Writing Right with Dmitri: Impressions
Created | Updated Oct 25, 2015
Writing Right with Dmitri: Impressions
Do you like to watch impressionists and impersonators? Those humorous people who 'do' other people? What about caricaturists, the artists who draw you and your friends at the fair – exaggerating this one's nose and that one's retro sunglasses? Do you find this sort of 'art' insightful, chuckle-worthy, or disquieting?
Some people have reputations as good anecdotalists because of their ability to catch the essence or tone of the figures in their story. Abraham Lincoln was known for this.
President Lincoln once told the following story of Colonel W., who had been elected to the Legislature, and had also been judge of the County Court. His elevation, however, had made him somewhat pompous, and he became very fond of using big words. On his farm he had a very large and mischievous ox, called "Big Brindle," which very frequently broke down his neighbors' fences, and committed other depredations, much to the Colonel's annoyance.
One morning after breakfast, in the presence of Lincoln, who had stayed with him over night, and who was on his way to town, he called his overseer and said to him:
"Mr. Allen, I desire you to impound 'Big Brindle,' in order that I may hear no animadversions on his eternal depredations."
Allen bowed and walked off, sorely puzzled to know what the Colonel wanted him to do. After Colonel W. left for town, he went to his wife and asked her what the Colonel meant by telling him to impound the ox.
"Why, he meant to tell you to put him in a pen," said she.
Allen left to perform the feat, for it was no inconsiderable one, as the animal was wild and vicious, but, after a great deal of trouble and vexation, succeeded.
"Well," said he, wiping the perspiration from his brow and soliloquizing, "this is impounding, is it? Now, I am dead sure that the Colonel will ask me if I impounded 'Big Brindle,' and I'll bet I puzzle him as he did me."
The next day the Colonel gave a dinner party, and as he was not aristocratic, Allen, the overseer, sat down with the company. After the second or third glass was discussed, the Colonel turned to the overseer and said:
"Eh, Mr. Allen, did you impound 'Big Brindle,' sir?"
Allen straightened himself, and looking around at the company, replied:
"Yes, I did, sir; but 'Old Brindle' transcended the impanel of the impound, and scatterlophisticated all over the equanimity of the forest."
The company burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, while the Colonel's face reddened with discomfiture.
"What do you mean by that, sir?" demanded the Colonel.
"Why, I mean, Colonel," replied Allen, "that 'Old Brindle,' being prognosticated with an idea of the cholera, ripped and teared, snorted and pawed dirt, jumped the fence, tuck to the woods, and would not be impounded nohow."
This was too much; the company roared again, the Colonel being forced to join in the laughter, and in the midst of the jollity Allen left the table, saying to himself as he went, "I reckon the Colonel won't ask me to impound any more oxen."
Alexander K McClure, Lincoln's Yarns and Stories, 1900.
Golly. Those people have been dead for well over a hundred years, but here they are, alive on the pages of the internet. Why? Because Abe Lincoln could tell a story. He's captured the essence of their conversational styles. By letting their voices come through, he's given us a vivid tale.
My grandmother was the opposite. When she told you a story about someone else, she always told it as if she were speaking rather than the person in the tale. I frequently remained skeptical, for instance, that a young official at the Nashville ticket counter addressed my grandparents in antique Hillbilly. Or that everybody she met reacted to certain events by being 'tickled to death'.
Last summer me 'n your granddaddy went down to Ol' Mexico1 with John 'n'them2. The Mexicans are li'l bitty short people, but they're nice to you. What's that you say? Of course I could talk to 'em. They don't speak English much, but if you talk real loud and slow, they figure it out. And you hold out the money so they can show you how much it costs. Of course, your granddaddy didn't understand 'em too good, but I explained what he wanted. They were tickled to death by your granddaddy.
My grandmother's stories, though highly entertaining, told me much more about her than about the events and people described. While that's valuable – and treasured by me – it's probably not what you want to accomplish by writing.
What you probably want to do – and I admit I'm guessing here – is to give your reader a flavour of what the people you're describing act and think like. You can do that best, I believe, by imitating Lincoln rather than my grandmother. Figure out the salient characteristics of the person's expression, and indicate that. Don't overload with description – you're not Charley Dickens3 – just give the reader a good indication of why it's funny, or revealing, or helpful to understand not only what the character is saying, but how. Don't use adverbs to do this, is my advice. Use the dialogue instead.
Take Mark Twain's description of a riverboat captain who mixed Shakespeare in with his piloting instructions. The resulting monologue is not only hilarious, but tells us a lot about the people, the time, and the subject matter at hand:
What man dare, I dare!
Approach thou what are you laying in the leads for? what a hell of an idea! like the rugged ease her off a little, ease her off! rugged Russian bear, the armed rhinoceros or the there she goes! meet her, meet her! didn’t you know she’d smell the reef if you crowded it like that? Hyrcan tiger; take any shape but that and my firm nerves she’ll be in the woods the first you know! stop the starboard! come ahead strong on the larboard! back the starboard! . . . Now then, you’re all right; come ahead on the starboard; straighten up and go ’long, never tremble: or be alive again, and dare me to the desert damnation can’t you keep away from that greasy water? pull her down! snatch her! snatch her baldheaded! with thy sword; if trembling I inhabit then, lay in the leads! – no, only the starboard one, leave the other alone, protest me the baby of a girl. Hence horrible shadow! eight bells – that watchman’s asleep again, I reckon, go down and call Brown yourself, unreal mockery, hence!
Mark Twain, Is Shakespeare Dead?
So, while you're employing your notebook (or however you 'take notes' as you roam the world in search of ideas) to jot down impressions, facts, atmosphere, etc, do not neglect turns of phrase. Remember to listen carefully to the way people speak. Take a page from the impersonators' book, and your stories will keep your audiences riveted. And they'll say, 'I feel as if I know that person.' Yeah, good dialogue will do that.
Writing Right with Dmitri Archive
Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas.and get away with it.
