Just Words.
July 11th, 2024
I am not the type of person who can just hear words and understand them. I need those words to be paired with an emotion of some sort for me to be able to process and contextualize and understand them. I feel very deeply and cannot understand another person unless I can feel what they feel. But, where that leaves me is that, sometimes, I cannot understand what other people are saying to me if they do not feel as deeply as I do (most of the general population). Better phrased: Sometimes, I cannot understand what words mean if they are not paired with an emotion I can pick up and assimilate to myself. They become white noise to me. In order to believe something, I have to be able to recognize and envelope the emotion behind it. It genuinely does not register with me otherwise.
I am simply laying the groundwork for the piece I am about to write: That I am a deeply emotional person. This makes what I am about to say all the more compelling and multidimensional. In literal human communication, I am not someone who understands just words.
I think the telltale sign of a good author is someone who can use just words. Sometimes books over-describe the surrounding details of a conversation to the point where it feels unnatural. Intentional. No conversation is intentional. There are hundreds of thousands of things that we cannot control that eviscerate intentionality, no matter how forcibly intentional we try to be. The way we blink. The way our face flushes. The way our weight shifts. The way our hair stands up. The eye contact we make and the eye contact we break. The way our sweat smells and the way our ears perk and the way our lips part and the way our palms move and the way we exist as a whole.
The sad reality of a book and even of a movie or TV show is that we are not physically in the scene and therefore we cannot pick up on such subtle changes and movements and telltale signs of emotion. I honestly do not like to read about someone getting angry and seeing: “Her brow furrowed and the lines around her mouth hardened as blood colored her face a bright red hue.” Far too descriptive.
You might be saying: But how is an author supposed to illustrate all the unspoken signs of anger if they do not describe it to the reader? How are they to illustrate any emotion if they cannot describe it to the reader? There is an answer so simple that it becomes difficult for most: Create a world so engrossing that you do not need such descriptors to see emotion. Create characters so real and human and empathetic (not sympathetic) and complex that you don’t need them. Characters so penetrable that dialogue is enough. That you can envision how their hands are shaking and their lips are downturning and their teeth are gritting without being explicitly being told that they are. As someone who struggles to understand dialogue without emotion, my metric of art is whether it can make me understand without blatantly telling me.
Take this excerpt from Sally Rooney’s Normal People, from when Connell and Marianne are at a cafe discussing their relationships with others, for example:
What about you, are you seeing anyone? she says. Not really. Nothing serious. Embracing the single lifestyle. You know me, he says. I did once. He frowns. That’s a bit philosophical, he says. I haven’t changed much in the last few months. Neither have I. Actually, yeah. I haven’t changed at all.
The only descriptor in the entire excerpt is that Connell frowns. “Frowns.” This is such rudimentary language, is it not? “Frown.” That is all we are told. He frowns. Frown equals sad. But we know that Connell more than frowns. We know that Connell feels betrayed. Or Connell feels depressed. Or Connell feels disconnected. Or Connell feels confused. Or Connell feels feelings. Or Connell feels all these things at once and so much more. But there is no need to say that. Sally Rooney has created such a world and such a relationship and such a character and such a scene for the reader to innately realize that Connell’s frown is not just because Connell is sad.
We, as a human race, do not actively think about as much as we think we do. Many pieces of information are visually and consciously lost on us, but that does not mean that they cease to exist in our minds. Our subconscious is more intelligent and emotional than we may think. We pick up on more than we know and use more than we actively consider when assessing a situation or reacting in a conversation or interpreting what seem to be just words but are so much more. The air of an exceptional writer is to have your readers think these subconscious thoughts and feel these subconscious feelings and process these subconscious processes without having to exhaustively write them. The exposure of who is truly a genius compared to who is simply a good descriptive writer lies in being able to use just words.
I feel that it might be counterintuitive to describe all the small things that Connell does in this conversation with Marianne, as such writing is what I am actively arguing against and calling primitive, unnatural, and boorish. But because I have read the book and some of you maybe have not I feel I should just say this: I know that in that moment Connell did not just frown. In that moment, Connell’s chin tucked and he looked down at his hands, of which were fidgeting with his stubby bitten-off nails in his lap. Connell’s hair, shaggy and unbrushed, lapped his forehead while his head vibrated then shook right-to-left and back again once more. Connell’s eyes twitched ever-so-slightly as if Marianne’s words were a rubber band snapping upon his skin yet he did not want to offend her with his recoil. Connell’s foot tapped the pavement ever-so-much more quickly out of nervousness and fear that Marianne was right: He used to know her and he did not anymore. Connell’s appetite was lost and the thought of his pastry was now unappealing and quite frankly sickening. Connell could smell something sour in the air that he had not noticed was there before because breaking his gaze from Marianne for that split second snapped him back to reality and in reality there was something sour. Maybe his coffee? Maybe his sweat? Maybe the cherrying of his and Marriane’s cigarettes? Connell’s face paled as his blood drained from his sunken cheeks and his heart constricted as if each beat was becoming simultaneously more violent and more docile. Connell turned to look to the side (completely profile to Marianne), let out a quick breath through his nose, squinted his eyes, said, “That’s a bit philosophical,” before turning back to look at Marianne in all her goodness and misfortune and depravity and intoxication and black smudgy eyeliner all around her eyes and black fur coat and black turtleneck and black bangs against her white faded skin, to say, “I haven’t changed much in the past few months.” After which he looked down at his hands fidgeting in his lap, again.
The words, “That’s a bit philosophical,” are not those of exclusive sadness and the words, “I haven’t changed much in the past few months,” are not those lacking complete optimism and hope. Therefore, there is no need for anything more than, “He frowns.” That is enough.
Postscript: By the way, “just words” does not apply to real people in real life in real conversations. Saying just words in real life is as utterly meaningless as if they were never spoken at all.
Maybe they do have meaning. None that I can pick up on, though.