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Ben Bova on narrative voice and simplicity

I got this off a fanfiction site, but apparently, it originally came from the introduction to a short story collection by Ben Bova.

It is the secret of the artist that he does his work so superlatively well that we all but forget to ask what his work was supposed to be, for sheer admiration of the way he did it.
—E. H. Gombrich, The Story of Art

I agree with that statement—up to a point. The esteemed Dr. Gombrich may be totally correct when speaking of painting or sculpture or even architecture, but when it comes to writing fiction, Sir Ernest and I part company.

In fiction, I believe, the true art is to engage the reader so intimately in the story that we forget about the writer, for sheer involvement in the tale that the characters are weaving before our eyes.

Maybe I feel that way because I started out in the newspaper game (it's never called a business by the workers in the field). Or maybe it's because I've spent most of my adult life working with scientists and engineers. Or maybe it's because I care about my readers too much.

Whatever the reason, I have always felt that the writer should be drawn into the story, rather than forced to admire the writer's brush-strokes. Only after the story is finished should the reader be able to sit up and think, “That was an enjoyable piece of writing.” During the reading process, the reader should be so engrossed in the story that the writer's art (or craft) is barely noticed, if at all.

I have never felt that writing should be a contest between author and the reader, a battleground filled with obscurity and arcana., I don't want my readers to struggle with my prose. I don't want to impress them with how smart I am. I want them to enjoy what I'm writing and maybe think a little about what I'm trying to say.

Problem is, when you write clearly and simply without stylistic frills or rococo embellishments, some people think you are not a “deep” thinker or a “stylist.”

Isaac Asimov ran into this predicament often. Critics could not fault Isaac on his knowledge or his success, or even his earnestness or political correctness, so they belittled his style, calling it “pedestrian” or “simplistic.” Yet Isaac's style was the one thing that made him such a success, at least as far as his non-fiction work is concerned.

Other specialists knew their subjects in more depth than Isaac did. Isaac had a tremendous breadth of knowledge, but in any particular field—be it cosmology or poetry, biblical scholarship or even biochemistry—there were specialists who knew a lot more of the details than he did.

But it was Isaac's genius to be able to take any of those specialized fields and write about them so clearly, so naturalistically, that just about anyone who is able to read could learn the fundamentals of Isaac's subject. That took style! And it was definitely not intuitive, the work of an unreflected genius. Isaac thought about what he did, every step of the way. He deliberately developed a writing style that was so deceptively unpretentious and naturalistic that critics thought what he did was easy.

In fiction, the academic disdain for straightforward, honest prose has led critics to dismiss Hemingway and praise Faulkner, although today we are seeing that Hemingway's work is standing the test of time better than most of his contemporaries'. Maybe Hemingway was also influenced by his early days of newspapering. We know that he deliberately developed the lean, understated style that became his hallmark. He worked hard at it, every year of his writing life.

Lord knows that no one has accused the science-fiction field of overemphasis on style. If anything, the accusations have been just the opposite, that science-fiction writing is too pedestrian, too mundane. Yet the field has produced some marvelous stylists: Fritz Leiber, for example. Alfred Bester. Ray Bradbury.

There is a good reason why most science-fiction is written in a plain, naturalistic, realistic style. Out-of-this-world settings and incredible feats may abound in science-fiction stories, yet the prose is unusually unadorned and straightforward. Why? Because if you want to make the reader believe what you are saying, if you want the reader to accept those out-of-this-world backgrounds and incredible deeds, it is easier if the prose you use is as simple and realistic as you can make it.

In science there is a dictum: don't add an experiment to an experiment. Don't make things unnecessarily complicated. In writing fiction, the more fantastic the tale, the plainer the prose should be. Don't ask your readers to admire your words when you want them to believe your story.

In my own work I have tried to keep the prose clean and clear, especially when I am writing about subjects as complex as space exploration, politics, and love. Those subjects are tricky enough without trying to write about them in convoluted sentences heavy with opaque metaphors and intricate similes.

