Добрите образци

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Откъсите тук не са толкова интересни като съдържание, че да си заслужат място в „Цитатите, които ни създадоха“ (или „Цитатите, които ни промиха“), но има на какво да ни научат като автори.

Ето ви пример как да вмъкнете ръста на главния си герой:

It’s just me and the stage, which is only raised up about two feet in this joint, so if the lead singer of Neutral Milk Hotel is particularly short—like if he is three feet ten inches tall—I will soon be looking him straight in the eye.

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И как да съпоставите обичайното със специалното състояние на някой герой:

[quote="In "A Saucer of Loneliness," Theodore Sturgeon"]The sprouting soil was a surprise to her feet, as the air was to her lungs. Her feet ceased to be shoes as she walked, her body was consciously more than clothes.[/quote]

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Как да се будалкате със себе си и с попрището си:

[quote="In "A Way of Thinking," Theodore Sturgeon"]We walked out of there, and for the first time I felt the mood of a night without feeling that an author was ramming it down my throat for story purposes. I looked at the clean-swept, star-reaching cubism of the Radio City area and its living snakes of neon, and I suddenly thought of an Evelyn Smith story the general idea of which was “After they found out the atom bomb was magic, the rest of the magicians who enchanted refrigerators and washing machines and the telephone system came out into the open.” I felt a breath of wind and wondered what it was that had breathed. I heard the snoring of the city and for an awesome second felt it would roll over, open its eyes, and … speak.[/quote]

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Как да счупите правилото „не вкарвай повече от три описателни елемента наведнъж“, два пъти – и да ви се размине:

Was this Leiddia Barker? Kate looked the woman over in a self-conscious appraisal. She was a good half-foot taller than Kate’s five foot two, with long, shiny, black hair to Kate’s cropped and frizzy. Late twenties to Kate’s thirty-four. A fashion model’s face to Kate’s pug-nosed, round, flat features. Long legs to short. Slim hips and trim waist to her chunkiness. And big tits.
She didn’t know if this woman was Heroka, but she already didn’t like her.

Spoiler

(Но за скрития сексизъм не знам дали ще ви се размине... )

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[quote="In "So Near the Darkness," Theodore Sturgeon"]Tina shuddered, “It was awful.”
“Most of those acts are,” said Eddy. “Anyway, I told him—what did you say? How do you know it was awful?”
“I saw it, Eddy.”
“You saw—Didn’t I tell you to keep away from there?”
“Yes, Eddy. You told me,” she said, and her voice was altogether too gentle. “You didn’t ask me, though.”
“I didn’t—Oh, I see. Little Miss Muscles can’t be given orders, eh? All right, Tina. I’ll stay out of your troubles. You can take care of yourself, and so forth. Only, when you’re in up to your neck, don’t—”
“I know, I know. I’m not to come yelling for you. Don’t worry, I won’t.”
He went to the door. “I wasn’t going to say that. I was going to say don’t forget whom to yell for.”[/quote]

Два образа, в малко думи.

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[quote="In "The Claustrophile," Theodore Sturgeon"]She curled her fingers around his hand, not quite clasping it, and looked down contemplatively. “A good hand,” she said in an impersonal voice, and gave it back to him.
“Huh? It’s crummy—solder burns, ground-in bench dirt …” He held it as if it no longer completely belonged to him. And it doesn’t, he thought with a start.[/quote]

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Как описанията изразяват състояния:

[quote="In "The Other Man," Theodore Sturgeon"]He put up the phone and went to the corner. It was on a dingy street which seemed to be in hiding. On the street, the café hid. Inside the café, booths hid. In one of the booths, the doctor sat and was hidden. It was all he could do to keep himself from assuming a fetal posture.[/quote]

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Describing a nondescript character:

