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2006-07-17 03:06I put this in my previous entry, which was friends only (still trying to find the right line to draw for public/private postings even if no one is reading I don't know about):
Coming home meant passing through faerie. It was three in the morning yet bright as day and I was whisked through endless repeating avenues lined by trees made from shadow. Fog obscured the way forward until I was sure I was dreaming - had I drifted off just long enough? - and the way forward was lit by rows of gold lanterns whose light, captured by the mist, spread until it filled the air itself. No landscape visible ahead, only shadows and suggestions until it burst out of the light. To either side the world faded away to nothing except, occasionally, showing hints in glowing lights of structure, unknown machinery or strange creatures in so many colours and every so often from ahead harsh blue-white light would push past as I was carried forward, always, ceaselessly forward through this winding path.
With a passage like this one part of the intent is to build momentum so the reader is carried along. The eye must be drawn automatically to the next word and the reader's interest must be held from the beginning to the end of the passage. Obviously it is almost always desirable to hold the readers interest but in a passage like this it is even more important - if ve pauses or stops here then this passage has failed with that reader. And see, here I have just used a word likely unfamiliar to most people reading this, ve. When people see an unfamiliar word in the middle of a passage I believe they are likely to pause and puzzle over it or perhaps even look it up, although in this particular case ve is similar enough to pronouns in common use that it is possible many will simply see a word they expect, like 'he' or class it as a typographical error. So there is a good chance that the flow of this passage would have been disrupted for many readers. That is, if I were trying for the effect I wanted in the example passage.
So momentum is important. Knowing how far to draw it out is important too. The example passage is possibly too dense; had I done it right I think it would be about twice as long and possibly split into two or three paragraphs. This does have the risk of drawing it out too long and causing the reader to lose interest - I think it is easier, though, to get away with higher density than to maintain interest while spreading things out.
Now I am tired so I will stop here. Likely I will produce another post tomorrow continuing my thoughts on this topic, but comments here are still welcome.
Coming home meant passing through faerie. It was three in the morning yet bright as day and I was whisked through endless repeating avenues lined by trees made from shadow. Fog obscured the way forward until I was sure I was dreaming - had I drifted off just long enough? - and the way forward was lit by rows of gold lanterns whose light, captured by the mist, spread until it filled the air itself. No landscape visible ahead, only shadows and suggestions until it burst out of the light. To either side the world faded away to nothing except, occasionally, showing hints in glowing lights of structure, unknown machinery or strange creatures in so many colours and every so often from ahead harsh blue-white light would push past as I was carried forward, always, ceaselessly forward through this winding path.
With a passage like this one part of the intent is to build momentum so the reader is carried along. The eye must be drawn automatically to the next word and the reader's interest must be held from the beginning to the end of the passage. Obviously it is almost always desirable to hold the readers interest but in a passage like this it is even more important - if ve pauses or stops here then this passage has failed with that reader. And see, here I have just used a word likely unfamiliar to most people reading this, ve. When people see an unfamiliar word in the middle of a passage I believe they are likely to pause and puzzle over it or perhaps even look it up, although in this particular case ve is similar enough to pronouns in common use that it is possible many will simply see a word they expect, like 'he' or class it as a typographical error. So there is a good chance that the flow of this passage would have been disrupted for many readers. That is, if I were trying for the effect I wanted in the example passage.
So momentum is important. Knowing how far to draw it out is important too. The example passage is possibly too dense; had I done it right I think it would be about twice as long and possibly split into two or three paragraphs. This does have the risk of drawing it out too long and causing the reader to lose interest - I think it is easier, though, to get away with higher density than to maintain interest while spreading things out.
Now I am tired so I will stop here. Likely I will produce another post tomorrow continuing my thoughts on this topic, but comments here are still welcome.
