Writing Rainbows

That famous tapestry The Lady and The Unicorn has travelled from France to Sydney, and it made me ask myself, what coloured threads would my stories add to the great tapestry of human history?

What colour is tragedy, or triumph?  What about the Bayeux Tapestry?  It contains a great deal of both in its 70 metres of embroidered history.  Is green really the colour of envy, or is it the colour of life?  Are The Blues really sad, or should we turn to black to express real unhappiness?  When you read a sentence or a paragraph, does it bring a sense of a particular colour?

What about love; is it the lolly pink of Valentine's Day cards and frilly, sequinned tutus worn by four year olds?  Or is it some darker shade and hue?  No matter now separate or independent we think we are, the stories we live and tell are all tinted by the stories around us, and those that came before.

Do you have, for example, a sense of darkness when listening to the news?  Is it a looming blackness, or a dull grey mist at the edge of perception?  Does the air take on a golden tinge when you hear good news, or some tale of heroism or beauty?

A well written passage can invoke, without actually specifying, a range of colours, as well as moods and scents and sounds.  Not only the words used, but the tempo and rhythm also.  A good example is found in the closing pages of chapter 5 of Book 5 of The Lord of The Rings.  Tolkien's choice of words invokes gloom, fear, darkness, and hopelessness - the tempo of the language slows, and weighs down upon the reader, before, suddenly, the last few paragraphs completely change rhythm.  There is brightness and speed and hope.  Read the last two or three pages aloud and it will become apparent - not only the mood changes, but the colours.

Norman Lindsay is worth reading, too - did you know that he wrote quite a few novels?  The artist's eye is evident in his choice of words for both description and action - always evoking the colour and tone of the setting and the actors.  The first chapter or Dust or Polish  contains this part description of one of the protagonists.....

"Her skin was of a pearly quality that showed up the refined etching of her amber eyebrows"

Lindsay's style is plainer than Tolkien's, who would vary his tone from common speech to high epic mode to suit the particular characters and action he was writing at that point.  Lindsay's work is all set firmly in lower and middle class Australia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and captures the tone of that part of our country and its history quite well.

Continuing in the Australian voice, another book worth reading is Green Mountains and Cullenbenbong by Bernard O'Reilly - the man who found the survivors from the missing airliner in the McPherson Range in early 1937.  As a bushman who grew up observing the life of the Blue Mountains and the Kanimbla Valley, O'Reilly uses colour to set the scene and the mood, as here, on the first page.....

"On Wednesday, 17th February 1937, day broke sullenly without the usual rich reds and browns which attend a Queensland mountain sunrise.  A pale grey scum had spread itself over the sky from the sea...."

What about the opening lines of The Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck.....

"To the red country and part of the grey country of Oklahoma the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.  The ploughs crossed and recrossed the rivulet marks.  The last rains lifted the corn quickly.....    .... so that the grey country and the dark red country began to disappear under a green cover."

Simpler language, and shorter words and rhythms than either Tolkien or Lindsay, but Steinbeck was setting the scene for the stark and unrelenting disaster of the Dust Bowl.  In the first page, the colours change, and change again, reflecting the course of the seasons that led to the Okie migration.  By the end of the page, all is pale dust.

Reading these works aloud is the best way to experience the craft that each writer put onto the page, just as it is the best way to proof read and assess your own writing. An interesting experiment in that respect is to ask someone else to read your work to you, and see what tempo and colour they apply to it.
 

Some Days Are Born Ugly

Some days are born ugly - anyone who knows that line has read Steinbeck's Sweet Thursday and knows that it begins the chapter about the Lousy Wednesday that comes before that sublime but crazy Thursday.  Anyone who has had to get up and face that sort of day knows its truth.  It is such a short but perfect opening line.

I have to admit that my reading has always been eclectic, impulsive, and erratic, as far as subjects, styles, and genre choice goes, and I rely heavily on serendipity to provide me with new and interesting material - one of the great advantages of working at the returns desk for a few hours is exposure to the tastes and interests of so many other people, as the tide of returned books flows in from the front counter and the bookdrop.

A stint on the returns desk is like a trip to the tip (as it was in older days) when I invariably came out the gate with more stuff than I took in.  Likewise, a day working at the library nearly always sees me return home with far more material than I can possibly read or watch or listen to during the borrowing period allotted.  It's a common problem for library staff.

I have digressed (mea culpa, but it happens when I am talking to people and it will no doubt happen quite often on this blog) and should return to Steinbeck.  I read Grapes of Wrath many years ago, and gained a new appreciation of why my grandparents and ancient great aunts approached life with such frugal caution.

My pleasure in its qualities, as well as my gratitude to the author for the way he presented the tribulations and struggles of the Okies, should have sent me off in pursuit of all his other works, but I was distracted by other passions - in my teens I found the Hugo award anthologies, Tolkien, and Dune.

The flood of great Science Fiction - Herbert, Clarke, Heinlein, Asimov, et al - and new Fantasy writing, swept me along for quite a few years.  Oh, and I mustn't forget the influences of P.G.Wodehouse and Dennis Wheatley.  What was I doing in the Adult section of the Library?  I had exhausted the Children's collection, there was no YA section in those days, and a sympathetic librarian bent the rules for me.

But gradually, I caught up with other Steinbeck works, and each has been a real pleasure and a revelation. Scattered through the pages of Sweet Thursday are characters and actions that seem fantastical, yet those seemingly impossible moments blend smoothly and realistically with the more mundane behaviour of the denizens of Cannery Row to create an utterly enjoyable, plausible world.

If Wednesday was "born ugly" well, as for Thursday, Steinbeck says "There aren't many days like that anyplace.  People treasure them."  Again, in very few words, he has taken you to a place you recognise - a place you remember, and wish you could visit again and again.  A few chapters earlier, Doc walked along the beach towards the lighthouse and the waves "... basted his ankles."

"The Golden afternoon moved on towards China....." as he walked and listened to the argument going on between the voices in his mind - the upper, middle, and lower voices.  A few short sentences and you know the torment Doc is going through, even as you feel the warmth and beauty of the place in which he is suffering.

One of the skills my friends at writing group are helping me develop - against my naturally wordy inclinations - is the skill Steinbeck displays so well.  His writing is both poetic and succinct, even when dealing with highly complex characteres and situations.  If you haven't read him yet, please do.