Can unstated events be assumed?

[Rainbow Skin]

I've got a little annoying doubt in the story I've just posted (so this is rhetorical now). Here's the paragraph:

She gulped and nodded, and her hands shook slightly as she fetched the milk, put it back, and took their mugs into the bedroom. She had a sip then arranged herself face to the pillow, buttocks up towards him and thighs spread. 'No straying,' she warned.

Now the making of the cup of tea isn't important, it's just en passant, and in particular I don't feel I need to mention every action. But I stare at my paragraph and the annoying thing is it looks to me like she took the milk out of the fridge then put it back without pouring any in the tea.

But this seems silly: surely I don't have to spell this out? The implication is obvious and can be taken for granted, can't it? Because that's the default thing you do with milk you've just taken out of the fridge. I'd have to explicitly mention if she didn't so use it.

Yrs faithfully,
Perplexed of Literotica

 

[Guest]

clueless

rainbow-

perhaps that was all set up contextually, but i was clueless as to what was really happening in that paragraph. i thought the milk was in the mug solo... which was odd. milk in a mug?

re-reading with the idea of tea made me think she was so flustered that she took out the milk and then realized she didn't want any.

perhaps, though she just grew up and realized that the only way to take tea is sans milk and sugar.

b

 

[Rainbow Skin]

Good point. The context has already made the tea clear: question 'Would you like a cup of tea?', then filling the kettle, lighting the gas, and putting tea-bags in have all been mentioned amid the conversation and wandering around naked.

So it's clear when we get to this that it's the mugs of tea. But my problem remains: despite all that, it seems odd, yet it seems equally odd to have to mention every bit of the peripheral action. After all, I don't have to say where she got the tea-bags. They just sort of appear to hand like the dynamite in cartoons, but no-one's going to be pulled up short and think, 'Hang on, that's odd, she didn't open the cupboard.'

 

[MathGirl]

she fetched the milk, put it back

Of course I immediately assumed she suffered from an obsessive-compulsive disorder and should seek psychiatric treatment.

This would have led the character to an unlicensed chiropractor who drugged her. When she woke up in the hold of a slave ship headed for Borneo, the story would have taken a rather abrupt turn.

I hope this is helpful. I do so try to be.
MG

 

[openthighs_sarah]

She gulped and nodded, and her hands shook slightly as she fetched the milk, put it back, and took their mugs into the bedroom. She had a sip then arranged herself face to the pillow, buttocks up towards him and thighs spread. 'No straying,' she warned.

Rainbow skin,

Maybe the problem is not that you said too little, but that you said too much. Every time you specify a detail at a particular level, the story kind of demands that other details at that level should also be specified. It's an unconscious thing for most readers (definitely for me), but maybe that's why it's bothering you: you give a fairly detailed account of her actions, but it's incomplete.

Rewording it slightly, you might end up with this:

She gulped and nodded. Her hand shook slightly as she returned the milk to the refrigerator, and both hands were shaking as she carried their mugs to the bedroom.

Now there's still implied action, but the focus is on her hand shaking -- the other details are incidental, so there's no problem with balance.


p.s. - Your writing is spectacular. I sent you feedback just a few minutes ago. This is a shameless plug, but since it's for you instead of me, that seems acceptable.

 

[oggbashan]

No.

It is an easy trap to fall into.

Once you start with details about the characters' actions, the actions can become more important than the plot or the interaction of the characters.

Is the detail necessary? Does it help the story or the characterisation? If not - leave it out.

E.G.

Version 1 "The doorbell rang. He got up from his chair, walked into the hall, opened the door, and there she was. He stood aside to let her enter, closed the door behind her, turned to face her and motioned for her to precede him into the living room. He followed her from the hall to the living room ..."

Version 2 " The doorbell rang. He let her in and they went into the living room."

The second version is enough. Neither actually does much for the story so why not get it over with quickly?

Og

 

[Rainbow Skin]

openthighs_sarah, you have the perfect answer: name the same action but leave out another part as well. It's exactly the same level of detail I want, and the implication is much clearer.

No wonder you're about the best writer on Literotica. Thank you.

Oggbashan, the problem arose not from putting in detail but from leaving it out. Some extraneous detail is necessary to give the scene colour and depth; already the story was too much just a bedroom scene.

One of my greatest inspirations is the films of Kieslowski. He focuses on details that aren't important, and it's not cluttered, it's rich and multifaceted.

 

[jfinn]

One of my greatest inspirations is the films of Kieslowski. He focuses on details that aren't important, and it's not cluttered, it's rich and multifaceted.

