“Too old for this shit,” muttered Craw, wincing at the pain in his dodgy knee with every other step.
...
Craw frowned around at the Heroes, forgotten giants, standing stubborn guard over nothing. "Those are the times," he muttered.
...
Craw frowned around at the Heroes, forgotten giants, standing stubborn guard over nothing. "Those are the times," he muttered.
The doorbell rings -- the book has arrived! You begin to salivate, your mouth filling up with drool as you grab the box. You turn to run back to the kitchen, cry out "no, not fast enough!" and rip into the box with your teeth.
After gnawing through the thin brown tape, gums bleeding, you punch through the thick plastic. There it is. The cover is suckier than the English version, sure, but THERE IT IS.
You take a deep breath, savoring the moment, the saliva pooling again, below and around your tongue. It's Saturday, and you have no social life -- but it doesn't matter, even if you make Charlie Sheen look like that guy representing Sloth, in Seven, who cares, fuck 'em, you can snort coke off a supermodel's butt next weekend.
It's Here.
You grab a tasty beverage, throw your self onto your couch, crack it open (the book, not your couch), and begin.
“Too old for this shit,” muttered Craw ...*Bwah???*
 |
| Oh, Orlando Jones, how far you've fallen ... okay, not too far, but still! |
Really, Joe? You're going to start this book by making me do a 90-second double-take?
Seriously, this is all that goes through my head for the first 90 seconds:
That, and wondering whether he did this on purpose (and what purpose would that be?) or whether, as a Brit, he's unfamiliar with Sergeant Murtaugh. Wow.
Luckily, you can't be startled out of one’s mood when you haven’t had a chance to sink into it yet, but it was still a shocker. Tough to drop into readin'-fantasy mode when I have this running through my head:
I am happy to say, that moment aside, the novel was damned fine, and so, I begin Scene Summary The First: The Quest to Figure Out How He Does It. There's so much to cover, at both a macro- and micro-level, that it gives me brainal pain -- let's face it, I can't discuss eveything without each post being longer than the original scene.
You have to be realistic about these things.
At a minimum, though, I'll want to figure out what the scene question is and how that scene is answered.
Scene Structure/Scene Question:
You have to be realistic about these things.
At a minimum, though, I'll want to figure out what the scene question is and how that scene is answered.
Scene Structure/Scene Question:
The scene opens with Craw is striding up toward the Heroes, sore and afraid, committed to climbing to the top, pondering his life. And, in fact, we get our scene question — “Will Craw survive the meeting?” by the middle of the second paragraph, and it’s confirmed and emphasized several times over the next page.
We get some setting as well as further establishment of Craw’s character over the first couple pages — he’s feeling old, sore, a bit fearful, but he’s thoughtful, still thinks about a future where he’s not in the middle of a war. Also, he is resolved to do what he thinks is right:
We get some setting as well as further establishment of Craw’s character over the first couple pages — he’s feeling old, sore, a bit fearful, but he’s thoughtful, still thinks about a future where he’s not in the middle of a war. Also, he is resolved to do what he thinks is right:
"He’d thought it through, and this was the right thing to do. Or, the least wrong thing, anyway. Sometimes that’s the best you can hope for.”
This concept is central to Craw's character, and it will come up again.
I'm not going to describe everything that happens in the plot, ala Slactivist on Left Behind, as I have no bones to pick with Abercrombie's writing style (or his theology, I reckon ... Also, about half the pages of Left Behind are phone calls in which previous events are discussed, so it's pretty easy for Fred to describe them.)
I'm not going to describe everything that happens in the plot, ala Slactivist on Left Behind, as I have no bones to pick with Abercrombie's writing style (or his theology, I reckon ... Also, about half the pages of Left Behind are phone calls in which previous events are discussed, so it's pretty easy for Fred to describe them.)
