ThoughtTree Workshop Participants work – feedback / critique / website inclusion
Workshop 09/12/2016
“Info Dumping”
Task 1.
Describe a favourite place that you know well. Describe the type of landscape / environment. Don’t forget your senses. Include Sight Sound Smell or Touch.
My Favourite place
Is the rear of St Nicholas Church, Laindon, Essex. The second highest point in the county. Look North and there lies Great and Little Burstead once Roman forts that defended the Thames estuary. From this lofty perch, they could see any enemy daring to invade. Between these two high points is the most beautiful valley, laid out in typical English farm fields each bordered by hedge row and shrub. In the centre of this nature perfection is the A127, a four-lane grotesque blot quite unlike the Liverpool Street Railway Line that lay over that Northern hill, trains unseen, though still added their ‘clank de clank de clank de clank’ to the scene whilst on their way to Billericay station. On the best of summer sunshine days’ shadows of huge cumulus clouds scurry driven by a sturdy south west breeze. I study the ant sized people walking Church Road on their way to and from nearby ASDA. Whilst immediately in my space woodpeckers vandalise the ancient wooden bell tower with every resounding jackhammer sounds whilst the people of the past lay in their timeless slumber
Question: Is there anything missing when you re-read your piece? Comment
I didn’t think there was anything missing but others in the group thought that people were missing from their descriptions.
Suggested reading Thomas Hardy who describes at length landscapes which he uses as if they were characters in his books. Other reading could be ‘Of Mice and Men’ by Steinbeck who uses a great deal of repeated phrases in his descriptive narrative.
Followed a short talk on PACE, lengthy paragraphs or sentences tending to slow the pace of a book whereas short staccato stuff tends to increase the speed considerably.
• IDEAS get expanded when a writer writes about anything at great length
• Modern writers try to second guess a reader’s response and then go on to write further about the subject in hand, which is fine if you’re NOT a reader that jumped to the obvious conclusion
Both concepts warned against. Small details can be made to reveal an awful lot
Examples:
• The neck size of his shirt was far too big. (could be weight loss due to illness / bad diet / enforced poverty)
• His shoes shone (a guy that takes pride in his appearance)
• His hand shook (not happy about what is being said, or perhaps the company he finds himself in makes him unsure)
These snippets are ‘bread crumbs’. Leave a trail of little ones and let the reader connect them and come up with their own conclusion.
TASK 2.
Write a thumbnail sketch of a person you know well or a fictitious character in a book. This sketch should include physical details alongside emotional detail as well.
The Villain
His features were typically Jewish. As he didn’t like to venture out into the chaotic busy streets, where dangers for his race abounded, he needed a lot of mobile accomplices to make his business work. He recruited people, like himself, who felt alone and therefore group dependent. Most of his housemates that he provided food and lodgings to were unwanted street urchins that he personally trained to become pick pockets and thieves. To keep order amongst his lower ranks and be in touch with the crazy East End life outside his tenement walls he had recruited a villainous burglar and a lady of the night. His whole life was spent in looking after his little flock, dreaming of a better life and of course counting his ill-gotten profits. His biggest fear perhaps being treachery, that one of his mates might have the gall to steal from him or ‘peach’ and lead him to the gallows.
Thoughts from the Tree
If you leave out an ‘info dump’ will your reader still be able to follow the story?
• YES – then dump the ‘info dump’
• NO – then
o edit it – shorten, sharpen, look for redundancies
o clip into ‘bread crumbs’ and spread
COMIC MOMENTS give a great excuse to just have a break altogether from the pace of the story, just linger in the mirth a while and have a mental Kit Kat [COMIC RELIEF]
All prose has direction.
Start Middle END
Just consider that you might have started writing somewhere that was NOT the perceived start of the story. Re Writes coming up!
GORE GIRL is a book that has multiple narrators. Another idea that can be used to generate reader interest avoiding an ‘Info Dump’.
The Road: – by Cormac McCarthy is a book in which absolutely nothing happens
100% descriptive books can be million sellers, doesn’t make them a good read though.
If you are looking for a break from a tedious description that you cannot break up into ‘crumbs’ then consider getting your main character to do something. OR have something interesting happening in the back ground such a s a TV broadcast that you ‘snippety’.
TASK 3
Take the character that you described earlier and place him or her or it in the place that you described earlier. This is not necessarily simple or straightforward or easy.
He remained hidden behand a tall 18th century headstone. To his right and down the hill a little was the subject of this rendezvous. It was very late and the darkness across the valley, even though split by the road to Southend, was total. No Moon. Cloud obscuring the stars in the sky.
“See you bought the shovel then Bill”
“Prepared for anything, even you.@
“Let’s go further down the hill, towards the North-West Boundary”
“Why?”
“The infant graveyard is there.”
“So?”
“Smaller holes my boy, less conspicuous, blend in.”
“Oh, as per usual you cunning old devil, you thinks of everything.”
“and no real hurry Bill, no one comes here late at Night, I checked last night and the night before, we is alone.”
The two shapes felt their way down the steep hill floundering in the blackness.
The Jew saw a chance, grabbed the shovel, struck Bill with it on his head and very soon the burglar and his dog were concealed in a grave three young boys had dug the night before.
“A neat job Fagin. We fill it in now?”
“Yes sausages for tea boys, and some very nice Gin we borrowed yesterday.”
Page 1 of 1Paul Hickman10/12/2016
