Re: mode v. theme v. style

FennelGiraffe <sraarytvenssr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Helen Hall <usenet@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:hAMvCQDuRZ6GFwGB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

In message <1i4cpy9.1qyqwsbq2n23jN%spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Jonathan L Cunningham <spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes
Patricia C. Wrede <PWrede6492@xxxxxxx> wrote:

The way I was using it above was, as I mentioned, Jo Walton's
definition, and "the personality of the story" is as close as I can
come to defining it in any way I understand. It's a sort of
meta-characteristic of the story itself, not of any of the bits and
pieces that come together to make the story. I think. If you're
really curious, your best bet is to go over to Jo's livejournal and
ask her.

No. Jo doesn't like me.

But if someone else would like to ask her, I would be interested in
the answer.

I thought Jo had explained it here in the past, but this is all I can
come up with. Perhaps someone else's Google fu is stronger?

----------------------------
From Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.composition
From: Jo Walton <blu...@xxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 05 Oct 2002 13:47:11 CDT
Local: Sat, Oct 5 2002 7:47 pm
Subject: Re: The current FAQ (incomplete)

in-cluing: The process of scattering background information and
other hints throughout the text, rather than placing it all together
in a lump. (see info-dumping below.)

I invented that word, so I think I can safely insist it has *no
hyphen*. I wouldn't mind you saying I'd coined it, as you say
Hitch*** coined McGuffin. (I'm still faintly astonished that a word I
made up for something I needed a term for when I was fifteen is useful
to other people.)

mode: A term referring to the overall character or personality of a
story. Some writers come up with a mode for their story first, and
choose a narrative voice, structure and mood to match. Other
writers start with the narrative voice, structure, and mood, and end
up with
an
overall mode.

It's not quite... oh never mind. This is another one of my terribly
useful terms. (Fortunately for everyone, I think the others have
sensible real equivalents. I remember I used to call POV "stand" and
the jump cut way you get from one scene to another without writing the
in between stuff "latering". :)

-------------------------------------------------

As far as I understand mode, it's a holistic view of the story in
which the writer has a overall *sense* of
povatmospherevoicesettingstructure, from which the details of pov,
atmosphere, voice, setting, etc can gradually be unpicked. You can
also hold things like plot up against the mode, like someone trying a
tie against a shirt, to see if they match.

But I could be wrong...

I found this on her livejournal
(http://papersky.livejournal.com/51969.html)

JW: Most of my other terms were fairly easily translatable, but one
JW: that really wasn't was "mode". "Mode", when I tried to explain it
JW: on rasfc, turned out to be very slippery to most people and a big
JW: problem to some others.

JW: Mode is what I need before I start writing. Mode controls how I
JW: tell the story. It is a distinct thing. It controls voice and POV
JW: and what I call stance, but I'm sure there's a proper word for.
JW: (Stance is where you stand to tell the story -- close and involved,
JW: distant and ironic, reliable or unreliable -- and where your
JW: percieved reader stands. The story then is shaped into the gap
JW: between -- things like if you're telling a children's story you
JW: need to know the kind of vocabulary they'll understand, the sort
JW: of jokes the reader can be expected to get without explanation,
JW: their expected perception of cannibalism...)

JW: Mode controls what people normally call style and which I think is
JW: part of mode -- sentence length and pattern and language use and
JW: the way the words fall, where the stresses are, the underlying
JW: pattern the words are part of. (I call this "cornerstones", the
JW: individual words you know you have to have. It's something much
JW: more obvious in poetry, but it's there for me in prose as well.
JW: Delany talks about this in The Motion of Light in Water.)

JW: Mode also controls stuff that's usually filed under "genre", things
JW: like where the magic is and where the tech level is, the story's,
JW: as opposed to the character's, understanding of the way the universe
JW: works.

JW: Before I start writing, I need the mode. I need it before I write
JW: the first sentence. Once I have it, I have the synthesis of all that
JW: stuff, stance, voice, POV, genre, how the words fall.

Thanx. Seems to fit Helen's interpretation.

Makes little sense to me (for reason's I think I've covered).

"Mode is what I need before I start writing" -- what *I* need before I
start writing is the Idea. It can be a Plot Idea, or a Character Idea,
and far too often is just the Setting Idea.

I wonder what she means by "stance" if it's not the same as POV? <g,d,r>
(And yes, I know she "explains" it in the next sentence.) It's
interesting that her actual *writing* is quite comprehensible, but the
combination of an alien process with a private terminology makes it very
hard for me to understand when she talks about her process.

Jonathan

--
"There's many a best seller that could have been prevented
by a good teacher." Flannery O'Connor
.

Loading