The Best Part, 2019-2

"Monstrous Regiment," by Terry Pratchett

Jackrum softened his voice a little when he saw their expressions. “Lads, this is war, understand? He was a soldier, there were soldiers, you are soldiers . . . more or less. No soldier will see grub or good boots go to waste. Bury ‘em decent and say what prayers you can remember, and hope they’ve gotne where there’s no fighting.” He raised his voice back to the normal bellow. “Perks, round up the others! Igor, cover the fire, try to make it look like we were never here! We are moving out in number ten minutes! Can make a few miles before full daylight! That’s right, eh, Lieutenant?”

Blouse was still transfixed, but seemed to wake up now.

“What? Oh. Yes. Right. Yes, indeed. Er . . . yes. Carry on, Sergeant.”

The fire gleamed off Jackrum’s triumphal face. In the red glow, his little dark eyes were like holes in space, his grinning mouth the gateway to a Hell, his bulk some monster from the Abyss.

He let it happen, Pollly knew. He obeyed orders. He didn’t’ do anything wrong. But he would have sent Maladict and Jade to help us, instead of Wazzer and Igorina, who aren’t quick with weapons. He sent the others away. He had the bow ready. He played a game with us as pieces, and won . . .

Poor old soldier! her father and his friends had sung while frost formed on the window panes. Poor old soldier! If ever I ‘list for a solider again . . . the Devil shall be my sergeant!

In the firelight, the grin of Sergeant Jackrum was a crescent of blood, his coat the color of a battlefield sky.

“You are my little lads,” he roared. “Aid I will look after you.”

One of John Steinbeck’s rules of writing goes like this:

Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle . . . Spin up some pretty words maybe or sing a little song with language. That’s nice.

Another rule follows right after:

But I wish it was set aside so I don’t have to read it. I don’t want hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story.

Here, Terry Pratchett breaks the second part of the rule. He throws his hooptedoodle in with the story. But just enough. Just enough hooptedoodle to help us see, for a moment, Private Perk’s Sergeant jackrum turn into the Devil from her father’s old song. The hooptedoodle slows the action down, but just for a moment. Just for that delicious moment when Perks realizes while Jackrum may play the fool from time to time, he is, at the fundament, no fool at all – and is in fact, devilish.

This represents the perfect balance of story and hooptedoodle. We slow down just long enough, at the end of the scene, to sweep ourselves deeper into Jackrum as a character.

So I need to do this with my characters as well. This is why you read lots of books, folks. So you see how others do it. And so you see how long it took them for it to become natural.