Subject: Re: Smoking !
From: Tim O'Connor (oconnort@nyu.edu)
Date: Sat Dec 09 2000 - 19:12:49 GMT
On Sat, Dec 09, 2000 at 09:30:03PM +0000, Scottie Bowman wrote:
> But there's something else. When you're writing
> about people interacting with each other, especially
> through dialogue, you have to watch your timing.
> In order to maintain the proper 'flow' you need bits
> of 'business' - just as an actor does - to introduce
> tensions, postponements, diversions & so on.
> Twiddling about with various bits of tobacco
> used to be a very useful device for this purpose:
> one now sadly missed in these more health conscious days.
This is something I should have said but missed completely, and have
to heartily endorse. Yes, smoking and all its business is a classic
method of an actor passing moments, and (as Scottie demonstrated) is a
good pacing method in text. So, too, is drinking, as Salinger
demonstrates in the hilarious booze moments in Buddy's apartment in
"Raise High the Roof Beams...." The twiddling with ice and stirrers
and gin and such -- classic pacing material.
I confess that I have never used smoking as pacing material in my own
work because I find it a habit so foul, I can't even begin to put the
habit into the hands of my own characters. I don't mean this as a
value judgment. It's plain practicality, pure and simple. I am
NAUSEATED at the line about Seymour running his finger through an
ashtray, seeking out a higher spirit. I find ashtrays repulsive,
myself.
I hasten to say it's not an AMERICAN trait as much as it is a definite
Tim O'Connor trait, in spades.
--tim
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