In one of my classes at the recent Florida Tech Creative Writing Institute, we read the first few chapters of All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. It was, of course, exquisite. But when the discussion began, a man in the back of the room questioned the repeated words. To paraphrase, he said, “That would never get past the critique group.”
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| Why was she even here if she wasn’t going to listen to us? Photo by Dakiny via flickr |
I laughed and said something like, “I know, right?”
The candleflame and the image of the candleflame caught in the pierglass twisted and righted when he entered the hall and again when he shut the door. He took off his hat and came slowly forward. The floorboards creaked under his boots. In his black suit he stood in the dark glass where the lilies leaned so palely from their waisted cutglass vase. Along the cold hallway behind him hung the portraits of forebears only dimly known to him all framed in glass and dimly lit above the narrowing wainscotting.
There’s more…so much more. The repeats of candle flame, glass, and dimly would be shunned in a critique group. Why? Because uninspired writers cling fiercely to rules and don’t understand the genius of breaking them.
It’s funny. And sad. The reality that your local critique group might slash and rewrite Cormac McCarthy’s opening scene because he repeated some words baffles me. And yet, I know that I have criticized other authors for doing the same thing…sort of.
The difference is, of course, how you do it. Do you do it well? Or do you muck up your prose so that it sounds choppy and misshapen? Does it read like melted chocolate on the tongue? Or like grass burrs in your throat? Are you repeating words for emphasis, for lyricism, or mood? Or are you repeating words because you haven’t taken the time to read your work, looking for all of the above?
Here’s an example* of bad repetition.
It was more than a full hour until dawn, but the forum was all ready [sic] crowded. Overcast skies and a threat of rain did nothing to reduce the attendance in the forum. Only the power of the dictator of Rome and his threats brought the reluctant to the forum.
There is no song here. There is no beauty, no lyric. There is only an author who can’t figure out how to show us the images in his head without using the word forum three times in a row.
I just finished John Steinbeck’s East of Eden, a glorious novel, satiated with repeated words; and I wondered as I read, how many “mistakes” did he make? I knew his repeats wouldn’t make it past a critique group, but I had to wonder what else.
There were times when I felt Steinbeck explained too much, but I didn’t mind his characters doing it. There were times the dialogue rang false to my ears, but I’m from a different time…and I’m not John Steinbeck.
When you read Steinbeck, you are listening to a story and it’s told directly, and indirectly, it’s subtle and it’s overt, the words flow from the book to your mind like a river; it’s choppy when the author wants it to be, rushing at times, too, or calm and only manic below the surface, when he wants it to be.
Be the author of your words. Write your story so that it sings to your ears and your heart. Yes, yes, by all means, read it! Read it aloud, read it silent. Read it on the screen and read it on paper. Read it until you’re nearly sick of it (all the while still tingling with excitement and pleasure when you do). And once you’ve decided which (repeated or not) words sing and which you had to rewrite or chop, then it will be yours.
Stop listening to other people tell you what to do and what not to do. You don’t need them. You only need you, your heart and your soul and your story. When you sit in a critique group and write the heart out of your story because your peers tell you how they’d write it, you’re not creating an honest story. You’re creating a perfectly told story. Mundane, dull. Dead.
Take the reins of your art! Listen to what’s deep inside you trying to get out. And don’t let anybody tell you you can’t repeat that word. You can do whatever you want to do, because the story is yours and yours alone.
And by all means, read some Steinbeck.
*I’ll not name this book or author, but it is, actually, a wonderful story, despite its problems.