Triple-paned windows and a rising plain
I have a question to ask you in a moment, and to answer it you will need to consider this passage:
The triple-pane floor-to-ceiling windows of Hollister’s study frame the rising plain to the west, the foothills and the distant Rocky Mountains that were long ago born from the earth in cataclysm, now dark and majestic against a sullen sky. It is a view to match the man who stands at this wall of glass. The word cataclysm is a synonym for disaster or upheaval but also for revolution, and he is the leader of the greatest revolution in history. The greatest and the last. The end of history is near, after which his vision of a pacified world will endure forever.
The question: What do you make of this passage? And let’s get specific. To start with, what do you make of the very first sentence?
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A little pause for thought.
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I hope you agree that the sentence is bad. If the sentence just ran like this:
The triple-pane floor-to-ceiling windows of Hollister’s study frame the rising plain to the west.
you could just about digest it. Even in that much abbreviated form (14 words versus 39) you’re being asked to compose these elements:
- The windows are triple-paned
- They run floor-to ceiling
- They are in the study belonging to someone called Hollister
- A rising plain is visible through the windows.
- The plain runs west from the windows.
That’s perhaps not quite too much to assemble in general (though I can’t see myself writing the sentence under any circumstances), but this is the opening sentence of a book. The reader therefore comes to the sentence with no knowledge of where they are, or with whom, or under what circumstances. That means there’s no frame of expectations to work with, so writers generally need to feed the reader with nibbles that can build into whole mouthfuls once the reader is better oriented.
The full version of the sentence, however, adds in these additional elements:
- There are foothills
- And the Rocky Mountains
- The Rocky Mountains were born long ago, and in cataclysm
- These mountains are now looking dark and majestic
- The sky is sullen
This is quite clearly an awful lot of ingredients, particularly in an opening sentence. Worse still, the sentence shifts focus. The first part of it is clearly talking about windows. The last part is talking about mountains. What are we meant to be focusing on? It’s just not clear. (Or, as it happens, even correct. The Rocky Mountains weren’t born in cataclysm. They formed when two tectonic plates ran gently together, thereby pushing the earth upwards. That process ran for about 30 million years and is extremely slow, not even one millimetre a year. You don’t think of the Himalayas as a zone of cataclysm, but the exact same process is in operation there right now and happening much faster.)
Oh yes, and if we were being mean, I think we’d suggest that the adjectives (dark, majestic, sullen) are all rather shopworn in their obviousness.
OK. So we don’t like the first sentence. The second sentence feels a bit better:
It is a view to match the man who stands at this wall of glass.
I never really like starting a sentence with the empty “It is” or “There is”. It’s better generally to bring a proper subject to the front, so for example:
The view matches the man who stands at this wall of glass.
So, boof, an easy improvement, but not a huge one. Let’s have a think about sentence three:
The word cataclysm is a synonym for disaster or upheaval but also for revolution, and he is the leader of the greatest revolution in history.
This is a remarkable sentence, no? Sentence one dealt with windows and (awkwardly) mountains. Sentence two homed in on the figure of a man, who clearly needs to be the centre of attention here. Then sentence three, weirdly, starts telling us basic (ie: not interesting) dictionary facts about the meaning of the not-very-obscure word cataclysm, then jumps back to the man-at-the-window with a hopelessly contrived segue. (“This mountain range was formed in cataclysm [except it wasn’t]. Cataclysm can mean revolution. And this man is a revolutionary. Neat, huh?”)
The feeling engendered in a competent reader is likely to be one of extreme awkwardness – like you’re talking to a boring man in a pub, and he leans in too close, and his breath smells of beer and bacon-flavour crisps, and he tells you something which you know to be untrue of the mountains outside, and you notice that his toupee has slipped. Yikes. You want to get away, but there’s something desperately adhesive about the whole situation.
Clarity (and an exit from the pub-situation) comes with the remainder of the paragraph. This chap at the window is a revolutionary. He has Dr Evil style plans for the planet. Paragraph two talks about his need to kill someone. Paragraph three discusses his intention to make the kill himself.
Overall? Your impression?
I think you’re going to agree with me that the writing is awkward. Needs improvement before it goes to a literary agent.
The trouble is, we’ve just discussed the opening paragraphs of a Dean Koontz novel, The Night Window, and guy has sold 450 million or more novels worldwide. So he’s doing something right.
And –?
Well, I don’t quite know what to say. I’m certain that I’m correct in picking apart the prose the way I did. And I most certainly know that I could never bring myself to write those sentences. Yet perhaps their badness is part of what attracts Koontz’s readers. Here are some possibilities:
- The first sentence is overfilled with information, but perhaps that presents Koontz as a fount of knowledge – establishes him as some kind of authority.
- For that reason it doesn’t matter that his geology is dubious or that his vocabulary-facts are roughly ninth grade.
- His readers are probably interested more in grand external story (the biggest revolution in history) than in fine interior details. The fact-first presentation style somehow authorises those preferences. The subsequent material about Hollister’s plans to kill people confirm that we’re in graphic novel / James Bond territory, not anything more refined.
One way to summarise this is perhaps to say that there are people who love fancy chocolates (dark, bitter flavours, complex support notes) and people who actively don’t. But plenty of those folk do sill like a really basic chocolate: lots of sugar, plenty of dairy, everything very safe. Dean Koontz’s books are aimed at the latter sort of people. The dodgy prose is there to reassure them: don’t worry, I’m not going to get all literary on you – just look at my prose style
Nor do I have anything against Dean Koontz selling a lot of books. I’m in favour of people reading what they like, and if they like Mr Koontz, then hooray for him.
