[stylist] stylist Digest, Vol 81, Issue 17

Tue Jan 11 00:11:24 UTC 2011

Kerry, Bridget and all,
I want to throw out a third possibility in the   transitional narration 
vs white space debate. How about a little of both? When I was writing my 
novel, there were many occasions when I did not want to start a new 
chapter, but time had passed between paragraphs. I felt that, even 
though it was clearly indicated in the first sentence of the next 
paragraph that we were no longer in writing class or that a week had 
gone by, I didn't feel like it was enough, so in went an extra line 
break. I don't do it all the time, but when the scene is drastically 
different or the amount of time that has passed seems to indicate a 
pause, I like the white space.

I must say that in Bridget's piece, I was reading line by line, and 
there were so many blank lines after every paragraph that I didn't 
notice that there was actually more white space at the transition in 
question. I don't know what happens when we copy things into our 
e-mails, but I have had cause to wonder before about extra line breaks 
being inserted by the electronic demons.

Donna

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On 1/10/2011 6:41 PM, Kerry Thompson wrote:
> Bridgit,
>
> Style is very much an individual thing. It seems to me, though, that 
> to some extent too, it is generational or at least goes in cycles, not 
> to say fads. As far as I can tell, white space rather than actual, 
> written transitions, came into widespread use only in the last thirty 
> to thirty-five years or so. Sure, I use it occasionally, but being a 
> conservative old fogy, I tend to look for more, hmmm, organic 
> transitions. As you say, it's purely a matter of style.
>
> I still think, though, that white space needs to be handled with care. 
> Unless you actually print out the piece yourself, you have no way of 
> knowing how or whether the mail reader or web browser or fax machine 
> you send the manuscript to will render it as you intend. And, how can 
> you be sure, when your piece is published, that your white space will 
> fall just where you intend? What if it falls at the end of a page? The 
> reader won't even know it's supposed to be there. I guess all I'm 
> saying is, white space is in fashion just now, but it hasn't always 
> been and won't always be. As with any fashion, you need to approach it 
> with caution and employ it with moderation.
>
> From a purely writerly point of view, I personally prefer written 
> transitions. It goes back to clarity, I guess. The tried and true, 
> "Meanwhile, back at the ranch..." type transition leaves no doubt in 
> the reader's mind that a transition is coming. You can gussy it up a 
> bit, integrating it into the narration like this:
>
> Janet sneezed again as she glumly stared out her window, wondering how 
> Billy would manage without her.
>
> At that moment, he was shimmying over Mrs. Jones' back fence. He 
> waspleased and excited to be on his own, but sorry Janet wouldn't be 
> there to see his triumph.
>
> As to your story specifically, some sort of tying together of the high 
> school thread with the police station thread would be helpful IMO. Is 
> this the same school the retiring cop attended fifty years ago? Is it 
> the school his granddaughter attends? Is there some connection between 
> him and the blind girl in the first section? Again, I know the 
> kaleidoscopic style, where none of the storylines of a story or novel 
> ever intersect, is fashionable just now. But, I like connections. To 
> me, a story with connections is easier to follow and more enjoyable to 
> read than one in which each storyline is isolated from the others.
>
> As to your question about how much, as blind writers, we should pander 
> to the needs of screen readers: That's not how I look at it. We as 
> blind and visually impaired writers perceive the world in a 
> fundamentally different way than do fully sighted writers. Even those 
> of us with a fair amount of eyesight, like myself, and who tend to be 
> pretty visual in our writing, also like myself, use nonvisual queues, 
> notice nonvisual input that the sighted writer is scarcely aware of. 
> So, why not make use of these details? Why not write about the world 
> as we perceive it? Doing that, we will not only make our work easier 
> for our blind readers to read, whether they access it audibly or 
> through braille, but we will also give our sighted readers a richer 
> experience of our created world than they might otherwise have.
>
> I'm not saying to make special concessions for our blind readers, I'm 
> just saying to be true to our identity and unique perspective as blind 
> writers. If that means using more dialogue tags than might currently 
> be in vogue, that's fine. If itmeans writing transitional passages 
> rather than relying on white space or asterisks, fine. We aren't in 
> competition with sighted writers. At least, we don't have to out-cool 
> them with their current fads. We have to be the best damned writers we 
> can be. And, if that means maybe being just a little old fashioned, 
> just a little square but clear, easy to read, fun to read, then that's 
> all right.
>
> Kerry
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