The issue of Rhythm!

this is Fiat Ritmo!

This first article of 2013 is dedicated to the rhythm, that is, of course, not Fiat Ritmo (Fiat produced a car named Ritmo, that in Italian means "rhythm").

Sooner or later, however, I should write a story like "The Fast and The Furious" where muscled t-bones make a quarter of mile aboard Ritmo Abarth with their arm out of the window, shall I?
And since we do not have Vin Diesel, I put Vin Two-stroke-oil.

Two-stroke-oil, in Italian: "miscela".

The issue of Rhythm.

Rhythm came to me in mind while I was reading Stephen King
In these holidays I devoured "The Avengers" by Richard Bachman - which is a Stephen King pseudonym  - and I started reading "Desperation".
Just before leaving for holidays I was reading "The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon".


Well, after the nth scene like a film frame, I closed the book (Desperation) and I opened another: "The Secret of Orbae" my sister gave me :)

I noticed the now canonical cut of all our books. Anyway I'm talking about good books, books that people read and like, I’m not talking about trash, nor copycats.

all this is extremely objectionable

And the verdict is this: they look like a movie. That may be fine for some time, but after a little you get tired.
And then you have to break the rut and have a change of pace.

If Stephen King tells me that the left front seat of the Caprice of the municipal police of the bad cop of Desperation is curved, convex, under his weight and his huge head hits the car roof;
If he tells me about life, death and miracles of a character who then he kills on the next chapter or even on the same paragraph;
If he takes - in "Dreamcatcher - ten pages to describe how you the four wheel drive car of two of the main characters crashes and how many beers fall on the back seat and how many on the front ...

the pace is slow, very slow.

the advantage is that you see everything like the frames of a movie.
The flaw is that nothing is left to the imagination. Nothing. You also know where is the last hair of the aunt of a secondary character. You know what car she has, how much money she has got on her bank account, how does she like to make love, if she pees standing or sitting, if she has ever read books by Markus Heitz or not.

You smell the smell of her body, you know what she feels when she dies.
Okay, that's fine.

But ... and imagination?

With f *** that works! The mind is numb, senile by the running behind the details and see frames over frames.
The brain sees the speck of dirt on the word "Sheriff" of the cop car or the sole of the shoe worn by an extra.

At one point, I - reader - say, Who cares!

Never mind all the details. And if the story is based on the details, or, if they are needed, who cares of the story itself. I read something else.

The point is that writing like that has became a canon, now.
This is the style of writing of the Anglo-Saxons. They cover the reader of useful details, okay, but for God's sake, to read a story based on these things you get tired after a while.

But why - I say - we have to copy everything from that world? I understand, is the new Roman Empire, but be careful not to lose our regional identity to become "cives" (in Latin means “citizens”), okay?

writing as them would sell even more, okay, but gosh!

this is something that is also seen on the style of some writers among bloggers of the "Circle" I read (and I like) and also seen in my style, I admit that.

in my opinion, this is perhaps not to be stopped using it, but at least to be dosed carefully.

Because the tradition of modern writers of Latin Europe, however, it is to have a slightly accelerated pace. A pace that leaves less space for more details and props imagination.

And I say modern, because if we take Dumas, he describes how were the nasturtiums planters on the balcony of the father of the Count of Monte Cristo.

Take Pennac, for example, the story begins, goes on like a little river, creeps agile among the rocks, reaches its peak and flows away leaving a pleasant memory.

Or even this "The Secret of Orbae" by Francois Place: 

the cover is very nice!

the pace is accelerated, the details are essential and we are swept away by the fantastic ecstasy of "what happens next" without the author telling us how heavy was the protagonist’s yak.

 

the yak weighs 130 kg, but it is actually a demon from Altair IV

Among other things, I remember that in the essay "On Writing" - who lent me long ago my friend Valerio - Tabitha King, the wife of Stephen King, reading a rant all life-death-and-miracles on a secondary character, he said to Stephen something like, "Whatever! Why do I have to read his whole story?" and King said she was right.

Okay ...

So what, in my opinion, should be done to ease the reading - and ease does not mean to turn a story from good to stupid - is to push on the rhythm pedal, accelerating a little, to give less boring details and avoid, if possible, the descriptions of an American movie scene and to give weight to the story!

And then it is very important to move, to displace space. Let your characters to have a trip! Let them travel.
I noticed that stories set in the same place stagnate and stink after a while.
The trip already fires the imagination of the reader.
The trip is a gamble on the unknown.

Please note, I spoke of Anglo-Saxon and not of Nordic authors. Those have a different pace again. Always slow, but introspective, with few details. The writings of Nordics tend to make you feel, more than anything else. Their dialogues seem to be illogical. They make you feel smells, sounds, moods and they bind to them the story they want to tell.

Interesting without a doubt, but you have also to read them among other more light books,

because in the end a book is always a kind of escape, right?

Speaking of travel, I greet you with this song!

Saludos!