Dense Prose.

Have you ever heard someone absolutely butcher an old joke, one that you are familiar with and found funny in the past? They’ve gone off track. They took too long. They had trouble finding appropriate words, and keeping the attention of the listener. The listener ran out of patience.

Dense prose is like a well-written joke. There’s not a word out of place, and not a word wasted. There will not be one inappropriate word choice. Each word chosen must be the perfect one for the job. Second best isn’t good enough. There are no ‘slacker’ words that don’t do anything. Every word has its job to do and it must pull its own weight or out it goes. The words have to be in exactly the right place.

That sounds so obvious, yet I often move words around in a sentence.

Here’s an example of dense prose:

John walked down the corridor, his leaden footsteps ringing hollow, echoing around and around as he went.

That one has some problems, although it’s okay up to a point.

Leaden footsteps rang in the hallway. His heart heavy with the news, John reached Mary’s room.

The second example just did a whole lot more work, didn’t it? It’s still a little shorter than the first one. Is ‘rang’ okay, or should we substitute ‘echoed?’ I like it either way.

Here is an example from an unpublished story, ‘Leap of Faith.’ It’s about a reconnaissance team in special survival suits jumping out of spaceships during time of war. While this could be augmented with more detail, it’s hard to see how it could get any shorter.

It was a leap of faith every time they did it. Everyone knew the odds, and the statistics didn’t lie. People said that when you lost the fear, it was time to quit. Jason Bridger had passed that point a long time ago. Now, he just felt resignation, a kind of fatalism. He no longer cared if he lived or died. While his body still wanted to live and reacted just as it should, his mind was cold and jaded.

The secret to dense prose is good editing. Another secret to dense prose is to be specific. Let’s edit the short piece above. We’ll look out through the editor’s eyes for a second.

'It was a leap of faith every time they did it.’

Did what? What were they doing? –ed.

'It was a leap of faith every time they jumped.’

Oh, okay, so they’re jumping, then? –ed.

It was a leap of faith every time they jumped. They all knew the odds. The statistics didn’t lie. People said that when you lost the fear, it was time to quit. Jason Bridger had passed that point a long time ago. Now, he felt resignation, a kind of fatalism. He no longer cared if he lived or died. His body still wanted to live and reacted like any organism should, but his mind was cold and jaded.

The author has made changes. He’s taken out some words and added some somewhere else. Now in the opinion of the average reader, which version is more ‘dense?’ The first example is eighty words and the second seventy-eight. It must be denser. I said exactly the same thing, I said it better, and I saved two words.

Hidden depths.

When I decided to write science fiction, (this was some years ago,) I got a library card and borrowed every book I could find, based on a list of writers that I had read when I was younger.

This included something like a hundred and fifty books by forty or fifty authors.

In some ways that was a mistake, as most of the books on the list dated back thirty or more years to classic authors like Robert A. Heinlein, and while that isn’t so bad in itself, it left out most of the authors who are currently active and financially successful in today’s market.

A better idea would have been to go to the bookstore and see who was on those shelves on that very day. It would have been a better idea to make a list at the bookstore. Then go to the library, and borrow them all for free, three or four books at a time. I should have read them and studied them, for two or three weeks or until my time ran out.

Try it sometime. Look at the books with whole new eyes. Look at them analytically.

Did you see anything you didn’t like? What did you like? If you had to write an objective review, not just fan-praise, what would you say about the book? If you could write anything you wanted, who would you most like to sort of ‘follow in the foot-steps of?’ If you can’t analyze somebody else’s work, you can hardly expect to be able to analyze your own stories, objectively or otherwise. A good exercise after reading this article might be to grab three books out of genre, read them, and then write a short 200-word review for each one.

Robert J. Sawyer said in a 2005 interview, ‘Isaac Asimov’s work would not be publishable today because it is not up to modern literary standards.’ I like Asimov, who wrote hundreds of books and technical papers, and that seems harsh. But if anyone is in a position to know what he is talking about, it is Sawyer, the ‘go-to’ guy in science fiction, (at least for Canadians,) and I’m not contradicting him. I listen pretty well—but I’m not contradicting. But think of the competition we are up against.

