Oooh—Taboo: Rectitude versus Risk

Serious writers are usually seriously familiar with all the things they’re forbidden to do: Always “show.” Don’t let your character study herself in a mirror and report what she sees. Avoid anguish, yearning, stormy nights, flimsy nightwear, and rippling muscles. Never start a chapter with dialogue or a sentence with “and.”

Of course taboos originate with good reason. Members of a society agree that a particular behavior—even with language—is so sanctified or appalling that it’s forbidden. People don’t do it. Often, they won’t even mention it.

But what if you judiciously turn a prohibition on its head? One result is a fragrance from The House of Dana, marketed as “Tabu, the forbidden fragrance.” The ad showed a violinist interrupting his performance to bestow a passionate kiss on his accompanist. Pretty sexy, right? 

Follow every rule and you won’t evoke much passion. “She had provided her services as head librarian of the village for nearly five decades.” That’s very sound grammatically, but more fun to mock than to read.

Aside from the stiff formality unsuitable for contemporary fiction, there’s something tantalizing—for both author and reader—about breaking rules. Consider some of these.

~ Sentence fragments.

“It is possible to overuse the well-turned fragment …, but frags can also work beautifully to streamline narration, create clear images, and create tension as well as to vary the prose-line.” — Stephen King, On Writing

~ Weather.

Be careful. It’s easy to lapse into the painful personification of the smiling sun or the equally painful revisiting of the full moon, the rumbling thunder, the unforgiving sky. But make the familiar unfamiliar, and you have a warm, sunny winter day.

~ Dreams

This, too, is quite dangerous, and “It was only a dream” possibly unforgivable. But if a brief, vivid dream lyrically foreshadows, it can add texture, perhaps even humor, irony, or drama.

~ Backstory.

A little goes a long way. But none at all? That thins plot.

“Telling.”

            “Show everything” and it might never be clear where your 5000- page novel is set.

Exclamation points!!!

            This one’s for real. Don’t.

Tip: Know the rules so you can choose when to follow and when to flirt.

OVERWROUGHT!!!!!!!

“Overwrought.” Since its first meaning is over-stimulated to the point of hysteria, we associate this word more with behavior than language. Yet “overwrought” also defines purple prose— phrasing that’s ostentatious, gaudy, pompous, self-conscious, self-indulgent, and likely to drive readers nuts.

Tip: Overblown language isn’t lively or original; it’s excessive and irritating.

To illustrate, I could choose from hundreds of classical or contemporary disasters. Instead, I tactfully offer hyperbole of my own making:

The few faint, final, fluttery wand-like wisps of the dying sun’s peach, mauve, and magenta rays whispered past the stony-faced mountains, majestic mountains unmoved by the sky’s pyrotechnics as it sank, ever more slowly, toward its well-deserved rest. The scene’s serenity reminded the still-heartbroken widow of all she had lost. Never again would she savor his tender caress, his musical laughter, his powerful arms. No! The love they’d had was lost forever. No, no, no! As the thickening twilight besieged her, no one anywhere in the world yearned with greater anguish, or wept with more acrid acerbity.

Let’s examine “overwrought,” one issue at a time.

~ Lighten up on colors, especially esoteric ones like peach, mauve, or magenta.

~Exercise caution with the familiar, including the heavy-handed symbolism of the setting sun.

There’s a reason “It was a dark and stormy night” is more hilarious than threatening.

~ Avoid personification, or attributing human characteristics to anything inhuman.

Does the sunset actually “whisper”? Are those mountains more moved by sunrise than sunset? Does the sun really need a rest? Deserve one? Can twilight “besiege”?

~ Insinuate sound echoes.

A little alliteration, or repetition of initial consonant sounds, goes a long way. Bombard

 with poetic devices, and you’ll move readers to laughter instead of tears.

~ Understate.

A widow watching the sun set already verges on melodrama. That means you can’t have clichés, exclamation points, turgid pace, vapid generalizations, or annoying repetition.

~ Eliminate arcane or abstract language.

Certain words achieve neither invisibility nor imagery. The paragraph above is full of them: “savor,” “forever,” “yearned,” and “anguish.” This language diminishes rather than intensifies the moment.

Replace oversimplified judgments like “tender caress,” “musical laughter,” and “powerful arms” with original imagery.

“A discerning eye needs only a hint, and understatement leaves the imagination free to build its own elaborations.” -- Russell Page

One concrete, apt suggestion is worth a hundred tired, redundant, overblown details.