[quote="In "The Other Celia," Theodore Sturgeon"]She was—how old? Old enough to pay taxes. How tall? Tall enough. Dressed in … whatever women cover themselves with in their statistical thousands. Shoes, hose, skirt, jacket, hat.
She carried a bag. When you go to the baggage window at a big terminal, you notice a suitcase here, a steamer-trunk there; and all around, high up, far back, there are rows and ranks and racks of luggage not individually noticed but just there. This bag, Celia Sarton’s bag, was one of them.
And to Mrs. Koyper, she said—she said—She said whatever is necessary when one takes a cheap room; and to find her voice, divide the sound of a crowd by the number of people in it.[/quote]

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[quote="In "Affair with a Green Monkey," Theodore Sturgeon"]And in its time came the thing known to everyone who has had grief enough: that no matter what you’ve lost, the lungs and the heart go on, and all around, birds fly, cars pass, people make a buck and lose their souls and get hernia and happy and their hair cut just like before.[/quote]

The last part: capturing the human condition in three strokes.

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Show Don't Tell: how much you scorn someone

[quote="In "The Graveyard Reader," Theodore Sturgeon"]It was a right and proper stone, I supposed, if one must have one of the things at all: bigger than many of the cheating, bargain sort of stones that stood nearby, and tastefully smaller than the hulking ostentatious ones. Here lies my wife between poverty and vulgarity. Now there you go. Have a single elevating thought about that woman and it comes out sounding like that. Soils everything she touches.
The stone called me a liar for that. It was of a whitish granite that would weather whiter still. It had edges of that crinkly texture like matted hair that nothing would stick to because nothing could possibly want to, and a glossy face that nothing would stick to if it wanted nothing else. Whited sepulcher, that’s what the hell. The stone is its own epitaph, because look: it’s white forever, white and clean, and it has no words—which is to say, nothing. Nothing, and clean, ergo, Here lies nothing clean.[/quote]

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SDT: what an asshole you are

He sort of put his hands on my shoulders for a second either to hold one of us up or to keep the other from falling, which gave the gesture a full fifty per cent chance of being selfish, and I am not about to give away a thank-you in the face of those odds.

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And if you must tell ...

[quote="In "Need," Theodore Sturgeon"]The general store has passed into the hands of the chains. It, and they, pursue the grail of everything, and since to be able to sell everything is on the face of it impossible, they are as impermanent as a military dictatorship that must expand or die, and that dies expanding. But there is another kind of store that sells, not everything, but anything. Its hallmark is that it has no grail at all, and therefore no pursuit. It emphatically does not expand. Its stock is that which has been useful or desirable to some people at some time; its only credo, that anything which has been useful or desirable to some people at some time will again be useful to someone—anything. Here you might find dried flowers under a glass dome, a hand-cranked coffee mill, a toy piano, a two-volume, leather-bound copy of Dibdin’s Journey, a pair of two-wheel roller skates or a one tube radio set—the tube is a UX-II and is missing—which tunes with a vario-coupler. You might—you probably would—also find in such a place, a proprietor who could fix almost anything and has the tools to do it with, and who understands that conversation is important and the most important part of it is listening.[/quote]

... do it with style.

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Have another go at descriptions:

[quote="In "Agnes, Accent and Access," Theodore Sturgeon"] Miss Kuhli (Merrihew had heard it “Cooley” the day before, and had built quite a different picture) was Eurasian. Not since the perfection of ferro-concrete and its self-stressed freedom has architecture been able to match the construction of such eyelids and supraorbital arches as those with which Miss Kuhli had been born. Her hands seemed to be the cooperative work of a florist and a choreographer. Her body had not been designed, but inspired, and her hair was such that it could not be believed at a single glance.[/quote]

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A dialogue in questions:

[quote="In "Harry's Note," Theodore Sturgeon"]His questions … only once did the Man from Mars ever make a statement. He only asked questions.(...)
“Mind answering some questions?”
“I guess not. Mind if I ask some?”
“Why should I object? What you want to know?”
Harry pondered. He felt quite comfortable. “How did you get in here? Where did you come from?”
“Do you want a precise answer?”
“Well, sure,” said Harry.
“Are you acquainted with the theory of nonfluent time and the present identity of all things, past and future?”
“Well, no,” said Harry.
“Then how can I possibly give you a precise answer?”
“Well, you must’ve come from somewhere!”
“Why?”
“Because you got here!”
“Isn’t ‘here’ somewhere?”
“Well, certainly.”
“Then does it satisfy you that I came from here?”
“No it doesn’t! You weren’t here before and you are now!”
“How can you tell?”
“Well, I never saw you. Heard you. I mean, I—I—oh hell, what do you want, anyway?”
“Mind answering some questions?”[/quote]