Outside of my particular genre, I got a bag of old Dick Francis novels, about twenty-five of them. Francis wrote ‘horse-racing thrillers.’ My grandfather loved those books. Why? He liked horses, and in fact my grandmother used to ride the sulky in races at county fairs. Putting them in chronological order, I read each and every one of them. For one thing, the books followed a common structure and formula. What I found was that the story-telling ability of the author improved over time. The author had a few recurring themes, such as confinement, kidnapping, and the basic corruption behind the cheater’s mentality. It really was a finite list over the course of his career. I began to see his limitations, and his strengths. His perspective as a former, very successful rider was that he didn’t mind people gambling. It was a legitimate enterprise, and he loved the sport.

He didn’t much like cheaters, who weren’t content to rely on luck or good judgment, but tried to fix results, and often resorted to violence when things went wrong. In that sense, every novel has some sort of moral component. It’s best to figure out what we are trying to say before we get too far along. Not every theme is of equal importance. Francis also seemed to buy and rebuild old houses. I’m sure he did it at least once. It made a big impression. Some of his characters did the same thing—the basic message was that it was time-consuming and expensive. Surely this is a theme, and surely it is a lesser theme than the one about violence, or more specifically the bits about kidnapping, threats, and assaults. Re-building old houses is a kind of ‘be careful what you wish for’ theme.

A really dense story has a lot of themes interwoven together to make a coherent whole.

Human beings are complex, and so characters should be too. With human beings not everything is on the surface. There are always hidden depths.

If you want to write a western, study modern western authors, (the successful ones,) or romance authors, fantasy authors, whatever you want to write, but also study outside of your chosen genre. This somehow makes it easier to keep an objective point of view. It’s better than getting sucked into a story completely, because you’re enjoying it so much. Now you can figure out why it works and how it works.

These tools will work in our own stories. That’s not to say we should read bad books or only popular ones. It’s about trying to keep an open mind when cracking open any work.

Excerpt: 'The Four Horsemen.' Louis Shalako.

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Louis Shalako



"I don’t know about you fellows, but I’m getting kind of old for this,” advised Jeb Snead, circling warily to the left with his dukes raised.

It never hurt to try, but this wasn’t a talking matter.

Neither one said anything. They spread out and then came at him. Two other weather-beaten and dust-covered men sat astride their horses, not reaching for their guns just yet.

The one on the right jabbed, and Jeb snagged him a nice fast one right on the kisser.

He stood there flatfooted, staring at the sight of fresh blood on his black rawhide gloves in disbelief. Jeb socked him again and he went straight down and laid flat on his back.

“We’re looking for someone, mister,” said the tall, bearded man still confronting him.

Telegraphing every move, the bruiser, all of two hundred eighty pounds, came in dead straight and Jeb laid him out flat on his back with one punch to the solar plexus, a foot-plant behind the ankles, and a quick push on the shoulders.

“Keep looking,” advised Jeb.

The men on horses reached for their guns, but Jeb held up a hand.

“No need for that,” he assured them. “You gentlemen probably just want to borrow a rope, or something.”

The two looked at each other for a moment. Jeb focused on the eyes of the older one, sitting with an air of quiet authority upon a fine bay gelding. The man regarded him soberly.

“No, sir,” said the young one, avoiding his eyes. “No. We don’t want to borrow no rope.”

“Do you mind if we help our friends back onto their horses, sir?” the older one inquired politely.

“Not at all,” said Jeb, standing clear.

His own gun-belt hung on Rooster’s pommel, as he was just shaving and washing up.

“Was there something I could help you gentlemen with?” he asked as they dismounted, noting an air of gratitude upon the older one’s face.

“We’re looking for a special sort of a man, sir,” said the younger.

