Stephen Crane’s novel, The Red Badge of Courage, is a master example of an author choosing to simplify his sentences while maintaining an impressionistic style filled with clear images. The blend of the two craft elements, simplification used to express vividness, are what makes The Red Badge of Courage an American classic.
According to William Zinsser, “Clutter is the disease of American writing;” and he continues by adding: “The secret to good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components” (6). But writing that is completely bare will become over-simplified and lose its magic.
Stephen Crane’s novel, The Red Badge of Courage, is a master example of an author choosing to simplify his sentences while maintaining an impressionistic style filled with clear images. The blend of the two craft elements, simplification used to express vividness, are what makes The Red Badge of Courage an American classic.
The simplicity and terseness in Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage is one illustration of how the novel transformed from the flowery and poetic language of the Romantics to a modern straightforward approach.
Douglas Bauer, in The Stuff of Fiction, has a reason for this transformation of sentences:
Because the ambitions of the sentence are different from those of the line, prose should not convey poetry’s more endemic intensity. If it did, the result would be unreadable—turgid and impenetrable. It would prohibit the reader’s engagement with the narrative rather than inviting his or her immersion in it (32).
Crane must have been fundamentally aware of how certain sentences open the world of the story to the reader through simplification. By doing so, the reader is drawn into the story of a young soldier named Henry Fleming fighting for the North in the American Civil War. In one sentence, Crane writes, “One night, as he lay in bed, the winds had carried to him the clangoring of the church bell as some enthusiast jerked the rope frantically to tell the twisted news of a great battle” (7).
Most of the hard nouns in this sentence (bed, winds, church bell, enthusiast, rope) have been stripped of any adjective. Three necessary adjectives (one, twisted, great) are important to locate the reader in time (one night) and to convey the soldier’s dire situation (twisted news of a great battle).
Crane continues using hard nouns throughout the novel. After the first battle, Henry finds an old friend has changed in demeanor: “Apparently, the other had now climbed a peak of wisdom from which he could perceive himself as a very wee thing. And the youth saw that ever after it would be easier to live in his friend’s neighborhood” (114). Again, Crane exemplifies how allowing his nouns (the other, a peak of wisdom, the youth, friend’s neighborhood) to speak for themselves.
A writer could have easily thrown in elaborate adjectives, such as ‘the forlorn other climbed a vast peak of enchanted wisdom… And the inexperienced youth saw that ever after the great war it would be easier to live in his wise friend’s homely neighborhood’. Obviously, the latter sentence is a sentence from a novice writer trying too damn hard. Let the words speak for themselves, as the former sentence does, and the reader, as well as the writer, will be rewarded. The first sentence, a mark of a true writer, draws the reader into the narrative dream.
The second sentence, a mark of an untrained writer, causes the reader to stop reading and to start thinking about these word choices. Crane, however, valued terseness in this novel, and the simplified sentences allow readers to lose themselves in the story for hours. To simplify is the key.
As much as Crane enjoyed taking out adjectives to create simplification in his sentences, he must have enjoyed putting them back in. Crane, however, knew when and where which adjectives had to be placed. By doing so, the sentences are not over-simplified, raw and lacking of sentiment, but contain vivid images that lend themselves to the creation of a smooth narrative dream.
Anne Bernays in her essay “Pupils Glimpse an Idea, Teacher Gets a Gold Star,” named Vladimir Nabokov as one writer who knew when to take out or put in adjectives, citing an example from his work:
‘On her brown shoulder, a raised purple-pink swelling (the work of some gnat) which I eased of it beautiful transparent poison between my long thumbnails and then sucked till I was gorged on her spicy blood.’ You can’t teach that kind of sureness (26-27).
