I don’t know about you, but as for me – unless it is absolutely critical to the movement of a story – I don’t need to always know every item in each room, or the style and brand of every shoe in the protagonist’s closet… and I especially do not need to know about the mole on the back of the least minor character’s left ear.
Now, the genius of authors such as Balzac, Dickens, and Twain cannot be denied by me; however, I often find their attention to detail excessive and rather tedious for my overly sensitive reading sensibilities.
Especially Balzac.
I know, I know… It’s me not them.
But I’m the kind of reader dude** who enjoys employing as much as possible of my own personal image making machine, aka, my imagination, along with my thought processing gyrator, against a story’s plot, or lack thereof; and when it comes to a character and his or her physical appearance and personality traits, I prefer for them, through the details found in the story’s showing, to slowly emerge within that enveloping zen-like midst of verisimilitude (that I hopefully find myself in) until he or she can be seen standing clearly before my mind’s unblinking eye, fully developed and fleshed out.
So it should come as no surprise then when I tell all you other reader dudes*** that I try to write my stories in the way that I prefer to read them: with limited and only absolutely necessary descriptive telling.
For example, you will find that the book description for The Sea Trials of an Unfortunate Sailor reads in part:
Written with a narrative starkness, it leaves us with only our own prejudices and stereotypes to draw from and forces us to make assumptions about character and identity, and, in the end, determine not just who did it but if it was even done at all.
Admittedly, this book was written intentionally with a “narrative starkness,” not so much because starkly written books are the kind I like to read most, but because its starkness is used as a device to make a sad but painful point about the military’s failed and former Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy.
I was navy Equal Opportunity Advisor during DADT’s salad days and the crux of my job at the time was to travel around the Western Pacific to facilitate training seminars and focus groups in an effort to educate sailors on how to legally administer and execute the confusing and harmful policy.
As you probably already know, prior to the implementation of DADT, homosexuals were prohibited from serving in the military. With DADT – which was a compromise between Bill Clinton, who wanted to allow homosexuals to serve with no restrictions, and the military’s top brass, who wanted to continue barring homosexuals from service – homosexuals were allowed to serve in the military… provided they did not discuss their sexual orientation with anyone nor have any homosexual relations whatsoever. Additionally, no service member was allowed to ask any other service member what his or her sexual orientation was… hence the infamous moniker don’t ask, don’t tell.
A pretty cruel policy, to say the least. However, it was rather cut and dry. Not so much confusion with it on the surface.
The problems that came about with the policy was a result of when service members started taking action based on their homophobic perceptions and stereotypes.
For instance, some sailors were harassed, abused, and, sadly, even killed because they were perceived to be a homosexual based on the way he or she talked, or walked, or, while in civilian attire, dressed.
And while that’s tragic in and of itself, additional problems were often caused when these illegally and harmfully harassed sailors attempted to tell their chains-of-command about the harassment and the COC, instead of seeing these attempts as pleas for help, saw them instead as admissions of homosexuality. As a result, many sailors were wrongfully kicked out of the navy because of the ignorance and bigotry of those who were supposed to protect them.
It was very distressing to me whenever I heard of any instance of it happening. However, it was highly rewarding for me whenever I had the opportunity to get in front of a group of senior leaders and help/make them see the light as to how to effectively execute and administer DADT and to warn them about the problems they could get into for wrongly processing a sailor out of the service.
While I am very happy that DADT was finally axed and homosexuals are now allowed serve without any restrictions to their being, it was all of that nasty DADT stuff that became the impetus for me writing my novel.
And my goal in writing it was to force the reader to have to apply his or her own values, via perceptions and stereotypes, upon the characters in and events of the story. Consequently, it was important for me as a writer to not tell the reader what I wanted them to think by way of character description, but to allow them to draw their own conclusions.
I hope the story does this effectively. I guess the results can be found in the book’s reviews.
Anyway…
I was reminded about all this the other day when I read an article by The Atlantic entitled “The Case Against Colorblind Casting.” It is a very well-written and informative piece about the challenges Hollywood has casting non-white actors and how “colorblind casting,” while admirable in its goals, is not a sustainable means to diversify the films we watch. The article highlights as an example, the recent success of Oscar Isaac, Hollywood’s current It and Everywhere Man, who, just so he would have a better chance at not being type-cast and at being able to land “ethnically flexible” roles, chose to drop his last name of Hernández.
