2008-06-24 Writing, Meg Cabot

Meg Cabot is the queen of digression.

By digression, I mean that style of writing which puts narrative explanations into the middle of a section of chronological plot development. That is, the author relates what is happening, and then digresses into a long explanation, and then returns to the plot afterward.

Example 1, in the book Teen Idol, Jen tells her best friend Trina that she (Jen) has a date for the Spring Fling.
"And the scary thing was, it was true. I wasn't even lying. I did have a date to the Spring Fling …" [And then we go into a five page flash-back of how this came about. And then the plot continues.] "An assurance that Trina, standing on my front porch an hour later, clearly didn't believe."

Example 2, on page 2 of Airhead, we read:
"'All right, Emerson,' Mr. Greer said. 'You've got two minutes.' He looked down at his watch. 'And …'"
[here we have one paragraph about lip gloss, and two paragraphs on why Emerson is named Emerson, followed by:]
"'… go,' Mr. Greer said, turning on his oven timer."

This is one thing Meg Cabot really shines at. She writes like some people talk, with many digressions to fill in a lot of details that we, as a reader, would otherwise not know. These digressions may be short, like the one just mentioned, or very long, like the first one mentioned. But the great thing about them is, the reader rarely notices them as digressions. They are so much a part of the story.

One more example that I really liked. Example 3, on page 256-259 (hardback) of Airhead, we read:
"… when the cab … let me off. [skipping 3 paragraphs] …I just hadn't had time to make myself a decent breakfast." [two and a half pages later, after a discussion of how hard it was to get up, what she did the night before, how she got dressed, what she was wearing and why, we return from this digression with: ] "Maybe that had something to do with why, when I got out of the cab … "

This is a good way to insert narrative material into a book or story. Instead of throwing in one or more paragraphs in a separate narrators voice, the author can lead into the digression using the voice of the current character. Inserting a bit of narrative material, along with what may have happened to the character before this, makes it easier for the reader to continue the flow. This way, the reader isn't jerked out of what's happening, or what the character is doing, by a completely different voice doing an explanation.

Write well.
Logan