small, petulant mouth, and thin hair clinging to a bald forehead. His posture had a limp, decentralized sloppiness, as if in defiance of his tall, slender body, a body with an elegance of line intended for the confident poise of an aristocrat, but transformed into the gawkiness of a lout. The flesh of his face was pale and soft. His eyes were pale and veiled, with a glance that moved slowly, never quite stopping, gliding off and past things in eternal resentment of their existence. He looked obstinate and drained. He was thirty-nine years old.”
I have warned the reader that Eddie Willers is inclined to rely on strength long after it is gone, and that he thinks of the Taggart building as a powerful oak. Then I tell the reader about the gray dust at the heart of this oak.
Because of the buildup, the reader is willing to read the description without impatience. Also, when he meets the president of a big railroad and sees a neurotic nonentity, this has some significance. If the president were a conventional man, one could not pause on a long description. But when an obviously vicious man is in charge of an organization that has just been built up as very impressive, a lengthy description is warranted.
My longest description of a character in any of my novels is that of John Gait at the beginning of Part III of Atlas Shrugged. Having spent two parts of the book hearing about this man—and having just seen the heroine crash in an airplane, pursuing him—the reader is willing to read in detail what he looks like (provided the description makes it worthwhile).
When I introduce minor characters, I usually give them a single line naming something that is characteristic of the type, like “a woman who had large diamond earrings” or “a portly man who wore a green muffler.” By implying that one brief characteristic is all that is noteworthy about the person, I establish his unimportance. These lesser types you must not pause on for long.
I recently reread Ivanhoe, which I had not read since age twelve. It is a marvelous story, but I mention it here because the first thirteen pages of my edition are devoted to a description of four characters, only one of whom is a principal—and it is not even a description of their faces or personalities, but of their clothes, the harnesses of their horses, and the weapons of their retinues. To include thirteen pages of such descriptions, without any action having yet started and without the reader having been given any reason to be interested in the characters, is very unbalanced.
Never pause on descriptions, whether of characters or locales or anything else, unless you have given the reader reason to be interested.
Dialogue
Even when you select dialogue you think is in style with the class, education, and character of a certain person, your own style plays an enormous role.
Sinclair Lewis thinks that a small-town man would say “Mornin’! Nice day!” [see p. 140]. This is Lewis stylizing dialogue in the bad folks-next-door way. If I were to project a small-town man, I would have him say “Good morning” (or perhaps even “Hey, you” if it fitted the particular character and relationship).
You do not make an illiterate ruffian talk in abstract, academic terms. But whether you select the kind of vulgar sentences which represent the essential style of his character, or the narrow, local colloquialisms of his day, depends on your own style. (If you compare the illiterate talk of villains or ruffians in a Romantic and a Naturalistic novel, you will see the difference.)
Even in dialogue, your own style rules your selection. Do not give yourself a blank check of this kind: “I’ll merely reproduce what I think a character like so-and-so would say.” You have to reproduce it in the way your literary premises dictate. Do not attempt to be a Romantic writer, then give your characters Naturalistic dialogue—and, if criticized, say: “Oh, but I heard them talk at Klein’s [department store] just like that.” You have to reproduce the way women talk at Klein’s according to your own style.
I do not mean that you should make all your characters talk in the same way, or talk like yourself. You have to make them talk differently according to their particular characterizations. But the overall style and selectivity of the dialogue must be yours.
Slang
If you are writing in the first person and the narrator is supposed to talk colloquially, it is