advice:Stephen King's "On Writing" + Resources

"Verbs come in two types, active and passive...You should avoid the passive tense.  I'm not the only one who says so; you can find the same advice in The Elements of Style." - On Writing, Stephen King

Enjoying King's breezy exploration of his writing - its genesis, its voice.  I hungered to read it, if anything to understand Mr. King's volumetric prowess (happy 69th, btw).  Wikipedia has him at 54 fiction novels, 6 non-fiction, and 200 short stories. Unfortunately, half-way through and I'm no better off knowing his magic tricks for velocity.  (He lists his habit of writing, which must include fingers that simply don't stop.)  But, yes, where I paused is taking a hard look at passive versus active voice.

From the NY Times, "The Pleasures and Perils of the Passive", by Constance Hale:


"The most pilloried use of the passive voice might be that famous expression of presidents and press secretaries, “mistakes were made.” From Ronald Ziegler, President Richard M. Nixon’s press aide, through Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton — not to mention Attorney General Alberto Gonzales — pols have used the passive voice to spin the news, avoid responsibility or hide the truth. One political guru even dubbed this usage “the past exonerative."


From The Elements of Style, which King alludes to often:

"The habitual use of the active voice, however, makes for forcible writing.  This is true not only in narrative concerned principally with action but in writing of any kind.  Many a tame sentence of description or exposition can be made lively and emphatic by sustituting a transitive in the active voice for some such perfuntory expression as there is or could be heard." - page 18

So where did this change occur?  With the drive for simplistic concepts and a packaged coalescence (Apple I'm looking at you), there is data to support that modern English and grammatical complexity has forced us into an active narrative.  Passive, grammatically complex structures make those with less education primarily guess for meaning.  When I read Henry James or Thomas Mann, there was a 'flowery' style that may be less active than say a Mark Twain or a King.

Examples are illustrative and abound at yourdictionary.com:

PASSIVE:
'At dinner, six shrimp were eaten by Harry.'
'A scathing review was written by the critic.'

COUNTER/ACTIVE:
'Harry ate six shrimp at dinner.'
'The critic wrote a scathing review.'

It's easy to see that, in passive, the receiver of action comes before the doer (receiver-action-doer).  It naturally requires the reader to think out of order of doer-action-receiver.

Much to think about as you analyze your own writing.  Interestingly, Grammar Girl recommends that science fiction should always be in passive.  Circling around to me spinning in circles, trying to keep the moon in sight and screaming "no one really knows!"  But, there is a ray of light, in that last chapter of Elements, "'What if I am a pioneer, or even a genius?'  Answer: then be one."

poem: AE Housman's "When summer's end is nighing..."

XXXIX (from Last Poems)
- A E Housman, c. 1934

Nina Leen—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

When summer's end is nighing
  And skies at evening cloud,
I muse on change and fortune
  And all the feats I vowed
  When I was young and proud.

The weathercock at sunset
  Would lose the slanted ray,
And I would climb the beacon
  That looked to Wales away
  And saw the last of day.

From hill and cloud and heaven
  The hues of evening died;
Night welled through lane and hollow
  And hushed the countryside,
  But I had youth and pride.

And I with earth and nightfall
  In converse high would stand,
Late, till the west was ashen
  And darkness hard at hand,
  And the eye lost the land.

The year might age, and cloudy
  The lessening day might close,
But air of other summers
  Breathed from beyond the snows,
  And I had hope of those.

They came and were and are not
  And come no more anew;
And all the years and seasons
  That ever can ensue
  Must now be worse and few.

So here's an end of roaming
  On eves when autumn nighs:
The ear too fondly listens
  For summer's parting sighs,
  And then the heart replies.

watch:Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress (Amazon Prime Video)

An explosive anime available only on Amazon Prime (read: domestic legal), is the Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, coming from Musashino, Japan.  It is (gratefully) streamed in its native language (though subbed) and all of season one is available (12 eps overall).

Mumei by WLOP

Kabaneri follows the story of a post-apocalyptic, steam-age universe where 'kabane' (glowy zombies) have spread their virus across industrial era Japan.  As a response, the people have walled themselves up (see the parallel's with Attack on Titan?) at strongholds that serve as railway points.  Their only lifeline to one another, for critical supplies and information, is to run armored trains to and from.  The lives of the people are governed by this mobile source of protection and information.

The two primary characters, Ikoma, an unappreciated engineer and creator of a weapon that better kills the kabane (who have only the heart as their weak spot), and, Mumei, a mysterious young noblewoman who can also dispatch the kabane with some ease.  What sets these two on the same path is they are both (little spoiler) a hybrid of human and kabane, thus the term kabaneri.  They still have their human wits about them, but hunger for blood, and have stemmed the spread of their disease.

Mumei by Guweiz

Where Kabaneri succeeds where I feel Attack does not, is that the story is more limited in scope, the characters not so world-weary (there are actual moments of happiness that are not broken by abject destruction).  The fight sequences are well thought-out and not as groan-worthy as some of the deaths of the Attack kids.

I'm including two great artists that captured Mumei's vulnerability and fierce warrior stylings - WLOP and Guweiz from DeviantArt.

