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Lately, I feel a major league boredom. </p>
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<p>Boredom watching just about any movie. Recently I watched <em><strong>Manhattan Nights</strong></em> and fifteen minutes into the movie I felt board. This wasn't because there was something wrong with the plot in terms of its internal contradiction. In fact, the plot was only started to develop. Also, there were nothing wrong with the actors. Adrien Brody was actually the main reason why I started to watch the movie, to begin with. </p>
<p>However, I felt some faultiness about the script. It was the moment in the movie where usual, regular life all of a sudden starts exfoliating from reality and the character finds themselves in troubling, stressful situation. The kinds of a predicament that took them the entire movie to unwind. In another word, the main plot spring, the drama was a foreign agent, prepared by an imagination of a writer, imported into the canvas of reality and glued to it in somewhat a crude fashion.</p>
<p>So, on one hand, I've got very sensitive with a questionable product of imagination while on the other hand, I realize that any fiction story is an abstraction and by nature is a product of imagination. The same happens when I write my own stories. I have that strange feeling of not belonging to the scene. When the character I am describing is supposed to act there are several versions of that action that are available to me and I select one among them approximately rather than precisely. </p>
<p>For example, let's say I am working on the following sentence</p>
<p><strong>"Are you sure? Oh my god! I didn't think it was so bad" Archie sprung up and started pacing the room like a caged tiger.</strong> </p>
<p>Really? Like a caged tiger? Maybe a caged lion or a caged hyena? Maybe Archie wouldn't even have sprung up? Maybe he would just continue sitting in the chair?</p>
<p><strong>"Are you sure? Oh my god! I didn't think it was so bad" Archie bent a little forward. His otherwise small eyes opened wide and the face gained the expression of the most concern.</strong></p>
<p>Yet, perhaps, it wasn't like this at all…</p>
<p><strong>"Are you sure? Oh my god! I didn't think it was so bad" Archie understood that he should have expressed concern and sadness. The situation asked for it. Instead he all of a sudden felt very tired and very sleepy and put his hand to his mouth to cover the yawn.</strong></p>
<p>Or like this…</p>
<p><strong>"Are you sure? Oh my god! I didn't think it was so bad" Archie leaned back, crossed his legs and a nervous grin appeared on his face. "Didn't I tell you so? Didn't I?"</strong></p>
<p>It's like I am an investigator on a murder case. "What would Archie do?"</p>
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<p>This is why I like a natural drama that life is full of, like boxing. On one hand, it is very simple – just two guys kicking the shit out of each other. On the other hand, it's a high drama, a mix of a tactical battle and a ballet, but dangerous and even life threatening. </p>
<p>But how to get an imaginary drama to the level and a precision of reality?</p>
<p>When people discuss something even when it's only two people, they perceive information in parallel: at the same time, they see, hear, smell and even touch and taste. Also, people often talk at the same time. Therefore, writing in prose that is capable only of sequential delivery of information, cannot reflect the real conversation in principle. That's why movies or plays where people speak sequentially, often seems so unnatural. </p>
<p>Therefore, writing can only attempt what in computer language is called an interrupt – or deliver different chunks of information in bursts. The good place to do it during a dialing is the place at the of the end of each quotation, where often a writer writes something like he said, she replied or something like this. </p>
<p>Personally, I don't think this is a good technique because in most cases it is clear from the dialog who is saying what. Instead of saying he or she said a writer should deliver the different pieces of information perceived by different senses like vision, hearing, smell and sometimes touch and even taste.</p>
<p>Let's, for example, consider the following dialog from some story. <a href="https://steemit.com/fiction/@sazbird/arcturus-part-2">https://steemit.com/fiction/@sazbird/arcturus-part-2</a></p>
<p><strong>"Thank god himself Arn because if I thought for a minute you...
