tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5408527144593754357.post9190141038903170265..comments2023-06-08T01:49:56.431-07:00Comments on Dan Pollock's Thrillerblog : DESCRIBING STUFFDan Pollockhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16993529540179848119noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5408527144593754357.post-36096555791155210832015-09-07T12:41:47.361-07:002015-09-07T12:41:47.361-07:00John D, MacDonald was a true master of the craft. ...John D, MacDonald was a true master of the craft. I feel like I become a better writer with every MacDonald novel that I read. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08142357979509642181noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5408527144593754357.post-3677255578196030912015-08-17T17:18:44.503-07:002015-08-17T17:18:44.503-07:00Excellent post and comments. Description helps whe...Excellent post and comments. Description helps when one is a long time artist. I have to be careful not to over describe my images. Cheryl, in a writing group I found that only one person in eight did not like my descriptive prose. <br />Happy writing to all. Dan, I'm glad I found your cite. Marie Pinschmidthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901627757485565197noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5408527144593754357.post-2888175282015956612015-08-17T17:09:56.574-07:002015-08-17T17:09:56.574-07:00Interesting; I just posted that quote also.Interesting; I just posted that quote also.Marie Pinschmidthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11901627757485565197noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5408527144593754357.post-82787497461022716602014-07-25T15:49:19.460-07:002014-07-25T15:49:19.460-07:00Rachel, thank you! I'm happy that the post hel...Rachel, thank you! I'm happy that the post help stir you creative juices. I reread some of these same quotes often to help inspire me to delve deeper into my material. I have to see it and believe it if I expect readers to do so.Dan Pollockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16993529540179848119noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5408527144593754357.post-32233164430557501252014-07-25T15:03:38.704-07:002014-07-25T15:03:38.704-07:00Dan, great blog post to read while I'm working...Dan, great blog post to read while I'm working on the first drafts of two WIPs. I'm already thinking about how I can improve my setting descriptions on the next round of drafting, whilst ensuring I don't overload my readers with details. Interesting how it's often books that are now some 30 years old which have the best descriptive passages, isn't it?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17292534608486280458noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5408527144593754357.post-53938384671451884652013-10-09T16:52:31.647-07:002013-10-09T16:52:31.647-07:00"For me as a reader, exhaustive detail is exh..."For me as a reader, exhaustive detail is exhausting." A quote to be shared on my blog. My thanks. Insightful (pun not intended, really) piece!Sondra Kelly-Greenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11050129578411949554noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5408527144593754357.post-32978905826799514772013-09-20T13:07:29.538-07:002013-09-20T13:07:29.538-07:00Impressive comments all around! Obviously a provoc...Impressive comments all around! Obviously a provocative topic for writers. Such a challenge, describing stuff. And perhaps that first task given man, as God told Adam to name all the critters in critterdom.Dan Pollockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16993529540179848119noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5408527144593754357.post-17995360014797531402013-09-20T11:53:21.562-07:002013-09-20T11:53:21.562-07:00Excellent post. I think some writers are more tale...Excellent post. I think some writers are more talented than others when it comes to describing things. Some make it boring while others make it a fine work of art. After reading this, I'm going back and checking my details. Thanks! Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06657344910948061128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5408527144593754357.post-16214443274770939012013-09-20T10:41:13.758-07:002013-09-20T10:41:13.758-07:00Claude, I love your "trick" and aim to t...Claude, I love your "trick" and aim to try it. I'm not great at visualization -- a horrible confession to have to make, because many of my favorite authors are masters of this. But maybe this will stimulate me. And then cutting with a vengeance is good, because it will be a refining process too. A writer I admire greatly, Jonathan Kellerman, I swear describes every stitch of clothing for the characters Alex Delaware comes upon in the course of his investigation. He must enjoy it. Romance and historical novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford, who once upon a time wrote a syndicated interior design newspaper column (which I edited), trowels on lengthy descriptions of decor.Dan Pollockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16993529540179848119noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5408527144593754357.post-45655611474708745072013-09-20T09:48:00.490-07:002013-09-20T09:48:00.490-07:00Great post, Dan, it's my first time here and I...Great post, Dan, it's my first time here and I'm enjoying it thoroughly, including Tony Whelpton's excellent comment. Indeed, we cannot all be great writers but surely we can improve and your advice is soung, it shows a simple way to improve! I confess that as a reader I've always disliked descriptions while as a writer I've always felt obliged to make them. <br /><br />I believe there's a trick to achieve a striking description that will enchant the reader rather than slow down the reading. That's what I do because I haven't yet found a better way to do it. And it's simply this: sit back and visualize the scene then write as much as you can about the setting (color, smell, light, sound etc) and the look of the characters (tall, short, manly, female, angry, smiling etc), then cut back on everything that looks banal or cliché. But cut back with a vengeance. Don't spare anything. Ten lines can be reduced to one. It usually works (though not always, LOL!)