The gist is that Craw’s team is introduced (Wonderful, a bald warrior chick w/bow; Whirrun of Bligh an armor-eschewing uber-swordsman; a few others), there's some banter in the Heroes (a group of standing stones, ala Stonehenge) with an opposing group of Northmen, and the conflict is resolved positively -- Hardbread, the leader of the opposing group (workin' for the Dogman) retreats peacefully.
I confess, the positive resolution was a bit surprising, given this is Abercrombie. Shouldn't at least half of them died? Maybe he’s going soft! On the other hand, it makes sense -- Craw is a crusty diplomatic veteran, it wouldn't have made a lot of sense for things to go horribly this early.
Doesn't this violate the Bickham rule about never ending a scene question with a "Yes!" Not completely: It ends with a “Yes, but” moment of a sort. Whirrun does a reading of some runes, to predict the future, and finds
“There’s going to be blood … [and] lately they’re right more often than not.”
So, a small (very small) victory, and allusions to mass quantities of hideous death in the immediate future. Okay, I'll take that.
So Abercrombie gets a thumbs up in the Scene/Sequel department. He gives us the scene question early, answers it with a Yes ... but, and starts as close to the action as you can get without confusing the hell out of his readers -- Craw isn't plotting the ambush of Hardbread with his team, not arguing whether to talk or to take them out -- no, as we begin, he's striding up to the hill, listening to his bones creak, wondering if he'll live another day. A page later, we're in a spot where one wrong word means mass combat. This Is Good.
Ah ... but what about all that other stuff that you're supposed to do when writing? Like refer to non-sight senses?
Sense Check Scene #1
Sound (Coughing, Paragraph #4)
So Abercrombie gets a thumbs up in the Scene/Sequel department. He gives us the scene question early, answers it with a Yes ... but, and starts as close to the action as you can get without confusing the hell out of his readers -- Craw isn't plotting the ambush of Hardbread with his team, not arguing whether to talk or to take them out -- no, as we begin, he's striding up to the hill, listening to his bones creak, wondering if he'll live another day. A page later, we're in a spot where one wrong word means mass combat. This Is Good.
Ah ... but what about all that other stuff that you're supposed to do when writing? Like refer to non-sight senses?
Sense Check Scene #1
Sound (Coughing, Paragraph #4)
Touch (Pain, Paragraph #1; Grass clutching at his boots, wind bullying, Paragraph #2)
Smell (Nope. Surprising! Old man nose, I guess.)
Taste (Nope)
A little surprising, the lack of allusion to smell, but it's not a big deal. For the record, in almost every single "first novel" I've read, the sense of smell is alluded to on the first page -- but I gotta say, it sometimes feels forced.
I should add that my hunch is that one of the reasons I like Abercrombie so much is that, usually, he doesn't go crazy with the description. My guess is I'm unlike about 95% of other fantasy readers in that preference, so I can't say he's doing it 'right' -- only that he's doing it right for me.
I was also curious as to how Abercrombie uses beats and speech tags. There's a good stretch of dialogue in the first few pages. By "beat" I mean a description of physical action (usually) or mental judgment (occasionally) in between lines of dialogue. Beats can help one avoid using the word "said" repeatedly, as well as make the scene easier to visualize.
Rough beat/tag count, Scene #1 (p. 8-11)
A little surprising, the lack of allusion to smell, but it's not a big deal. For the record, in almost every single "first novel" I've read, the sense of smell is alluded to on the first page -- but I gotta say, it sometimes feels forced.
I should add that my hunch is that one of the reasons I like Abercrombie so much is that, usually, he doesn't go crazy with the description. My guess is I'm unlike about 95% of other fantasy readers in that preference, so I can't say he's doing it 'right' -- only that he's doing it right for me.
I was also curious as to how Abercrombie uses beats and speech tags. There's a good stretch of dialogue in the first few pages. By "beat" I mean a description of physical action (usually) or mental judgment (occasionally) in between lines of dialogue. Beats can help one avoid using the word "said" repeatedly, as well as make the scene easier to visualize.
