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Expressing Motion

Mythopoet

Auror
A post came across my dash on tumblr yesterday that really struck me as emblematic of what I strongly dislike about contemporary writing styles.

...the amount of time it takes to constantly keep people moving and make sure they’re in the right spaces and trying to come up with wording for it is always such a shock.

... I made you pick up a coffee cup, you need to put it down at some point. also I can’t remember what I dressed you in, can you push up your sleeves? I don’t remember if you even have your shirt on.

and YOU. YOU OVER THERE, you got out of your chair earlier, but did you come back yet? Are you coming back? Where did you even go and why’d you get up? ... I can’t make you sit down again already, you just stood up, go…over there. go get more coffee. Did you bring your mug with you? fine. bring the pot to the table and–wait, wasn’t the coffee pot already over here? ...

(Profanity removed by me. ;) Original post I read.)

At first I thought to myself, "yeah, it's a real pain". And then I stopped and thought about it and realized that all of this was thinking visually about storytelling in a non-visual medium. If you're filming a scene, an actor who picks up a coffee cup will have to put it down again before they can perform some other action with their hands, like opening a newspaper. But in live action, this is a natural and quick action that hardly needs to be thought about. When writing a stage play for instance, if you have a character exit stage left and you want to make them return again in the same scene from the same location, you have to remember that they exited left and not right. In visual storytelling, these things matter. Because you are feeding the visuals to the audience, you are responsible for making sure the visual action flows and maintains continuity.

However, I would argue that it is very different in literary storytelling. In literary storytelling you are providing the reader not with sights, sounds, tastes, etc. but with the idea of sights, sounds, tastes, etc. These things don't come to fruition until they are created by the reader's imagination in their own mind. You give them key details, the ones that help to shape the rest, and then you let the reader create the whole for themselves. This is not just how literary fiction works, it's the very appeal of the written story.

And after giving it some thought, I think that this not only includes those physical attributes of places and characters, but to the very motion within the scene as well. If you write that a character takes a sip of coffee and then later that the character opens the newspaper, you don't have to describe the action of picking up and putting down the coffee cup. Because it's obvious from the context that this must happen and it's easy for the reader to picture without needing to be told. This applies to any sort of mundane actions that naturally follow from the context of some larger action. Unless the small actions are performed in a particular way that is mean to convey character information, these normal rote motions are so ingrained in us that it is easy to fill in the blanks. You don't need to describe every motion.

And describing all those mundane motions ("he opened the door, walked through the door, walked across the room, sat down in the chair..." etc.) is just tedious to the reader, I believe. I find the same thing tedious in fight scenes. Every time the writer describes in minute detail every motion of the body during a fight, my brain starts to turn off. I've seen enough movies that I can fill in those details too. In this day and age, almost everyone has. There's no point in cluttering up your writing with needless description even of motion.

I think this happens because writers seem to have a camera in their heads. Movies are so ingrained in us these days that writers automatically start writing stories the way a camera films them. They try and capture in words everything a camera can show. But you'd need a thousand words to fully express one image, to reverse the old saying. Written stories aren't meant to be told that way. Written stories, I feel, should focus on what words can express that a camera can't. Writers should understand the strengths and limitations of their medium instead of trying to use words like a camera.

Instead of trying to express every small motion and adding them all together into a larger motion, go right to expressing the meaning behind the motion, the whole that's larger than the sum of it's parts. Words can do that where images can't. Writers have embraced "Show don't Tell as a mantra. But consider that this advice makes more sense in visual storytelling. Where you almost never want to have "talking head" scenes where the characters are simply telling you information. Embrace the reality that words have the ability to show AND to tell. Words can say "he searched the room with exacting precision" rather than having to spend 30 seconds with an actor performing the search. Words can say "she was a collector of rare books" rather than having to pan over a bookcase of leather bound spines or create dialogue where someone says "So, you're a collector of rare books?" "Why yes, I am" or some such. Words can do A LOT that images can't, but it seems like few writers these days are aware or use words to their best advantage.

Well, that was long. Anyway, thoughts? Opinions?
 

Annoyingkid

Banned
If you're filming a scene, an actor who picks up a coffee cup will have to put it down again before they can perform some other action with their hands, like opening a newspaper.