Then, too, there is the difference between the optimists and the pessimists. Somehow, somewhere in the course of time, darkly pessimistic stories got to be considered more “literary” than brightly optimistic ones. I suspect this attitude began in academia, although it is really a rather juvenile perspective: teenagers frequently see the world they face as too big and complex, too awesome for them to fathom. Healthy adults saw off a chunk of that world for themselves and do their best to cultivate it. That is the message of Voltaire's Candide, after all.

Even in the science-fiction field, pessimistic “downbeat” stories are often regarded as intrinsically more sophisticated than optimistic “upbeat” tales. I suspect this reveals a hidden yearning within the breasts of some science-fiction people to be accepted by the academic/literary establishment. That's okay with me, but such yearnings should not cloud our perceptions.

It may be de rigueur in academic circles to moan about the myth of Sisyphus and the pointless futility of human existence, but such an attitude is antithetical to the principles of science fiction, which are based on the fundamental principles of science: that the universe is understandable, and human reason can fathom the most intricate mysteries of existence, given time.

Science fiction is fundamentally optimistic literature. We tend to see the human race not as failed angels but as evolving apes struggling toward godhood. Even in the darkest dystopian science-fiction stories, there is hope for the future. This is the literature that can take a situation such as the Sun blowing up, and ask, “Okay, what happens next?”*

Does that make science-fiction silly? Or pedestrian? Or juvenile? Hell no! It's those academic thumb-suckers who are the juveniles. In science fiction we deal with the real world and try to examine honestly where in the universe we are and where we are capable of going.

In good science fiction, that is. As Theodore Sturgeon pointed out ages ago, ninety-five percent of science fiction (and everything else) is crap. All that bears the title “science fiction” is not in Ted's top five percent. But at its best, science fiction is wonderful. And it tends to be optimistic.

Because I try to write clearly and tend to believe that the human mind can solve the problems it faces, I fear that my work is often regarded as simplistic, or lacking style, or less “literary” than some others'.

Such complaints are the price to be paid for writing plainly and basing fiction on the real world and actual human behavior.

One of America's first literary giants, Nathaniel Hawthorne, responded to the accusation of writing without elegance:

I am glad you think my style plain. I never, in any one page or paragraph, aimed at making it anything else. . . . The greatest possible merit of style is, of course, to make the words absolutely disappear into the thought.


So—here are fourteen stories that range from tragedy to buffoonery, fourteen tales from the future, the past, and even from the timelessness of eternity. One of them is outright fantasy, coauthored with a friend and kindred soul. Another can be read as fantasy, although I don't see it as such. A few of them might make you chuckle; all of them should make you think.

Each story is written as clearly as possible, with no unnecessary stylistic adornments. They may not be “Art,” in Dr. Gombrich's sense, although I think they are enjoyable.

But you'll be the judge of that.

Naples, Florida
1997​

* If you don't believe me, read Lary Niven's “Inconstant Moon.” Or my own Test of Fire.
 

JCFarnham

Auror
Why? Because if you want to make the reader believe what you are saying, if you want the reader to accept those out-of-this-world backgrounds and incredible deeds, it is easier if the prose you use is as simple and realistic as you can make it.

I'm going to have to disagree with this fundemental explanation of his argument.

I get what he's trying to say, but the conflation of literarism/stylism as always elitist is a little insulting to me. It seems to suggest that one is better than the other: Exactly what stylists do when they bash on minimalism. If he wants to say what I think he's trying to saying, he could probably stand to do it in a way that doesn't lower him to his "enemy's" level.

You know?

There are good and bad times for both.
 

BWFoster78

Myth Weaver
Feo,

Thanks for this. I found it a good read and an elegant representation of what I want to achieve, though for a different reason than the one he stated.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
Yeah, Bova writes a certain way. If you want to produce a work in that style, then fine. If you think that's the only style in which an effective work can be produced, then your view of the world is too limited and you probably need to do some more reading and try to broader your horizons a little.
 