Sure, performers have and probably always will “alter” their names to one that they feel is best received by their fans; however, having to do it just to appear “less ethnic,” reminds me of the movie “La Bamba,” where it shows how the singer Richard Valenzuela was compelled to assume the less ethnic-sounding stage name of Ritchie Valens so that he could better appeal to his white audience.
That was sixty years ago and I’m sad to report, as is evidenced by our latest Hollywood star Oscar Isaac, that it’s still happening.
Man, oh man***…
This equality stuff sure is a difficult nut to crack – witness the all-white Oscar nominees for this year’s Best and Supporting Actors/Actresses – and I’m not about to attempt to try and crack it here.
Except to say that screenwriters can certainly have a hand in keeping an open playing field for actors of all races and ethnicity by – you guessed it – laying off the descriptive details in their screenplays and leaving it up to the director to cast the best actor for the role based on the story’s content and need and not on the screenwriter’s biases.
Of course, a more diverse field of screenwriters would be most beneficial to making a crack in that nut…
You may not have noticed, but I am a very white dude**… pasty even. Even still, for what it’s worth, when I adapted my short story “Leave” into a screenplay, I wrote it so the only true limitations in casting should be because of gender – and there’s just no getting around it – there are distinct male and female roles that are critical to the story’s telling, as it is a story about the bigotry faced by the first women allowed to serve on navy combatant ships.
But as far as casting for the roles for the screenplay’s mostly bigoted and sexist male characters and a few exemplary female characters… race nor any other physical trait, apart from one that would prevent someone from being accepted into the military, should not matter to the director who will be doing the casting.
Now, I doubt my starkly written, diminutive screenplay will go far in the effort to crack Hollywood’s White Nut problem… but that’s all I got for now.
Still, I’m really looking forward to beginning the process of creating this film. And, while things are a long way from definite right now, you may just be surprised by the talented actors who already have expressed an interest in being part of the production.
I can’t wait until we reach the point where I can share it all with you.
Until then, as we say in the business…
Stay tuned!
*Yeah, I know “uncolorful” is not a real word, whatever a real word may be, but I it sounds less negative to me than “colorless” so, for what it’s worth, I’m going with it.
**gender specific
***non-gender specific
i did not know about DADT. At least these things are discussed in the USA. In India, they are brushed under the carpet.
Dickens? I like his books…
Yeah, DADT was policy since the early Nineties and was only ended a few years ago thanks to my man, Obama. Sounds like you have some good material to work with in India to try to effectuate positive change via your pen/keyboard 🙂 Yes, I’m a big fan of Dickens and the others I listed… I’m not a fan, however, of having to plow through all their minutia.
true. that can get tiresome. I almost died of boredom with some parts of Hardy’s writing
The things we put ourselves through just so we can say, “Oh sure, I read that.” At least this certainly applies to me, anyway. 🙂
To me as well..
I like the word uncolorful! It actually says something slightly else. Isn’t that what it’s all about? Finding the right word!
I like to invent new words! Offcourse they must be understandable, and suitable in the context.
F.ex. I just had to write un-nice instead of unpleasant in my last blogpost, it wouldn’t fit otherwise. And I mean the tone, not the length of the word or how many syllables it has.
Have a nice day! 🤓
Ha ha… awesomeness. Thanks, NinnaO…
Awesomeness it is!!! O_o
The law enforcement community faced many of the same issues. My academy class graduated the first female officer on our department. Back then sexual orientation was a BIG deal in disqualifying applicants but race had been “overcome” and the all white, all male force was changing. It did not always go well. But turnover was and still is a part of the package in police work. It ain’t like it is on TV and the academy was kept busy. I find that when writing my fiction, both the contemporary crime stories and the historical adventure novels, my characters have become quite diverse. Life reflected in the stories. The challenge is to be inclusive without hiding conflict. Sort of showing the character of the characters and keeping the reader thinking the whole time.
Another tough nut, huh… Thanks for sharing that, Mike. Important stuff.
