The Staccato Voice; A Craft of Creative Writing

...There were no rooms at the inn. We drove farther until we found a hotel. It was raining heavily and we got soaked on the way to the door. Our socks stank of mildew. We ate dinner there and talked little.

...24 was spiteful. Full of a baby’s venom. The women in the house knew it and so did the children. For years each put up with the spite in his own way, but by 1873 Sethe and her daughters Denver were its only victims.

...I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun.

...Afterwards, she told me to get out

The next week we had lunch.

Later, we were married. 

Later still, she left me. 

...Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarecely better—splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another's umbrellas, in a general infection of ill-temper, and losing their foothold at street corners...

Ernest Hemmingway, Toni Morrison, Raymond Chandler, Booker shortlisted Makenna Goodman and, surprisingly perhaps, Charles Dickens. 

All of these writers are famous exponents of the sparse, punctuated narrative voice.

A punctuated narrative voice uses a variety of writing craft devices to gain that desired effect. These include very short sentences, less conjunctions, sudden stops and breaths that create an abrupt, rapid rhythm. This is often echoed in the accompanying dialogue, which can  amount to a few words per line. 

The style is sometimes called the staccato, or minimalist narrative voice. and sometimes described as Hemingwayesque. See above for a quote from him... lean, strong, silent, punchy, and highly rhythmic. These allied styles ares frequently used in thrillers, and sometimes in Sci-fi. A very sparse style is often called the telegraphic voice; it omits words other than the subject-verb-object in a sentence.

So, instead of: Even though I was exhausted after my long day in the shop, and I was hurrying to get home before John, because I knew he’d get angry if he saw the mess I’d left in the kitchen that morning. 

Shorten this dramatically, and we have; Whacked. Hard day at work. Shot home fast. Did not want John’s fist catching my eye. Take out the extra words, and you've gain an amplification in the suspense you're generating in your story. 

Some writers use this style at all times; it's their unique, voice. Others use it when it suits, the style of story, or more often, the type of charcter. If you've ever used it then you are practicing 

Parataxis. This literary term describes this seamless stringing of written words together to gain a style with a staccato rhythm. In high literature, writers use parataxis to create stream of consciousness, in which a character’s continuous train of thought is indicated by the 'paratactic unity' of multiple complex sentences, piling up on top of one another, suggesting a fast-paced, possibly scattered narrative point of view. Thriller writers use this staccato to create a 'suspense vacuum'. 

Sparse narrative often functions alongside sparse dialogue. Really short exchanges work when you want a lot of heightened emotion. Characters under stress are not going to use long speeches. When in jeopardy, you gasp, cry out, use single words, and then the dialogue develops a gritty, urgent reality. Characters who are emotionally overwhelmed often lose the ability to articulate their feelings. Short, fragmented speech realistically mirrors the numbness of shock, sorrow, or profound loneliness. Further suspension is gain with this technique because the emotional mood of a scene will shift with sparse dialogue; it forces the audience to focus on what is unsaid with unspoken subtext––it can also have the effect of suggesting confident control––the person who has the least to say holds the most power. Finally, there are those speakers who are struck almost dumb by intimate situations––love, lust, desire––who can do no more than whisper hoarse phrases through thickened throats. 

Here's Roddy Doyle, famous for his sparse dialogue:

. But that conversation will have to be very gripping and increase in tension all the way through, as Doyle does here:

–Father Damien said it.

–Which one is he?

–Father Damien and the lepers

–Oh, that’s right. He was a good man. 

–Were there ever any lepers in Ireland?

–I don’t think so.

–Why not?

–It only happens in hot places, I think.

–It’s hot here sometimes, I said.

–Not that hot. 

–Yes it is.

–Not hot enough, said my da. –It has to be very hot.

                                                                             

Shaping and Breathing. 

However, very short sentences, especially in narrative, can’t usually be kept up perpetually. Rhythm works best when it's shaped by the writer; when there is variation. You need at times to cut through the pace and slow down. This technique––variety in sentence lenghth and style––is called Hypotaxis.  Grammatically, it's an arrangement of similar but unequal constructs. In otherwords, short, long, sparse, elongated. A varied rhythm is often the most pleasing to read. I hope so, I use it here; 

My house escaped damage. The sluggish, smelly creek at the bottom of my garden moved up several gears, running swift and flush to its brim, but it didn’t reach the top of the gully. I was lucky. Most of Bridgwater had been built above the flood plain, but on the other side of the town, people were sandbagging their front doors.   

Through the Floodgate (Nina Milton)

Here is my list of how to excecute the pace of your work, so that, when you need the craft of terseness, you can up your pace, and when you need a steady narrative voice, you can lower it again. There are various ways to engender pace, including some quite small, but important adjustments:

• To slow pace, use the present participle frequently. (look for ‘ing’ endings)
• To speed it up, take these out
• To slow pace, use longer words, words with a smoother feel, longer sentences and longer paragraphs.
• To speed it up, use short, staccato words, lots of full stops and short paragraphs. 
• To slow pace, use a little of the perfect tense (he had seen her) within the simple past. The passive form, although generally unwise, will also slow pace
• To speed it up, use the present tense, if possible within the context, and avoid the perfect tense.
• To slow pace, use interior monologue, especially deep, unfiltered thought processes from the narrator.
• To speed up pace, use snappy dialogue, no long speeches.
• To slow pace, delve deep into imagery and description.
• To speed up make images clear and precise, sharp sights & sounds. Don’t over-describe, but metaphors and symbols can work as ‘shorthand description – sneak description into the action. Avoid adverbs and clichés.
  
  
  

Look at your presentation of images:

• To slow, give them a dreamy mood.
• To speed up make images clear and precise. Don’t over describe – sneak description into the action

A sparse, pacy voice changes the emotional mood of a scene, so when you speed up you’ll change the mood. Is this what you’re aiming at? Think about what emotional result you want.

• Too Slow? Scenes drag on with too much detail or lack a clear goal, causing boredom. Read it through on paper, and use a red pen to strike through parts that drag. 
• Too Fast? Important events and character moments are rushed, leaving the audience confused or emotionally detached.Slow down by getting inside the narrator’s head
• Stop and Go: The story swings wildly between ultra-fast action and painfully slow lulls, creating a jarring, exhausting experience. Don't forget that  Hypotaxis works best when the variation is shuffled within paragraph and sentences. 

Learn to spot the swings and start the scenes again, a new draft written without looking at the original copy.

I'd love to hear  from writers who are experimenting with this, and those who are having a spot of bother. Send you examples through to me!