From yesterday’s New York Times Book Review, we have an essay on “When Writers Speak“:
Like most writers, I seem to be smarter in print than in person. In fact, I am smarter when I’m writing. I don’t claim this merely because there is usually no one around to observe the false starts and groan-inducing sentences that make a mockery of my presumed intelligence, but because when the work is going well, I’m expressing opinions that I’ve never uttered in conversation and that otherwise might never occur to me…
I’m willing to bet that more gray matter starts quivering when I sit down to write than when I stand up to speak. In fact, if you were to do an M.R.I. of my brain right now, you would see regions of it lighting up that barely flicker when I talk. How do I know this? Because I’m writing! In fact, I’m so smart right now that I know my cerebral cortex is employing a host of neurons that are cleverly and charmingly transforming my thoughts and feelings into words. But if I were talking to you about all this, a different set of neurons would be triggered, different connections and associations would be made, and different words and phrases would be generated. In short, I’d be boring the pants off you.
All of which raises a whole lot of questions in my head (while putting a smile on my face).
I often wonder what readers of RAMH must be like in person. You’re mostly (all?) writers, after all. Sufficiently entertaining and/or provocative writers, at that, else your regular cast of commenters and lurkers wouldn’t return, post after post.
And after all, if you see writers interviewed on TV or hear them in podcasts, not all (maybe none?) of them rely on cue cards, as Nabokov apparently did. They crack up at an interviewer’s question. They stop and think, and then offer up amazingly funny and/or insightful observations. Put Neil Gaiman, say, in front of a camera and he seems exactly like the person who puts those words on the page.
Not all of these can be rehearsed, can they? Can it really be that writers on publicity tours have had all these questions asked before, enabling them to sharpen their answers with practice?
One of my favorite things in the world is sitting around talking with friends and family, or heck just with The Missus. I like to think I’m a good conversationalist. But then I think back to all the times when I went to a party where I knew the host but no one else. I think back to all the abortive attempts by cordial strangers to get me talking, and of how I fumbled and flailed about inarticulately.
(Yesterday, I took the Yorkie out for a walk up the block. Per usual, given her teeny legs, she made it pretty much to the end of the block on her own but required a lift for the return trip. As we went by a neighbor’s house, he greeted me and said, by way of conversation, that he’d noticed that I often carried Sophie on the way back to the house from a walk. I replied, “Yeah, she’s a specialist. She does the outbound end, not the inbound.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth I wanted to recall them, or one of them anyhow. You fool, I thought to myself, the word you want there is “leg,” not “end.” Whoever heard of an outbound end? Nobody, that’s who. And you call yourself a writer? Etc., etc., etc.)
What’s your experience? Is there a correlation — even a negative one? Do you talk as well as you write? (And let’s hear none of those cringing “Well, I don’t actually write very well” disclaimers, either.) Do other writers you’ve met?
(And, as a bonus, barely-related question: Is there any correlation between how you speak — well or otherwise — and how you write dialog?)
DarcKnyt says
I’ve heard we have three vocabularies.
Most of us are better in writing than in person. And we have internal dialog which isn’t the same as either of the other two. In every day speech we lack the ability to form the sentences and words as they’re coming out of our mouths; writers don’t come up with as clever a metaphor or simile as they can on the page. And of course, we don’t get to edit and revise once it’s out of our mouths.
If I spoke slowly enough to make my words match my thoughts or my written abilities (which are dubious and questionable), I’d take ten minutes to get through a simple greeting. And I believe that’s the same for almost all of us.
About how Gaiman, et. al do it? I have no clue. I know King sounds the same when he’s speaking as he does through his writing. It might be — and this is only conjecture — just a well-developed and connected writing voice. So while the elaborate vocabulary tricks aren’t there, the essence of their voices is there and so they sound the same to us.
How’s that?
Froog says
I think the more practiced – and confident, and relaxed – you are in speaking, the more likely you are to be able to achieve the same fluency and sophistication (if not quite the grammatical perfection) you pride yourself on in your writing. Some people never get comfortable with more formal speaking situations, or just with speaking to strangers; but I feel it actually gives you the focus – the motivation, if you like – to achieve a higher level of language. In your example here, John, you’re being caught off guard, having a fleeting conversation in passing with someone you barely know – and you’re fretting over one misplaced word in what is otherwise an elegant and amusing remark (an utterly trivial ‘error’ your interlocutor is not going to have noticed at all). I suspect you’d be pretty impressive in a TV interview – at least, after the first half dozen times.
Me? Not only do I like to converse, but I’ve been a professional talker for much of my life: first in the high school classroom, then as a university lecturer, now giving business seminars or promotional presentations in front of dozens (sometimes hundreds) of people. So, I feel pretty confident in my ability to perform in that kind of situation. However, part of that confidence comes from accepting that I must not, cannot hold myself to the same exalted standards I would in writing. I know that if my extemporised speech were transcribed verbatim it would be full of embarrassing solecisms and inelegances, but I won’t beat myself up over that. The occasional stumble is inevitable; it’s the ideas and the effectiveness of their expression that matter.
