One of the things I often hear about my fiction is that it’s “visual”. It doesn’t surprise me, since I’ve watched more films than read books, but this “visual effect” isn’t something I’ve intentionally strived for. That said, once I realised that there was some truth behind these observations I began actively considering the visual elements in my writing, to end up embracing them as crucial to my own voice.
In this series I’ll analyse five elements that I believe contribute to a visual effect in fiction:
The use the present tense in narration;
A fast pace;
The use of dialogues for character and plot-building;
A narrator who behaves like a camera; and,
The use of props.
This list, like all lists, is non-exhaustive.
Narration and the present
Already in 2021 I wrote briefly about this topic, encouraged by something British author Philip Pullman said on Twitter:
I have never read Pullman, and his online verborrea — like that of many contemporary writers — has put me off reading him in the future. In the interest of fairness: I understand he’s highly rated, not that I need to have an opinion about him as a writer to come to the conclusion that embracing such a black and white ideas regarding the use of tense in narration can only impoverish someone’s literary output1.