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Writing kissing:

[quote="In "The Tip of the Tongue," Felicia Davin"]Two weeks in, Kei said, “So should it be the mage or the knight?”
“What?”
“In the story. Should Lily end up with the mage or the knight? I think they’re both jerks, but I guess the knight has his moments.”
“Oh,” Alice said. Kei had been sitting with her faithfully every night, and Alice had tried to share her rediscovery of the alphabet. She hadn’t realized that Kei had been listening — through her strained, syllable-by-syllable pronunciation — to the story. “She ends up with —”
“Don’t tell me! I don’t want to know the end yet. Which one do you want her to end up with?”
Alice hesitated, looking down at the text. Kei nudged their shoulders together, and Alice took a breath and said, almost as slowly as if she were reading, said, “I always wanted her to end up with the witch.”
When she risked a glance at Kei, she saw that a smile was lifting the corners of her eyes, even though her lips were pressed together like she was holding back what she wanted to say.
“Percy’s a dolt and Tristan is insufferable,” Alice explained. Kei’s silence made her anxious, even if she was smiling instead of edging away. Alice had said too much, but the only solution she could think of was to say more. Her opinion was entirely justifiable, after all. “The witch always seems to know so much more about the world than everyone else, and she listens to Lily when no one else will, and she always knows exactly what to say —”
“And she’s beautiful.”
“Well,” Alice said, and then she didn’t have to think of the rest because Kei kissed her. It seemed sudden, but only because Alice’s pulse was thrumming under her skin. The kiss had not been sudden. Kei had accomplished it with her usual grace, reaching across to cup Alice’s cheek and turn her head so that she could bring their lips together. Kei kissed deliberately, with certainty, the same way she did everything else. She brushed the pad of her thumb across Alice’s cheek and drew her fingertips over the shell of Alice’s ear. The soft press of her lips formed the shape of some unknowable word. Alice answered in kind, discovering a whole new language at the tip of her tongue.
When they finally broke apart, Alice reached over to brush Kei’s hair away from her face. “She’s very beautiful,” she said, and Kei laughed.[/quote]

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More descriptions:

[quote="In "Dust," Daniel José Older"]Dravish nods, trying to affect a meaningful glare but only getting a half-smirk peeking out from somewhere beneath his handlebar mustache.[/quote]

I exhale a ringlette and take in her face. It hasn’t changed much since the academy days. Maya has three moles reaching like Orion’s belt from the edge of her mouth to her right eye. That’s the eye that’s always squinting, just a little bit, like she doesn’t quite believe you. It’s the gap between her two front teeth that gets you, though. You can’t miss ‘em, those big ol’ teeth, and whenever she lets that grin loose, the gap reaches out to you and says hi.

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And more:

Meguet watched the dawn unfurl like a wing of fire across the Delta. She had wakened early, anticipating a summons, and had seen the Gatekeeper, anticipating dawn, extinguish the torches beside the gate. Beyond the wall, the waves picked up light, rolled it into scrolls and unrolled it again, like a spell in some forgotten language across the sand.

(This comes in the context of deep ruminations on stories and magic.)

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Never enough descriptions:

[quote="In "Salt Wine," Peter S. Beagle"]Now, what you didn’t see much of in the old times, and don’t hardly be seeing at all these days, was mermen. Merrows, some folk call them. Ugly as fried sin, the lot: not a one but’s got a runny red nose, nasty straggly hair—red too, mostly, I don’t know why—stumpy green teeth sticking up and out every which way, skin like a crocodile’s arse. You get a look at one of those, it don’t take much to figure why your mermaid takes to hanging around sailors. Put me up against a merrow, happen even I start looking decent enough, by and by.[/quote]

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MOAR!