I suppose the speed of production is one of the key differences, and I sometimes wonder how this may affect how we write, what we write in different recording mediums. It worried me quite a lot when I first started writing on a computer – as that writer in the NYT Book Review put it, I was concerned that different parts of my brain were firing when I was looking at a computer screen rather than a blank sheet of paper. I even wrote a creepy story about a horror writer who became “possessed” by a much darker imagination when he began to write on the computer. I’ve been thinking on this again just recently because my new best drinking buddy, “Dr Manhattan”, is writing a novel the old school way – longhand, in a series of exercise books. I wonder how differently it might turn out if he were composing it on his laptop.
Most of us speak at between 150 and 180 words per minute. I can type on a keyboard at a little above 50wpm. I can’t manage more than 25 words per minute writing longhand, not for any sustained period of time anyhow (and probably not even that fast any more; I’ve practically forgotten how to hold a pen over the last few years). I suppose I can probably do about 20 words per minute for text messages too (I am a prolific texter, but I abhor abbreviations and ‘UR Gr8’ rap speak; and I can never get ‘predictive’ text to work for me, I’m so unpredictable; it does make the process of composition far more laborious for me than for most people), but the context and the method of writing are so different that I imagine the content or style of the messages will turn out rather differently than what I might write in a handwritten note or a postcard.
Do you know anyone who has tried writing using voice recognition software? I hear these programs are getting pretty good now. I wouldn’t like it myself, I don’t think; I’d miss the keyboard! However, while it would seem awkward at first, I suspect most people could pretty soon get used to it. I think we have a ‘writing mode’ – a deeper focus we obtain from being able to work at our own pace, free of distractions (and perhaps hemmed about with familiar objects and comforting rituals), with our audience removed to a distant corner of our imaginations – and we can learn to access and express that mode in a variety of ways.
I’m not sure which I find more terrifying – the notion of having to write on demand for an obsessive reader hovering at your shoulder (never imagine this as you write!) as in King’s Misery; or writing as a public performance, as in the Pythons’ novel-writing sketch where Thomas Hardy is trying to produce the first chapter of his new work in front of a huge live audience. Hm, I think the latter is worse, actually.
marta says
If I had that proverbial dollar for every time I left a conversation feeling foolish for every word spoken, I could quit my day job. But I confess that I love my conversations with my 6 year old. It turns out we have the same sense of humor! That helps.
I have to practice every day because I teach ESL–but students want to talk to me. They pay for me to talk. Eeek. That sounds terrifying.
The thing about dialog is that I can write what I would NEVER say. One hopes this make the dialog better. Whether said dialog is good… someone else can decide that.
Sherri says
Well that explains why all my friends are online.
John says
All: jeez, you guys — I never know what might set something off. Very generous comments. To give them their due, I’ll depart from my usual reply-to-everybody-at-once practice and do separate replies.
(But, hmm, that implies that I don’t usually give commenters their due, doesn’t it? In which case— Oh, never mind. :)
And by carefully comparing timestamps, you will now be able to determine how long it takes me to compose a comment myself. So much for spontaneous conversation!
John says
Darc: I’ve never heard of the three vocabularies. (I’ve never hear of a lot of stuff.) All along I’d thought I could barely handle TWO vocabularies (= writing voices?)… no wonder I’m so confused about these questions. (I’m confused about a lot of questions.)
That said, the three you mention do make sense as separate “modes” of language. (People who are fluent bilingually just went up yet another 2-3 notches in my estimation — they must be veritable Mel Blancs.)
I’ve noticed in recent years that my speech must be decelerating. Main symptom: people seem to interrupt me more often in conversation. On reflection, I don’t think people are getting ruder; I think they think I’ve finished whatever the thought was. Their turn, see? It’s a bit frustrating, as I don’t end up contributing as much as I’d like. But as long as I insist on groping for the right words/phrases, there’s no help for it. I’m probably a better conversationalist after a drink or two, when that internal chatterbox of an editor has shut off.
reCaptcha for this reply, and as with a fortune cookie take it for what (if anything) it’s worth: sion diffuses.
John says
Froog: When I was a kid, on those rare occasions when my parents let me stay up to watch The Tonight Show (this was the Johnny Carson era), I sometimes fantasized about sitting in that chair alongside that desk. On the sofa to the right, I imagined, would be seated people like Ernie Kovacs, Frank Sinatra, Jonathan Winters, and — oh heck, why not? — Diana Rigg. And none of them could speak, because they were either laughing too hard or waiting for the next lightning round between Carson and me. (In Miss Riggs’s case, she wouldn’t be laughing or waiting, at least outwardly; she’d be just barely curling up the left corner of her mouth, in amusement.)
Once, a TV reporter for a station in Philadelphia cornered me as a spokesman for a striking schoolteachers’ union. The “interview” must have lasted all of 30 seconds, but I was appalled — couldn’t have imagined before how many times and in how many ways it was possible to say “Uh.”
