Don't Bother me with the Weather

“To those who refuse to see: Please get well soon.”

        If there were ever a train wreck, it happened upon her head. No one was quite sure what it was or why it happened. Purple and green and yellow and orange were splattered and spotted across a fusion of puffy and bristled hair. But perhaps the only reasonable excuse could be mustered in defense against her ruddy face, which was truly an accident. As she paced back and forth across the room, her students head's bobbed like buoys lost at sea.

“Good morning,” said Professor Corrah, finally resting at her lectern.

      What's wrong with the above? A few would say nothing, but there is a large following that would cry foul from the rooftops. They would claim the writer is cheating the reader. Instead of experiencing a great story, the author commits to the easy road and simply narrates. Let's call the predicament, “Showing versus Telling.” When writing a story we find it very tempting to narrate everything. A woman's dress was elegant, swiftly gliding across the dance floor. A man, with a pointy noise and bloodshot eyes, kept glancing at the clock, watching as his essay deadline approached. Maybe something a bit more exotic took place, and we found a student with a bright, smiling face, hand-in his essay on time. In every instance we start walking down a knife point. Do we choose to narrate or do we choose to show? I believe I have an answer: Both.

        It's a cheater's way to begin, but it's true – and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Monopolizing the way an individual writes is perhaps the greatest crime against humanity. No one prefers a statutory book, and no one wants a pamphlet full of fast pace events which end at the last period. Each method tries to tear an amateur writer to their side of the world. But as readers, we all know what we enjoy. What we enjoy is something in-between, a fusion of narrative and experience, a combination of showing and telling. But that's precisely what we need to understand: how can we blend showing and telling?

        There are only a handful of tools every writer must posses. A writer can narrate a scene or be equally creative and use dialogue to probe his surroundings. He may decide to speed up his events or slow them down, holding onto every second of every moment. It's a simple square that writers all over the world pass off for “greater” and “better” things. But lets take a moment and stay principled.
 
        We rain fire on narrations and dialogues alike because we forget what they are for. If we called the narrator the champion of us all then the world would be as lifeless as the whispers of abstract winds as they rustle through trees. If we hailed dialogue as our king, then why do we write books? Stop reading and watch a movie, or, better yet, go see a play. There must be a balance and it is found in our purpose. And that is it. What is the purpose of narration or the purpose of dialogue? It's to convey meaning. We prefer narration when the object of our gaze is our concern. A labyrinthine temple is much more ominous than a character's whimsical thoughts about the arches – unless the purpose is to demonstrate how short-witted your characters are, which proves my second point. Dialogue is always preferable to narration when your characters have a color to splash with. A series of Uh-um's and that's-interesting's may save you from a decent conversation but that won't cut it when you're wasting words on nothing. Yes, that's right. Uh-um's and that's-interesting's even in conversation express only one thing: I've got nothing on that.
       
        But narration and dialogue each posses a special trait that we tend to forget. We narrate because we want to “get on with it,” and nothing more. In a high speed car chase, who cares about the grass? It's about life and death, it's about who has the larger gun or more bullets, it's about me or him. Narration is about mastering the uncanny ability to cut out all excess information, forcing the reader to see the world as one painful point. On the other hand, we can use dialogue to express an intimate moment or to hold an answer in mid-flight. Imagine a mother rushing home because a hooded man tried to grab her in the parking lot. She arrives home to her husband who's waiting at the kitchen table. He looks at her then the door, and asks, “Where's my boy?”

        Timing is another consideration. Stories may be slowed or quickened to heighten effect. But what must be considered is the moment being expressed. A lovely scene becomes more tender the longer it lasts or becomes more bitter, sad, and desperate when it's shortened. Two youngesters holding hands as they take a midnight stroll through the park is a tender moment. The next morning when their town is destroyed by aliens, allowing you to describe their last moment as a battle to stay together as they are separated by storming mobs of people is bitter, sad, and, definitely, desperate. The juxtaposition of both of those scenes flips and magnifies the overall perspective into a tide of criminal allegations from your readers that you're a heartless wretch – they'll thank you later when you reunite them... in heaven. (That's brutal.) What I'll encourage you to do is play with your timing. Stretch it out and see what happens, shorten it and wonder if the effect captures the moment.