<br /><br />Of course, it's just a trick for those of us who are not Master Writers!Claude Forthommehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03871790739257823515noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5408527144593754357.post-24019057779421963092013-09-18T18:47:22.453-07:002013-09-18T18:47:22.453-07:00Tony, thanks for the rich and well-thought-out pos...Tony, thanks for the rich and well-thought-out posting. Indeed, it's a separate post quite equal to the original, and I wouldn't argue with anything you said. Some of my favorite writers were and are capable of writing far less than their best, at times, and it is the story teller, and her or his beguiling voice that carry the day, ultimately, not style. A friend of mine arranged the hierarchy of importance in writing this way: 1. WHO is writing (or telling the story). 2: WHAT is being said... and, finally, 3> HOW it is said.<br /><br />I have your website marked out, and hope to be have time to read some of your stuff!Dan Pollockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16993529540179848119noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5408527144593754357.post-89532622294874820932013-09-18T03:53:24.921-07:002013-09-18T03:53:24.921-07:00Macdonald’s example is well chosen, his point well...Macdonald’s example is well chosen, his point well made, and he establishes a target for any serious writer to aim at. But we are not all Macdonalds, Hansens, Salingers or Chekhovs, and thank God for that, because if everyone was capable of writing in that way their genius would no longer be genius, but just run-of-the-mill.<br />When I first read this piece, my initial reaction was to feel depressed, because, although I would love to be able to write in that way, I know very well that I couldn’t. Well, perhaps if I had started writing fiction at a younger age… I mean, I could show you a piece of writing by Flaubert, a short story called Rage et Impuissance, which is so badly written there are places where it literally does not make sense, and there is very little that suggests that the writer would one day be renowned for his polished style. But he was only 15 when he wrote it, and perhaps there is a clue in the fact that it was not even discovered until after Flaubert’s death!<br />I would not quarrel with Macdonald’s notion of a creative partnership, but I would suggest that such a partnership can operate in a number of different ways. A character’s reaction in a particular situation, for instance, even when factually described, obliges the reader to reach conclusions about the person and to make conjectures about his future moves. What’s more, the really clever writer can evoke reactions of his own choice in a reader, while at the same time making the reader think that he himself is being rather smart and that he is himself participating in the creative process.<br />I only started writing fiction when I was 77, and my first novel was published when I was 79, this after thirty years of writing academic textbooks in which the ultimate aim was clarity. As a result, I was constantly aware of “Time’s winged chariot drawing near”. But I also knew what reactions I wanted to evoke in the reader and I used the means which I knew I had. I have read novels – who hasn’t? – in which style has taken such precedence over substance that it gets in the way. I’m sure that if I lived long enough I could eventually produce something along the lines suggested by Macdonald, but if I had done that, then Before the Swallow Dares and The Heat of the Kitchen would have remained unwritten – it’s for readers, not for me, to suggest that that would be a pity!<br />What is important, I think, is for a writer – of any kind – to write with integrity; to be ever aware of his readers and the effect he wishes to have on them, and to achieve that without straying into what I would consider the cardinal sin of a writer: pretentiousness. In other words, there is plenty of room for writers of all manner of different skills – there exist, after all, many ways of evoking delight…Tony Whelptonhttp://www.tony-whelpton.co.uknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5408527144593754357.post-8513693681352708722013-08-23T05:31:58.722-07:002013-08-23T05:31:58.722-07:00What a wonderfull example you give of how to entic...What a wonderfull example you give of how to entice a reader into a scene. This is just what I needed. I'm inclined to give too many character actions instead of allowing the reader's imagination to work. Francene Stanleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08298485336064691700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5408527144593754357.post-34768348811909317232013-08-18T20:23:49.094-07:002013-08-18T20:23:49.094-07:00You are feeding my muse as I sit here sipping scot...You are feeding my muse as I sit here sipping scotch with the ghost of John D. MacDonald by the moonlight reflecting off the Intercoastal waterway on a houseboat in Ft. Lauderdale. Mr. E.A. Poe is expected to join us with a jug of malmsey. We shall toast to you. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11660952914145176704noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5408527144593754357.post-74199655019391169462013-08-08T18:40:33.895-07:002013-08-08T18:40:33.895-07:00Hi Dan, I don't often click on links in twitte...Hi Dan, I don't often click on links in twitter, but this time I did, and I'm glad that I did. Interesting and entertaining post. Thanks.welshviewshttp://www.welshviews.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5408527144593754357.post-8057818039400475842013-07-29T12:21:07.735-07:002013-07-29T12:21:07.735-07:00I'm commenting on my own post with a postscrip...I'm commenting on my own post with a postscript, courtesy of fellow thriller writer Seb Kirby. Here is his Tweet of a great Chekov quote:<br /><br />@Seb_Kirby 2m<br />Anton Chekhov: Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.Dan Pollockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16993529540179848119noreply@blogger.com