About voice-recognition software: the Blackberries which The Missus and I now have came equipped with a handful of these: we can “dial” via voice (“Call [insert contact’s name]”); we can search via Google (go to the Google home page, hold down the talk button, and just say what you’re looking for); and we can direct the GPS software to guide us to a particular address.
Both “we” and “can” are used provisionally there.
I’ve just recently downloaded a program to the phone which is supposed to be more powerful, actually enabling you to compose email messages, Facebook status messages, and such. But I haven’t tried it out much yet. If it doesn’t work for me, but does for The Missus, what’s left of my confidence as a speaker will evaporate.
reCaptcha for this reply: municated monitor.
John says
marta: Your Facebook posts about conversations with your son are priceless. Pretty much my whole family is “verbal,” and that filtered down to the next generation pretty well; when they were kids, it was hard to tell at family gatherings who was drawing the most laughter — the children or the adults.
ESL teaching does indeed sound terrifying.
I’ve been noticing two broad types of written dialogue (in general, not speaking here of the dialogue you write!): the type which consists of short bursts of conversation, and the type which balances those bursts with occasional whole 3- or 4-sentence paragraphs of speech. The former seems more natural(istic), but it’s surprising how easy it is to become unaware of the latter — even though I know people don’t really talk that way.
When you say, “I can write [in dialogue] what I would NEVER say,” you mean like profanity and other habits of speech? or more like whole topics of conversation?
reCaptcha for this reply: mellon mensions.
John says
Sherri: yeah. It does sort of raise the bar for how eloquent, to the point, and/or clever we expect people to be, doesn’t it?
When I’ve met online friends in real life, there’s always a pause, sort of, while people struggle (a) to “hear” one another’s online voices in their real ones, and (b) to themselves be in person what their “audience” expects of them. But eventually everybody just relaxes — it’s too exhausting otherwise. Afterwards, the online voices somehow make even better sense.
You win the reCaptcha prize so far in this round: Bangladesh unman.
Froog says
Unman?
Wittering and Zigo?
Possibly at last a literary reference you won’t get, Mr S? No, probably not.
I don’t believe the word ‘municated’ really exists. Not any more. ‘Having a city wall’??
Kerkam Geiger, says my ReCaptcha – which is not one of the better character names it’s offered up, but still somehow conceivable.
John says
Froog: You’re right. Unman, Wittering, and Zigo went completely over my head… but I’m glad to have found it in Wikipedia. Sorry I’ve missed it all these years!
Just now I found a blog which once held a neologism contest; “municate” was the winner but it was a pretty lame (utterly broken, grammatically) definition. I like “having a city wall” much better!
marta says
I meant insulting and mean-spirited remarks. Some profanity, I suppose, but I don’t swear at work or in front of the kiddo, so I’m out of the profanity habit (not that I can’t revert in the moment). But I don’t argue with people and so when my characters argue, it is something I wouldn’t do.
Froog says
The film version of Unman plays it rather too straight, I think – as a kind of horror story, or at least as a slightly surreal, creepy melodrama. It should more properly be seen as a jet black comedy about the insecurities of teachers. All teachers, novices especially, have surely suffered at some time from a paranoid conviction that their pupils don’t like them and are conspiring to cause them grief. This takes it up a notch, with the schoolboys found to be genuinely evil and plotting murder. It reminds us that the descent of teenage boys into brutal tribalism can not only happen in the isolation of a Lord of the Flies desert island, but also occurs pretty routinely in the classroom.
“Unman, Wittering and Zigo…” is the refrain at the beginning of each of the classroom scenes, the tail-end of the roll call. (The improbably named Zigo, always noted merely as ‘absent’, is later discovered to have died an unnatural death.)
I believe it must originally have been a radio play, because there is some very clunky telling-us-what-we-can-see dialogue in it. At one point, some of the boys have paid a visit on their young teacher’s wife, intending to threaten her; and near the end of the scene she says something like, “What’s that you’re hiding up your sleeve? Oh, it’s a knife!” I was helping to direct a school production of this once, and lobbied hard for this line to be excised; but I was only a novice teacher (and the assistant assistant director), and no-one paid very much attention to me.
John says
marta: True, you do seem like someone who goes out of her way to avoid confrontation. I’m the same way… And it can be really therapeutic to have characters air their grievances and come to blows in my stead. :)
Froog: Wikipedia says it did indeed originate as a radio play. Your writeup is much better, though, and makes the story sound much better — maybe you should enlist as a Wikipedia editor?
I did have to grin at Wikipedia’s presumably inadvertent juxtaposition of unconnected ideas:
fg says
I have just awkwardly begun using voice-recognition software. An interesting and clumsy start. The jury is still out.
John says
fg: The jury is indeed still out. You know of OCR — optical character recognition — right? like directing a computer to scan an image of text to derive the real text? I haven’t done any OCR for a few years now, and perhaps it’s better than it was, but it used to drive me crazy. It would read with (say) 90% accuracy. But if you’ve just OCR’d a 50-page technical manual, finding those roughly 5 pages of errors can be damnably hard!
Voice-recognition software, I guess, is about at that point. I’d be interested to hear otherwise!