Mythic Scribes Writing Jargon?

[Heliotrope]

The whole shebang belongs to the narrator. There is always a narrator, regardless of how the writer tries to disguise it. Without the narrator there is no narrative, which means no story. Nothing. The narrator is orating the entire story. All of it. All the dialogue, from every POV. All the whispers of the wind and strikes of lightning and scuttling crabs. Every single part of the story is coming from the narrator. Every single part of the story. So even when you have another character "tell a story" it is still the narrator telling how that character told that story. It is all part of the same narrative.

 

[Devor]

This is genuinely all very interesting, but I don't think I'll put together a glossary just to define the word narrative.

What are some words that help you get a handle on understanding your writing? I know there's a lot of them when it comes to story structure, for instance....

 

[Aurora]

Tropes? The difference between tropes and cliches maybe?

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

More often, I think, I've seen these called distancing verbs, or simply "distancers". Filter also, but I think distancing is really an accurate description.

I like Distancing Verbs better than my term. I never cared for filtering because it seems limited only to POV perceptions & doesn't apply well to sentence beginnings like "He began...".

Distancing Verbs works for both.

 

[skip.knox]

This thread demonstrates the peril. Define any term, put it in a glossary so as to create a useful resource, and you'll get eleventy dozen people arguing eleventy hundred ways it's wrong.

I think the original goal was to provide a kind of manual to the jargon that gets tossed around on the writing threads. A noble goal. I wonder, though, if it will be helpful so long as the actual members continue to use the terms in ways peculiar to themselves. The newbie would arrive, read the manual, and wonder why the discussions do not adhere, thus obviating the original goal.

I just wanted to use "obviate" in a sentence.

 

[Devor]

I think the original goal was to provide a kind of manual to the jargon that gets tossed around on the writing threads. A noble goal. I wonder, though, if it will be helpful so long as the actual members continue to use the terms in ways peculiar to themselves. The newbie would arrive, read the manual, and wonder why the discussions do not adhere, thus obviating the original goal.

No. The goal is not to end the bickering about these things.

The goal of a jargon glossary would be to cover topics that would expand your ability to write and understand the process. For example:

Lampshading: When one of the characters mentions some of the doubts a reader might have about a situation in order to let another character address them. Lampshading helps a reader to suspend disbelief by making their doubts a part of the story.

^ This is a little rough, but you get the idea. Reading an entry on Lampshading helps you to learn something about writing that you could use to be a better writer.

If people then want to bicker about whether or not you can "lampshade" inside one character's internal monologue, hey, so be it.

I just wanted to use "obviate" in a sentence.

Now that is a noble goal, indeed.

 

[FifthView]

No. The goal is not to end the bickering about these things.

The goal of a jargon glossary would be to cover topics that would expand your ability to write and understand the process.

Then the entries will be something useful, functionally useful, in expanding the ability to write (process is included in that, I think.)

In this case, something like narrative might not be a great word to include in the glossary. If it's everything, then saying it's so doesn't clue a writer in about the process of creating it. Same with text, prose, writing and even story, I think. These terms might help in explicating how we communicate about the things they are meant to reference, but I think that sort of thing could be left to context within the various discussions.

There's a fine line on terms like voice. Knowing that the term, when used by those in the industry, refers to author voice but can be modified as character voice or even narrative voice, might help not only in clarifying discussions here but also in considering how to go about writing some aspect of a story, insofar as different choices might lead to different character voices and/or narrative voices.

Then there are all the little oddball, more specific terms and phrases like your example of lampshading. Just knowing the concept can help a writer in deciding how to shape the text, prose, writing, narrative, story; or, in some of these cases (depending on how those terms are understood), what effect will be made on those things.

In that spirit, I'd nominate "Dig deeply, don’t build widely," which is a phrase I picked up from Sanderson. (In one podcast he actually says, "dig deeply rather than to build widely," although the summary in the transcript uses the first phrasing. In the podcast he intros it like this: "Sanderson’s Third Law is that a writer should expand what they already have before adding something new.") I've used this idea several times in various discussions here on MS, and I think it's a useful concept.

But there are probably lots of little tidbits like that I've picked up from the podcast. I don't know if you are looking for a broad sampling from various other writing guides/advisors/teachers/etc.

 

[Devor]

In that spirit, I'd nominate "Dig deeply, don’t build widely," which is a phrase I picked up from Sanderson.

I think that would be a great entry.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Dig deeply, don't build widely... I can't get behind that at all. First, you need to get rid of the -ly adverbs. All and all, not that great of a saying even if the meaning is good

Now I'll run and hide from the adverb junkies, heh heh.

 

[Penpilot]

On the subject, I usually use "narrative" to refer to the "prose" itself - is that the right word or am I using it wrong or is it iffy or what?

Playing catch up to this thread. Phew.

I alway used the term narrative to be the stuff outside of dialogue and prose as the cobinination of narrative and dialogue.

To me narrative is how the story is being narrated, kind of like a voiceover in a movie. Sometimes that with the character's voice. Somtimes it's the authors. And other times it's a mixture. And to me the dialogue is kind of outside of that.

I don't know where this opinion came from, so grain of salt.

As for the term lampshading, though I understand the term, I've heard the phrase "hang a lantern on it" used more frequently. To me it seems more appropriate. It shines a light on a story issue. When I hear lampshading, I see someone standing with a lampshade over their head, which draws attention but in a kind of silly way. But that's my nitpick.

 

[Heliotrope]

Talking heads.

That's when two or more characters stand around talking to each other for an extended amount of time with no movement, action, or body language.

 

[Heliotrope]

Spotlighting.

This is when a writer forgets to add sensory input or setting details to the scene, so it is a bit like the character is standing on an empty stage under a spotlight surrounded by a dark void of emptiness.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

On the nose dialogue been mentioned?

Spotlight I'd call white room. I do that alot as an overreaction to my old tendency of piling on too much description, heh heh. Actually, screenwriting probably has a lot to do with that too. Huh, a new insight into m'self, LOL.

 

[Heliotrope]

Chekhov's gun

 

[Heliotrope]

Hellohowareyoufinethanks.

This is when new writers add unnecessary dialogue that does nothing to move the story forward and just adds unnecessary bulk.

 

[FifthView]

Spotlighting.

This is when a writer forgets to add sensory input or setting details to the scene, so it is a bit like the character is standing on an empty stage under a spotlight surrounded by a dark void of emptiness.

I've always called that White Room Syndrome (sometimes shortened to White Room.)

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Could be given the shorter, spell check friendly name "real dialogue". But I love that name for it, heh heh.

Hellohowareyoufinethanks.

This is when new writers add unnecessary dialogue that does nothing to move the story forward and just adds unnecessary bulk.

 

[Heliotrope]

I've always called that White Room Syndrome (sometimes shortened to White Room.)

Yeah, I have drama background so maybe that's where that comes from? WHite room syndrome is good too.

 

[FifthView]

Then there is Maid and Butler dialogue, a subset of infodumping where two characters discuss info they both already know, wouldn't be discussing except the author wants to dump the info they are speaking.

TVTropes calls this As You Know.

 

[Heliotrope]

I'm wondering about using stuff already on tv tropes... are we trying to basically rewrite tv tropes? Because they did a damn good job already.