Susan
The Amazing Adventures
of Sara Corel
A novel by Toomey
The Last Scribe
Sharon Best (the Last Scribe…)
[Sharon]
Very, very nice. I loved it.
It is dark and moody and bleak, but the mood is perfect for the
tale. Last of a race, unable to die, unable to be free — then,
the fact that it's a tattered document found long after she's
gone. I like the idea that Terrans rose up to destroy an Empire
that the Velorians could not. Strength of arm is not the only
strength, and those whom the gods choose are not necessary as
strong as those whom nature chooses.
The idea of writing verse
purely to create mood and emotion has always been beyond me, but
your poem really works to do just that. It creates a song in one's
mind, a few phrases and the feeling persisting long after the
reading is done. Sort of like one of those commercial jingles that
you find yourself humming, but very pleasant. Which, of course, is
what good poetry is all about.
[Toomey]
"The idea of writing
verse purely to create mood and emotion…"
Precisely the point, Sharon. I
written before about writing efficiently, and there is no more
efficient way to write than poetry. The principal reason for this
is that poetry evokes a pre-determined response. You don't
have to get into all the niggling little details — just push the
right buttons and the reader does all the work.
It's like painting a picture
of a tree leaf by leaf. You end up with incredible detail, but —
after all — each leaf really looks pretty much like every other
leaf. An artist who slashes just the right shape and color across
the canvas to suggest a tree evokes the memories of trees
in the eye of the beholder — and it's even more effective
because of the beholder's meaningful familiarity with perhaps a
certain special tree.
This short bit of doggerel
could easily be expanded into a novel, or even a whole series of
novels. But it wouldn't have any more meaning for the reader. I
know that my intended audience already knows about all the
details, so all I have to do is suggest a scene and it becomes
reality in your minds, colored by your own interpretations and
dreams. It would mean nothing to someone coming across it by
accident from the hinterlands of cyberspace.
If I described perfectly and
in great detail the last hopeless stand of the Protectors of
Earth, it would have no more impact on you than what you
envisioned when you read that one verse, but only because you have
already experienced such ultimate battles in all the myriad ways
throughout the AU. The images come when called.
Of course, in writing our
novels, we break new ground. If we wrote prose as efficiently as
poetry, we would produce nothing to be poetic about. There's a
balance, though. I think the main criticism I have when I talk
about efficiency is the failure to evoke the familiar when it
would be appropriate. Alternating descriptive passages with
evocative passages can be highly effective in drawing a reader
into your dream. Even prose should, from time to time, sing.
Next Letter
© Patrick Hill, 2000 |