Where to look when something's "on the nose"...?

[Heliotrope]

Ok, I'll make the post....

Fifthview brought up "on the nose" a while back and I want to talk about it a bit more.

Only because I'm wondering how you scribes avoid being "on the nose"?

Bare with me while I explain this as best I can:

When I think of "on the nose" I think of that glaringly obvious dialogue, the cliche metaphors, the stereotypical scene we've seen a thousand times...

But what exactly is "on the nose" and how do you avoid it?

I can admit I'm struggling with a few scenes in my current wip because they are too glaringly obvious... The growth of the character needs to be slightly more subtle and graceful and poignant in a not so "this is what is happening... See? See how she is learning from the experience how to be a better person?"

I feel a bit like Bam Bam with my stone hammer.

Thoughts?

*edit... Omg I have a typo in my title! So embarrassing

 

[Incanus]

I'm not certain about it, but I mostly think of 'on the nose' as pertaining to dialogue. Like having two people responding to each others questions and statements directly and sequentially; systematically even. As if they were two robots of the same make, simply exchanging info.

But I can see extending the concept to other narration, or to whole scenes as well. No matter what, it is something to avoid, or at least tone down.

I'm thinking Bam Bam might not make a very good writer. His potential might be better suited to construction work, or soldiering. Something along those lines--

 

[Heliotrope]

I'm thinking Bam Bam might not make a very good writer. His potential might be better suited to construction work, or soldiering. Something along those lines--[/QUOT

What exactly are you implying? Lol

 

[FifthView]

Didn't Bam Bam become an exotic dancer?

 

[Penpilot]

For me, it's really hard to figure out if something is too on the nose without getting a lot of distance from it. I tend to think of them like puns. Sometimes they can make you groan. Other times, they can bring a smile or a cocked eyebrow.

On the nose isn't always bad. It can be used to just make things clear to the reader, and sometimes you want the audience to groan.

The strategy I use is if I'm not sure, I tend to leave it in. I figure there aren't too many of those things, so it won't prevent an agent or editor from seeing the potential in a story. If the manuscript gets picked up either by agent or editor, I'll have someone to help me decide if that stuff should go or stay.

 

[Penpilot]

Didn't Bam Bam become an exotic dancer?

Ummm... I seemed to have walked into a completely different conversation. I'm walking back out before the innocence of my childhood gets damaged. I refuse to take this to the next logical step and see Pebbles as a pole dancer and-- awww crap too late.

 

[Heliotrope]

Fifthview and his lack of commitment is terribly distracting....

 

[Demesnedenoir]

What you are thinking of as on-the-nose is a bit off.

Traditionally, as stated, on-the-nose specifically refers to dialogue and is a nail in the coffin of any screenplay, and frankly, probably most stories in general when looking at traditional publishing. Novels are more able to get away with it because of the volume of writing, and because they aren't 95% dialogue like a screenplay.

And of course, on-the-nose is still allowed to exist anywhere, but it should be kept to a minimum... classic bad example...

Tom says, "You sure look mad, Maggie."

Maggie says, "I am mad, Tom. I can't believe you said that about me."

Tom says, "You deserved it, after what you did to me and Joe."

One typical way to identify on-the-nose is to ask: what is the subtext of what is being said? If there is none, you might be staring at on-the-nose dialogue.

Talking Head syndrome also tends to leap into these situations, as well as info-dumps.

 

[Chessie]

But what exactly is "on the nose" and how do you avoid it?

I can admit I'm struggling with a few scenes in my current wip because they are too glaringly obvious... The growth of the character needs to be slightly more subtle and graceful and poignant in a not so "this is what is happening... See? See how she is learning from the experience how to be a better person?"

Since English is my second language I had to ask my husband what "on the nose" means, cause I've never heard the expression before. He said that it means "on the point" (and now I feel dumb ha).

Anyway, here's my answer to your question, Helio, and I fully expect it to stir disagreement as with everything I say lately BUT:

You're not going to get it right the first time, or the second, maybe the third. Writing books requires us to do an amazingly stupid amount of things ALL AT ONCE, balance is a must. But we learn how to write good characters, good prose, and etc through practice and time. My thought is that avoiding on the nose is not something we want to do. We want to be clear as clear as possible. Using cliches is okay sometimes, but I'm totally in the avoiding cliches at all costs camp.

Personally, I think we struggle in our writing because we're taught that we have to do things a certain way. Helio, you have a literary background. You were trained to think and write in a certain way. SO when you try to apply all of that to your stories, you realize how much harder it is to actually write according to how you were taught. Why? Because English school doesn't teach writers how to write deep characters with growth, or plot points that make readers jump, etc.