He was about twenty-five years old and had some resemblance in the set of the shoulders and neck to his father.

It took a moment or two, but the other members of the little posse were soon remounted. They were dazed, and hurting, and sullen to some degree, but under the older man’s authority.

They kept their mouths shut, but their eyes spoke volumes.

“You’re Jeb,” said the man. “Jeb Snead!”

“Yeah!” he agreed.

“Our apologies, we should have known right off,” said the gentleman. “Sheriff
Ackroyd, in La Pierre, has been getting a little too big for his britches these days.”

“We’re the RB ranch,” he added after a quick spit to the side.

“No fighting for money prizes within the town limits, without his written permit,” said Jeb. “He waited until I could actually pay the fine…or buy a permit, then arrested me and seized all the winnings!”

The other three sat up a little straighter upon hearing it.

“He earned his money,” admitted Snead.

“Sooner or later, he will pull that stunt on the wrong fellow,” said the mounted stranger with a strange, small grin. “They say you smashed a hole in the wall and just walked out…heh!”

“Ackroyd sittin’ in the saloon braggin’,” noted the son.

The younger went silent upon a slight move of his father’s shoulders.

The gentleman thought for a moment.

“The county line is about four miles due west of here,” he advised, as a visible shock went over the faces of his crew. “The sheriff of Mule Creek, south about two miles, is probably sitting in his office in town right about now. It is dinnertime, after all. If you run across any mysterious strangers, travelling alone, maybe with some kind of a strange story to tell…I would imagine it’s a different story every time…well, you watch yourself, Mister Snead. Listen…listen very well to what he…or she, or it, has to say, Mister Snead.”

He tipped his hat and then they all spurred up, and continued on up the hill. No one looked back. The sounds of their hooves quickly faded from his ken. Jeb listened well for a few minutes, still shaking his head. He planned on a few hours of hard travel. Jeb tucked in his shirt and put away the shaving tackle.

Clearly their business was none of his business, and he was glad enough for it.

“Come on, Rooster,” he said.

The horse tipped him a wink.

Mounting up, he carefully walked the big black Antarean barb into the water and down the river for about a mile and a half, then turned up the right bank and picked his way across a stony plain.

It was a good idea to make some ground before nightfall. His own belly rumbled, but the horse had plenty of grass and the water was good. Jeb pulled the brim of his hat down low and rode into the sunset. While the broken hills, winding watercourses and scattered brush gave good cover, he knew enough to listen as well. He made a conscious point of stopping, and waiting, to check the back trail after crossing any big open spaces. He was smart enough not to ride directly over the top of any big hills.

A couple of hours later, Jeb relaxed, riding a little easier in the saddle. He was poor but free, and for the time being, that would have to do.

The gentle tug of Rooster’s heartstrings indicated to the intuitive Jeb that the barb was in perfect agreement with these sentiments.

Ever since bringing the wet, suckling colt into the world in an impromptu Caesarian, with a Bowie knife and his own hands, Rooster’s dam mortally wounded by a neo-Blackfoot arrow, there was this special bond…indescribable to the normally taciturn Jeb. Gifted with his fists and in the use of his iron-hard noggin, although not the most erudite of men, Jeb Snead knew he was lucky to have Rooster.

In this life, if you made one good friend and died with your boots on and no big debts, you were doing all right.

In this weird, half-lit and artificial world, a completely plastic planet, illuminated only by the sick and perverted science of the evil Doctor Schmitt-Rottluff, he would need all the help he could get to save the buxom but leggy Miss Kitty from the clutches of pure and unadulterated greed. There might be some element of lust involved as well, he reckoned, and not just on the part of Doctor S, as he and Rooster had taken to calling him in their unique, telempathic lingua equus.

Rooster sighed, blowing big shots of air out through his lips in a language known ever since the Dawn of Time to horses across this fair Galaxy.

The mournful sentiments coming from the horse confirmed that the barb really liked Miss Kitty, however futile that must ultimately be.


END


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