Going a little off track today. "Writing thoughts"

It’s one of those days where nothing really interesting happened. No major disasters, nor small ones. No projects to describe, or an amazing writing efforts, just your run of the mill; I wake up, do my chore, scour the Net a little and get my butt off to school to listen to questions I already know the answers to.
Oh yeah, and we put a new seat on the toilet, which was pretty much the highlight of what occurred.
The day in one word, Boring!!!

So lets see if I can write about something a little more interesting today. Ah yes, I was having a most interesting discussion a few days ago about the finer points of writing and it let to a variety of thoughts that I am simply going to have to explain in a full Blog.

It is mostly a difference of opinion really, nothing vital, or anything, and basically it just says the same thing, but there are slight differences that give a different taste, I think.

Here’s one version, one that is grammatically correct, or so I’ve heard, and I’ve been thinking about the differences. Which one is right and which one feels right that’s what it all boils down to.

So let’s examine them:

#1.
“It was a spring afternoon in a suburb outside of Washington D.C. Late afternoon sun beat down on a trio of St. Bernards whose sudden barking disturbed the peaceful neighborhood.”

#2.
“It was a warm spring day in a nice little suburb just outside Washington DC. The late afternoon sun beat down on the peaceful neighborhood where a triplet of barking dogs disturbed the quiet of day.”

#1 admittedly it says it all perfectly, giving the details of the city, the time, the season and the situation, so what is missing. It doesn’t make you FEEL what’s happening. Yes it tells what’s happening just fine, but it comes across as a sum up. More than anything it doesn’t offer the actual experience.

So I’ll take #2 apart, and see what’s so different about it.

“It was a warm spring day” It gives a warm feeling, creating an image of something ideal and beautiful in whichever way a reader wishes to interpret it.
The way I like to describe it is a panning view of a big city (D.C. in this case) that then zooms in on some random suburban area.

“in a nice little suburb just outside Washington DC.” This gives a general location and creates an image of what the reader sees as a “nice little” suburb, whether that is the “Desperate Housewives” type or whichever the reader considers nice. Now I’ve heard that in literature one doesn’t really say “just outside” but I don’t really know why just “outside” would be any better, but still: In conversation one DOES say “Just outside” and to me that is the most important thing.

I’m not writing old fashioned literature nonetheless, I’m telling a story, much like I would if I were sitting face to face with the one interested enough to want to find out more about it.
It is more like the way a fairytale would be told, I think. Like “Somewhere, in a land far, far away a—“ well, you get my drift.
Where was I? Oh yes:
“The late afternoon sun beat down on the peaceful neighborhood where a triplet of barking dogs disturbed the quiet of day.” This shows time and creates location. A neighborhood, or a surrounding area of the place I want to take you.

Now, the problem appeared to be the triplet of dogs, this seemed to set the discussion participant aback as she wondered if that was the correct way to describe it. Participant wanted to know what kind of dogs were they? Why are they barking? Which adds a nice little bonus to me (the writer) since that means that this particular sentence makes the reader wonder what kind and why, practically forcing the reader to continue to see what happens next.
But that’s beside the point, let me explain what is:

Let’s take the movie example again and pretend we’re zooming in on a particular street, the warm and peaceful one, remember?
So the camera’s going down the street, not focusing on a particular place as of yet, when the sound of dogs barking suddenly disturbs the quiet day, without actually showing the dogs. You know the sound, and at this particular moment, you don’t really need to know what breed they are since you don’t even know whether or not those dogs are going to be important to the story.

It’s like when you’re jogging down the street and you hear some annoying little mutt bark in someone’s backyard. Are you going to check it out, or do you just imagine some indistinct breed that makes an annoying sound and move one? My point exactly.

So let’s continue with the paragraph that “created” the image, and inspired the questions.

“It was a warm spring day in a nice little suburb just outside Washington DC. The late afternoon sun beat down on the peaceful neighborhood where a triplet of barking dogs disturbed the quiet of day.”

The scene continues with this:

“It was a frequent occurrence and a cheerful sight for whoever passed bye, to see the two Golden retrievers, and their scrubby mutt companion, bounce up and down behind the white picket fence.”

This brings a few little details into focus and offers a glimpse into what is slowly turning out to be the place where I’m trying to take you.
Not much, I know, but these were the first couple of paragraphs, what else did you expect. It’s not like I can perform miracles and create magic in just a handful of words.

So this brings today’s Blog to a conclusion. It isn’t my usual type of writing through this wonderful web medium, but since I need to distract myself from the dreaded e-x-a-m-s tomorrow, I thought it did a nice job…right until I wrote this closing sentence, of course. Drat!