I didn't have to shoot him." He snapped. "I beat him down and then I stamped on his neck till he shit himself and died," he spat at the floor. "Dirty alien bastard."</strong></p>
<p>To me as a reader, the phrase "He snapped" doesn't tell much. Sure, if the author says so I believe him. But it doesn't offer a visual image. It is much better below when the author turns on the visual image "he spat on the floor." That image gives a reader a visual image that a person is frustrated and angry. So instead of "he snapped" it is better to place either visual or perhaps an olfactive image. </p>
<p>Since we don't know, in which way the (wife/girlfriend) adjusted the lantern, we don't know for sure whether Arn's face was lit enough to see his expression. However, I am sure the author does. So, assuming his face was lit, we can write something like this…</p>
<p><strong>"Thank god himself Arn because if I thought for a minute you...I didn't have to shoot him." Angry sneer stretched his lips and his nostrils flared.</strong></p>
<p>However, if his face was in the dark we can write something like this…</p>
<p><strong>"Thank god himself Arn because if I thought for a minute you...'I didn't have to shoot him." The bed squeaked from his sudden, abrupt and angry movement.</strong></p>
<p>It is not clear from the story what was the temperature that evening. But let's assume it was cold. </p>
<p>Then we can say something like this…</p>
<p><strong>"Thank god himself Arn because if I thought for a minute you...'I didn't have to shoot him." The bed squeaked from his abrupt and angry movement and she wrapped herself with the blanket tightly because of a sudden surge of chill that ran down her spine.</strong></p>
<p>The next version could be offering the olfactive opportunity. Again the story doesn't tell us anything about the smell in the little hut where they dwell. So let's assume that it didn't smell all that well. Then the phrase could be modified as follow:</p>
<p><strong>"Thank god himself Arn because if I thought for a minute you...
I didn't have to shoot him." The bed squeaked from his abrupt and angry movement. She pulled herself inward, sensing irritation in his voice and from a close distance now could smell his perspiration mixed with the smell of blood.</strong></p>
<p>The author is, apparently, British and uses slightly different vocabulary. Surely, he should rewrite this in his own words and own style, but I think I illustrated my point.</p>
<p>Another important consideration here is a venting point. This is as much of a geographic position issue as it is philosophical. In a way, you can see the venting point as a location of a camera that films characters. In this scene, the camera is located directly in the room, which allows it to capture both characters, their beds and perhaps some other furniture in the room. However, in this case, a writer has an advantage over the real life situation because within that scene s/he can pull the camera as far and as high as s/e wants. </p>
<p><strong>"Thank god himself Arn because if I thought for a minute you...
I didn't have to shoot him." The bed squeaked from his abrupt and angry movement as a sound of police siren tore the tranquility of the room and then dissolved in the night.</strong></p>
<p>Or he can include some back story information</p>
<p><strong>'Thank god himself Arn because if I thought for a minute you...I didn't have to shoot him." The bed squeaked from his angry, abrupt movement; its sound reminding of the pulse of the public alarm signal on the netic.</strong></p>
<p>At the first glance, these additions lengthen the word count. But in the long run, they will actually save the space because they will reveal much of the character traits and the overall backstory situation and you as an author wouldn't have to write about it downstream.</p>
<p>Now I arrive at the main point of my article. As I mentioned above-written prose allows only sequential presentation of information. It should maintain its sequential organization so that a reader can follow the narrative thread. </p>
<p>On the other hand, poetry doesn't have to be linear. </p>
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<p>In fact, much of good poetry is written by a subconscious mind. The most interesting asset of poetry is that it relies on the established cultural associations. A simple word put together correctly with another word could ignite a huge emotional wave linked in a collective consciousness a tragic or joyous experience. In addition, poetry because of its lose narrative thread can easily deal with conceptual matters that in prose are covered by the plot and require a reader to get to the end of the story to conger. The subconscious nature of poetry can effect a reader on the subconscious level as well. It's when a poetry lover can enjoy some poem without actually fully understanding its meaning. In this way, writing can overcome the inadequacies of its sequential nature. </p>
<p>There is another important advantage that poetry holds over prose. Stylistically, the subject matter of poetry is to find an individual language. To be more precise, in our everyday life we usually borrow someone else's language, expressions, slang, in general, follow an established pattern of speaking, a template. However, in poetry, each individual fighting for finding a fresh image, a novel, unique way of expressing his/her feelings and that's what I call finding their own language.</p>
<p>This is often done in a very complex way and one of the variables here is the selection of viewing points for a narrative thread. One of the poems I read recently the author repeatedly interchanging the real and allegoric planes to the point that the reader gets a complete impression that narrative is conducted in parallel.</p>
<p>I am not saying that a prose writer should necessarily become a poet, but I think an attempt to write poetry will not only enrich a prose writer's writing style but will help him/her to connect with the audience on the subconscious level thus making the drama more real for a reader. At least, I think, this worth an experiment.</p>
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