Stephen Crane, American Novelist (1871-1900)
Whether or not this kind of “sureness” can be taught is debatable. Any writer, however, must consciously make these kinds of decisions throughout the writing process. Crane, like Nabokov, knew when to put adjectives in and when to leave them out. Describing a moment during the battle, Crane writes:
The forest still bore its burden of clamor. From off under the trees came the rolling clatter of the musketry. Each distant thicket seemed a strange porcupine with quills of flame. A cloud of dark smoke, as from smoldering ruins, went up toward the sun now bright and gay in the blue-enameled sky (136).
And later in the story:
Over the field went the scurrying mass. It was a handful of men splattered into the faces of the enemy. Toward it instantly sprang the yellow tongues. A vast quantity of blue smoke hung before them. A mighty banging made ears valueless (149).
To strip these sentences bare would be to deprive them of their magic, of the narrative dream’s color, necessary at times to convey a precise image. Great writers, like Crane and Nabokov, knew when to keep nouns naked and when to clothe them in a specific fashion.
Ergo, a writer, any writer, must learn the importance of a clean, sharp sentence. Now whether that sentence contains adjectives or not is suspect to the context and to the image trying to be conveyed through the narrative dream. Anne Bernays adds to this point: “I can’t remember how many times I advised students to stop writing the sunny hours and write from where it hurts” (26).
Sunny days and sentences are filled with overly descriptive adjectives that suspend the narrative dream; whereas, writing from the places that hurt, writing sentences that hurt, are often simple, direct, and to the point. Tears need nothing more than to cry.
Bibliography:
Bauer, Douglas. The Stuff of Fiction: Advice on Craft. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2006. Print.
Bernays, Anne. “Pupils Glimpse an Idea, Teacher Gets a Gold Star.” Writers on Writing: Collected Essays from The New York Times. New York: Times Books, 2001. 23-27. Print.
Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage (1895). New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2009. Print.
Zinsser, William. On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction (1976). New York: Collins, 2006. Print.
He has a B.A. in English, an M.Ed. in Higher Education Leadership (honors), an M.A. in Literature (honors), and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing & Fiction. He was born in Texas in 1979.
“There is no better way for readers interested in Germany’s history and the dilemma and cultures of the two Berlins to absorb this information than in a novel such as this, which captures the microcosm of two individuals’ love, relationship, and options and expands them against the blossoming dilemmas of a nation divided.”
~ D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review
“A Time to Forget in East Berlin is a dream-like interlude of love and passion in the paranoid and violent life of a Cold War spy. The meticulous research is evident on every page, and Fewston’s elegant prose, reminiscent of novels from a bygone era, enhances the sensation that this is a book firmly rooted in another time.”
“Fewston avoids familiar plot elements of espionage fiction, and he is excellent when it comes to emotional precision and form while crafting his varied cast of characters.”
“There’s a lot to absorb in this book of hefty psychological and philosophical observations and insights, but the reader who stays committed will be greatly rewarded.”
“Readers of TheCatcher in the Rye and similar stories will relish the astute, critical inspection of life that makes Little Hometown, America a compelling snapshot of contemporary American life and culture.”
“Fewston employs a literary device called a ‘frame narrative’ which may be less familiar to some, but allows for a picture-in-picture result (to use a photographic term). Snapshots of stories appear as parts of other stories, with the introductory story serving as a backdrop for a series of shorter stories that lead readers into each, dovetailing and connecting in intricate ways.”
“The American novelist CG FEWSTON tells a satisfying tale, bolstered by psychology and far-ranging philosophy, calling upon Joseph Campbell, J. D. Salinger, the King James Bible, and Othello.”
“In this way, the author lends intellectual heft to a family story, exploring the ‘purity’ of art, the ‘corrupting’ influences of publishing, the solitary artist, and the messy interconnectedness of human relationships.”
“Fewston’s lyrical, nostalgia-steeped story is told from the perspective of a 40-year-old man gazing back on events from his 1980s Texas childhood…. the narrator movingly conveys and interprets the greater meanings behind childhood memories.”
