avatarShaunta Grimes

Summary

The text discusses the concept of "window pane" writing as a means for authors to create stories that readers can fully immerse themselves in, using George Orwell's quote and contrasting the writing styles of Virginia Woolf and Vladimir Nabokov.

Abstract

The article delves into the essence of transparent writing, drawing on George Orwell's metaphor that good prose should be as clear as a window pane. The author, Shaunta Grimes, reflects on how this clarity allows readers to pass through the text and become part of the story, feeling the emotions and experiences of the characters without the intrusion of the writer's style. Grimes contrasts this with her experience reading Virginia Woolf, whose prose she finds to be more opaque, demanding slower reading and appreciation for the craft of language. She then compares it to the prose in Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita," which she describes as both literary and transparent, allowing readers to be absorbed into the narrative effortlessly. The article concludes with Grimes's aspiration to write in a way that her stories become the readers' own, with nothing between them and the story.

Opinions

  • George Orwell's view on prose as a clear window pane is seen as an ideal for storytelling, allowing readers to be immersed in the narrative without noticing the author's hand.
  • Virginia Woolf's writing, while beautiful and appreciated, is not considered "window pane" prose by the author due to its density and the intricate nature of the language.
  • Reading Woolf is likened to admiring a painting closely, focusing on the technique and artistry rather than becoming part of the scene.
  • "Lolita" by Vladimir Nabokov is presented as an example of literary

How to be a Window Pane Writer

This George Orwell quote is EVERYTHING if you want to write stories that your readers get lost in.

Photo by Kinga Howard on Unsplash

I came across this George Orwell quote about writing today and it struck me as — amazing. Very true. Very difficult, but very true.

Good prose is like a window pane.

It took me a while to parse out what he might have meant. Including reading the essay that contains the quote.

Seems to me that, among other things (many of them political), Orwell believed that the best writing was clearly written. Clean. The reader of this kind of writing doesn’t notice the author or the prose anymore than someone might notice the glass when they’re looking out of a window.

But something else occurred to me. Windows can be open, can’t they?

What if good prose is like a window pane, because readers can pass right through it, into the story?

I spend a lot of time telling my students that good writing isn’t about telling the reader how the characters feel. It’s about making the reader feel what the character feels.

That’s what storytelling boils down to. It’s what makes them universal. Not because we all feel the same thing when we read them, but because we all feel something.

Window pane writing doesn’t intrude on the reader. It allows the reader to be entirely immersed, because nothing about the writing draws attention to itself. The author disappears, as transparent as a window pane.

That immersion allows readers to become part of the story. Their experiences and what they feel and how they interpret what happens in the story actually affect the story.

It changes it.

And by ‘they’ of course, I mean us. We. We actually change stories just by reading them. Because our experiences and beliefs and emotions are so intertwined in how we absorb what we read.

If you’re a writer, that is some heady stuff right there.

What about Virginia Woolf?

As I was thinking about this Orwell quote and the idea of prose being transparent, Virginia Woolf came to mind.

My dad and I tried to have a little book club once. We were going to read a list of fifty books. The first one on the list was Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. We never got beyond it. Because six months later, we were still both trying to read it.

Not because it isn’t good. It is. Not because it’s boring. It isn’t. But because we both had to read slowly. Very slowly.

This is how I always read Woolf. I usually have to go over the same paragraph more than once before I can move on. Sometimes rather painfully, even though I appreciate the stunning beauty of the words.

So, is Virginia Woolf transparent like a window pane?

Not so much. At least not for me. There isn’t a single word I’ve found that she’s written that I can read without the actual writing intruding.

It’s okay if you disagree with me. I’m just talking about my own experience.

I was at the Carnegie Art Museum last month. During this visit, the person standing in the room making sure no one touches the art had to ask me to stay two feet away from this painting.

Monet’s Water Lilies at the Carnegie Art Museum. (Www.carnegieart.com.)

Not because I was going to touch Monet’s Water Lilies. I would never. No, I was standing too close because I wanted to see the brush strokes. And the way the colors blended. And how did he get light to come from inside the painting?

I’m awed by the awareness that Claude Monet stood where I was, with his paint brush, and made that work of art. I wanted to see how he’d done it. How thick the paint was. The direction of the strokes.