Intriguing. Anyone could argue whether some things have a more visible style or should have more, but there's a lot to be said for standing back from the details.

Another layer of "Show don't tell." Or, that style is the story's clothes, and "Clothes should make people notice who's wearing them, not themselves."
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
Another layer of "Show don't tell." Or, that style is the story's clothes, and "Clothes should make people notice who's wearing them, not themselves."

This still presupposes you're going for a certain style. There's nothing wrong with that, but there's nothing wrong with rejecting that approach, either. This all boils down to subjective preference, though as you can see from any writing forum the impulse among many, for some reason, is to pretend their subjective preferences are objective standards of good and bad.
 

BWFoster78

Myth Weaver
Yeah, Bova writes a certain way. If you want to produce a work in that style, then fine. If you think that's the only style in which an effective work can be produced, then your view of the world is too limited and you probably need to do some more reading and try to broader your horizons a little.

I agree that this is not the only style that can succeed.

It does, however, have some advantages:

1. It can be taught more easily than "trying to find a unique voice."
2. It seems to be the dominant style of modern writing. While some may lament this fact, writing in this style seems to be more accepted by customers in the current market.

It almost feels like anyone who dares to try to help other writers on this board by giving advice needs to include some type of disclaimer like: assuming you're trying to produce something in the dominant modern style instead of trying to take the path of finding your unique voice which is a process that probably no one here can really help you with since it's, by definition, unique to you...
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
It almost feels like anyone who dares to try to help other writers on this board by giving advice needs to include some type of disclaimer like: assuming you're trying to produce something in the dominant modern style instead of trying to take the path of finding your unique voice which is a process that probably no one here can really help you with since it's, by definition, unique to you...

I think points #1 and #2 are accurate. I also agree that you can't teach someone to find their voice.

As for the point I quoted - the problem lies in how the advice is expressed. A lot of the time it is presented in a categorical manner, as though a writer "has" to do this or that for their work to be good. That's a problem in how the person giving advice chooses to express themselves. There's nothing wrong with people pointing out that such advice is unsound when read as an absolute. It is possible to express advice more accurately without a disclaimer, but if someone presents advice as an absolute, the fault lies with them for either their inability to express themselves accurately or their mistaken view that their advice really does constitute some kind of absolute, not in the people who have to come along later and point out that it isn't really an absolute after all.
 

BWFoster78

Myth Weaver
As for the point I quoted - the problem lies in how the advice is expressed. A lot of the time it is presented in a categorical manner, as though a writer "has" to do this or that for their work to be good. That's a problem in how the person giving advice chooses to express themselves. There's nothing wrong with people pointing out that such advice is unsound when read as an absolute. It is possible to express advice more accurately without a disclaimer, but if someone presents advice as an absolute, the fault lies with them for either their inability to express themselves accurately or their mistaken view that their advice really does constitute some kind of absolute, not in the people who have to come along later and point out that it isn't really an absolute after all.

But, if people are looking to develop their unique voice, why are they reading these comments in the first place? It seems counterintuitive to need to state exceptions. We're on a forum where we help each other with writing. We can help each other pretty easily develop the modern style of writing. We can't really do much to help other writers develop their unique voice. So, if there's a discussion about the best writing techniques, it seems obvious that we're talking about a modern style and not a unique voice.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
So, if there's a discussion about the best writing techniques, it seems obvious that we're talking about a modern style and not a unique voice.

No, I don't agree. The fact that you conflate the two is clear from your posts, but 'best' and the generic style you see across a lot of modern works are not the same. Making the assumption that everyone who asks for help wants to write in a generic style isn't helpful either. If a writer says they are going for a specific style, then I think it makes sense to provide feedback with that in mind. If they're asking a general question that is susceptible to different approaches, then I think it is valuable to provide feedback representing the different approaches. I don't have a problem if you consistently provide advice reflecting a very general, lean modern style. I'm not sure why you have a problem when someone expresses a differing view, but it is to be expected in a community of diverse writers (or in any other group).
 