[quote="In "We Come Not To Praise Washington," C.C. Finlay"]The ashen sky quickened toward sunrise, skipping shards of slate-grey light across the Schuylkill River.[/quote]

~

How to cram a lot of background info into just a few words:

Even on the outskirts of town, Gabriel saw several mansions larger than his master Thomas's new townhouse on Clay Street.  But then Richmond was the capital of a state, and Philadelphia of a whole nation.

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Много отношение в малко думи:

– Това е много интересно, убедително, завладяващо и едва ли случайно, но не ни помага да решим дали е безопасно да надникнем вътре в спиралата – каза Ан.
Като майка закрилница е тя! –
усмихна се наум Мартин, а я изгледа както не би изгледал майка си.

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How to build your world and your character at the same time:

[quote="In "Housefly Tours," Steve Rodgers"]Kimetta had slathered mood-cream over her face, which now glowed blue with amusement and relaxation. Eressa doubted it changed colors much.[/quote]

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Descriptions, descriptions:

- of people:
[quote="In "New Mzansi," Ashley Jacobs"]One of the local girls was being chatted up by the guy, posing with her hips tilted, voice lilted, and heels stilted, whilst playing with her red plastic hair extensions—luminous like a mane on a lioness.[/quote]

- of places:

They were instantly welcomed by the panoply of Africa’s finest fong kong, Chinese knock-off wares, being peddled from discreet curtained-off stalls filling the market sprawl. A tide of odours rolled towards the entrance where they were standing, carrying the surf of sweat, spice, and smoke from the shisa nyama barbeques crackling between the stalls. Infectious drumming came from the troupes of tunnel dancers fused together in hypnotic concerto as their bodies shook to grinding afro-house.

- of characters:

<Nompumelelo Luthuli>
<She wears all black with black nails and a slightly charred soul that hides a heart soft and gooey. The garish neon pink Breather she uses is just to spite the rest of her apostate appearance. Pumi is the Cloud Storage where I keep my understanding of ethics behind her impregnable dreadlocked firewall.>

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A rather unusual point-of-view choice:

The sun rose and shone and saw them riding through the forest. It grimaced when it saw Spikes running behind. Then it rose further and began to cast away the darkness in Artaxerxia. As its first rays filtered into the great city of Amurabad, it noticed a white-robed man riding a camel galloping into the city.

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Writing action, stageplay-style:

‘And so once again, we are faced with interesting choices,’ said Maya. ‘Do we want to wait here with the manticore for the ravian?’

‘No. We should go to my house, and then to Vanarpuri tomorrow, and report what we have seen.’

‘Yes, we could do that,’ said Maya. ‘Alternatively,’ she drew a deep breath, ‘we could do this.’

‘What?’ said Djongli.

‘But…’ said Djongli.

‘No!’ said Djongli.

An Airball landed with a splat behind Manticore.

‘But…’ said Djongli.

Boom.

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Inventive descriptions:

My team.

The first one to turn up was a big pashan. Granite, tough, quiet. Asked me to call him Bitnun. I’d heard of him; brain like a peahen, but good man to walk through walls with.

Then there was a sizzle in the air next to me, and I almost wet myself when I saw a pair of white eyes shining in the dark next to me, and leaves and dust hurrying along to fill out a woman’s shape. An air-jinn. She said her name was Artimagnas. That was good enough for me.

But the last member of our team was the most famous of us all – the legendary Blue Wolf himself, tribeless Borjigin, who I’d thought had howled his last at least a hundred years ago. Grizzled, old, but with the most massive body I’d ever seen on a werewolf, and I’d seen a lot of werewolves. His fur was patchy, one paw dragged on the ground, but I could see why his name was still passed around. Had that thing. Commanding aura. Usually meant you were a complete gas-hole, but old Borji had a twinkle in his milky eyes as well. Call me a sap, call me a tulip-face, call me what you want, from far away if you’re smart, but I liked him.