“The novel’s focus on formative childhood moments is familiar… the narrator’s lived experiences come across as wholly personal, deeply felt, and visceral.”
This is my good friend, Nicolasa (Nico) Murillo, CRC, who is a professional chef & a wellness mentor. I’ve known her since childhood & I’m honored to share her story with you. In life, we all have ups & downs, some far more extreme than others. Much like in Canada, in America, the legalization of marijuana has become a national movement, which includes safe & legal access to cannabis (marijuana) for therapeutic use & research for all.
“This is a wellness movement,” Nico explains. The wellness movement is focused on three specific areas: information, encouragement, & accountability.
In these stressful & unprecedented times, it makes good sense to promote & encourage the state or condition of being in good physical & mental health.
TEXANS FOR SAFE ACCESS ~ share the mission of their national organization, Americans for Safe Access (ASA), which is to ensure safe and legal access to cannabis (marijuana) for therapeutic use and research, for all Texans.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
According to William Zinsser, “Clutter is the disease of American writing;” and he continues by adding: “The secret to good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components” (6). But writing that is completely bare will become over-simplified and lose its magic.
Stephen Crane’s novel, The Red Badge of Courage, is a master example of an author choosing to simplify his sentences while maintaining an impressionistic style filled with clear images. The blend of the two craft elements, simplification used to express vividness, are what makes The Red Badge of Courage an American classic.
The simplicity and terseness in Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage is one illustration of how the novel transformed from the flowery and poetic language of the Romantics to a modern straightforward approach.
Douglas Bauer, in The Stuff of Fiction, has a reason for this transformation of sentences:
Because the ambitions of the sentence are different from those of the line, prose should not convey poetry’s more endemic intensity. If it did, the result would be unreadable—turgid and impenetrable. It would prohibit the reader’s engagement with the narrative rather than inviting his or her immersion in it (32).
Crane must have been fundamentally aware of how certain sentences open the world of the story to the reader through simplification. By doing so, the reader is drawn into the story of a young soldier named Henry Fleming fighting for the North in the American Civil War. In one sentence, Crane writes, “One night, as he lay in bed, the winds had carried to him the clangoring of the church bell as some enthusiast jerked the rope frantically to tell the twisted news of a great battle” (7).
Most of the hard nouns in this sentence (bed, winds, church bell, enthusiast, rope) have been stripped of any adjective. Three necessary adjectives (one, twisted, great) are important to locate the reader in time (one night) and to convey the soldier’s dire situation (twisted news of a great battle).
Crane continues using hard nouns throughout the novel. After the first battle, Henry finds an old friend has changed in demeanor: “Apparently, the other had now climbed a peak of wisdom from which he could perceive himself as a very wee thing. And the youth saw that ever after it would be easier to live in his friend’s neighborhood” (114). Again, Crane exemplifies how allowing his nouns (the other, a peak of wisdom, the youth, friend’s neighborhood) to speak for themselves.
A writer could have easily thrown in elaborate adjectives, such as ‘the forlorn other climbed a vast peak of enchanted wisdom… And the inexperienced youth saw that ever after the great war it would be easier to live in his wise friend’s homely neighborhood’. Obviously, the latter sentence is a sentence from a novice writer trying too damn hard. Let the words speak for themselves, as the former sentence does, and the reader, as well as the writer, will be rewarded. The first sentence, a mark of a true writer, draws the reader into the narrative dream.
The second sentence, a mark of an untrained writer, causes the reader to stop reading and to start thinking about these word choices. Crane, however, valued terseness in this novel, and the simplified sentences allow readers to lose themselves in the story for hours. To simplify is the key.
As much as Crane enjoyed taking out adjectives to create simplification in his sentences, he must have enjoyed putting them back in. Crane, however, knew when and where which adjectives had to be placed. By doing so, the sentences are not over-simplified, raw and lacking of sentiment, but contain vivid images that lend themselves to the creation of a smooth narrative dream.
