Writing it straight to the point

A Stodghill Says So blog:
When it comes to writing I have a split personality. I'm a reporter when writing non-fiction. With fiction I consider myself a pulp writer. That may put a lie to the split personality idea because both styles are blunt, get to the point methods of telling a story.
In reporting I detest "new journalism" that supposedly makes a story personal. I don't give a damn when I read, "Councilman Joe Blow sat quietly on the porch staring across the cornfield to the woods beyond." So what? Who cares?
The wire service lead is better. "The wife and two young daughters of Councilman Joe Blow were killed Wednesday morning in a one-car crash on Front Street south of Chestnut." That's the story, not the fact that Joe is sorry about it. No need to tell readers he's sad. They'll figure that out themselves.
In fiction I prefer descriptions without frills. The style of a woman's dress, the color of the carpet, the pictures on the wall mean nothing unless they move the story forward. Everyone has seen a sunset. Readers don't need to be told what one looks like. "He was thin with a receding chin and prominent adam's apple" is enough to tell what a man looks like unless the color of his eyes or hair somehow advance the story.
Every writer breaks his own rules at times. When he does, there's a reason for it. If there isn't, he's just rambling and boring readers. An old rule tells us to leave out the part readers skim or skip.
I was lucky because my formative years were spent in a gritty neighborhood where life was seen from close up and there was a store selling nothing but used pulp magazines. Thousands of them covering every topic. Two cents per magazine, only a penny if you turned one in when you entered. I tried them all because I kept a dozen or so on hand and read a couple every week. My favorites were Black Mask, Dime Detective, Flying Aces and G-8 and His Battle Acres. World War dogfights over France and death on the mean streets, those were my bread and butter.
Murder still is. Love is boring, fantasy is the same, no imaginary horror equals that found in real life. So in fiction I write noir and hard-boiled stories like I read all those years ago. I found good teachers in those pulpwood pages: Hammett, Chandler, Cain, Woolrich, many others. They said hook 'em early, skip the frills, keep it moving. Like city editors expected the story to be told in the lead graph so it was still there if everything else had to be cut. Get to the point, that was what they taught me to do.

Great posts from two of my favorite guys!! That's fact, not fluff, by the way.

You'll make them blush, Zada.

It might look good on them--especially Dick!

Excellent advice. Having read so much advice about descriptive information, I was beginning to feel that I was short changing the reader. Now, I believe what I wrote was suited to people who want the meat of the story without all the needless frills. Like telling the reader that the needle had a hole in the end to put the thread through.
When reading, I too skip much in a book that gets into too much descriptive details.

Good information Dick and Don. I wrote so much nonfiction when I worked, that my problem now is sounding encyclopedic. But then the problem is in trying to sound less encyclopedic, I put in too many details that get in the way of the story. You both have made some good suggestions and show there is hope. I might get it right yet.

Carol

Zada,
I consider it an honor to be on the same list as Dick (regardless of the kind of list), but one of your favorite guys...

When I pick up a fiction book in a bookshop, I look through it to see if it takes three pages to tell me what the main character's hat looked like... if it does, I put it back on the shelf.

I'm the same with non-fiction. I buy a lot of art history books, and if a book takes two paragraphs to describe the colour of a field, especially when there's an illustration to look at, I can't be bothered with it.

One of my favourite books is Voltaire's 'Candide'... there's very little by way of description in it. It moves very quickly because of that.

Less is more.

Less is more or at least I heard that somewhere but too little leave us blind. Balance that's what I try for, I just wish it was as easy as the idea's came to me; then I'd have a dozen or more books done by now, hehehe

Dick Stodghill wrote:

In reporting I detest "new journalism" that supposedly makes a story personal. I don't give a damn when I read, "Councilman Joe Blow sat quietly on the porch staring across the cornfield to the woods beyond." So what? Who cares?

Haha, I hate TV news pieces where they interview the twittering neighbors. "I heard a big boom and wondered what it was!" Or when they interview random kids, asking their opinion. "Yeah, we were all surprised and thought it was kind of sad."

So what, indeed. But I guess someone cares.

I find it offensive when tv news reporters rush up and ask someone who has just lost a loved one "How do you feel?" I am waiting for one of the interviewees to say "How do you think I feel?" or to have a fist fly.

I tend to tell rather than show, and can get lost in descriptions. I am trying to work through both tendencies.

I always said, if a reporter stuck a microphone in my face right after a tragedy like that, they would require major surgery to get it back.

See? I told you you were one of my favorite guys. Just tell it like it is!

When I was a print reporter the TV guys would try to push and shove their way to the front. Those of us from newspapers used numerous tactics to see that they didn't make it. At that time their microphones needed an electrical hookup. A lot of plugs got pulled. Accidentally, of course.

Sometimes I wish they could pull the plugs today, Dick. I also realize that they are doing a job. At times an extremely difficult job, so I choose most times to simply hit the 'off' button.

Dick is right on. Of course, Im in the Dick Stodghill fanclub! Dick is cool!

Richard, that is a pretty popular club!

I could not agree more. I hate lengthy descriptions.