The Bigger Picture

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Small lines with huge impact

I’m delighted to welcome Richard Buxton to my blog today. Richard is a Masters graduate of the Chichester University Creative Writing Programme and the author of two novels, Whirligig and The Copper Road. His short stories have won the Exeter Story Prize, The Bedford International Writing Competition and the Nivalis Short Story Award. Richard’s books can be bought here. And do visit his website.

It’s normal when writing to spend a line or two on setting but then move on to the core of the scene. Perhaps the focus is around dialogue or action, maybe the character’s inner world or recollection. These things are the lifeblood of a novel and the modern approach is not to spend too much time scene setting in the first place, but how can we keep a sense of place or animation without bumping up the word count and slowing the pace?

Here's a lesson learnt from David Mitchell. I was reading the brilliant ‘A Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet’ set in late 18th century Nagasaki. I noticed Mitchell’s habit of throwing in quite random, short lines of animated description, often unrelated to the flow of the chapter, and how this instantly expanded the scene from a narrow focus to full, widescreen technicolour.

One passage that drove this home was a tense negotiation between Jacob’s Dutch master and the local Japanese magistrate, carried out via a translator while Jacob scribes. The dialogue is incomplete when Mitchell drops in, ‘The shadow of a bold rat trots along the oiled paper pane.’ I saw the running rat shadow, but also assembled it alongside the men seated in the traditional Japanese room. Suddenly there was a bigger picture.

Mitchell is expert at these bite size descriptions and drip feeds them throughout his scenes, feeding the readers inner camera. If I’m finding a piece has become a little stayed or one dimensional, I try the same trick.

In Whirligig, Tuck, in a tall tent with a storm building outside, is telling his new squad how he came to join the Union army following the murder of his parents on their farm. His future friends are necessarily sombre. ‘The wind pushed the slack in the canvas this way and that.’ Not as artful as Mr Mitchell, but it zooms us out from Tuck’s storytelling and evokes a sound. The reader might for a moment see the wider shot and the soldiers listening attentively. It allows a moment for the sadness to sink in.

So solid was the lesson, that now, if reviewing a chapter, I may just note down the need for one or two ‘J de Zs.’ Give it a try.

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