The Twins

The Royal Twins, Catherine and Ewin Hayes follows their teacher into the library. They try to comfort her before she goes away.

The Twins

Eliza Grey runs her finger down a book's spine thinking over the events of the past few hours. She pulls her finger back from the book. Dust imprinting her finger mark. She gives a heavy sigh “What am I going to do?” She whispers to the abandoned book around her. She puts her back to the bookshelf and slides down the frame until she is sitting on the ground. The shuffling of shoes sounds on the other row of books. Eliza puts her head on the frame and waits for the sound again. She hears it closer to the end of the row. She lowers her head and smirks “I would have thought you would have tried to scare me.. Prince and Princess.” Eliza looks at the Royal Twins. The twins look at their pitiful teacher “Ewin, Ewin, Teacher is making the pitiful face I was talking about” Catherine whispers to her brother “Cathie, Cathie, Teacher is sad.. I heard mother and father were going to send her away..” Ewin whispers back to his sister. 

Eliza Sighs and stands up. The Twins watch her “My apologies for not telling you, your Highnesses” Eliza bows her head down low “Ewin, Ewin, Teacher is acting different…”, “Cattie, cattie, Teacher is apologizing.. For what though?” The twins look at each other. Eliza feels a tap on her head and lifts her head slightly to see what was happening. She notices the prince holding out his index finger to where her head was originally ‘Ewin..-”, “Ewin, Ewin, You made Teacher sad again!” Catherine shouts at her brother “I did?” Ewin folds his hands together and places them to his chest. Eliza sees his normally golden eyes now springing with tears “Teacher, Teacher, Ewin is crying..” Catherine says through tears of her own. 

Eliza looks down at both of the twins unsure of what to do. The setting sun lights the row the children and herself are in, as if giving her a goodbye of its own. Eliza kneels down to the prince and throws her arms around him and indicates for Catherine to join in. She waits until she feels the princess and pulls her into the hug “I`ll miss you guys…” Eliza whispers into their ears as she chants a teleportation spell in her head. A flurry of ice particles circles around her making her disappear. The twins continue to bawl even after her disappearance.  

Author's Note

I got feedback the other day about how I put too much detail into my writing.. So I made it a little less detail!

Reviews

[JayG]

• I got feedback the other day about how I put too much detail into my writing.. So I made it a little less detail!

The problem isn’t the amount of detail, it’s that like most hopeful fiction-writers you’re a victim of what I call, The Great Misunderstanding: All through school you practiced a skill the teachers called writing—mostly through assignments to write reports and essays. And since they never mentioned that there was any other approach to writing, we make the reasonable assumption that writing is writing, and that the word “writing” that’s part of the profession, Fiction-Writing, points to that skill.

But it doesn’t. Writing all those reports made us good at writing reports, which are nonfiction, and have as their goal, informing the reader concisely, accurately, and, dispassionately. That works for writing that's meant to inform. Fiction has a different goal. As E. L. Doctorow puts it: “Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” And how much time did your teachers spend on how to do that? Zero, right?

Fiction is emotion-based and character-centric, an approach that wasn't mentioned as existing when you were in school. So naturally, believing that writing-is-writing, and that you have that taken care of, you used what you knew when you turned to fiction. But...use nonfiction skills when writing fiction and you have two problems:

Using the skills we were given, the ONLY one on stage is the author, talking TO the reader, about the events and chaeracters, in a voice that contains only the emotion suggested by punctuation. And the meaning the reader gets isn’t what you intend, because they lack two things the author has: context and intent for how the words are to be taken. Instead, they have what the words suggest to them, based on THEIR life-experience.

The second problem is that because you know the story so well, as you write you’ll leave out what seems obvious to you. Then, as you read, you'll fill them in and never notice the problem. Doubt that? Look at the opening as a reader must, bearing in mind that the reader needs comprehension as-they-read, and, that there is no second, first-impression:

• Eliza Grey runs her finger down a book's spine thinking over the events of the past few hours.

So…someone unknown, of an unknown age and background, who lives in an unknown place and time, touches a book while thinking about unknown events?

So what? The reader has no context, and no reason to care, because we don’t even know why you felt the reader would want to know that.

When you read this, though, the words act as a pointer to images, story, characterization, and more, all waiting in your mind to be pulled up. So for you, the words make perfect sense.

For the reader? The words act as a pointer to images, story, characterization, and more, all waiting in *YOUR* mind to be pulled up. But are you there when it’s read? No. See the problem?

Because you were given no training in writing fiction, and are unaware of the three things we need to address quickly on entering a scene, so as to provide context to make the words meaningful, you didn’t. It’s not your fault, of course. And it’s not a matter of how well you write, or talent, but still, it needs to be fixed.

• She pulls her finger back from the book.

That’s a visual detail. But we can’t visualize the room, or forest, or library, or… because you provided no context. so who cares that the does, or does not touch a book on an unknown subject? Another point no one told you, is that in writing fiction, any line that doesn't move the plot, meaningfully set the scene, or develop character serves only to slow the narrative. So…

• Dust imprinting her finger mark.

Last one, honest. 😆 First, this is what’s called a sentence fragment, because it’s incomplete. And fragments are to be avoided.

But again, this is a visual detail that’s irrelevant to the story.

So...it’s not a matter of too much or too little detail, it’s knowing the craft of writing fiction, a learned skill. After all, they offer degree programs in Commercial Fiction-Writing. And you have to assume that at least part of what they study in earning that degree is necessary. Right?

So, does that mean you can’t write fiction? Of course not. It does mean that you need to acquire the tricks the pros take for granted, though. And while that’s not a matter of a few, “Do this instead of that,” items, because you will be learning the skills of a profession, learning something you like doing isn’t hard labor, and it's filled with lots of, “So THAT’S how they do it.

A great place to begin is with a few good books on the basics of creating scenes that will sing to the reader, and the library’s fiction-writing section is a really great resource for that. No tests, you progress at your own speed, and no pressure.

And a great book to begin with is, Dwight Swain’s, Techniques of the Selling Writer. It is, by far, the best I’ve found, to date, and, is the book that got me my first contract offer. Maybe it can do that for you.

And since the book recently came out of copyright protection, it can be read, or downloaded free at some archive sites, one of which is below this paragraph. Just copy/paste the address to the URL window at the top of any internet page and hit return to get there.

https://archive.org/details/TechniquesOfTheSellingWriterCUsersvenkatmGoogleDrive4FilmMakingBsc_ChennaiFilmSchoolPractice_Others

It’s not an easy book. It was written by a university professor, and as such, goes into lots of detail. But I’ve found none better.

For a kind of overview of the issues you’ll see addressed there, the articles in my WordPress writing blog are based on the teachings you’ll find in there.

So was this what you were hoping to see? Hell no! Who would? But since you can’t fix the problem you don’t see as being one, and it’s a problem all hopeful writers face, I thought you’d want to know.

Do dig in. And while you do, hang in there, and keep on writing.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

[Nekoanamae]

Thank you very much for this! with the line "Dust imprinting her finger mark" I will be honest, I had mind blank and sat for at least five minutes trying to remember what it was called XD . I just wanted to do what they do in "Tween" Books. Detail, But not a lot of it. And again, Thank you very much for your input and for the suggestion for the book!