....If you don't cut away.

In between frames matter in storytelling that combines visuals with motion.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
....If you don't cut away.

In between frames matter in storytelling that combines visuals with motion.

Well, let us say the location of the coffee cup matters. If a person is drinking from it in one cut and then when the camera cuts back to them there is no cup to be seen anywhere near them, that can ruin a viewer's immersion in the scene.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
You can just switch to video game mode and everything the characters pick up can just magically fit in their pockets without even spilling. Some even appearing to instantly find their way off camera.

Well, I cant argue too much with that. I am willing to let things be implied, but I am also willing to spell it out when I think the story calls for it. I would suggest though, that the approach is always what is this really saying about my characters or the story I am trying to tell. If there is going to be a battle, for instance, its better to have the battle say things about the characters, rather than just lay out a blow by blow, as you said above. More important than the how would be things like, does this show that one character is more skilled than another? That one is afraid of, or relishes battle (Gimli certainly seemed to relish it), did something culminate in the character (such as Luke rage over the threat to his sister when he beat back Vader). Much better than just actions taking place is how those actions are helping to show characters and enhance the story.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
And describing all those mundane motions ("he opened the door, walked through the door, walked across the room, sat down in the chair..." etc.) is just tedious to the reader, I believe. I find the same thing tedious in fight scenes. Every time the writer describes in minute detail every motion of the body during a fight, my brain starts to turn off. I've seen enough movies that I can fill in those details too. In this day and age, almost everyone has. There's no point in cluttering up your writing with needless description even of motion.

You certainly don't need to do all of this in general, whether in action scenes or otherwise. There may be reasons for it in some instances, but in general I think the writing gets tedious, bogged down, and awkward if you try to give a blow-by-blow account of a character's every action.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
As with most things in writing, I will have to say:

Yes. No. Maybe. Splunge! But I'm not being whishy-washy.

It all depends. But, I really don't see that sort of detail in books I read. And well, you don't see that in screenwriting either, unless the action matters, at least in spec scripts. Shooting scripts can get more detailed... and other stuff not worth mentioning here, LOL.
 

Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
I think this happens because writers seem to have a camera in their heads. Movies are so ingrained in us these days that writers automatically start writing stories the way a camera films them.

I'm pretty sure I'm guilty of this.

When setting up a scene I often picture it as if seen through a camera. It helps me decide on what to include and what not to include in the descriptions. What does the reader see, and what do they not see?

This probably spills over into how I handle character movements, especially during conversations. My characters often end up having lengthy conversations about this or that. At some point I was told I need to break that up as it gets dull/boring to read just speech lines back and forth. This lead to a very heavy use of beats, and I've had some complaints about that.

On the one hand, I can see how it's an issue. On the other hand, I try to use the beats as a way to underline what the characters are saying. If they're lying they fidget with something. If they're angry they clench their fists - that kind of thing.

I believe it can work, at least in theory, but I'm not sure how well it functions in practice. It's probably something that works better or worse for different readers too.
 
I use actions like "he set down the coffee cup" as dialogue tags...what is it called...?...I use them to break up dialogue. Except that i prefer actions that say something about the character's inner emotional state, such as "He gripped the coffee cup with white-knuckled hands." Body language. Having something in a character's hands can be really useful in a scene, especially during dialogue, because what they do with that object can tell about their inner state and also break up the dialogue without using "he said/she said" type tags. So i don't think this is "describing mundane actions" and not useful. Take walking through the door. Does he slip through the door and close it softly behind him, like he doesn't want to be seen? Does he coldly appraise the room as he enters, his critical glance freezing every character under it? When he leaves, does he storm out and slam the door behind him?

I mean, if you're not communicating anything with these actions, then don't have them. But they're very useful because you *can* communicate a lot with them.

You say that "show don't tell" makes more sense in visual storytelling, and that we should try to communicate the meaning behind the action instead of the small actions that make it up. you also say that in literary storytelling, you give the reader key details and let them complete the scene for themselves...and i'm kinda tripped up here because to do the latter, wouldn't you show the character's actions and let the reader draw their own conclusions about what's going on? say "He gripped the coffee cup with white-knuckled hands" rather than "he felt agitated?" Or am i misunderstanding completely?