Anne Bernays in her essay “Pupils Glimpse an Idea, Teacher Gets a Gold Star,” named Vladimir Nabokov as one writer who knew when to take out or put in adjectives, citing an example from his work:
‘On her brown shoulder, a raised purple-pink swelling (the work of some gnat) which I eased of it beautiful transparent poison between my long thumbnails and then sucked till I was gorged on her spicy blood.’ You can’t teach that kind of sureness (26-27).
Whether or not this kind of “sureness” can be taught is debatable. Any writer, however, must consciously make these kinds of decisions throughout the writing process. Crane, like Nabokov, knew when to put adjectives in and when to leave them out. Describing a moment during the battle, Crane writes:
The forest still bore its burden of clamor. From off under the trees came the rolling clatter of the musketry. Each distant thicket seemed a strange porcupine with quills of flame. A cloud of dark smoke, as from smoldering ruins, went up toward the sun now bright and gay in the blue-enameled sky (136).
And later in the story:
Over the field went the scurrying mass. It was a handful of men splattered into the faces of the enemy. Toward it instantly sprang the yellow tongues. A vast quantity of blue smoke hung before them. A mighty banging made ears valueless (149).
To strip these sentences bare would be to deprive them of their magic, of the narrative dream’s color, necessary at times to convey a precise image. Great writers, like Crane and Nabokov, knew when to keep nouns naked and when to clothe them in a specific fashion.
Ergo, a writer, any writer, must learn the importance of a clean, sharp sentence. Now whether that sentence contains adjectives or not is suspect to the context and to the image trying to be conveyed through the narrative dream. Anne Bernays adds to this point: “I can’t remember how many times I advised students to stop writing the sunny hours and write from where it hurts” (26).
Sunny days and sentences are filled with overly descriptive adjectives that suspend the narrative dream; whereas, writing from the places that hurt, writing sentences that hurt, are often simple, direct, and to the point. Tears need nothing more than to cry.
Bibliography:
Bauer, Douglas. The Stuff of Fiction: Advice on Craft. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2006. Print.
Bernays, Anne. “Pupils Glimpse an Idea, Teacher Gets a Gold Star.” Writers on Writing: Collected Essays from The New York Times. New York: Times Books, 2001. 23-27. Print.
Crane, Stephen. The Red Badge of Courage (1895). New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2009. Print.
Zinsser, William. On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction (1976). New York: Collins, 2006. Print.
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CG FEWSTON
The American novelist CG FEWSTON has been a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy in Rome (Italy), a Visiting Fellow at Hong Kong’s CityU, & he’s a been member of the Hemingway Society, Americans for the Arts, PEN America, Club Med, & the Royal Society of Literature. He’s also a been Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) based in London.
He’s the author of several short stories and novels. His works include A Father’s Son (2005), The New America: A Collection (2007), The Mystic’s Smile ~ A Play in 3 Acts (2007), Vanity of Vanities (2011), A Time to Love in Tehran (2015), Little Hometown, America (2020); A Time to Forget in East Berlin (2022), and Conquergood & the Center of the Intelligible Mystery of Being (2023).
He has a B.A. in English, an M.Ed. in Higher Education Leadership (honors), an M.A. in Literature (honors), and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing & Fiction. He was born in Texas in 1979.
A TIME TO FORGET IN EAST BERLIN
BREW Book Excellence Award Winner
BREW Readers’ Choice Award Winner
“A spellbinding tale of love and espionage set under the looming shadow of the Berlin Wall in 1975… A mesmerising read full of charged eroticism.”
~ Ian Skewis, Associate Editor for Bloodhound Books, & author of best-selling novel A Murder of Crows (2017)
“An engrossing story of clandestine espionage… a testament to the lifestyle encountered in East Berlin at the height of the Cold War.”
