In his heroic poem verse form A Season in Hell, the ugly Gallic poet Arthur Rimbaud proposes that the Devil likes composing that lacks “ descriptive ” qualities. Rimbaud so makes a base in favour of descriptive authorship by offering “ these horrid pages from [ his ] notes of the damned. ”
I would n’t travel so far as to state that nondescriptive authorship is evil in any spiritual or nonreligious sense, but I would hold that composing that fails to bring forth strong images or provoke important feelings provides small inducement to be considered as literary. Nevertheless, I ‘ve merely indicted myself for the exact offense that Rimbaud railed against. “ Strong ” and “ important ” are perfect illustrations of words that I have spent the past 10 old ages stating college pupils to avoid.
When I encounter a obscure word-like “ cool, ” “ good, ” “ bad, ” “ little, ” and “ beautiful ” -in a pupil ‘s originative work, I circle the word and inquire how the author can “ demo non state ” the inside informations. After all, what ‘s “ cool ” for one individual is frequently non “ cool ” for another, and when something is qualified so equivocally, it often means nil.
So I ask pupils to rethink how the inside informations can be shown. I explain that placing words that fail the Show Not Tell ( SNT ) trial is an exercising in unlearning ; that I ‘m disputing them to re-imagine what they ‘re hiting to joint ; that I ‘m seeking to acquire them to take their descriptions to the following degree in order to supply unique, colourful, action-packed visions that provoke the imagination-a construct in which the function of the image is cardinal.
Writing instructors from all subjects and at all degrees have been fighting with the issue of show non state for centuries. I ca n’t notice on how my co-workers encourage pupils to project this devil out, but I can decidedly note on my ain attack in introductory creative-writing classs. Basically, for the first half of the semester, I put my pupils through a drill in which they write “ portrayals ” of people, topographic points, and things. I tell them that what I ‘m looking for are physical inside informations, and that I ‘m non interested in anything else. I do n’t care what their capable affair is, I do n’t desire to see any cagey sum-ups to set anything in position for the reader. I merely want pure description in the kingdom of 150 words. Then, after they manus in their portrayals, I come along with my ruddy pen, circling words that “ state non demo ” like a tough-love autocrat.
Or a manager, because I ‘m acquiring them in form. I tell them they ‘re in developing for their midterm-at which clip we meet at the campus art gallery and each of them picks a piece of art to compose about in the signifier of a 100-word portrayal. The scaling is simple: An essay with no SNT misdemeanors equals an A+ ; one circled word peers an A ; two is an A-minus ; and so on. Because demoing non stating, I inform them, is a scientific step of creativeness that incorporates a critical and strict constituent. If they can weed out adjectives like “ ugly ” and replace them with phrases like “ toothless, pus-covered, and puke-inducing, ” so they ‘re on the right path.
During the first few hebdomads of the semester, I provide advice on how to avoid the dictatorship of my ruddy pen. Using the illustration of a pupil who describes a party as “ the bomb, ” I explain why that phrase falls short. ( Why is it the bomb? Do n’t state me it ‘s the bomb, show me it ‘s the bomb. ) I so ask pupils to brainstorm the inside informations of what such a party would affect by trusting on the five senses. We discuss the topic in footings of sight, sound, gustatory sensation, odor, and touch, and so I propose metaphors and similes as another technique in doing composing more elaborate. Then we move on to what I refer to as “ wordinvention, ” which can add texture to text-because creatifying animals of contextio is a quickish manner to frankenforge emotio-experience.
But largely I concentrate on encouraging pupils to spread out with description, instead than replace one vague word with another, which is what our inherent aptitudes are programmed to make. In that sense, I take Jack Kerouac ‘s Beat mantra of “ first word, best word ” to task by recommending the 6th or 7th idea.
Take, for illustration, Hemingway ‘s minimalist sentence “ It was a good fish. ” ( Sure, simpleness worked for Hemingway, but most of us are n’t Hemingway. ) It was a healthy fish. It was a thrashing bass. It was a hull-slapping Micropterus dolomieu bass. It was a hull-slapping, whoop-inspiring, DNA-pleasing Ozark Micropterus dolomieu heading for my sauteing pan. It was a hull-slapping, “ Yahoo! “ -producing, green-gold-striped Micropterus dolomieu from the Buffalo River whose fillets would shortly be dredged in a mixture of Indian meal, flour, and lemon Piper nigrum, and fried on the pebbly calico shore. And so on.
The thought is for pupils to flesh out the inside informations to the point that readers encounter a specific image, one that means something beyond a “ good fish. ” To set it merely, the more we see, the more we feel. That ‘s what Rimbaud was speaking about: employing inside informations to raise visions that trigger associations in the subconscious.
Rimbaud ‘s “ chemistry of the word, ” nevertheless, was n’t intended to progress the dominant 19th-century literary tendency now considered Realism ; he was taking to make a much more splanchnic consequence. This is the airy poet who wrote “ Voyelles, ” a verse form in which different vowels are ascribed different colourss with different centripetal qualities, a theory dating to Greek antiquity, so popularized in music survey with input from Newton and Goethe. Rimbaud ‘s vision of utilizing physical inside informations to make effects that play upon the senses subsequently became a major aim of the Symbolist motion, which finally evolved into Surrealism and became cardinal to the Postmodern aesthetic.
But for my intro pupils, I keep it simple. We work on physical inside informations, so switch cogwheels into composing poesy, so fiction after that. That provides for a background in description that prepares developing authors for more-sophisticated geographic expeditions if they choose to travel on to high-level signifiers and workshop classs.
I besides tell my pupils that this method will assist them on their college documents and in their callings, adding that if they do n’t believe my attack is worthwhile, they can ever reject it in the terminal. But once we pass the semester ‘s halfway grade, there ‘s truly no manner they can look at their ain authorship without sing the hands-on procedure I put them through.
The examination of inside informations carries through to their concluding portfolio, which tells it all: They manus in two versions of six pieces ( one short narrative and five verse forms ) in a standard composition board booklet. One pocket is labeled “ masters ” and contains texts full of words I circled, and the other pocket is labeled “ alterations. ” In their concluding merchandises, I see elaborate descriptions, wordinventions, similes, and metaphors. In short, I see their mental perspiration. But most of all, I see pupils believing critically about what they ‘re composing-which is what the exercising is all about.
Mark Spitzer is an associate professor of originative authorship at the University of Central Arkansas and the editor of the literary diary Toad Suck Review, published by the university.