That’s what Virginia Woolf is like for me.

I never disappear into the story. I never become a part of it. I’m consistently aware of how exquisite the language is. I want to stand too close and study it and understand it and just be in the presence of the work of a genius.

Look at this, from To the Lighthouse.

It was love, she thought, love that never clutch its object; but, like the love which mathematicians bear their symbols, or poets their phrases, was meant to be spread over the world and become part of human gain. The world by all means should have shared it, could Mr Bankes have said why that woman pleased him so; why the sight of her reading a fairy tale to her boy had upon him precisely the same effect as the solution of a scientific problem.

I had to read it three times just to figure out what might be going on. And I’m not sure I figured it out. Does Mr Bankes love her? I’m still not sure. Are we even talking about Mr Bankes here?

I have no idea. But, that doesn’t make the writing less beautiful. But it does make it less like a window pane.

The words are gorgeous. I don’t mind reading three times, because it’s lovely. But this is not a book I’d start after dinner and come up for breath from at three in the morning.

It’s not a book where I find myself. It’s a book where I marvel in someone else’s artistry.

Is all literary work like that?

When I tried to think of a book that is both literary and (for me anyway) like a window pane, I came up with Lolita.

I didn’t want to like Lolita. I wanted to hate it. I really did. I don’t think I’ve ever picked up any other novel to read with the intention of hating it.

But, turns out that I couldn’t. My God — the writing is so beautiful. I think every single line of Lolita is perfectly written. But it’s also so crystal clear that there was no boundary between it and me at all.

Where reading Woolf is slow and wears me out, so I can only do it a page at a time, I read Lolita in one weekend. Feverishly.

Nabakov doesn’t force you stop and slow down and look at the actual words he’s offering up to you. Instead, he sucks you in and it isn’t until you’re finally released from that narrative dream that you realize you’ve just read the most beautifully put together words.

Look at this passage from Lolita.

We had been everywhere. We had really seen nothing. And I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreamy, enormous country that by then, in retrospect, was no more to us than a collection of dog-eared maps, ruined tour books, old tires, and her sobs in the night — every night, every night — the moment I feigned sleep.

That is Windowpane prose. And it’s literary, too.

I don’t need to read it more than once to understand what’s happening. The prose is smooth — and clear. I not only feel the regret and disgust in the point-of-view character, I feel even more deeply those sobs in the night.

Lolita sucked me in, even though I was determined not to like it. Somehow Nabakov managed to make me feel what Lolita felt — even though she’s not the point of view character.

I’ve read criticism that says he silenced Lolita’s character by telling this story from Humbert’s point of view. I can see that. But, for me anyway, Lolita shined so bright. And she shined a light right through that window pane onto me that invited me into a world that was equally compelling and disturbing.

That’s what becoming part of a story feels like.

Windowpane prose suggests an invisible author. But that clear window also lets you see through the story, to yourself. Like it or not. And it lets you pass right through, into the world the author has created for you.

When you read this kind of prose, your own experiences have nothing to block them from entering your experience of the story.

So, I read Lolita when I was in graduate school. And instead of hating it, I couldn’t pull myself from the world of it. And all these years later, I still find myself sometimes suddenly thinking about it. Because, like it or not, it’s become one of my stories.

Interestingly, Woolf doesn’t make me want to be a better writer anymore than Monet makes me want to be a better painter.

But Nabakov? I finished Lolita and was devastated — I’ll never in a thousand years be able to write like that and it broke my heart. What did I think I was doing, even trying?

And after I got over that, it made me want to try anyway.

An exchange happened across that window pane. The story changed me and I changed it (for myself and no one else.)

That’s what I want. For my stories to become my reader’s stories.

I want to write, not so that people stop and notice how talented I am, but so clearly that I disappear all together and nothing stands between them and the story and their experience of it.

Not even the writing. Not even me.

Shaunta Grimes is a writer and teacher. She is an out-of-place Nevadan living in Northwestern PA with her husband, three superstar kids, Louie Baloo the dog, and Ollie Wilbur the cat. She’s on Instagram @ninjawritershop and is the author of Viral Nation, Rebel Nation, The Astonishing Maybe, and Center of Gravity. She is the original Ninja Writer.

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