"Reds" by Guweiz

24,056 uniques to blog!

remember:"Shiloh" Melville / "Requiem" Dao

"Shiloh: A Requiem"

~ Herman Melville, April 1862

Skimming lightly, wheeling still, 

      The swallows fly low 

Over the field in clouded days, 

      The forest-field of Shiloh— 

Over the field where April rain 

Solaced the parched ones stretched in pain 

Through the pause of night 

That followed the Sunday fight 

      Around the church of Shiloh— 

The church so lone, the log-built one, 

That echoed to many a parting groan 

            And natural prayer 

      Of dying foemen mingled there— 

Foemen at morn, but friends at eve— 

      Fame or country least their care: 

(What like a bullet can undeceive!) 

      But now they lie low, 

While over them the swallows skim, 

      And all is hushed at Shiloh.

"Requiem"
By Bei Dao, translated by Eliot Weinberger

for Shanshan

The wave of that year
flooded the sands on the mirror
to be lost is a kind of leaving
and the meaning of leaving
the instant when all languages
are like shadows cast from the west

life's only a promise
don't grieve for it
before the garden was destroyed
we had too much time
debating the implications of a bird flying
as we knocked down midnight's door

alone like a match polished into light
when childhood's tunnel
led to a vein of dubious ore
to be lost is a kind of leaving
and poetry rectifying life
rectifies poetry's echo

short:"Magpie" (4 of 4)

[part 3 here]

He didn't go to work Tuesday.  He had drifted in and out of sleeplessness.  Overeating.  He felt on the verge of sickness but nothing clearly came to hurt.  A funk.

He tried not to think of her.  Yet he made another outing Monday after work.  This time he did ask.  It's amazing how little people even pay attention.  The guy at the comic store said he didn't even remember me.  I've been going there every month for three years.

He switched to straight cigarettes, as much as he could not afford them.  He went through the whole pack ("stockade" cigarettes, the cheapest he could find in the vendie), sitting on his balcony, the sky knowing it wouldn't rain, but stayed grey anyway.  He went through his current playlist twice ("grey_18sep32"), almost two hours per.  Every part of him cried out now that she was gone.  His skin ached, his eyes burned, there was a mild, nagging pain in the back of his head, right above the neck.

He went to work on Wednesday and got chewed out for not making quota.  "You are non-functioning, Charlie, you are on the verge of being on assistance."  He wanted to laugh at that.  Everyone was on assistance.  It only meant getting a little less.  I don't care.  Who does?

...

The call came on Thursday, after work.  He was just getting a bit better, back on track a little more.  He was at his console and his phone glowed green.  Eversong Administration Plant.

"Yes?"  Glowing spring tides and butterflies came to him when he realized that Eversong had her: they would only call for that reason.

"Charles Johann?"

"Charlie.  Yes."

"We have her."

...

He had to wait until work was over but he got there right at dusk.  He tried not to look too anxious, but the week of worry had done enough.  She'll know that I missed her, then.

He walked into Eversong and had to wait for a technician.  "You should have had an appointment."

"No one told me of an appointment."

"You hung up before I could tell you."

He waited for an hour and forty minutes.  A kid came out, couldn't be a year out of university.

"You here for Magdalena?  Follow me."

When he walked into a little diagnostic room, she sat with her back to the door.  He didn't say anything, hoping that she would turn around and pour tears into his chest.  Her face was already half-turned, but she did not move.  She did not blink.

After a few minutes of silence, he saw the kid was staring at him.  He bristled in his skin.

"Where...?" Charlie asked, not knowing what to ask otherwise.

"As far as we can tell, she wandered all the way to the Cape.  There's a beach there that is all rock."

"Fleur Point."

He nodded then looked at his screen.  "By what I could tell by GPS, she was there Thursday afternoon.  She didn't move.  A park ranger found her underneath some rocks.  The exposure made a mess of her recorder."  He walked around her, still discerning, "I ran diagnostics.  I could see that she fell into rampancy spiral.  I know this means you both were very close.  I..."  He trailed off, they both knew there was a falling out.

Charlie just nodded and put his hand on her shoulder.  She was cold.  Her flesh was not the usual gelatinous feel, it was as if rocks were underneath the surface.  She did not move.  Her eyes were open, but cloudy.  There was no power.

"I'm sorry.  She was a grant?"

He nodded in response and that would end the conversation.  She was provided by the Counsel on a grant.  If you lose one, you cannot get a replacement.  Charlie would never be close to buying his own.  He was escorted out of the room, but he stood near a door where he could look in at her.

They ran a circuit to Maggie from a service port, which made her go into a fetal position, easier for movement.  They covered Maggie in a translucent bag and that was it.

...

They tell you to never to take pictures.  They tell you not to get too close.  It's a joke, they do this to control us.  They put us in a cocoon until we are broken and we don't care if they pull us out.

There were many pictures, he didn't realize how many.  He dug through two thousand until he found it.  The time they went there.  She wore her hair up.  It was a brisk day, but she only had on a black vertical shirt and white cut-offs.  She had these little, cute white boating shoes on.  She smiled at him and he remembered smiling back.

...

[start from the beginning]