Re: Planning a killing
Oh, On, you're so right about "quite." I used to ask my Anglophile friends, what exactly does this word mean? And they'd look at me like I was crazy. "What do you mean, what does it mean?" So I'd press the point, and they'd say "Well, it means 'quite.' That's all. A sufficiency. No, that's not quite it. But you see -- it means itself. It's quite enough." And I'd say, "I see." And they'd say, "quite."
I am an advocate for using words where they're due poetically even if the grammar's not "quite" right. There may be a use for "And then" in repetition for dramatic effect ... as in "Harold looked up, and saw the mushroom cloud. And then the wind blew furiously. And then the clouds dropped down; the clouds fell from the sky."
On's comment about writing selfinto a corner is interesting.
Well, On, I do think you have a good point, as well as many bad ones, about violence. And as for the good one, it is this.
One of my violent scenes normally starts with one of my characters getting violent. That is, the character itself does that, and then I say whoah! Looks like a violent moment coming up! And the run of the mill piece of violence is short and soon over.
In fact, you may be talking about the run-of-the-mill violent scene, which is pretty minor, as opposed to the signature kind of violence which defines a story.
But any significant moment of violence, if it's important to the story, must be well thought out. Also, just because you've hit a guy or two, or know the way one piece of equipment or another works, from the Navy ship to night-vision binos, doesn't mean you know anything about either the technique or art of writing violence. Maybe so, maybe no.
For that matter, your assumption that I was not giving LJ advice on technical as well as artistic aspects of using deadly force was just wrong. You should have heard me going on and on about a certain kind of knife! I love that knife, even if I can't remember how to spell its name! And "shoot this guy ... shoot that guy ... but stab this guy"! Very important to have your syntax right when you're killing.
My main advice to LJ was that when you have a scene where your protagonist kills an important bad guy as well as two or three guards on the way in, what you are doing is composing the dance of death. This is a real dance with a terrible beauty and must be, as Jim says, sketched in, even hinted at in just the right way, but not more, so that the reader's own imagination can fill in the details. The violence is not taking place on the paper, it's in the reader's imagination.
It's also not "I slugged him, and his eyes popped out." -- Oh, really? (Yawn)
I think we're all adults here and we all presumably know how to have intimate relations with significant other people, to put it delicately, but most of us don't just describe it. If it's salacious, it's pornography, and if it's not, it's clinical, but either way it's boring. There is also a pornographic kind of violence, and it's boring. Boring, boring, boring. I am sure you can write that very well without planning, I know I can.
Just as dancing, though, is made to portray the most beautiful of human things, the beauty of a fine body in motion, making a gorgeous thing of the rising lure of sex, so the dance of death portrays the mystery and horrible beauty of life's end, the opposite of sex you could say, or the distillation of the essence of sex my weird vampiric friends in London would argue. This is, in particular, the destruction of one life by another living being contrary to every moral code. It is life in its extremity all right. It is deciding an issue with, as LJ says, extreme prejudice. It is terrifying, but it is beautiful if done in balance with the rhythms of the world. Tigers do that.
That act, to be shown at its most beautiful, must be most sparing in detail. Economy in action. Watch any beautiful dancer. Oh sure, describe the knife, enthuse about it; but the act of death itself must stand for itself as a work of art. It will have its own meaning. As the beauty of a stone is revealed by its carving, the beauty of a body is displayed by its dancing, the beauty inherent in a noble death should be shown by the killing.
And you say that needs no planning! Hah!
In fact, my conversation with LJ about his killing scene made me suggest he re-think the whole structure of the novel, and clarify aspects of theme, character, & plot, for they all are reflected in those few moments when the death takes place.
So On's seeing no need in planning because he "knows" the subject -- maybe so, but what does that mean? What does any of us really know? I have done 12 years of karate, been shot at, had friends killed, seen men die, and defeated angry trained killers just by staring them down. That doesn't mean I know anything, or On does, compared to another fellow or two I could name, but won't, in Special Ops. So On's not needing planning makes me think of our recently departed friend Ill, who is writing a 900,000 word novel, he says, with no particular planning. On seems much more professional and astute than that, but he does make what are known technically in my day job (where I performed the "role" of an assassin for two decades) as "violent" assumptions!
My particular favorite when it comes to violence, and I think the hardest part to do credibly, is ... hand to hand or, in my tiger's case, fang to neck. The world is a violent and even tragic place these days, but most humans make a botch of it. A finger to the neck can immobilize, a touch to the right pressure point causes death. And most humans do not keep their balance when doing this, so it becomes an ugly thing. Here, as elsewhere, we could learn a lot from animals. Violent death in struggles between adversaries should have a dignity borne of balance; killing should be done beautifully if it is to be done at all.
Now I really am going to be gone.
I may post one or two of my letters to LJ, just things dealing with general killer topics not the specifics of his stuff, before I get out of here. Or not. But peace be unto you.