~ Lone Star Literary Life Magazine
“There is no better way for readers interested in Germany’s history and the dilemma and cultures of the two Berlins to absorb this information than in a novel such as this, which captures the microcosm of two individuals’ love, relationship, and options and expands them against the blossoming dilemmas of a nation divided.”
~ D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review
“A Time to Forget in East Berlin is a dream-like interlude of love and passion in the paranoid and violent life of a Cold War spy. The meticulous research is evident on every page, and Fewston’s elegant prose, reminiscent of novels from a bygone era, enhances the sensation that this is a book firmly rooted in another time.”
~ Matthew Harffy, prolific writer & best-selling historical fiction author of the “Bernicia Chronicles” series
“Vivid, nuanced, and poetic…”
“Fewston avoids familiar plot elements of espionage fiction, and he is excellent when it comes to emotional precision and form while crafting his varied cast of characters.”
“There’s a lot to absorb in this book of hefty psychological and philosophical observations and insights, but the reader who stays committed will be greatly rewarded.”
~ The Prairies Book Review
LITTLE HOMETOWN, AMERICA
“Readers of The Catcher in the Rye and similar stories will relish the astute, critical inspection of life that makes Little Hometown, America a compelling snapshot of contemporary American life and culture.”
“Fewston employs a literary device called a ‘frame narrative’ which may be less familiar to some, but allows for a picture-in-picture result (to use a photographic term). Snapshots of stories appear as parts of other stories, with the introductory story serving as a backdrop for a series of shorter stories that lead readers into each, dovetailing and connecting in intricate ways.”
~ D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review
“The American novelist CG FEWSTON tells a satisfying tale, bolstered by psychology and far-ranging philosophy, calling upon Joseph Campbell, J. D. Salinger, the King James Bible, and Othello.”
“In this way, the author lends intellectual heft to a family story, exploring the ‘purity’ of art, the ‘corrupting’ influences of publishing, the solitary artist, and the messy interconnectedness of human relationships.”
~ Lone Star Literary Life Magazine
GOLD Winner in the 2020 Human Relations Indie Book Awards for Contemporary Realistic Fiction
FINALIST in the SOUTHWEST REGIONAL FICTION category of the 14th Annual National Indie Excellence 2020 Awards (NIEA)
“Fewston’s lyrical, nostalgia-steeped story is told from the perspective of a 40-year-old man gazing back on events from his 1980s Texas childhood…. the narrator movingly conveys and interprets the greater meanings behind childhood memories.”
“The novel’s focus on formative childhood moments is familiar… the narrator’s lived experiences come across as wholly personal, deeply felt, and visceral.”
~ The BookLife Prize
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American Novelist CG FEWSTON
This is my good friend, Nicolasa (Nico) Murillo, CRC, who is a professional chef & a wellness mentor. I’ve known her since childhood & I’m honored to share her story with you. In life, we all have ups & downs, some far more extreme than others. Much like in Canada, in America, the legalization of marijuana has become a national movement, which includes safe & legal access to cannabis (marijuana) for therapeutic use & research for all.
“This is a wellness movement,” Nico explains. The wellness movement is focused on three specific areas: information, encouragement, & accountability.
In these stressful & unprecedented times, it makes good sense to promote & encourage the state or condition of being in good physical & mental health.
To learn more you can visit: Americans For Safe Access & Texans for Safe Access, ASA (if you are in Texas).
The mission of Americans for Safe Access (ASA) is to ensure safe and legal access to cannabis (marijuana) for therapeutic use and research.
Link: https://www.safeaccessnow.org/
TEXANS FOR SAFE ACCESS ~ share the mission of their national organization, Americans for Safe Access (ASA), which is to ensure safe and legal access to cannabis (marijuana) for therapeutic use and research, for all Texans.
Link: https://txsafeaccess.org/about-1
Stay safe & stay happy. God bless.
Nico Murillo Bio ~ Americans & Texans for Safe Access ~ Medical Cannabis
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