Rough beat/tag count, Scene #1 (p. 8-11)
Beats: 17 ("I'm what?" Redcrow frowned at Whirrun, twitchy ...)
Nothing: 12 (One line follows the other, no dialogue tags or beats. Generally for quick dialogue, short sentences.)
Said: 7
Asked or Muttered: 1
Said + adverb: 0 (No saying "quietly" or "thoughtfully" or "boastfully" or "flatly.")
Growled, snarled: 2
Noted, demanded, inquired, repeated: Big Fat Zero. (I'm looking at you, Sanderson!)
Noted, demanded, inquired, repeated: Big Fat Zero. (I'm looking at you, Sanderson!)
I noticed that it's always “said Craw,” not “Craw said," when those tags are used. It's an interesting affectation, putting the "said" first, and I think it makes the work sound a bit more medieval. Which, um, seems appropriate.
Point-of-View (POV)
Point-of-View (POV)
Craw is told in third-person, with close/middle distance (using Nancy Kress's awesome book as guidance). As with most of the chapters told from the point of view of a Northman, the writing style is raw, though perhaps not as raw as we might see later with some other folks — while Craw is a Northman, he’s an old and smart one. Still, the sentence fragments (”High time he retired. Long past high time. Sat on the porch…”), the contractions (always ’em for “them", ‘cause for “because”) help signal who we’re dealin’ with. That said, Craw isn’t a simple man — there are plenty of long sentences here, and it’ll be interesting to contrast him with Beck, a supporting character we’ll meet later on: also a Northman, but just a stupid kid.
Unlike many other authors, Abercrombie eschews the use of italics for thoughts for almost all of his characters. Later, we'll meet Bremer dan Gorst, and his tasty italicized thoughts -- however, only thoughts that are dark, dreary, and deeply cynical and/or bloodthirsty are italicized.
Phrases/Descriptions/Dialogue that have made me schedule a uterus transplant so that I can have Joe's children:
Let's face it -- even if Abercrombie fucked up everything else, dialogue like this is what makes him so damned good, and he'd be eminently readable regardless. Still, "eminently readable" isn't nearly as good as "willing to endure bleeding gums and Lethal Weapons references and skip ecstasy-and-viagra-fueled orgies with supermodels readable," so I'm glad he's doing the other stuff well, too.
NEXT TIME: SCENE #2: CALDER AND THE SNEAKY EXPOSITION
Unlike many other authors, Abercrombie eschews the use of italics for thoughts for almost all of his characters. Later, we'll meet Bremer dan Gorst, and his tasty italicized thoughts -- however, only thoughts that are dark, dreary, and deeply cynical and/or bloodthirsty are italicized.
Phrases/Descriptions/Dialogue that have made me schedule a uterus transplant so that I can have Joe's children:
"...since you're still jawing and I'm still breathing, I reckon you're set on giving us a chance to talk this out.""Then you've reckoned the shit out o' me," said Craw. "That's exactly the plan."
"Weren't expecting anyone. If there's two things we've got too much of in the North it's hills and rocks. Didn't reckon a hill with rocks on it would be a big draw."
Hardbread's nephew turned in the gap and gave Craw the fuck yourself finger. "We'll be back here, you sneaking bastards!" His uncle cuffed him across the top of his scratty head. "Ow! What?"
"Some respect."
"Ain't we fighting a war?"
Hardbread cuffed him again and made him squeal. "No reason to be rude, you little shit."
Let's face it -- even if Abercrombie fucked up everything else, dialogue like this is what makes him so damned good, and he'd be eminently readable regardless. Still, "eminently readable" isn't nearly as good as "willing to endure bleeding gums and Lethal Weapons references and skip ecstasy-and-viagra-fueled orgies with supermodels readable," so I'm glad he's doing the other stuff well, too.
NEXT TIME: SCENE #2: CALDER AND THE SNEAKY EXPOSITION
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