17th Century Writing Tips

[khiemtran]

Chin sheng-t'an (1608-1661) on The Water Margin in "How to Read The Fifth Book of Genius", extracted from "How to Read the Chinese Novel", edited by David L. Rolston.

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56. Whitening the background to bring out the foreground. For example, in order to set off Sung Chiang's deceitfulness, the author unobtrusively protrays Li K'uei's straightforwardness; and to set off Shih Hsiu's sharpness, he unobtrusively prttrays Yang Hsiung's dullness.

57. Displaying the bait. This means that when there is an important section of writing it is best not to start in abruptly; rather a passage of minor interest should be used to lead into it. For example, before Yang Chih fights So Ch'ao he first fights Chou Chin. Before Dame Wang lays out the ten-step plan for seducing P'an Chin-lien, she first enumerates the five prerequisites for the successful seducer.
The Chuang Tzu says "The wind begins at the tips of the green duckweed and becomes strong at the mouth of the big cave." The Li-chi [Book of Rites] states, "When the people of Lu want to make sacrifice to Mt. T'ai, the must first make sacrifice to the P'ei Woods".

58. The otter's tail. At the end of an important section things should not come to a sudden stop; rather, after-ripples from the main story are used to bring about a gradual tapering off. For example, after Imperial Delegate Liang returns from the tournament held outside the eastern city wall, the magistrate of Yün-ch'eng hsien, Shih Wen-pin, presides in his yamen. After Wu Sung kills the tiger, he meets two hunters [dressed in tiger skins] on his way down the ridge. Again, after the massacre in the Hall of the Mandarin Ducks, there is mention of the moonlight over the moat around the city wall.

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And from the same commentary, the Chinese side of the story for the notion of "Chinese Whispers"...

"It is just like an official sending a message through his attendant. The latter can only use his voice to transmit what he has been told. Indeed, how dare he add or subtract a word?"

Comments

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

All these books are _so_ going on my list of things I must read.

Utterly fascinating, thanks.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

I should warn you that How to Read the Chinese Novel is extremely dry for the most part. The four novels acknowledged as the greatest in Chinese literature (Journey to the West, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Water Margin/Marsh Chronicles and the Story of the Stone/Dream of Red Mansions) are all, on the surface, suspiciously close to fantasies. The bulk of the classical Chinese commentary on them is therefore aimed at identifying the hidden meanings and links to Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism.

It's also interesting that there's a tradition of commentary by marking up a text - putting in punctuation marks and highlights and notes in the margins to indicate the commentator's thoughts.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I have the Three Kingdoms and the Outlaws of the Marsh on order from Amazon. The book on How to Read the Chinese Novel sound interesting, even if dry. I did do Tai Chi for a while and I consider myself a follower of Zen Buddhism, so the commentary would be referring to familiar things.

One of my favourite "How to" books on writing is The Art of Writing: Teachings of the Chinese Masters. Admittedly it's about poetry rather than prose, but I love the lines by Lu Ji:

A writer makes new life in the void,
knocks on silence to make a sound,
binds space and time on a sheet of silk
and pours out a river from an inch-sized heart

And in a later section, there's a delightful poem about a poet who needs a cat, still fresh so long after it was written. Of course I have no idea how the poems would read in the original language, but even in translation they have a spare simplicity that I find very effective.

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'll have a look for that. I've been looking for Lu Ji's own treatise On Literature, but I haven't found it in any of the local libraries yet.

And that's a great poem.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

The copy of The Art of Writing I have is published by Shambala. I think I spotted it when I was after books on Zen. Though someone might have recommended it. I can't really remember.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I should warn you that How to Read the Chinese Novel is extremely dry for the most part

It's nothing I've ever considered reading before, and I like to stretch. It sounds like the sort of read-in-small-doses thing that would suit me.


It's also interesting that there's a tradition of commentary by marking up a text - putting in punctuation marks and highlights and notes in the margins to indicate the commentator's thoughts.

It's the logical thing to do, particularly when paper is expensive and you can't just keep stacks and stacks of notebooks.

Sometimes the annotations are more interesting than the text.

I've got one book where the editor argues heavily with the author, throughout the text. At the end of the book, you learn that the editor was the author's older self; the overall effect is wonderful.

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

57. Displaying the bait.
Doesn't this violate "in media res"?
58. The otter's tail.
Violates "When you're done, stop."

Charmingly retro Oriental, but does it apply to modern, western genre fiction?

[khiemtran.livejournal.com]

57. Displaying the bait.
Doesn't this violate "in media res"?
58. The otter's tail.
Violates "When you're done, stop."


Yes. These are techniques, mind you, not rules. Two techniques can quite easily contradict each other if they both work.

Charmingly retro Oriental, but does it apply to modern, western genre fiction?

Actually, the books in question aren't all that far from modern genre fantasy.

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

"These are techniques, mind you, not rules"
Agreed, with the caveat that the techniques derive from reader pyschology.

>aren't all that far from modern genre fantasy

I should imagine that most modern genre fantasy isn't quite so well written. If you ignore the above techniques, you have to be uber literary. Otherwise you'll be writing self indulgent #####.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

does it apply to modern, western genre fiction?

That's partly why they are so fascinating. I have a feeling that if you understand what the writer _meant_ you will get a different kind of story, a more poetic one maybe.


I think in medias res can be problematic because you often have a disorientation with it - who are all these people? What's happening? Why are we here? Why is it important?
Writers _then_ use flashbacks or infodumps to get the reader to the point of the action - is that really better than a lead-in?


'Displaying the bait' can be translated as 'foreshadowing' when you come at it from a different angle, and to some degree, all of us do it - you don't start with The Big Fight, you build up to it gradually, and you show that the hero can do _seemingly impossible task_ by breaking _seemingly impossible task_ into smaller segments and show that he could succeed at each one.

The Couch Potato won't win the triathlon. But if he regularly takes his energetic dog for walks and cycles to work and splashes about in the water with his young nephew, you've shown that he's got the rudimentary skills in place. Show him in another place that he's got the determination to go on when the odds are against him, and to ignore ridicule and hardship, and you've got the makings of a believable hero.

I don't know how 'the otter's tail' relates to my work, but that's part of the fun.

[zornhau.livejournal.com]

"I have a feeling that if you understand what the writer _meant_ you will get a different kind of story, a more poetic one maybe"

The Illiad began in media res, and by most accounts was poetic.