        The differences between showing and telling is only paralleled by the predicament of dialogue and narration. Some writers will choke you if you prefer narration and others will burn you at the stake and charge you with treason for favoring the tools of a playwright. The choice is up to you, every tool is free for the taking. Experiment with it, see what happens, and, if fire falls from the heavens, remember what Ray Bradbury said, “If you don't like my books, go write you own.”

The Eight Parts of Speech: Nouns

      Nouns are persons, places, things, ideas, or emotions in English. A helpful way to identify them is to place the words “an”, “a”, or “the” before the word. However, articles don't work before Proper Nouns.

There are five types of nouns:

1. Common Nouns
2. Proper Nouns
3. Concrete Nouns
4. Abstract Nouns
5. Collective Nouns
         ** Counting and Non-Counting Nouns

I. A common noun is a word that express run-of-the-mill people, places, things, emotions, and ideas. Word such as happiness, boy, and desk are such.

 

II. A Proper Noun is a word that express special people, places, things, emotions, and ideas. They are designated by capital letters.

What's the difference? Here is another way to look at the differences between common and proper nouns. Common nouns are a set of limited words that define general people, places, things, emotions, and idea. On the other hand, Proper Nouns are virtually limitless. If you can place copyright protection, then it's a Proper Noun.

III. A Concrete Noun is a word that express anything that can be communicated through the five senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, and scent.

IV. An Abstract Noun is a word that express anything that can't be communicated through the five senses. These nouns covey ideas and emotion.


What's the difference between Concrete and Abstract Nouns? The difference is the nature of the thing being conveyed. For example the word cloud is a concrete noun because it is conveying something that can be seen. However, Abstract nouns have the uncanny ability to convey anything that can't be communicable through the senses. When was the last time you touched happiness or saw Buddism? These are emotions and ideas – they can't be conveyed through sensational avenues.

[Writing Advice – Concrete {vs. Common} vs. Abstract Nouns] – Concrete Nouns lend support to English's ability to be precise in conversation and writing. Where an individual may tell us about the truck he drove to go shopping, we may instead tell the same story about a how a young boy drove his father's ford pick-up to the store so that he may purchase slippers for his mother. We may talk about the sweeping generalities, but it is often better to choose a concrete noun. And perhaps when we read, “Jesus wept.” we find more fascination than any author who wrote about the tears of clouds. Not only are concrete nouns more expressive and more vivid, but are able to capture the ideas moment better than abstract and common nouns.

V. A Collective Noun is a word that represent a collection of people, places, things, ideas, or emotions without being plural. These words include family, herd, flock, audience, orchestra, and so forth. However, unlike other nouns, collective nouns can be subdivided into counting and non-Counting nouns.

[A note on Collective Nouns] – Collective Nouns are special for one reason: they are singular unless you reference the internal members. What this means is unless you use a pronoun that references back to the noun (called a reflexive pronoun because it is reflecting) then a collective noun is always singular. For example, we can say, “Our family[singular] loves your cookies.” because the noun family is referencing a single unit. However, when we say, “Our family[plural] are arguing amongst themselves to determine if the cookies were popular.” we are using a reflexive pronoun (themselves) to draw attention to the members inside the unit. Most writers prefer to make this more obvious by writing, “Our family members are arguing amongst themselves to determine if the cookies were popular.”

[A note on Counting and Non-Counting Nouns] – The English language has special nouns called counting and non-counting nouns. The difference between counting and non-counting is that counting nouns must have “a” or “an” placed before them. This designates that the following noun is either “one among many” or “any one” and emphasizes that the noun is unknown to the reader (contrary to the word the which signifies that the noun is known to the reader).

A helpful reminder is that non-counting nouns – such as steel, knowledge, or jewelry – do not have plural forms. For example, saying, “Did your mother purchase a jewelry,” doesn't make sense. Neither saying, “Can you pass a sugar.” Passing a sugar cube? Perhaps. But passing a sugar? That's the sign you're working with a non-counting noun. If you're talking about one piece of jewelry or cupboards full of sugar, there exist no plural form.

Please note that, as with all eight parts of speech, a single word, depending on placement, can be located in multiple categories. For example, the word happiness is both a common and an abstract noun, or the word family is a concrete, common, collective noun.

Helpful Reminders:

• Nouns can be made plural or possessive.
• Can assume the following endings: player, justice, happiness, division, guidance, reference, pavement, childhood, kingdom, agency, tourist, sincerity, censorship.

Nouns can be used to modify other nouns; they are called noun adjectives.


And that is everything you will ever need to know about nouns.

** You can click on the image below for a larger picture.