You're struggling because you're still learning how to apply all the baking elements at once. We learn how to do this by writing and finishing. Then we read a book we like and notice what works for us in that book. We copycat/apply the things we learn to what we write next. And on the cycle goes.

You can outline and put the character growth into that outline as plot points. So for you that may take some brainstorming prior to writing the outline. For us pantsers, well, more naps is all I can think of. ;D But back to the point, I think you struggle because you're trying to get it perfect and get stuck. It's never going to be perfect. There's no such thing as perfect. Chasing perfection is stopping you dead in your tracks. My suggestion is to stop trying to do things a certain way and just freaking write. Write! And now I'm going to follow my own advice lol.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Okay, I had to get this one out there, my brain is being strange today...

On the nose--

Killer: Ah, my most hated and annoying enemy, Detective Columbo. Here to question me again?

Columbo: Yes, you sleazy rich creep who thinks they can get away with murder because they are rich.

Killer: You know me well, and I will get away with it too.

Off the Nose (subtext)--

Killer: Why, if it isn't my favorite detective again. (Good lord this little bugger annoys the snot out of me)

Columbo: Yeah yeah, I just had a few questions you know, not that I mean to bug... I mean if your busy, I could come back another time. Not that important really, just a couple things about your story confusing me. (I'm going to nail you sucker!)

Killer: Of course, of course! I don't have all day, but since you drove all this way, it's fine. (This little twit with a $5 overcoat from the Salvation Army will never catch me.)

 

[Heliotrope]

Incanus: Yeah, I think about it mostly about dialogue too… but I sort of think of it as well if I see something like a character musing at how small the tip of an iceberg is compared to everything underneath…

Penpilot, I agree. Distance seems to be the key for me too… which is why I'm writing this post I think. Last night I worked until 11:30… this morning I read what I wrote and wanted to die.

Dem: Omg, you are hilarious.

Chesterama: I like your posts Renegade makes me happy, and anyone who just does their own thing makes me especially happy, and you are absolutely right. I'm struggling not so much with dialogue, but with descriptions.

Anyway, this is my issue right now. Here is an example:

One March Thursday the gypsy’s returned and new masks of rose, gold and periwinkle adorned the faces of Rome. The cold night air hung thick with musk and rose. Villagers stumbled through the streets in mottled dress, laughing, collapsing and pulling up, only to collapse again. Throughout the Piazza glass clinked, bottles poured and music rolled down the cobbled stones like spilled beads. Antonia, heavy with her first child, reeled through the patchwork city of ragged tents, clinging to her hardening belly, determined to speak to the Pope.

OMG! "hung thick" makes me want to throw something. Seriously? How cliche is that? I feel like descriptions and phrasing like that is so over used by now it has become "on the nose."… eye rolling. So obvious you can't help but notice the obviousness of it.

Then I want to rip everything apart.

*sigh*

 

[Chessie]

I like it. You had me a gypsies.

 

[Heliotrope]

You are my hero. If I wasn't out of thanks I would be thanks-ing you. Instead I will give you a virtual hug

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Incanus: Yeah, I think about it mostly about dialogue too… but I sort of think of it as well if I see something like a character musing at how small the tip of an iceberg is compared to everything underneath…

Penpilot, I agree. Distance seems to be the key for me too… which is why I'm writing this post I think. Last night I worked until 11:30… this morning I read what I wrote and wanted to die.

Dem: Omg, you are hilarious.

Chesterama: I like your posts Renegade makes me happy, and anyone who just does their own thing makes me especially happy, and you are absolutely right. I'm struggling not so much with dialogue, but with descriptions.

Anyway, this is my issue right now. Here is an example:

One March Thursday the gypsy’s returned and new masks of rose, gold and periwinkle adorned the faces of Rome. The cold night air hung thick with musk and rose. Villagers stumbled through the streets in mottled dress, laughing, collapsing and pulling up, only to collapse again. Throughout the Piazza glass clinked, bottles poured and music rolled down the cobbled stones like spilled beads. Antonia, heavy with her first child, reeled through the patchwork city of ragged tents, clinging to her hardening belly, determined to speak to the Pope.

OMG! "hung thick" makes me want to throw something. Seriously? How cliche is that? I feel like descriptions and phrasing like that is so over used by now it has become "on the nose."… eye rolling. So obvious you can't help but notice the obviousness of it.

Then I want to rip everything apart.

*sigh*

Cough, gypsies... There think of little errors such as that instead of hung thick... heh heh.

That said, I agree with hung thick being off, but not necessarily for the reason's you are thinking. First: when reading that my mind snapped to "cold air isn't thick" then "oh, musk and rose" so I think the order of the sentence is off... and thick with musk and rose? hmmm. Perfumes of musk and rose lingered in the chilly night air. That sort of thing might work better unless there is some importance to the phrase hung thick.