In film it's called the off-screen movie and a lot of screenwriters swear it's often the most important part of the story. How I understand it is you set up the basic theme of the movie and then use the momentum of small, seemingly unrelated to the big picture, scenes to unfold the story. There's a wonderful article about this on the Wordplay site. Although it's written about screenplays, it can apply to just about any kind of writing.

Jayne

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I've been thinking of the details I write in terms of camera closeups. Zoom in: lots of detail. Pull back: less detail.

Unless it's important that her hands be shaking only when she's moving the milk to and from the fridge, why don't you pull back a little and tell us that her hands shook as she poured the milk in her tea?

As far as the details of the English Tea Ceremony go, I think most of us in the States have little idea of what goes where. We throw a bag in a cup and get what we deserve.

---dr.M.

 

[Quasimodem]

Re: Re: Can unstated events be assumed?

Rainbow skin,

Every time you specify a detail at a particular level, the story kind of demands that other details at that level should also be specified.

In the cinema, this would be an excellent opportunity to describe the proper and improper use of a 'jump-cut.'

Jumping from the offer of tea, to the actual pouring of that beverage is perfectly acceptable. All the steps in between will be accepted as done, but beneath the reader's notice.

Following the gathering of the accoutrements for the making of that tea, demand that you do not suddenly, or arbitrarily, dispense with them.

With the milk in hand, the only way to return it unused, would be through a piece of dialogue.

"Milk, or lemon?"

"Just tea, no pollutant," he replied.

Now, your character may return the unused milk carton while behaving in a perfectly sensible manner.

Also, there now exists a reason for that flurry of minutia. Not only does the extra detail given reflect upon the character's likes and dislikes, but it also illuminates a bit of his personality.

Even better, you have managed, through use of props, to elicit the betrayal of a character flaw, about this person’s tendency toward pomposity, from his own lips, rather than force the narrator to TELL the reader.


Still, it is never totally safe to assume anything.

Which is exactly what the judge told me, when I had assumed that my secretary entered my office so often because she was trying to attract my advances.

 

[Chicklet]

Re: Re: Can unstated events be assumed?

Rewording it slightly, you might end up with this:

She gulped and nodded. Her hand shook slightly as she returned the milk to the refrigerator, and both hands were shaking as she carried their mugs to the bedroom.

excellent sarah = ) you're brilliant.

 

[SlaveMasterUK]

I actually thought that first paragraph worked very well. I could envisage milk coming out of the fridge, and going back in again, and in some bizzare multi-threaded way I could tell from the mugs and the bedroom that it was tea; my mind filled in the detail of the pouring, which was obviously also done with shaking hands.

I think it worked better than the reworded version; it explained what was going on without drawing focus directly into it, and was a nice was of showing the nervousness in the character.

Indeed, far better than a monologue of physical events:

she opened the cupboard and took out two teabags and then she put them in the mugs (which she had also taken from the other cupboard) and then she poured on the boiling water from the kettle* and she spilled some but she didn't really care because she had far more important things on her mind+ so she walked across to the fridge to fetch the milk after closing both the cupboard doors and she remembered to open the door before removing the milk from the fridge and then she poured it into the mugs not too much just enough to make it taste nice and then she put the mugs on the tray which she had fetched from beside the oven (after returning the milk to the fridge and shutting the door thus maintaining an airtight seal and keeping the tempurature in the fridge within acceptable operating parameters) and then she began to walk back up the stairs her hands were shaking throughout

*which she had filled and turned on earlier and it had boiled

+and she also intended to clean the kitchen later on after the sexual pleasures were dispensed with and she had recovered sufficiently to engage a task of such arduosity

Ax

 

[gauchecritic]

Like Slave I saw everything that was stated in the comma "fetched the milk, put it back" .

The point at which I began to question the sequence was when you brought it up.

It's fine. Like comedy, don't analyze it, it won't be funny.

Gauche

 

[gauchecritic]

I've just remembered a mystery/thriller type thing which gives a really good example of why unspecified events can always be assumed.

A group of people were drugged with gas or killed (can't remember off-hand) and in order that the room be secured for the gas to have effect the perpetrator remarks in conversation "It feels a bit stuffy in here, lets open a window" or somesuch, what he then in fact does is close and lock the window before eventually leaving.

He gave his 'audience' an assumed reason for him to be at the window.

Gauche

 

[Croctden]

Unstated events can be assumed, but people might not assume what you want. I might have concluded she just reconsidered putting milk in.

I generally try not to spell out every little detail. If I control the general flow of the story I think lets readers put their own details in. I prefer reading stories that engage a little of my imagination.