MAKING THE ABSTRACT CONCRETE<\/strong><\/p>\nOne of the qualities we have identified that a good writer has is the ability to be specific. That means that good writers will avoid the use of unsupported generalities or abstractions and try to make those generalities specific and the abstractions concrete.<\/p>\n
For example, time<\/u> is an abstraction. You can\u2019t see, hear, taste, touch or smell it. It is an abstract idea. The author Ray Bradbury recognized this problem in his short story, \u201cNight Meeting,\u201d which is about the nature of time, so he made the abstraction concrete for the reader with this description (I’ve taken his prose passage and recast it as a poem so you can see the parts better):
\nThere was the smell of Time in the air tonight.
\nHe smiled and turned the fancy in his mind.
\nThere was a thought.
\nWhat did Time smell like?
\nLike dust and clocks and people.
\nAnd if you wondered what Time sounded like
\nit sounded like water running in a dark cave
\nand voices crying
\nand dirt dripping down
\nupon hollow box lids, and rain.
\nAnd, going further, what did Time look like?
\nTime looked like snow dropping silently into a black room
\nor it looked like a silent film
\nin an ancient theater,
\none hundred billion faces falling like those New Year balloons,
\ndown and down into nothing.
\nThat was how Time smell and looked and sounded.
\nAnd tonight–Tomas shoved a hand
\ninto the wind outside the truck–
\ntonight you could almost touch Time.<\/p>\n
To make the abstraction concrete, Bradbury made \u201cappeals to the senses.\u201d He gave examples of what he meant when he talked about time. He was specific.<\/p>\n
This idea that abstractions should be made concrete play out in numerous ways in fiction, but mostly, I think, they are most important when we’re trying to communicate moods or feelings. Saying that a character is afraid, for example, or that a setting is threatening attempts to evoke the abstraction by naming it, but no reader is ever scared by the word “afraid” or made nervous by the word “threatening.” What we should be trying to do as we write is to provide enough concrete details and evocative metaphorical descriptions to make the reader conclude that the character is “afraid,” or that the scene is a “threatening” one.<\/p>\n
A pretty good editing pass on a manuscript you think is complete is to look for words that are abstractions. They can work in dialogue sometimes, or when they are paired with concrete appeals, but they shouldn’t be doing the heavy lifting by themselves. Remember that readers hardly ever go to fiction to be told stuff. They read because they want to feel and experience. If that wasn’t true then someone telling us that the rollercoaster they went on was terrifying would be all we would ever need, and we’d never try a rollercoaster ourselves.<\/p>\n
For me, one of the first stories that actually evoked terror and suspense in my young soul was Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell Tale Heart.” I have no idea how that story appears in elementary school fiction anthologies, but it did (along with “The Black Cat,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” and “Masque of the Red Death).<\/p>\n
When I reread “The Tell Tale Heart” today, I see how Poe works hard to make his abstractions concrete. I write better when I remember the lessons he demonstrated.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s Writing Prompt<\/strong><\/p>\nUsing Bradbury as a model, take four of the following abstractions and make them concrete. Do not use single word examples, like \u201cDeath is a grave.\u201d Expand your examples.<\/p>\n
Friendship
\nGrief
\nFreedom
\nFear
\nDemocracy
\nSlavery
\nHope
\nLove
\nDeath
\nHumor
\nCompassion
\nPity
\nRevenge
\nCapitalism
\nJoy
\nTriumph
\nFailure
\nCompromise<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Most everyone who has been responding to my posts seems well beyond beginner status as writers, but I’ve found that going back to the basics has always been good for me. For example, two of the best books I have on writing are ones that were written for rank beginners, but I keep revisiting them. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,6,3,41],"tags":[43,44,12,9,7],"class_list":["post-160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-craft","category-short-stories","category-writing","category-writing-advice","tag-abstractions","tag-concrete","tag-craft","tag-short-stories","tag-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamesvanpelt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamesvanpelt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamesvanpelt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamesvanpelt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamesvanpelt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jamesvanpelt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":495,"href":"https:\/\/jamesvanpelt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions\/495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jamesvanpelt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamesvanpelt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jamesvanpelt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"tell](\"https:\/\/jamesvanpelt.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/tell-tale-heart.jpg\")
Most everyone who has been responding to my posts seems well beyond beginner status as writers, but I’ve found that going back to the basics has always been good for me. For example, two of the best books I have on writing are ones that were written for rank beginners, but I keep revisiting them. Maybe it’s because I’m slow and simple, or maybe because reviewing the basics keeps me anchored. I figure if my basics are solid, my experimental flights of fancy may have a better chance of working.<\/p>\n