 

[Heliotrope]

Wait… what's wrong with "gypsies?"

 

[Demesnedenoir]

You've got "the gypsy's returned", not gypsies.

 

[Heliotrope]

Oh. Lol… oh my god. I'm on a role this week for humiliating myself.

I need to take more naps.

Here I was typing a big long response about how:

"I know, I know, they were really the Roma people, and Gypsies was a derogatory term because people thought they were from Egypt, but they weren't… and I'm not trying to be politically correct because for the time frame… blah blah blah"….

 

[Demesnedenoir]

You're in good company with Garfield for napping. Sadly, I usually feel worse after a nap, LOL.

 

[FifthView]

One of the reasons I felt commitment-phobic about inaugurating such a thread: Beyond the simpler, and common, association of "on the nose" with dialogue, for which quick and easy examples could be created on the spot, good examples for anything like on-the-nose description, exposition, action, plot, would be harder to create and I didn't want to pull in another discussion of something appearing on Amazon (or my Kindle, from Amazon). I'd said I was thinking about some reading experiences; I don't want to bash my very hard head into the stomachs of those writers.

I think that on-the-nose dialogue is pretty easy to spot, but that on-the-nose description, etc., isn't necessarily so apparent. But I've also been thinking that it's not so bad unless it appears throughout the story—or, in large quantities.

So. Where to begin? Helio, I'm going to pull in something you said in that Random Thoughts thread:

Randomness is the key to off the nose success.

This followed an example of on the nose dialogue. But I think it's wrong.

Why is on the nose dialogue bad, anyway? Because the characters are reduced to cardboard cutouts. They are there only to fulfill some need the author has for dumping info, or to thinly veil the author herself by using different names and pseudo-characters (mouthpieces for the author), or to move a plot along while pretending to "show" a real conversation.

But real characters (Hah! They are all fictional!) have real motivations, real histories that are vast and full of experiences, real desires, real obsessions. So what may appear "random" to a reader at first, or even to another character, really should flow from within the character that is speaking. If that Fifthview in your example doesn't answer some question about what he wants for dinner but instead mentions a lamp he bought earlier, this is because something in the buying of that lamp is important to him; his attention is focused on it. If that Kenny mentions the effect pineapple has on him, before pineapple has been mentioned by anyone else, it's because he has a history with pineapple and pizza always brings up that history; plus, he probably has a ready-made correlation between pineapple and "the human condition and how it relates to technology" that he wants to share.

Ok. So. Why is not-on-the-nose dialogue a good thing? Demesnedenoir has already mentioned subtext. But really, that's included in what I said above. I.e., people are not flat cardboard cutouts but are vast. Call it multidimensional, complex/complicated, whatever you like. And using dialogue that is not on the nose allows for that implication of hidden depths, of real people, of peculiar motivations and goals, or subjectivity.

So. When I think about description, plot, exposition, action...in terms of being on-the-nose, I also think about this flatness vs vastness. At least, the sort of negative reading experience I have from time to time that made me think of "on the nose" in this larger sense could be vaguely characterized as relating to this flatness vs vastness. But I'm still feeling my way on this, so...

 

[Heliotrope]

Thank you FV I'm so happy you joined in!

Ok, so I want to talk about "on the nose" in terms of plot and exposition, like you.

I find when I write poetry, I guess because it is shorter, I can be much more direct in my word choice and say things exactly how I feel them and I don't come off "on the nose"….

An Example I sent to KennyC (my poet critic) recently:

Brain Freeze

They have my brain
locked in the freezer.
Wrapped in bloody brown paper,
resting next to the ground beef
and mixed corn and peas.

They will take it out and
slice it into strips and
serve it on individual
plates with salad.

I will lay here watching.
Smiling with an apple mouth
and honey glazed eyes,

starving.

The message is there, all in the subtext.

When I try to write a story, I'm missing it. Instead of writing "true" I'm trying to write "pretty"… which I know doesn't work in poetry, so why the hell am I trying to do that in my prose? And what I end up with is crap with the same descriptions and sentences and phrasing that everyone else uses…

She turned to face the man…

The scent of perfume hung heavy in the air…

She tried to breath but the air wouldn't' come

Ugh! Instead of writing true I'm writing tired cliches… which feel too me "on the nose."… too deliberate. Too exactly what everyone else is writing with no hint of 'truth' to them anymore… does that make sense?

When I write figuratively I feel like I'm getting closer to truth:

Women in silk gowns and feathered wigs twirled with golden gods, falling stars or the sun in rich brocade. And masks. Too close and too bright. Masks that split faces in half. Masks that looked of death and masks that hinted at folly.

The above feels more "real" to me…

I know I'm not articulating myself well…

Can you delve deeper into what you mean about "on the nose" exposition?