded like stalagmites; a fog grey as the name of a familiar object suddenly lost to forgetfulness, impenetrable as an experience never even imagined, much less prepared for. Even as Larry watched from the window of the train, the fog seemed to mount higher and higher as though reaching up with a sword-swallower’s grey lips to gulp the uppermost tips of the city. Then with a roar and a flash of darkness it all disappeared as the train plunged into the tunnel beneath the river.
From a novel.
First, let’s dispense right away with the “short attention span” critique, the idea that in today’s fast-paced culture readers are too impatient for lengthy fog description.
I just finished CRYPTONOMICON by Neal Stephenson and part what makes this 900-page book so enjoyable is that Stephenson lingers on weather/geography/etc. After a day of tweets, chat and Facebook being able to immerse myself in a slow-moving fictional world was actually refreshing. It’s not a bug; it’s a feature.
That said, there are some manufacturer’s suggested guidelines for this approach:
1. The writing at the sentence and phrase level better be excellent
Stephenson is brilliant at the phrase level and quite good at the sentence level. So even when you’re in what could be viewed as a digression, there are lots of little rewards along the way and the flow of the narrative remains silky smooth.
2. Even the most linger-y of lingerings makes an editorial contribution
Much of CRYPTONOMICON takes place in the South Pacific. You get lots of jungle description. Lots of heat description. Even when it’s indulgent it’s never gratuitous. The description is there to immerse in you in the setting and to further heighten the characters’ emotional state.
3. In for a penny, in for a pound
Imagine somehow that I’m being less emphatic on this suggestion, but generally if you’re going to blow it out once then there is a certain expectation that you’ll do it again. This presents challenges for the novelist who might want to quicken the pace toward the end, but has still set up internal rules for taking her time.
Without seeing our party paragraph in context I can’t speak to the last note. And since this isn’t Sentence Party, I’m not going to comment on Item #1 other than to say I love the idea of fog that creates professional embarrassment and wish there was more pointed stuff like that.
Which brings me to Item #2. What does this fog mean to Larry? I haven’t a clue.
If this were a movie, then I could see the connection between landscape and character because I could see his face. I could see him being dreamy or anxious or inspired to provide mosquito netting to kids in the developing world so they don’t die of malaria.
As it stands now, the writer gives us fog and then takes it away.
What this graf needs is a kicker. Something that connects the fog Larry’s emotional state. His mouth is dry from being agape in awe. He picks up a paper bag and starts blowing into it because he’s been hyperventilating from claustrophobia. He says to the person next to him on the train, “I got a baaaaad feeling about this.”
Make that connection and then go back and make it pretty.
Thanks, Dennis — that’s a very helpful perspective. I hadn’t thought of including some offhand reference to Larry’s emotional state, at least not in this graf. I’ve gotta be alert to that sort of thing!
Glad it was helpful. Change “alert to” to “relentlessly focused on” and you’re all set.
Good luck!
Hey D, how about the next party? I think everyone is just warming up. Inhibitions have been dispatched. The blogosphere is ready. And look how much fun you’re having!
I heartily second the request for another party. I loved the graf party and learned much.
nicely written, and i can follow a riff like this one for a long time and enjoy the journey. however, if the riff doesn’t take me somewhere deeper into the story, it might take me right out of the story as i start thinking how the beauty stuff is the writer falling in love with his own writing and forgetting that me, el reader, is out here wondering, hey, what was that for? (and not in a good way). i want a real punch at the end of a riff like that. something that moves plot or my knowledge of the character forward.
craig: Just a quick question (I don’t want to beat this to death) — when you say “at the end of a riff like that,” how soon after it are you looking for the punch? By the end of the chapter? By the next sentence?
(Thanks for reading and commenting.)
there’s been no really discussion here, so i think we’re far from beating anything to death.
it’s a beauty riff, but i believe every paragraph should serve a purpose. And the only purpose worth serving is is moving the story forward.
so i need a sentence right at the end of that fog riff that says something that moves the plot or my knowledge of the character forward. it doesn’t have to be hugely forward, but there must definitely be some forward motion.
if the paragraph itself doesn’t do that, what *is* it’s purpose?
and is that purpose significant enough to allow so much space for it?
one can say there’s a lot of fog in many fewer words. so if one is going to use this many, there ought to be a good reason for it, and it ought to be immediately apparent.