“B” Is for “Bling, But…”

     -- Diamonds from the Victoria and Albert Musuem

   -- Dark Amethyst

“Bling” went mainstream in 1999, with B.G’s rap song "Bling Bling.” As the term’s popularity swelled, its meanings diverged. On one hand, the term suggests glittering enticement, the thrill of light on water, sun on glass, or anything eye-catching and memorable, such as jewels and diamonds. 

But jewels and diamonds also engender devastation and death. That’s part of the “but,” as are  gentler but still offensive connotations, like garish gaudy, shallow, and tasteless. 

Considering that crude splashiness, why not just leave bling to those wearing glitter teeshirts or cheap jewelry? Or, to those who, like Edith Wharton’s nouveau riche, substitute ostentatious decor for class? 

But wait a second. Fear of bad bling, or bling without the self-censoring “but,” often inhibits style, resulting in flat prose and atonal sentences. The very concept underlying bling is flash, energy, and enthusiasm. Vitality. 

The term “bling” metaphorically combines the senses, as in the imagined sound of light striking a jewel, or a combination of “ring” and “bright.” You want to conjure strong sensations, to provide electricity, originality, and magnetism. Isn’t that the difference between “good” writing and “great”? None of that comes from playing it safe.

Unfortunately, though, there’s no bling barometer to reveal whether we’ve provided one form of bling or the other. Practice, accompanied by sound feedback, develops a sense of what’s sparkly fun and what’s offensive overstatement.

Want to experiment? Try for these.

~ Shock:

But the next day he returned to the basement to determine if he'd seen what he'd seen, and that night at dinner, ordinarily a somber affair during which his father related his business woes to an indifferent wife, Bernie muttered, “There's an old man in the meat freezer.”— Steve Stern, The Frozen Rabbi 

~ Syntactical Rhythm:

Eddie had come to understand that what a man saw and what actually existed int he natural world often were contradictory. The human eye was not capable of true sight, for it was constrained by its own humanness, clouded by regret, and opinion, and faith.― Alice Hoffman, The Museum of Extraordinary Things

~ Sound Combinations:

The forty days of the soul begin on the morning after death. That first night, before its forty days begin, the soul lies still against sweated-on pillows and watches the living fold the hands and close the eyes, choke the room with smoke and silence to keep the new soul from the doors and the windows and the cracks in the floor so that it does not run out of the house like a river.—Tea Obrecht, The Tiger’s Wife

Tip: “Bling” makes fiction sparkle, but only with moderation, understatement, and good taste.

Wrong Turn, Right Result

Maybe you were booked for Capri and wound up on the Amalfi Coast instead. 

Or perhaps a visit to the Uffizi paintings became a tour of Renaissance Florence. You could fret, weep, or storm. But wouldn’t you rather appreciate what turned out, instead of what you planned?

You could be pleasantly surprised. This pertains to fiction, as well.

~ Wrong Turn with Your Characters

Don’t save every minor character you introduced just because they’re now “alive.”

Do seek ways to make three minor characters into one. 

Do add unexpected discoveries, which are nearly always the best ones. Did you accidentally discover that your Georgina enjoys Brussel Sprouts or Latin dancing? Who knew that Hector excels at chess, Judo, or solving the Rubric Cube?

~ Wrong Turn with Your Plot

Don’t keep broadening or, worse, repeating.

Do dig deeper. There’s no better antidote for nothing happening. Seek innovative solutions to stagnation. This might be another source of tension (as opposed to yet another character), or what Noah Lukeman calls “a ticking clock,” or an archetypal struggle, such as honor versus expediency.

Do think in terms of causality. How does this event or emotion yield? If your protagonist refuses to confront another character about betrayal, what is the result? And, as Don Maass instructs, avoid picking the first possibility that comes to mind. It comes first to everyone else’s mind, too.

~ Wrong Turn with Point of View

Don’t jump on the easiest solution.

Do use physical behavior or setting to convey the character thoughts that go beyond the scope of your chosen perspective. You might look up how Edith Wharton accomplishes this at the beginning of “The House of Mirth.”

Do pursue an alternative direction. What’s another way to communicate what your point of view can’t legitimately capture?

~ Wrong Turn with a Scene’s Opening

Don’t follow Alice into a nightmarish Wonderland just because you started that way.

Do start every scene with a hook. That’s a great way to know where you’re going before you get too far.

Do start the scene later. You’ll often speed momentum and raise tension by deleting the first few paragraphs.

Do experiment with variations. How else could this happen? Again, focus on cause and effect.

~ Wrong Turn with an Entire Scene

Don’t feel you should keep it just because you wrote it.

Do look for opportunities to collapse entire scenes into a paragraph or so of summary. When you do that, be concrete and explicit. Character emotions are a terrific way to collapse time, plot, or both.

Tip: Like most things in life, fiction benefits from making lemons into lemonade.