Interesting insights into DADT from a different perspective than I’ve heard before. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences.
Yeah, whatever the perspective, DADT was quite a thing… Thank you, Joy.
At the time, it was a step in the right direction, but I think everyone probably realized it was not sustainable in the long run. Your story illustrates some of the reasons why.
Yeah, considering the climate toward homosexuals in both society and especially the military prior to the implementation of DADT, we probably had no choice but to suffer through a quarter century of a compromise policy that forces one to have to compromise his or her identity in order to serve one’s country before getting to total equality. Tough stuff.
During the painful process to get to the next step, it sounds like you helped relieve some of that suffering — thank you for that.
The Royal Shakespeare Company practices colour blind casting and after the first time you encounter a black Duke of medieval England, you stop noticing, and just get absorbed in the joy of great actors playing Shakespeare, and to hell with their ethnic origin. I’m always surprised by how few black people there appear to be in the USA if you take US TV shows and films as an example of the population cross section…….. 🙂
Yeah, I’d be interested to know the statistics re: General population percentages versus Hollywood percentages versus Broadway percentages. Could make for a good follow-up post… 🙂 Thank you for sharing your insight, TCW.
I started reading this lengthy post because I agree with you about detail overload. My favorite author, Roger Zelazny, sometimes had page after page of that stuff, which I just skimmed through. I just can’t force myself to read more than a paragraph or two of description, and prefer it to come out during conversation, or other characters’ thoughts and reactions. But I KEPT reading beyond that because it touches on so many issues, and isn’t a rant, all frothy at the mouth… Thank you for posting this!
Hey, Jeremy. Thanks so much for taking the time to leave me your kind, encouraging comment. And thanks for the author tip. Never heard of Zelazny so I’ll def check him out.
I see you have books published, I will check them out!
Thank you, Ester. I appreciate your interest.
Thank you for visiting and following my blog today. It was so nice to read here on this post about your contributions to the cause of cancer cures and support for those who battle it and stand with those who who are battling. My husband experienced, first hand the beauty of support made available. And I experienced the support of those of us who are called caregivers. I am now a widow, grateful for those who see value in life and living it as fully as we were created to. God is my strength, refuge and support. He’s sent wonderful people, with big hearts into my family’s lives. A gift, a blesssing and an honor to thank.
Thank you for sharing this beautiful, important message with us, WM. You’re a fine example for us all.
I never looked at it from quite from this perspective. I hadn’t considered the prejudice angle. I’ve just always felt it robs the reader of their own imagination.
As a reader, if I hit a block of description, I skip it. I’ve yet to have a book ruined because I didn’t read the details of the character’s wardrobe. I’ve had several books ruined because the author just had to tell me the pattern on every piece of furniture in every scene.
As a writer, I remember one short blog I wrote based on a true experience from my life. I was at a company Christmas party and had to run to the car. In the parking lot a man was having a heart attack, his wife was performing CPR and a small crowd was gathered around. I provided very little detail, two young women, a man with curly hair and a sharp nose, a wife burying her face in her husband’s chest as they looked on. Despite the lack of detail, readers told me how they could see it happening, how they felt like they were there.
I’d read horror and crime novelists taking about this type of experience. In their least descriptive scenes of violence they receive letters from fans upset by the graphic nature of the scene, oblivious to the graphic part coming from their own imaginations.
For me, that’s powerful writing. That’s writing I want to read. I love reading plays and screen plays because the author has to engage me without the crutch of descriptive writing.
Well said, TRM. Our imagination was built to fill in all those mysterious voids life leaves for us.
My applause and addenda were too extensive to fit into comment format, so I excerpted this post in the pingback to my http://mellowcurmudgeon.com/2016/01/28/narrative-starkness-and-word-of-the-year/
Thank you, MC. I’m happy you’re of the same mind.
It’s a fascinating idea to use stark writing as a device to explore prejudice and DADT.
I’ve recently been reading Evie Wyld – her novels are poetic examples of how effective ‘show, don’t tell’ is, especially when exploring trauma.
Hello, PS. I’m happy you think so. I never hear of Wyld so I’ll have to check her out. I’d say much of my starkiness influence comes from Hemingway and Kafka.
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