Let’s Discuss Clichés: Tear-Stained Pages · 1:09am Nov 3rd, 2015
Today, I’d like to present a new (possibly recurring) blog series. I was reading a college's literary magazine today. While most of the entries were aggressively mediocre, one particular phrase in one particular story stuck out to me. "I could still make out the tear stains on my mom's letter pages." What better catalyst for discussion than a cliché?
What is it? “Tear-stained pages” is when someone receives a letter, or reads a book, or encounters some piece of paper, and there are visible tear marks on it. Perhaps the ink is smudged, or the paper has circular deformations from where tear drops fell and dried. Perhaps the writing is also shaky at points. Maybe the letter springs from the envelope still sopping wet. It can take many forms, but generally the protagonist/narrator calls explicit attention to it, then quickly moves on.
Why do people still use it? I think this persists for two reasons. One: it’s a powerful visual. The idea of someone crying as they write a letter, then mailing it anyway is affecting. It’s also easy to describe and easy to form a mental picture of. Two: Its meaning is immediately obvious. You don’t need to worry about the reader misinterpreting it, and it still gives the illusion of subtlety.
Why is it a bad idea? What makes it trite? This cliché has two main problems. Firstly, as alluded to above, it is very unsubtle. While it can seem like a subdued bit of writing—it usually is just an observation—the meaning and imagery is anything but restrained. It is very tell-y, since the reader is being flatly told what the marks are from.
Secondly, it makes your characters appear melodramatic and overwrought. Let’s leave aside the decline of letter writing in general for now. Letters are generally carefully prepared. If you’re writing a letter, you are going to put some effort in it. Further, if someone is so distressed that they can’t control their own tears—they have difficulty seeing, and big fat dollops of water are splashing onto paper every four seconds—they probably are not going to rush to write a personalized letter. They obviously have other things on their mind.
What could we, as writers, use instead? This cliché’s main function is to transmit emotion via a letter or other paper medium. There are lots of things that would fulfill that same function, without resorting to blunt melodrama.
Perhaps the letter is uncharacteristically brief. The narrator could remark on the normal verbosity of the sender’s letters, and leave it to the audience to fill in the blanks. This is also puts more emphasis on the content of the letter. If someone receive a letter with only a single line, it gives that one line and its implications more weight.
A logical extension of that would be to have the sender forget to write anything, or to leave the envelope empty. This provides even more space for the reader and narrator to speculate. It provides an opportunity for foreshadowing, or a catalyst for investigation.
How might the above look? I wrote a brief excerpt to help illustrate how my suggestion above might work in practice. Notice the lack of tears staining the letter.
Henrietta pulled out one envelope from the rest. Her mother had sent it, but it looked more akin to a computer printed ad from a grocery chain, than one of her mother’s letters. Her mother held an old-fashioned mindset when it came to letter writing, and thus put great effort into each one. “A letter captures a moment in time,” her mother said. “So you had better make it look presentable.”
The envelope bore no special stamps, the address had been written in functional block lettering. The return address had been stamped on with her father’s crusting old custom stamper.
Henrietta turned the envelope over. The flap had been sealed with tape rather than a sticker or licked shut.
Henrietta liked to read her mail away from the mailbox. She always worried that a sudden gust might steal an important letter from her. The uncharacteristic presentation of the letter, however, demanded inspection.
She shoved her finger in and ripped open the flap. She pulled the letter out, unfolded it. Instead of her mother’s usual flowing script, smudged typeface stared back at her. The letter only held one line; no formal greeting, no signature, no adornment of any sort. Just one line, sitting off-center near the top of the page. It even lacked proper punctuation.
It read, “your brother is dead”.
Conclusion: Sticking tear marks on something and then calling explicit attention to it can work, sometimes. It depends heavily on context, on the characters involved, and the time period.
Letter writing/book reading/etc., however, is not one of those contexts. If you ever find yourself tempted to use this cliché, stop and think. Why do you want to use it? What does using it say about your characters? Is there a different, better way you could express the same situation and emotion?
Thanks for reading. As always, comments, counterpoints, and criticism are welcome.
Question, if we're writing from the perspective of the letter writer, would showing shaky hands/hooves work? Or perhaps having the letter be slightly crumpled? Would that work?
Fun fact: the last time I gave a letter circular water stains (for a web-based role-playing game I was running, with a rather literate audience), four of the five players missed the significance of the stains until the fifth one pointed it out.
I do like the suggested replacement, though.
Like most cliches, it's done to drive a point home, so it being obvious with what it wants to drive home (i.e. that the writer is emotionally upset) is unavoidable. And it can be heavy-handed to some degree, but that goes for all cliches - how subtle or unsubtle it is depends on the writer's skill. But it will still be directly noticeable. Cliches are hammers in the writer's toolkit, and you can't hammer a nail and pretend it isn't noticeable.
