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James Schmames - Henry who?
Oct. 9th, 2008 03:42 pmI wrote a sentence this morning that has 399 words in it.
I am kind of known for long sentences anyway, but this is a thing of beauty: with colons and semi-colons and m-dashes and all sorts. And perfect grammatical structure. And 399 words.
I wouldn't say I was bored, exactly, but I had to do something that was potentially boring. Ballet has a thing called 'travelling', where a dancer just has to get from point A on stage to point B before the next big thing occurs; and if the choreography gives them nothing more exciting they'll just do a scutter of meaningless little steps. Travelling.
Fiction of course has the same problem. Sometimes you can jump-cut like a movie would, but sometimes the pacing or the mood or whatever needs to show the character in motion. Specifically, in this instance, I needed to move a character from a tent on a ridge-top to a building in the valley, when the same transition has occurred more than once before.
Coulda been dull, for me or the reader or both. Didn't want to jump-cut, she's not that kind of character: she takes everything at the same relentless pace.
So: hey, could I do this in a sentence...?
Yup. 399 words. *snorts*
In other news, I seem to have precipitated a possible art-theft investigation, yay me. Last week I posted a view of the stairs leading down to the Silence Room; today - after a period of years - I got around to asking the librarian what happened to the Thomas Bewick print that used to hang there. Blank looks, followed by anxious enquiries. Maybe it's turned up by now, I don't know, I had to come away; but me, I reckon some light-fingered villain had away with it. Two screws, no alarm: I had looked at it myself. Strictly in my role as a crime-writer, you understand. I reckon I anticipated a crime...
I am kind of known for long sentences anyway, but this is a thing of beauty: with colons and semi-colons and m-dashes and all sorts. And perfect grammatical structure. And 399 words.
I wouldn't say I was bored, exactly, but I had to do something that was potentially boring. Ballet has a thing called 'travelling', where a dancer just has to get from point A on stage to point B before the next big thing occurs; and if the choreography gives them nothing more exciting they'll just do a scutter of meaningless little steps. Travelling.
Fiction of course has the same problem. Sometimes you can jump-cut like a movie would, but sometimes the pacing or the mood or whatever needs to show the character in motion. Specifically, in this instance, I needed to move a character from a tent on a ridge-top to a building in the valley, when the same transition has occurred more than once before.
Coulda been dull, for me or the reader or both. Didn't want to jump-cut, she's not that kind of character: she takes everything at the same relentless pace.
So: hey, could I do this in a sentence...?
Yup. 399 words. *snorts*
In other news, I seem to have precipitated a possible art-theft investigation, yay me. Last week I posted a view of the stairs leading down to the Silence Room; today - after a period of years - I got around to asking the librarian what happened to the Thomas Bewick print that used to hang there. Blank looks, followed by anxious enquiries. Maybe it's turned up by now, I don't know, I had to come away; but me, I reckon some light-fingered villain had away with it. Two screws, no alarm: I had looked at it myself. Strictly in my role as a crime-writer, you understand. I reckon I anticipated a crime...