Mechanical v. Fluent

These are the dark days of summer.

No, no.  I am not being sarcastic nor, even, facetious.

Thing is, there is no football (soccer, if you will) now until August.  Woe are we.  What to do with ourselves now that the television has nothing to offer that is entertaining; they have even removed the test card!

‘Bones’ is entertaining up to a point but she is so irritating; if I was Seeley Booth I’d very likely have given her a good slapping by now.  Sexist?  Moi?  Non, ce n’est pas possible!  Happily, there is much that is humorous in there but then again see the following comment re: personal lives.

‘CSI’?  OK, but I get fed up with all the personal lives of the characters—just stick to the crime fighting, please.

I do quite like ‘SVU’.  Meloni and Hargitay, as actors, are watchable and the plots are usually very good if, sometimes, heart-rending.

Channel hopping, then.  We have some very odd channels here on ‘Astro’.  We have a channel devoted to things ‘Bollywood’ where, in the films, someone gets stabbed, there’s lots of crying and the ‘baddy’ turns out to be the ‘goody’s’ brother.  Every song in every film is sung by the same singer and every film is identical to the one before it except for the character’s names and the location.

There are Arabic channels, Chinese channels and Malay channels.  Fortunately, there are many channels in English.  Especially the sports channels upon which there is, currently, no football!

Strangely, the High Definition (HD) channels contain no Malay channels and yet there is a Korean HD channel.  I find this to be an anomaly.

Being of a curious disposition, and unutterably bored, I watched a few minutes of a Korean show and was struck with the similarity between this and the Chinese shows on other channels.

That similarity was a stark contrast with Western shows of similar ilk.  I can’t say that there are similar Western shows now but there used to be.  It was called ‘Variety’.  Perhaps the equivalent in the West would be the burgeoning crop of ‘Talent’ shows with which we are now plagued.  The ‘Reality’ show seems to have taken over, a set of broadcasts to be, for my part, assiduously avoided.

However.

[NB:  ‘However’ is a sort of posh ‘but’.]

On this particular Korean show a troupe of performing girlies appeared.  Just as in the Chinese and Japanese versions of similar shows, they were scantily clad but in a kind of ‘chaste’ way in that their shorts had mini-legs on them; they were not, as in Las Vegas productions, cut up to the mid-ribs at the sides.

All very ‘twee’, you might say.

There appeared to be some sort of competition between some of these girls to see how high they could kick.  A line appeared on the screen showing the angle between the straight legs—one raised and the other on the floor; the trick seems to have been to get this line as straight as possible without bending the knees.  Very odd, I thought.

And then they danced.

Oh, dear.

Imagine, if you will, eight or nine small girls with, shall we say, ‘boyish’ figures, all doing the same thing at the same time to some noises in the background which, presumably, they would classify as ‘music’.

So far, so good.

But.

It was mechanical.  They were almost sexily dressed but without actually being sexy.  Their movements were not graceful or sensuous or... how can we put this?  Sexy!  They were going through well-scripted movements like a rehearsed drill sequence performed by a squad of soldiers.  With little effort it was entirely possible to imagine somebody at the side of the stage chanting out, “And one... two... three... four... and... one... ”

It was almost a depiction of Asian society that frowns on sexiness.  Family values are paramount.  This means that there are lots of nightclubs where prostitutes and other dwellers of the night are to be found in abundance.  But not in public.  One does not kiss in public.  Holding hands with one’s spouse is just about acceptable.

Western shows that contain women, and men, too, in revealing clothes are watched avidly.  Many people will point to them and say “See how decadent the West has become.  See how they have no sense of decency or morality.”

Hypocritical, perhaps, but it happens.  Mask the sexy moves and dresses in a wooden framework to make it appear more ‘homely’.

It is that wooden-ness that I wish to confront now.  It is what came to mind as soon as those little Asian girls came on to the stage and began prancing around in their well-timed gyrations.

There are stories available on the Internet from sundry sources that are badly written.  Some of them are badly written because the grammar or punctuation is really bad.

I have said before that the important thing is the story—it is, but that does not mean you cannot get an independent, and critical, eye to oversee what you have written to iron it smooth.

The difficult thing to get over, editors will give up with it, is to have ‘wooden’ texts.

No matter how good your story is if it doesn’t flow it will be a nightmare to read.

Example:

Edna said, “I think you are sitting on my knitting, Edith.”

Edith said, “No, I am not, Edna.”

Edna said, “I believe you are sitting on my knitting, Edith.”

Edith said, “I am sure I am not, Edna.”

Edith said...

I think you get the drift.  That and lists.  Especially:

“Maurice went into the night club and then he ordered a drink of gin and then he drank the gin quickly so that he gagged a little on it before ordering another one... “

Reader succumbs to boredom and slips gently into a mild coma.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the grammar, the punctuation or, even, the spelling.  The syntax is appalling but the story might be great.  Mum will tell you it is a wonderful story and that you are ever such a clever person.  Mum just told your sister, who has the voice of a nightjar, to enter for ‘American Eyelid’ immediately.  To Mum you are exquisite; to everyone else you are execrable if you write like that.

Editors will give up.  Publishers will drop your MSS into bins and Agents will note your numbers so that your calls will go unanswered.

The thing is that nobody talks like that.  Nobody.  Listen to conversations between other people when you are on the bus/train/tube or in a queue.  I find the best place to listen to other people’s chat is in the cinema!  But another time for that little gem!

People’s comments flow.  When people talk they ripple along like water in a stream.  Listen to it and then describe it.

Right, then.  Let’s relook at Edith and Edna.

Edna said, “I think you are sitting on my knitting, Edith.”

“I don’t think I am, Edna,” Edith said

 “I’m sure you are.   I had it over here before tea and put it down where you are now to go to the kitchen,” said Edna, calmly.

Edith said, with some irritation, “I am sure I should feel it if I were,”  she wiggled her rear end in the chair.

Edith sighed...

Not much of a subject but you will, no doubt, see the difference.

Writing has much to do with reading—that much is well known, but, equally, it has much to do with listening and observation.  Look at people when you are out and about, listen to them.

Asimov wrote stories about a little devil that would grant your exact wish for you but there was always a ‘sting in the tail’.  One of the stories about this imp was about a writer who became really fed up with waiting for buses, taxis (cabs), lifts (elevators), waiters—everything, in fact.  The imp granted his wish that he would never have to wait for anything again.  Taxis, buses, waiters, lifts would be immediately available for him without waiting at all.

The upshot was that he never wrote another story.  He never had time to think.  All those times he was waiting for things to come to him were the times when he was composing stories in his head—and watching life around him.

I do believe I’ll go back to watch some of those Bollywood films.  Perhaps there will be something for next time.