Maybe it's just that i'm young, but to me, you show the reader what's going on and you don't interpret it for them. The better expressions are the ones that evoke images and sensations rather than ideas. They are more fundamental and pack more of a punch. In other words, you show the reader, and they decide how to feel about it and what to think about it. You're directing their reaction very carefully, of course, but you don't dictate an interpretation of the scene or the action. I don't know if this makes any sense. But it seems like describing actions rather than telling the reader what they mean is letting the reader participate more, not less. I think i'm a little confused about what you mean.

As for keeping everything in the right positions: This is a problem
whether you feel the need to say "he set down the coffee cup" (describe mundane actions) or not. Sometimes i can't keep up with what a character is wearing, so can i say "He picked at a hole in his jeans" or "He wiped his sweaty hands on his pants" or "He stripped off his shirt?" As the tumblr post said, is he even wearing a shirt? I've had characters change clothes during scenes, a guy who was gagged on one page start talking on the next. In the last scene i wrote the antagonist gives the protagonist a glass of water. Can i have her grip her chair or rub her sweaty hands together or clench her hands into fists? Where did she set down that glass of water? I don't set things up quite to the degree that the tumblr post is talking about, but it's hard to keep track of things still.

You talk about processing a scene as if it's visual storytelling is a bad thing. These goofs come up when you're not visualizing things properly.
 
I would much rather read descriptions of a character's rare book collection than "she was a collector of rare books." If everything was just told to me like that i'd get horribly bored with the book.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
The flipside of authors having cameras in their heads is that sometimes readers do, too.

Don't get me wrong, your point still holds, you can use language that implies a lot of the little micro-actions. We don't usually need to go into tedious length trying express basic motions. Sometimes of course a writer can make the language of the tedious micro-detail itself be compelling enough, but that's the exception, a mark of Dickinson-like talent (and quite often a waste of it, learn to pick your moments Charles!), not the rule.

But the visuals are still so very important to a reader. It's important to develop your talent for it. And part of that talent is figuring out when and how to speed it up or slow it down, to savor the moment or just move on already. Sipping coffee is probably filler, a moment that isn't worth squat to a reader.... unless the character is the chief of police and right before his sip he said:

"This is what I've decided..." he picked up his coffee mug and lifted it to his lips. Printed on the bottom of the mug was a picture of the middle finger. The chief took a longer sip than seemed necessary. Wasn't it almost empty?
"Yes, well, it's the night shift for you boys."

^ All of a sudden you have a moment that expresses something instead of fills the space.

To your point, though, Mytho, did you notice that he never actually put the mug down?
 
I have sometimes been very annoyed when a writer has left out intervening steps, i.e. when I have a solid, stable image of a character in mind but suddenly he's doing something he shouldn't be able to do from that position/state.

But like Demesnedenoir said, it depends.

There is a kind of double-edged sword. It's impossible for readers to keep every single thing in mind at all times—every small item in the environment, for instance—so we often have to abridge the description, limit the details to what's important. But then, the reader is keeping that detail in mind. There may be a kind of holding pattern. Using the example of the coffee cup, if we build up an image of a character holding it close to her mouth with both hands, sipping constantly during a conversation, then that's the image the reader will have until we alter that image. If then someone hostile bursts into the room and lunges at the character, our saying merely that she drew her sword and slashed at him will cause a wrong break in that image of the character. We would be much better off saying, first, that she dropped the coffee cup, the coffee splashed over her lap burning her, and she lurched out of her chair, drawing her sword.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
I would much rather read descriptions of a character's rare book collection than "she was a collector of rare books." If everything was just told to me like that i'd get horribly bored with the book.

Sigh. I'm not going to sit here for hours trying to come up with a line of brilliant prose to use for the sake of example. It was merely an example of how words can easily encompass an idea much more quickly than images can. Obviously the quality of those words depends on the writer.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
Using the example of the coffee cup, if we build up an image of a character holding it close to her mouth with both hands, sipping constantly during a conversation, then that's the image the reader will have until we alter that image. If then someone hostile bursts into the room and lunges at the character, our saying merely that she drew her sword and slashed at him will cause a wrong break in that image of the character. We would be much better off saying, first, that she dropped the coffee cup, the coffee splashed over her lap burning her, and she lurched out of her chair, drawing her sword.