If you’re writing somewhat similar books for a somewhat similar audience, then I think you can afford to ditch a lot of what people like me tell you about how to write. A somewhat klutzy style is part of the brand, part of the appeal. That doesn’t mean that any kind of bad writing is permitted, though. You need to stay dramatic, present the right kind of facts, keep characters on the edge of comic book, and build a story arc that moves in big, bold strokes with plenty of look-at-me moments.
If that more or less describes you and your audience, then be careful what you take from these emails. If I make a suggestion that feels right, by all means take it. If something sounds wrong for you, go with your judgement, not mine. You know best.
In the end, the biggest bit of editorial advice is To thine own self be true. Dean Koontz has been true to himself and to his half-dozen pseudonyms. If he subscribes to these emails – I doubt it – I bet he only does so, in order to hurl solid gold bars at his computer screen while mouthing insults at me. In which case, he’s right. Authors are their own final courts of arbitration.
Oh yes, and writing this email has given me an idea for the next one. It’s going to be called The Opposite of Dean Koontz. Watch this space.
Brooks Landon describes how to build a cumulative sentence by adding free modifying phrases to a short base clause. Is that what the author intends, in the first sentence?
When I first read this opening, I found myself stumbling over the words in the hope that I would come out the other side with a basic grasp of the point. The last couple of lines about a revolution gave me that basic grasp, but nothing more. If I’m going to commit to reading a novel I don’t just want a grasp; I want to be fully immersed in the world these characters are living in. There’s little more frustrating when reading than skipping over 80% of the words in a story because they are superfluous. Yet there is clearly a large audience for this, which just shows how it is all about personal preference.
‘Brooks Landon describes how to build a cumulative sentence by adding free modifying phrases to a short base clause.’
You got me right there..of Pooh like comprehension, I had to read that very slowly. The Koontz reading does get snappier, but, as I find in many novels like this, character is defined by attitude as opposed to anything remotely near the human condition. A few lines later we read:
‘The library contains twenty-five thousand volumes that Hollister inherited from his father. The old man was a lifelong reader of novels. But his son has no use for fiction.’
Write about what you know, that’s what they say.
I guess at its heart it’s all about the story. Lee Child’s ‘Killing Floor’ is just short. Choppy sentences. It’s odd to read. Really. Susanna Clarke’s ‘Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell’ is full of crafted prose, an exercise in proper literary sentence construction. Yet, her book is one of only three I could not finish. Other readers have been spellbound by it. My experience aside, I believe many will persist if the tale being told is worth the effort. Your piece does make me think about some of the material I have produced. A mangalation of the English language, like Yoda on speed, full of redundant lead ins and convoluted structure. Now, what we need is a balance of clear engaging sentences and a good yarn. If only my brain could be wired up to do it.
One wonders if his early work, his first novel, was presented in the same form. If so, what was the agent’s view? Were they crazy or could they see the merit ahead of the intro and take, as they say, a punt on the flow of his factually awry tectonics subduing the reader.
For me, I can see he is trying to capture the panoramic vistas of the old western movie intros. Placing a man (not on a horse) at the centre, and yet not. As you say, it is convoluted; an attempt at painting with words that, from afar works. But when you get up close, the facts do not bear out and cracks appear. Which leads us back to those pesky plate subductions and divergences.
Will be most interested to read your opposite of Dean Koontz article, assuming Mr K doesn’t hurl a golden lawsuit at you from the Rockies.
But, sincerely, why not go and ask him? He may be pleased to explain his style and how it developed? Interview with major writer would be a big pull, for some….
‘Now, what we need is a balance of clear engaging sentences and a good yarn. If only my brain could be wired up to do it.’
I know the feeling and haven’t cracked it yet. Getting there though. I submit my work monthly to a large writers group for feedback. Based not on what they say – but what they like, and what they don’t, I’ve worked out that it doesn’t work when I try to tell a story, but it does work when I just let the story work itself out of me. Even for me that’s a bit hippy dippy Zenish. And I’m not sure what I mean – but I’m closing in before the bugger takes flight.
I both agree and disagree with you, Harry.
Yes, that first sentence is an abomination. It is nigh-on unreadable.
Except, from my perspective, it’s the first fourteen words that are the crime. It’s the way each would-be subject becomes an adjective for the subsequent noun, requiring mental gymnastics to find the actual subject, then two subsequent passes to slot it all back together in a logical manner. It can only go uphill from there, though the slope be gentle.
I read books to suit my mood. On most days I enjoy Nabakov and also Miss Read, though so far not Dean Koontz. I’ll forgive quite a lot of under-editing if all I want is to forget and become absorbed by the story. But I am easily distracted by verbiage.
There was something recently about how long do I give a book before hurling it across the room? 50 pages seems to be a common figure, However I like my husband’s rule for movies – the first 10 minutes then decide – so I use that, unless I’ve got a free copy for review. Then I do try and finish it. But, in my experience, things rarely improve and I’m then left with trying to unite truth with decency
Cataclysm is not a synonym for revolution. Koontz makes up facts much like a conspiracy theorist, but maybe that’s the attraction as it can feel like he’s revealing knowledge. And there will always be plenty of people who mistake purple prose for good writing.
Thank you for this post. The only Koontz novel I’ve read was The Watchers. I felt manipulated, though the concept of dogs with high IQs was fascinating. My Sheltie is brilliant—but these dogs were over the top. That novel was over the top, and the definition in the first paragraph of this one seems a little arrogant to me. I love Colorado but not tempted to read this story.