Rules made to be broken, #712

[ksmith]

docbrite discusses the dreaded mirror ploy in this post.

By this point, I think most aspiring writers have probably been advised not to describe a character by the hackneyed technique of having him or her look in a mirror.

FWIW, I've used the dreaded mirror technique. In LAW (although by the time that scene rolls around, you already know what Jani looks like), and in INCIDENT. Frankly, if your character is alone in the scene and you want to get their description out there asap so the reader gets an idea of who they're reading about, it's as good a ploy as any.

We'll save the argument as to whether the reader actually needs any description at all for another time, OK. For the record, I am pro-description.

docbrite is not the only writer I know who has condemned the mirror technique, btw. CJ Cherryh has, as well.

Further on down the post:

Here's a new take on that: describing one by having her not notice herself in a mirror, so presumably we're getting the reflective surface's point of view:

(Me--During this non-reflective description, we read the following: )

"She was five seven, with a beguiling heart-shaped face and blond curly hair that flowed past her shoulders. Her trademark black turtleneck and jeans were nicely taut over the curves of her otherwise lean, athletic body. She wore no makeup, but the impetuous sparkle of her blue eyes attracted more men than would the application of any product from Bloomingdale's cosmetic counter."

And that's where I think the problem is. I am not pro-- this sort of description. The tone is off-putting. The style. The individual who would describe herself like this might make for an interesting study in narcissism, but I doubt that's the point of this particular scene. Many women who are fucking gorgeous don't see themselves that way. Some do, and that's a character tic that can be exploited. But in this case, it seems as though this is the protag, and her personality disorder is not a plot point. She's playing this straight, and damn, she looks good. No hint of "if I don't quit with the chocolate cake, I'll need a winch to pull up these jeans...five more pounds to go...damn it, where did that stain come from...meeting with the boss at 3--I shouldn't have worn jeans." None of the underlayers that often come to the surface when a person looks in the mirror. Nothing but flat, self-congratulatory checklisting that brings out the urge to bitchslap.

I'm a proponent of the non-description description. I try to use them sparingly, but I use them. It's like a Philips head screwdriver. Not the only tool in the kit, and not one for every job. But when you need it, you need it.

My Mirror Scene, from INCIDENT. Not patting myself on the back here, but note the difference:

Jani walked to the nearest sink and activated the tap. Savored the spill of warm water over her hands. Activated the soap, lathered, and rinsed. Counted to three, then looked in the mirror.

Her eyes stared back. Green nearly as dark as Delmen's brown, green unto black, the color of the bottom of a well.

She bent closer and examined the shiny white sclera. Still white. No gaps. No splits. Not much of anything, really. No blood vessels. No shadows. Fake white, to match the fake green. Eyes from a bottle. She reached into her pocket, held her breath as she felt for the vial of filmformer, exhaled slowly as her hand closed over it. Her shield. Her security. The one thing that allowed her to maintain a pretense of humanity.

Jani films her eyes. Every so often, she needs to check them. She does so by looking in a mirror. She confirms her normalcy and moves on. She does not describe her height to the fraction of a centimeter, or the taut fit of her clothes. No impetuous sparkle here. Instead, we get what's running through her mind. Her fears. Her reality.

So, I think The Mirror Scene, if used sparingly, has a place. It gives you a chance to get into the character's head and convey a lot about their backstory in a comparatively short time. I will use it in the future. I will do so sparingly, but I will do so if it kicks the story forward. If someone calls me on it, I'll shrug.

Comments

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, I realize I sound argumentative, which is silly, as we're in agreement on the basic principle of the thing, which is that having a character look in a mirror isn't intrinsically wrong, and we also agree on what sort of thing makes it work.

It's my reflex after spending so many years shepherding newbies over on the OWW discussion list, to not ever want to see the world "rule" applied to anything in writing. There's something about the word that brings a huge pile of associations and makes people get crazy: either they start spouting it like it's an unbreakable commandment, or they take it as some sort of "you can't tell me what to do!" challenge, and neither of those reactions is productive. Neither of those reactions leads to someone understanding what's happening at the bottom of the causal stack.

Writing "rules" are kind of like eccentricities in an orbit: they're an indication that something else is in the area. But that alone isn't enough, and too few writers replace one "rule" with two more: "This is the right way to do it, and this is the wrong way." That's just more rules-memorization, and no understanding of the mental constructs behind it.

Behind what are so glibly called rules are mental constructs more like natural laws, inherent in the way we process language (specifically English; I suspect the same holds in other languages, but I don't speak any of them well enough to know). A string of sentences too alike in rhythm will bore the reader. Readers are generally bored by long lists of anything. Too many abstract nouns and verbs are dull. Etc.

And like natural laws, they combine. The law of gravity is one such, but in an atmosphere the laws of inertia provide wind resistance, and a falling body has a terminal velocity. The terminal velocity can vary as the falling body changes position relative to the direction of the fall--or if they suddenly acquire a lot of surface area by opening a parachute.

And that's why I don't like the term "rules," because people don't look beyond them. "Don't have your character look in a mirror and describe themself" is a rule like "don't jump out of a moving airplane" is a rule. Yes, you do it the wrong way and you'll go splat. But don't think about "jumping out of an airplane"; think about the laws of physics and you can safely jump out of all the airplanes you want. People do it all the time.

Now obviously not everyone (hell, practically no one) is going to think about their writing at this level while they're doing it (or, indeed, ever). And lack of thinking about it was what leads to crap such as that example with the blonde not-looking in the shiny surface. That the author is multi-published in hardcover is meaningless: she may not have written her first couple of books so poorly; she may have hit the right editor's desk during a serious dearth of thriller offerings; she may do other things in the book so well many readers overlook this sort of paragraph.