Yes, but when it comes to Jane making that cup of coffee, I'd rather the writer just state that she dragged her ass out of bed and made a pot of coffee, rather than describing the process of getting out a filter, adding grounds, filling the water, adjusting the settings on the coffee maker, looking at her watch for two or three minutes while it brews, pouring, adding creamer, etc. Just say she made the coffee. I'll fill in the details mentally.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
I use actions like "he set down the coffee cup" as dialogue tags...what is it called...?...I use them to break up dialogue. Except that i prefer actions that say something about the character's inner emotional state, such as "He gripped the coffee cup with white-knuckled hands." Body language. Having something in a character's hands can be really useful in a scene, especially during dialogue, because what they do with that object can tell about their inner state and also break up the dialogue without using "he said/she said" type tags. So i don't think this is "describing mundane actions" and not useful. Take walking through the door. Does he slip through the door and close it softly behind him, like he doesn't want to be seen? Does he coldly appraise the room as he enters, his critical glance freezing every character under it? When he leaves, does he storm out and slam the door behind him?

Well, not that it matters, but I dislike those kinds of dialogue tags. I don't think I could quite put my finger on why. They just feel so... trite, for lack of a better word, to me.



You say that "show don't tell" makes more sense in visual storytelling, and that we should try to communicate the meaning behind the action instead of the small actions that make it up. you also say that in literary storytelling, you give the reader key details and let them complete the scene for themselves...and i'm kinda tripped up here because to do the latter, wouldn't you show the character's actions and let the reader draw their own conclusions about what's going on? say "He gripped the coffee cup with white-knuckled hands" rather than "he felt agitated?" Or am i misunderstanding completely?

I don't know. Because I don't think anything about my post suggests that I think you should swap out actions completely for straightforwardly stating a character's emotion. And I do say that describing actions that convey character is different. I'm explicitly talking about little mundane actions that don't carry any extra meaning and don't move the plot forward but that writing tend to include as a sort of "visual housekeeping".

Perhaps I am just preaching to the choir and people here don't tend to do that. I just find in my reading that a lot of prose tends to go overboard with irrelevant actions or overly detailed motions that add nothing to the story.

You talk about processing a scene as if it's visual storytelling is a bad thing. These goofs come up when you're not visualizing things properly.

I think processing a scene as nothing other than visual storytelling is a bad thing. I think that merely writing down a description in words of a movie you see playing in your head does not make for good writing. Do you see the difference between what I'm saying and you're saying?

The flipside of authors having cameras in their heads is that sometimes readers do, too.

I'm sure this is absolutely true. For some reason I seem to have never got one myself. I don't know if there are others like me. But I often find myself wishing that there were more authors who wrote in a less exclusively visual style. It's a style that leaves me cold.
 
Well, not that it matters, but I dislike those kinds of dialogue tags. I don't think I could quite put my finger on why. They just feel so... trite, for lack of a better word, to me.





I don't know. Because I don't think anything about my post suggests that I think you should swap out actions completely for straightforwardly stating a character's emotion. And I do say that describing actions that convey character is different. I'm explicitly talking about little mundane actions that don't carry any extra meaning and don't move the plot forward but that writing tend to include as a sort of "visual housekeeping".

Perhaps I am just preaching to the choir and people here don't tend to do that. I just find in my reading that a lot of prose tends to go overboard with irrelevant actions or overly detailed motions that add nothing to the story.



I think processing a scene as nothing other than visual storytelling is a bad thing. I think that merely writing down a description in words of a movie you see playing in your head does not make for good writing. Do you see the difference between what I'm saying and you're saying?



I'm sure this is absolutely true. For some reason I seem to have never got one myself. I don't know if there are others like me. But I often find myself wishing that there were more authors who wrote in a less exclusively visual style. It's a style that leaves me cold.

Perhaps it's just a matter of personal preference.
 

