it probably sounds better in the original
No excuses--just took a day off.
I ran across the following review for Sogno, Andrea Bocelli's new disc, on Amazon:
I dischi costano troppo! Fate qualcosa. Siamo costretti all'ignoranza!
which Babelfish translated as:
The discs cost too much! Fairies something. We are forced to the ignorance!
Fairies something? There's a Roberto Benigni moment for you.
If anyone out there speaks Italian, please tell me what this actually means. Or, even better, whether it's clear this wasn't written by a native speaker.
I have often heard Shane Black credited with pioneering a fast, energetic mode of writing, in which each action is given its own paragraph or every important item is called out on a line by itself. Your eye is supposed to zip down the page, so where originally you have:
Twin blades sprout from the Batmobile's sides, like wings,
to saw off the stilts, whose owners now crash down, face-first.
Out of slots, Batman fires a whooshing array of small,
black, metal frisbees into the heads of some Carnival gangsters
and Bikers.
Now he focuses upon the Tattooed Strongman, chasing Alfred
and the Little girl.
Alfred looks to the oncoming Batmobile and knowingly
ducks. A black frisbee savagely jettisons over his head...
Instead you get:
TWIN BLADES
sprout from the Batmobile's sides, like wings, to saw off the
stilts, whose
OWNERS
now crash down, face-first.
Out of slots, Batman fires a whooshing array of
SMALL BLACK METAL FRISBEES
into the heads of some Carnival gangsters and Bikers.
BATMAN
focuses upon the
TATTOOED STRONGMAN
chasing Alfred and the Little girl.
ALFRED
looks to the oncoming Batmobile and knowingly ducks.
A BLACK FRISBEE
savagely jettisons over his head, (etc., etc.)
(This is an example that was originally posted on Wordplay by Aaron Orive, using text from Batman Returns, written by Daniel Waters. It is a little exaggerated. But not much.)
It's true that this style does lend itself to quick reading--after all, you have many fewer words to read. However, in my opinion two other things happen rather quickly:
- The reader's eye becomes very tired, continually zipping back to the beginning of the line.
- The reader no longer knows what the important shot is.
The reason a writer would write like this, beyond the obvious of getting to pad out one short scene over several pages, is to direct on the page. Here is how this scene should be laid out: this is a shot, this is another shot, organize the scene like this.
I think this style works very well for an action-heavy scene, where specific movements have to be highlighted. And calling out a single shot is incredibly valuable to the reader: look here, this is important!
I just read an entire script written in the one line per paragraph per shot style (though without the mini-slugs like A BLACK FRISBEE), and my brain hurt after a while.
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Copyright 1999 Diane Patterson
Send comments and questions to diane@spies.com