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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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The units of language are
words, phrases, sentences,

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paragraphs, et cetera.

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But at the micro level,
they are letters and sounds.

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And part of a texture is
how those words sound.

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And part of a texture is
how those words sound.

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I think it was Robert
Graves who used

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to say that he had an exercise
called "getting the geese out,"

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which was going through his
text and removing Ses that

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were making a hissing sound.

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That's why he said
getting the geese out.

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And for that, it's very
useful to read your text out

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loud to see how it
sounds, because a text

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loud to see how it
sounds, because a text

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is a score for voice.

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And if you're writing
something that comes out

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sounding like simple Simon stuck
a seashell on the seashore,

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there just may be too much of
that S and "sh" kind of sound.

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The same goes for sounds like
P if there's too much popping.

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If there's too
much of one letter,

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If there's too
much of one letter,

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people will think you're doing
it on purpose for a reason.

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So if there's too much what
we call "onomatopoeia,"

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words that sound like the
thing they're describing--

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Tennyson's line, the
murmuring of innumerable bees.

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He does that on purpose
to sound like bees.

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So if you're going to
have repeated sounds,

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make sure you're
doing it on purpose.

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make sure you're
doing it on purpose.

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And similarly, if
you're slipping

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into iambic pentameter,
which people often do,

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you ought to be
able to hear that.

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Are you intending it or not?

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So that's the basic
thing about texture.

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How does it sound?

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How does it sound when
you read it out loud?

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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So at the extremes, you
could say that there

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So at the extremes, you
could say that there

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are two kinds of style.

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One is plainsong, in which the
sentences are fairly short.

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They don't have a lot of
adjectives and adverbs.

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They're fairly blunt
and straightforward.

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The other you could call
Baroque, in which the language

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is very ornamented.

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So it could have a lot
of subordinate clauses.

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It can have a lot of
adjectives and adverbs.

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It could have a kind of
pile on of detail, a pile

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It could have a kind of
pile on of detail, a pile

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on of syllables.

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And most people are
somewhere in between there.

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Things got a lot more
plainsong with the advent

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of writers like Hemingway
and Graham Greene.

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But then they got more Baroque
with the advent of writers

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like Angela Carter, who
is very Baroque indeed.

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There is no one good style.

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Some people have styles
that they prefer.

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Some people have styles
that they prefer.

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So it is a question of what
you're using your language for,

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what sort of--

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let us say, what sort of
spell you're trying to cast

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or what kind of illusion
you're trying to practice.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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Let's do Baroque first.

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Charles Dickens is a
very Baroque writer.

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He piles on the detail.

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He piles on the detail.

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He piles on the adjectives.

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He was very fond of the
theater, so he likes to--

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if it were theater, you would
say he was hamming it up.

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So what could be better than to
start with "A Christmas Carol"

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and the description of Scrooge.

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"Oh, but he was a tight-fisted,
hand at the grindstone Scrooge.

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A squeezing, wrenching,
grasping, scraping, clutching,

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covetous, old sinner.

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covetous, old sinner.

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Hard and sharp as flint
from which no steel had ever

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struck out generous fire.

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Sacred and self-contained
and solitary as an oyster.

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The cold within him
froze his old features,

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nipped his pointed nose,
shriveled his cheek,

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stiffened his gait, made his
eyes red, his thin lips blue,

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and spoke out shrewdly
in his grating voice.

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A frosty rime was on his
head and on his eyebrows

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A frosty rime was on his
head and on his eyebrows

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and his wiry chin.

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He carried his own low
temperature always about him.

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He iced his office
in the dog days

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and didn't thaw it one
degree at Christmas."

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And this goes on for
a couple of pages.

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So lots of adjectives, lots
of subordinate clauses,

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a piling up of detail,
very ornamented.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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In "Gulliver's
Travels," the style

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is very plainsong,
although the story itself

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is a complete fabrication.

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But he uses the plain,
declarative, blunt style

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to make you feel
that he's telling you

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the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth.

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I'm just being straight with
you here, not exaggerating.

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This is where I went.

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This is what happened.

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This is what happened.

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And it's just the
story as it happened.

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He does that very well.

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"Gulliver's Travels,"
the beginning--

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just the facts, ma'am.

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"My father had a small
estate in Nottinghamshire.

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I was the third of five sons."

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period.

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"He sent me to Emanuel College
in Cambridge at 14 years old,

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where I resided three
years, and applied myself

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close to my studies;
but the charge

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of maintaining me, although I
had a very scanty allowance,

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of maintaining me, although I
had a very scanty allowance,

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being too great for
a narrow fortune,

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I was bound apprentice to Mr.
James Bates, an eminent surgeon

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in London, with whom I
continued four years.

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My father now and then sending
me small sums of money,

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I laid them out in learning
navigation, and other parts

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of the mathematics, useful to
those who intend to travel,

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as I always believed
it would be,

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some time or other,
my fortune to do.

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When I left Mr. Bates, I
went down to my father;

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When I left Mr. Bates, I
went down to my father;

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where, by the assistance
of him and my uncle

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John, and some
other relations, I

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got forty pounds, and a
promise of thirty pounds

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a year to maintain
me at Leyden; there I

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studied physic two
years and seven months,

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knowing it would be
useful in long voyages."

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Count the numbers in
that first paragraph--

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very factual.

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He's getting you
to believe that he

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is a person of
little imagination,

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not prone to exaggeration,
and very particular and exact

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not prone to exaggeration,
and very particular and exact

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in the way he describes things.

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And since he is about to tell
us about very little people,

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giants, floating islands,
and talking horses,

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that's how he gets us
to go along with him.

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So this is not a person
given to exaggeration,

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you wouldn't think.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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Description is
different from style.

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Descriptive detail is
different from style.

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You can have an ornate
style, which is one thing.

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Or you can just have a
lot of concrete objects,

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sounds, and smells which
aren't necessarily described

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with adjectives.

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They're more likely to be nouns.

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So detail need not necessarily
be adjectival detail.

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So detail need not necessarily
be adjectival detail.

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You can say there was a fork, a
spoon, a knife, a plate, a cup,

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and a rose in a
small cut glass vase.

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There's one adjective
in all of that.

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It's small.

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In my own work, I
usually subtract.

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So I usually pare down somewhat
rather than adding things in.

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And you can be
rich in description

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And you can be
rich in description

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in several different ways.

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You can say, the rain
was pouring down.

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The night was very dark.

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It's very plain, but
it's descriptive.

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Or you can say, the rain
was pouring down in buckets.

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You would have thought it
was the end of the world.

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It was a dark and stormy night.

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The gusts were billowing.

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The trees were whipping
back and forth in a frenzy.

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You can add on.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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You could try doing the
following experiment.

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Pick an event and write that
event in a plainsong way,

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and then write the same
event in a Baroque way.

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See the difference.

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The other thing you
can always try doing

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is imitating the style
of another writer

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just to see if you can make
yourself sound like Ernest

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just to see if you can make
yourself sound like Ernest

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Hemingway, if you can make
yourself sound like William

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Faulkner, if you can make
yourself sound like Angela

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Carter.

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And by doing that,
you get an insight

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into how they're putting
sentences and words together.

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You can do a sampler of styles.

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You could try describing, for
instance, this little stapler

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You could try describing, for
instance, this little stapler

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in both a very plain way and a
very ornamented and Baroque way

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just to exercise
your skills out.