Mythopoet

Auror
Yes, but when it comes to Jane making that cup of coffee, I'd rather the writer just state that she dragged her ass out of bed and made a pot of coffee, rather than describing the process of getting out a filter, adding grounds, filling the water, adjusting the settings on the coffee maker, looking at her watch for two or three minutes while it brews, pouring, adding creamer, etc. Just say she made the coffee. I'll fill in the details mentally.

Yes, this. I'm not talking about actions that are important for understanding what is actually going on in a scene. I also find it annoying when authors write in such a vague way that I have to guess what the character just did. Steerpike gives a great example of what I'm talking about.
 

Penpilot

Staff
Article Team
To me it's about choosing what to emphasise, how to emphasise it, and what the emphasis means.

A lot of times it's not about the coffee cup necessarily being important, it's about what emotions are being expressed through it. Another is about the balance between what to show and what to tell.

I mean if the person is gripping the cup like a vice while having a heated discussion, it indicates one thing. Or you can just say they were really mad. If they're constantly playing with it, putting on their head, in front of their face making funny faces with it, and twirling it about, it indicates another frame of mind. Or you can say straight out they're were being funny and playful.

Both ways are valid, but it's about finding the right amounts of each for a specific story/scene.

Because IMHO, too much either way is when issues arise. How can you tell how much is too much? That's part of the learning process of being a writer.
 
Yes, but when it comes to Jane making that cup of coffee, I'd rather the writer just state that she dragged her ass out of bed and made a pot of coffee, rather than describing the process of getting out a filter, adding grounds, filling the water, adjusting the settings on the coffee maker, looking at her watch for two or three minutes while it brews, pouring, adding creamer, etc. Just say she made the coffee. I'll fill in the details mentally.

Again, it depends. Most of the time, you don't have to tell the reader that John is threading his shoe lace through one eye, then through the next, opposing eye, then through the eye one step up...heh. But then again, if the character has suffered a stroke or from some other debilitating condition, this effort to thread his new shoes—just bought brand new for him by his mother, a high price shoe that all the other kids are wearing!—then that step-by-step activity might be very important for the story.

I do think there's great advice not to do this all the time for everything without any other reason than "motion!" But that seems like a very, very basic bit of advice; for me, it goes without saying.

A lot of this simply falls under the topic of how to handle the details—and how to avoid boring the reader.

Edit: Or is that, eyelet? The fact that I've never had to use the word in a story might say a lot heh.
 
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Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
Again, it depends. Most of the time, you don't have to tell the reader that John is threading his shoe lace through one eye, then through the next, opposing eye, then through the eye one step up...heh. But then again, if the character has suffered a stroke or from some other debilitating condition, this effort to thread his new shoes—just bought brand new for him by his mother, a high price shoe that all the other kids are wearing!—then that step-by-step activity might be very important for the story.

I do think there's great advice not to do this all the time for everything without any other reason than "motion!" But that seems like a very, very basic bit of advice; for me, it goes without saying.

Yes. Umberto Eco's novel The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana deals a man who suffers memory loss as a result of a stroke. He can remember everything he has ever read, but not details about friends and family and ordinary life. Eco does go through some detail as the man is having to reacquaint himself with what would be mundane to us. I think it makes perfect sense to do so in that context.

And I think it is eyelet :)
 
The flipside of authors having cameras in their heads is that sometimes readers do, too.

I think the issue of motion and details might come down to focus. Basically, if a lot of extraneous detail re: the movements is being included, it's pulling the reader's attention or focus away from the more important details.

One occasionally discovers the art house movie that does this in very tedious ways. Heck, most of what's tedious about any kind of movie is a problem of focus.

Then again, there are those little, and very wonderful, anime shots, where something seemingly (but not really) extraneous receives an extra bit of focus for a moment or two. Roger Ebert commented on Grave of the Fireflies that

Japanese poets use “pillow words” that are halfway between pauses and punctuation, and the great director Yasujiro Ozu uses “pillow shots”--a detail from nature, say, to separate two scenes.*

I don't think we always need to be on-the-nose with actions, using activity that explicitly screams "importance!" although going on and on and on with activity that isn't tied into the more important features of the story in any compelling or suggestive way would grow tedious fast.

*He was introducing the idea, a feature of some anime direction. GotF does this too, but Ozu wasn't the director.
 
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