In this passage Auster uses nouns and adjectives, as much as verbs, to
suggest the smoothness and skill of Hector’s actions. This is evident, for
example, in the phrase ‘his double takes and hop-steps and rhumba
swivels’. The narrator also directs us how to watch his movements on the
screen, ‘Observe the thrums and fidgets of his fingers, his deftly timed
exhales, the slight cock of his head when something unexpected catches
his eye.’
(iii) The inclusion of detail
As you can see from the previous examples, detail is an important aspect
of realist writing. If you just say ‘she was lethargic’, and leave it at that, your
writing will be rather bland. If you say ‘she walked in a ponderous way,
pulling her feet and throwing her weight awkwardly forward’, you will be
evoking mood and feeling through a visual impression. When you are con-
structing or evoking a person, object or action, generate as many details as
you can. If stuck, you can make lists of characteristics by association. For
instance, if you were describing a person you could start with red hair,
then lead on to green eyes and turned-up nose (like building an identi-kit
picture). You do not need to have a picture in your mind’s eye, you can
gradually assemble it.
At the same time some general statements like ‘she looked tired’ or ‘she
seemed upset’, if used sparingly, can help to summarise an impression.
They can be accompanied by details which amplify the more general
statement. So the words ‘she looked tired’ might be followed by a phrase
such as ‘she had bags under her eyes’; this gives more specificity, and helps
to create a precise visual image. How much of the emphasis is on details
and how much is on generalities will vary from writer to writer.
Closely connected to this is negotiating the relationship between part
and whole. In my text, the sentence ‘She is becoming thinner by the day’
refers to the whole person, but the reference to veins in the arm, and
hollow cheeks, focuses us on parts of the body. If you were describing
someone washing up, you might move between focusing on their hands
and their whole body. Mediating between a sense of the whole, and
individual parts, implying what the whole is like from the parts, and how
the parts fit together to make the whole, is central to any kind of realist
representation. In the Angela Carter example, the focus in the first
sentence shifts from the whole person to the hands:
Example 2.8
She pulled open drawers and cupboards and tipped out the contents
in heaps, attacking them with her strong hands.Genre as a moveable feast 33