Original subtitles

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The units of language are words, phrases, sentences,

paragraphs, et cetera.

But at the micro level, they are letters and sounds.

And part of a texture is how those words sound.

And part of a texture is how those words sound.

I think it was Robert Graves who used

to say that he had an exercise called "getting the geese out,"

which was going through his text and removing Ses that

were making a hissing sound.

That's why he said getting the geese out.

And for that, it's very useful to read your text out

loud to see how it sounds, because a text

loud to see how it sounds, because a text

is a score for voice.

And if you're writing something that comes out

sounding like simple Simon stuck a seashell on the seashore,

there just may be too much of that S and "sh" kind of sound.

The same goes for sounds like P if there's too much popping.

If there's too much of one letter,

If there's too much of one letter,

people will think you're doing it on purpose for a reason.

So if there's too much what we call "onomatopoeia,"

words that sound like the thing they're describing--

Tennyson's line, the murmuring of innumerable bees.

He does that on purpose to sound like bees.

So if you're going to have repeated sounds,

make sure you're doing it on purpose.

make sure you're doing it on purpose.

And similarly, if you're slipping

into iambic pentameter, which people often do,

you ought to be able to hear that.

Are you intending it or not?

So that's the basic thing about texture.

How does it sound?

How does it sound when you read it out loud?

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So at the extremes, you could say that there

So at the extremes, you could say that there

are two kinds of style.

One is plainsong, in which the sentences are fairly short.

They don't have a lot of adjectives and adverbs.

They're fairly blunt and straightforward.

The other you could call Baroque, in which the language

is very ornamented.

So it could have a lot of subordinate clauses.

It can have a lot of adjectives and adverbs.

It could have a kind of pile on of detail, a pile

It could have a kind of pile on of detail, a pile

on of syllables.

And most people are somewhere in between there.

Things got a lot more plainsong with the advent

of writers like Hemingway and Graham Greene.

But then they got more Baroque with the advent of writers

like Angela Carter, who is very Baroque indeed.

There is no one good style.

Some people have styles that they prefer.

Some people have styles that they prefer.

So it is a question of what you're using your language for,

what sort of--

let us say, what sort of spell you're trying to cast

or what kind of illusion you're trying to practice.

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Let's do Baroque first.

Charles Dickens is a very Baroque writer.

He piles on the detail.

He piles on the detail.

He piles on the adjectives.

He was very fond of the theater, so he likes to--

if it were theater, you would say he was hamming it up.

So what could be better than to start with "A Christmas Carol"

and the description of Scrooge.

"Oh, but he was a tight-fisted, hand at the grindstone Scrooge.

A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching,

covetous, old sinner.

covetous, old sinner.

Hard and sharp as flint from which no steel had ever

struck out generous fire.

Sacred and self-contained and solitary as an oyster.

The cold within him froze his old features,

nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek,

stiffened his gait, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue,

and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice.

A frosty rime was on his head and on his eyebrows

A frosty rime was on his head and on his eyebrows

and his wiry chin.

He carried his own low temperature always about him.

He iced his office in the dog days

and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas."

And this goes on for a couple of pages.

So lots of adjectives, lots of subordinate clauses,

a piling up of detail, very ornamented.

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In "Gulliver's Travels," the style

is very plainsong, although the story itself

is a complete fabrication.

But he uses the plain, declarative, blunt style

to make you feel that he's telling you

the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

I'm just being straight with you here, not exaggerating.

This is where I went.

This is what happened.

This is what happened.

And it's just the story as it happened.

He does that very well.

"Gulliver's Travels," the beginning--

just the facts, ma'am.

"My father had a small estate in Nottinghamshire.

I was the third of five sons."

period.

"He sent me to Emanuel College in Cambridge at 14 years old,

where I resided three years, and applied myself

close to my studies; but the charge

of maintaining me, although I had a very scanty allowance,

of maintaining me, although I had a very scanty allowance,

being too great for a narrow fortune,

I was bound apprentice to Mr. James Bates, an eminent surgeon

in London, with whom I continued four years.

My father now and then sending me small sums of money,

I laid them out in learning navigation, and other parts

of the mathematics, useful to those who intend to travel,

as I always believed it would be,

some time or other, my fortune to do.

When I left Mr. Bates, I went down to my father;

When I left Mr. Bates, I went down to my father;

where, by the assistance of him and my uncle

John, and some other relations, I

got forty pounds, and a promise of thirty pounds

a year to maintain me at Leyden; there I

studied physic two years and seven months,

knowing it would be useful in long voyages."

Count the numbers in that first paragraph--

very factual.

He's getting you to believe that he

is a person of little imagination,

not prone to exaggeration, and very particular and exact

not prone to exaggeration, and very particular and exact

in the way he describes things.

And since he is about to tell us about very little people,

giants, floating islands, and talking horses,

that's how he gets us to go along with him.

So this is not a person given to exaggeration,

you wouldn't think.

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Description is different from style.

Descriptive detail is different from style.

You can have an ornate style, which is one thing.

Or you can just have a lot of concrete objects,

sounds, and smells which aren't necessarily described

with adjectives.

They're more likely to be nouns.

So detail need not necessarily be adjectival detail.

So detail need not necessarily be adjectival detail.

You can say there was a fork, a spoon, a knife, a plate, a cup,

and a rose in a small cut glass vase.

There's one adjective in all of that.

It's small.

In my own work, I usually subtract.

So I usually pare down somewhat rather than adding things in.

And you can be rich in description

And you can be rich in description

in several different ways.

You can say, the rain was pouring down.

The night was very dark.

It's very plain, but it's descriptive.

Or you can say, the rain was pouring down in buckets.

You would have thought it was the end of the world.

It was a dark and stormy night.

The gusts were billowing.

The trees were whipping back and forth in a frenzy.

You can add on.

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You could try doing the following experiment.

Pick an event and write that event in a plainsong way,

and then write the same event in a Baroque way.

See the difference.

The other thing you can always try doing

is imitating the style of another writer

just to see if you can make yourself sound like Ernest

just to see if you can make yourself sound like Ernest

Hemingway, if you can make yourself sound like William

Faulkner, if you can make yourself sound like Angela

Carter.

And by doing that, you get an insight

into how they're putting sentences and words together.

You can do a sampler of styles.

You could try describing, for instance, this little stapler

You could try describing, for instance, this little stapler

in both a very plain way and a very ornamented and Baroque way

just to exercise your skills out.