The Absolutely True Report of a Pace & Tempo Stylist

Tee Cromby-Nagy-Felsobuki on The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexei

Arnold Spirit Junior is Sherman Alexei’s semi-autobiographical avatar in The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. I’m cheering for Arnold! I think the author has written a fast-paced, funny book, and a great character. Then I read how Sherman Alexei’s under a cloud because of harassment allegations.

It’s like being kicked in the guts by a mule. I was going to admire this author. I was going to read more of his works. Now I don’t know what to think. It’s very confusing. This guy can make you laugh. He tells the tale with pace, verve, humour. With the raw and exciting honesty born of true-life experience. But now it seems that Sherman could be an asshole.

I want to kick his book to the kerb. Only I can’t ‘cos it’s on my laptop, and I’m going to need it to write this report. And this report isn’t about character anyway. It’s about pace. Rhythm. Tempo. And what they mean.

It’s about how writing in plain English creates a speed read. How short sentences, paragraphs and chapters keep the pace moving. Till. I’m. Out. Of. Breath. Or until one of the drawings punctuating the narrative points me to a pause.

Direct language unambiguously invokes character or sentiment. It doesn’t trip me up. I can read like a fast river running. I can read Junior’s story faster than he can get from the rez to high school.

The style suits the YA genre. No teenager has the time to wrangle through a dense forest of words. This is a book-version of texting! Which is gr8 if you have a teenage attention span.

Like me.

Where was I?

Clever observations and insights convey nuances of deeper meaning. Dialogue and inner monologue say it like it is. Let’s go to a quote:

“The people at home,” I said. “A lot of them call me an apple.”

“Do they think you’re a fruit or something?” he asked.

“No, no,” I said. “They call me an apple because they think I’m red on the outside and white on the inside.”

“Ah, so they think you’re a traitor.”

“Yep.”

Brevity on the page creates space for ideas to leap. Each word counts, speaks to me. Makes me laugh; and think. Gives the words the impact of fisticuffs meeting solar plexus. “Notice how short the paragraphs were — “ says story-guru Michael Hauge, “ — often just a single sentence, or even a single word — which gave it a fast, dramatic pace.”

It works brilliantly. Why? Alexei creates tempo exploiting variation in sentence, paragraph and chapter length. As the late, great Ursula K. Le Guin advised writers:

… if you’ve fallen into a thumping of all short sentences or a wambling of all long ones, change them to achieve a varied rhythm and pace.

Does this mean narrative pace that’s choppy as an arrhythmic sea? Curiously — no. It doesn’t discombobulate me from my experience of the story at all. Wait! ‘Discombobulate’? See how this fancy word interrupts the flow and needs a dictionary? Sherman Alexei/Junior doesn’t do this. He doesn’t break rhythm with important-sounding words that could snag you like a fish hook. It’s a restraint that supports pace, pulsing with the heartbeat of Junior’s character, letting Junior’s desires and dreams power the momentum, and speed-dialling us in with humour.

Turns out some of the best ‘teenage’ diaries are written by adults.

Junior’s high school friend Gordy says it best:

… movement from scene to scene … gives the book its momentum, its rhythm. It’s like riding a raft down a river.

Fast and flowing. Poignant, satisfying, packing a punch.

How does all this inspire my own writing craft?

I give it a go.