I disagree on this. If they need to write a letter - for example, as you used, to inform their daughter of a death in the family - they can't always wait until they've dealt with their emotional turmoil. And while they may try to force it aside, it's still there. Sometimes the act of writing - as it requires bringing the subject matter to the fore of the mind - brings out emotions they thought they had under control.
That said, I agree that there are better - or at least less over-used - ways of showing this than a letter dripping with tears. Peculiarities in the writing style could definitely work. A cold, terse message would definitely hint that the writer is steeling him/herself and trying to finish the letter before they lose themselves. If it's a longer letter, you could have the writer's emotional state fluctuate from controlled to upset and back again, with some passages written in shaky hand, signs of pressing too hard, and more typos than usual. You can also have it be more flow-of-consciousness and going off on tangents, as though the writer is having trouble staying on topic (again, due to them being upset).
There are definitely possibilities for new approaches.
3516814 That's another reason I find this cliche very difficult to defend. If you explicitly note them as tear stains, you are giving the audience emotional information in the bluntest way possible. If you try and dance around the description, however, it runs the risk of being obtuse. I imagine your players were looking at it in that analytical way most role-players do. Perhaps they missed the meaning because they were focused on other things, or perhaps the situation is so unlikely they quickly dismissed it.
3516804 Perhaps, but that brings up the same point. If the letter-writer is so distressed, why are they writing it in the first place? If the letter is obviously disheveled, why would they still send it?
Now, you could forge some drama from this situation. Perhaps the writer is trying to force themselves to write it; perhaps there's some time constraint, or they want to do it to prove something to themselves. Perhaps they write the letter, and they struggle (crumpling it or writing shakily). Then they decide to discard the letter because it is not presentable, and take a fresh sheet to try again. Then the same thing happens. And again. How the letter-writer reacts to their own inability to write a letter could be a powerful character moment.
One needs to think about what they are trying to accomplish whenever they resort to a tired cliche. It depends on context and the characters and setting. I'm not you, so I can't give a concrete answer. If the character is writing something emotional, you have to ask yourself if there are other ways that emotional turmoil could be conveyed.
3516939 I think typos and stream-of-consciousness could work well in a more modern setting with email. Email has less of a formalism attached to it than letter writing, and so someone who is under emotional duress could possibly include those things in an email. Then they could hastily send it without proofreading it.
A large strikethroughed/scribbled out section could also make sense. With the right protagonist, having them check the indents of the pen to see what is under the scribbles could provide some characterization of both parties.
See also my reply to Kirito-Persona above
Ultimately, I think emotional writing should resort to heavy-handedness as little as possible. Emotions are delicate things, and need to be portrayed with that same restraint and subtlety. There are some characters for whom sending a tear-stained letter would be appropriate. There are times where emotions are grand and blunt and the writing should reflect that. In most situations, however, I do not think tear stains on a page are a good way to portray emotion. The only situation that I think would be reasonable is if the tear-stained paper in question had been thrown away/hidden and stumbled upon, and even that requires particular circumstances and characters to work.
3517019
I see, thanks for the advice, it was a nice and surprising bit of help.
Also, yay the writer of Think Pink responded to a question of mine!
Not to disagree with anything here, but what a fantastic character-building moment a tear-stained letter could be. Not only sent a letter in this day and age, but left tear stains on the paper? What a shameless drama queen.
3519177 Perhaps. If someone was willing to be so blunt with their emotions, however, one has to wonder if a mere tear-stained letter would be enough for them. Why do something so "subtle" when the recipient could easily miss their crucial message? Why not do something actually dramatic, like email footage of them sobbing in the bathroom, or stage a picture of them cutting themselves? We wouldn't want anyone to get any mixed messages.
Though going from that, failing to send a tear-stained letter could be a good catalyst for comedy. Maybe the letter dries evenly and the marks aren't noticeable, or the letter is nothing but tear stains.
See also my replies to Kirito-Persona and Mooncalf down here; 3517019
Like I said in the post, there are contexts where it might be appropriate. This post was more about times when it is played for drama/without irony. Playing it completely straight, in order to get the reader to emote, is not something I can see working without very specific circumstances.
3519275 One interesting example might be a detective notices some stains on a letter. Nothing too messy or obvious, then checks the chars garbage and finds some letters that are really messed up. The trick is the letter seemingly has no emotional content at all, and the tears are a clue the letter writer was in fact very upset. Even more strangely when they shouldn't have anything to be upset about.
I think this (as with anything) can be done well. I found Hagrid's letter informing Harry of Buckbeak's sentencing very poignant.
3526602 That letter was poignant because it was about a character being sentenced to an execution. While uncontrollable sobbing is in character for Hagrid, the tear stains don't really add emotional weight to the scene. The letter would still be poignant without them.
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No, I thought it was necessary. Hagrid wouldn't be able to write the letter without uncontrollably sobbing, and if the tear marks were absent, I would be completely taken out of the scene.