Hi-yo Silver! Away!

Or: Curse you Netflix!

So, we get instant Netflix on our PS3.  If you have any sort of impulsive issues or instant gratification problems, do not get instant Netflix.  It's bad news.

But also awesome.  I've been watching old Lone Ranger episodes.  I am in a cowboy kick.  I've been reading/writing about cowboys.  I have been watching cowboys movies.  Cowboys and Aliens was AWESOME!  Who cares what 'critics' say; it was great.  My two favorite things, cowboys and sci-fi/action.  What could go wrong?  Ignore gaping plot holes, if you please.


Anyway, moral of the story, I've been watching Lone Ranger.  It's laughably terrible.  It makes me wonder if Clayton Moore realized how bad he was and enjoyed it, a la old school Batman/Adam West?  Or if he was serious about being "The Lone Ranger."  He did only go out in public in a mask...

In any case, I love it.  It's horrible, especially the racism of it and poor Tonto.  The plots are weak at best, though there is a lot of shooting and maiming for a 'kids' show.  They'd probably not be able to show it today with a "Viewer Discretion Advised" warning.  And interestingly enough, what I've gleaned most from the ten or so episodes I've been able to sit and watch so far is...brevity.

Lone Ranger was a radio show.  The set up of the television series is the same.  The conflict is explained at the beginning of each episode in about two minutes.  No extraneous details, no real depth.  Just plot and action.

Brevity is something I struggle with...as you may have guessed, since it took me like ten paragraphs to get around to my point.  My 'short' stories are usually 20,000 words.  I stink at brevity.  I mean really stink.

I set myself to write a little thing with no more than 1,500 words, the usual short story word count.  I used all 1,500 words and wished for more.  I've been trying to figure out how to be more concise.  Better adjectives?  Less character description?

I think the key is in finding words with impact.  Words that carry weight and a whole lot of silent description with them.  I've been experimenting.

Take the word blue, in the sense of the color.  Blue is...blue.  Vague and open to interpretation.

But how about sapphire?  What does that say?  Richer, I think, more depth.  A sense of luxury, like deep blue silk.  I really like cobalt.  That to me is blue with power, a sense of energy, something shining.  Indigo carries with it a sense of mystery.  The color of the orient, a dye highly prized for its rarity.  Periwinkle; just the name implies whimsy.  I don't call things periwinkle unless there is a softness to them, maybe an organic feel.  Men rarely wear periwinkle dress shirts.  Maybe ties, but not shirts.  My man doesn't, at least.

I could just load my prose with powerful, punchy adjectives.  But then I feel it gets overwhelmed.  I don't need to give every article of clothing, everything in the room, a description.  If I say: faded sundress, do you care what color it is, really?  Or do you have a specific dress in mind, maybe something your grandma wore in August while she sat on the porch and sipped overly sweetened iced tea?

I'm lazy.  Supply your own details.

That way when I say it was a faded sundress, too short in the knees and sleeves, the flowered print stained from years of preserving strawberries and missing the top button, you'll know I mean that sundress.  Not your grandma's sundress or some other mu-mu.  My dress, important to me and my characters for a reason I may divulge in the next few paragraphs.  Why?  You'll just have to keep reading to find out.  Eh, keemo-sabe?

E. T.

Word of the Week

Today I used a word that I rather like, but it doesn't seem to work in many situations.

Languorous.

From wiktionary.org: Lacking energy, spirit, liveliness or vitality; languid, lackadasical.

It's one of those words that I like the sound of, too.  Languoooorous.  It sounds just like it means, doesn't it?  Like someone is just lying around doing nothing.

I think it's the 'L.'  So many words that start with 'L' are related to languorous.  Lazy, lay, lullaby, languid, luxury, loll, lounge.  In my part of the world, at least, an 'L' at the beginning of a word is a long, guttural sound.

The excellent definition at wikitionary aside, languorous, to me, carries with it a connotation of arrogance.  When someone 'lounges languorously,'  my mental image always gives them a  cocky smirk, like they're being lazy just to spite what ever other character is in the scene.

Indolent, that's how I would describe languorous.  Indolent, conceited, smug.  Can you use adjectives to describe an adjective?  That's like saying azure is just like cobalt.

E.T.

Word of the Week

A word I have been thinking about recently is ‘visceral.’  I really like this word and connotations it brings with it.

The definition is easy enough.  From www.merriam-webster.com:

1.       Felt in or as if in the internal organs of the body

2.        not intellectual : instinctive, unreasoning

3.       dealing with crude or elemental emotions

4.       of, relating to, or located on or among the viscera

I want to say, I really like the way the first definition has been crafted: “felt in or as if in the internal organs.”  So many human emotions are conveyed using physical imagery.  A pang of longing, heartache, nervous butterflies, bone-chilling terror, blood running cold.

The original use of ‘visceral’, as stated by www.etymonline.com, meant ‘affecting inward feelings.’  Humans have long thought that the bowels were the center of emotion, most likely because of the physical reactions we have to strong feelings.  Over time, the more literal sense of ‘visceral’ was adopted, meaning the internal organs, specifically the ones in the abdomen.  Now to us, phrases like “bowels filled with compassion’ are at once poetic and snickeringly amusing.

What I like best about the word is the power it holds.  To me, ‘visceral’ has the second and third meanings listed above: elemental, instinctive, wild, raw, unrefined.  It carries with it a sort of savage power, almost a hunger or need, something that overwhelms the rational mind, reducing us to barely more than animals.

Blind with rage, snarling in fury, frozen in fear; all emotions that are so overpowering that we can’t think or reason, striped down to our ‘elemental’ emotions, the instinctive will to survive, the urge to flight or flee.

When a person, or in my case, a character, has been reduced to this point, it is an opportunity to explore who they really are.  What are they going to do now that their humanity, their morals and ethics brushed aside?  Who have they become?  Are they going to do what I think, what I planned for them?  Are they going to rise up and be noble and brave?  Are they going to lash out, run away, fight to the death, beg for mercy?

All very interesting questions, not only for my stories, but for life. 

To paraphrase Dr. King, a man’s character is who he is, how he acts, the choices he makes, while in adversity.

Citations

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/visceral

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=visceral&searchmode=none