Description and the Power of Emphasis

In her excellent blog, Rebecca Hamilton provides a lesson on emphasis. Words coming at the end of a sentence, in particular, have subliminal power. The leave lasting impressions in the reader, and often ought to be fine tuned, according to the genre in which you're writing. If you're writing horror and attempting to paint a horrific setting and the sentences used to describe your setting end in words such as beauty, patience, pleasant, sublime, then you've probably done something wrong.

I am especially fascinated by Tom Piccirilli's A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN, one of the finest horror novels I've read in years. The novel is set deep in the Louisiana swamps, and, as is most unusual for the genre, is written in first person, present tense. Now doubt that combination helps to paint CHOIR as a highly unusual book, but immediately, Piccirilli paints a bleak, decadent setting--and he manages to do so without writing explicit descriptions. Editors are said to loathe long passages of description, and for good reason. They often feel forced, as if the writing is lecturing the reader, nudging her in the direction his wants her to go, feeling the emotions he wants her to feel. And is often the case, the result feels contrived. We're no longer absorbed. We're pulled out of the story so that the writer can demonstrate his penmanship.

Very few writers are talented enough to do long, descriptive passages without yanking the reader out of the story. One such writer is the UK's Ramsey Campbell, who is so good at describing settings, doing so has become a staple of his, part of his style. To Campbell's credit, though, his settings aren't just static things, paintings; no, there is movement in his writing. Boats move across the water, people struggle across the street. Cars beep their way through congestion. There is activity, chaos even, in the most rudimentary setting. Relatively few writers, though, have Campbell's natural talent for seeing things in a highly unusual way.

With CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN, I was impressed with the manner in which I was drawn into the setting, the story, able to paint vivid details with my own mind, even though Piccirilli hadn't stopped to describe each detail. It also doesn't hurt matters that Piccirilli is a highly talented writer, several leagues ahead of the writing you normally encounter in the genre. His sentence are lucid, flowing, at times complex and still highly economical. He also uses a powerful level of emphasis.

Here are some of the words/phrases ending the sentences on the first several pages.

spasms

moving

one voice

her mouth

whispers

swamp

fractured mind

flapping

neurochemicals

 grimacing faces

midnight 

A CHOIR OF ILL CHILDREN is a brilliant book, one of my favorites in the genre, and highly, highly recommended. It's obvious just from the words above that Piccirilli knows a thing or two about emphasis. You can feel the setting, the story, in those ending words alone, which paints a setting of night, darkness, decay and insanity (and probably a dozen other ideas as well).

Kurt Vonnegut is only of my all-time favorite writers. He taught me three valuable lessons about writing:

1) A 250 page story should be 250 pages, not 700 (Vonnegut, a great minimalist, provided this lesson  by example, and today's writers would do well to follow)
2) Make your characters want something, even if it's only a glass of water
3) Humor is a highly effective tool in a writer's repertory

Vonnegut also knew the power of emphasis. Some ending words/phrases from CAT'S CRADLE:

Jonah
John
fail
World Ended
factual
Hiroshima, Japan

Those of you who have read CAT'S CRADLE will see these ending phrases to well the characterize the nature of the book, a book written as an account of Dr. Felix Hoenikker, one of the fathers of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. What's interesting is that Vonnegut blends those phrases in subtle fashion. There's no screaming, no condemnation of Hoenikker who was, after all, just a scientist (and one so eccentric, so focused on the wonders of the world he could barely function on a daily basis).

Dr. Hoenikker has long since died before the book starts. The narrator character first talks to the Felix Hoenikker's son. And these are some of the words which end the sentences of his rumination:

New York
father
bathrobe
cigar
string
Cape Cod
Christmas Eve

All brilliantly evocative words and phrases. Vonnegut, who was a minimalist, never wasted words. These words alone convey a lot of imagery for the reader. String, by the way, forms the basis of the book's title.

So there you have it. Sentence endings can be a powerful place to emphasize ideas, themes, patterns. Take a look at your own work. Or take a look at the sentence endings in a book on your shelf. Do these words and phrases properly convey the thematics and flavor of the book or do you see insipid words and ideas which contradict the atmosphere of the story?