BWFoster78

Myth Weaver
I'm not sure why you have a problem when someone expresses a differing view, but it is to be expected in a community of diverse writers (or in any other group).

I don't have a problem with it as much as it just gets tiresome. Everytime anyone wants to say something on the subject, apparently a disclaimer is required.

By now, I'd think that every forum member knows how both of us feel on the subject.
 

Xaysai

Inkling
I feel like how "best" to write something is a moving target. One that, as someone learning to write, can be extremely confusing and frustrating to hit.

At this early stage of my writing, I like Brian's approach because it is very clear cut. However, once I am knowledgeable enough to be good with it, I would like to experiment with adding more to my "style".

My English teacher used to tell me: "you can only break the rules of grammar once you fully understand them." And I feel that writing in general is very much the same way.
 

BWFoster78

Myth Weaver
I feel like how "best" to write something is a moving target. One that, as someone learning to write, can be extremely confusing and frustrating to hit.

At this early stage of my writing, I like Brian's approach because it is very clear cut. However, once I am knowledgeable enough to be good with it, I would like to experiment with adding more to my "style".

My English teacher used to tell me: "you can only break the rules of grammar once you fully understand them." And I feel that writing in general is very much the same way.

Dan,

That's exactly the way I feel, and I'm doing the same thing. I'm learning what I can for now. If at some point in the future, something else works better for me, I'll pursue that instead. For now, though, the best path seems to be to learn how to do it this way, produce stuff that people hopefully will actually find readable, and go from there.
 
Hmmm, this sounds like a trap... *summons inner Ackbar*

Really, this just boils down to voice (got an interesting post this morning in my e-mail calling it the "god particle") and how you use it.

Yes, I came from a "reporter" background myself where we tried not to influence people on our opinion, but just the facts. I've studied some great scripts and novels that go either direction. It just depends on how you want the story to go and how you want your readers to get there.

The thing that is helping me now is the "faux triangle" of the reader. The host of writers I've read recently are including the reader into the mix as if they are along for the ride. That's all well and good, but it's sort of like having the director of a movie sitting next to you and whispering into your ear at a certain point about what he "implied" for the scene as well as "background only you can know".

I don't know about you, I just want to watch the movie/read the book.

It's great the director/writer wants to get involved, but this level of hand-holding distracts from the world they create instead of helping it.

Boils down to faith in your voice and faith in your readers. You should have both to have solid ground to stand on. One or the other missing and you have issues, and nothing at all means you have nothing to present.
 
I admit, I don't consistently agree with Bova on this one.

I may have mentioned before that I read My Little Pony fanfic. (For whatever reason, it's noticeably easier to find good adventure stories on FIMFiction than it is to find them at my local library.) I've recently read two fics by different authors, both revolving around the nature and abilities of the same character: A Pony's Sympathy and Discord's Resignation. Both are by relatively inexperienced authors, and both default to a very simple style, apparently due to lack of practice. But I think that style fits one much better than the other.

At its heart, A Pony's Sympathy is a story about cycles of hatred. Discord and the Princesses have fought each other long enough that there aren't any "good guys" left in the conflict, and the narrative lays that out plainly. (It helps that the spareness is only in the narration--Discord in particular is given some pleasantly anarchic speech patterns.) Despite the author's inexperience, I still consider this one of my favorite stories on the site.

Discord's Resignation, on the other hand, is about chaos--what it is, what it can be used for, and what it fails to do. Throughout the whole story, there's a fear present that even a well-meaning character who has no intention of hurting anyone may be unable to keep chaos under control. This would seem to call for a loose and freewheeling style, and the simple one presented clashes horribly with the subject matter.

(So yeah, writing style is contextual? Just like practically everything else about writing? Who knew, right?)
 
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