image courtesy British Public Library
In an incredible guidebook for writers, John Gardner describes psychic distance, the “distance the reader feels between (themself) and the events in the story.” He lays out the same thought in five different distances:
It was winter of the year 1853. A large man stepped out of a doorway.
Henry J Warburton had never much cared for snowstorms.
Henry hated snowstorms.
God how he hated these damn snowstorms.
Snow. Under your collar, down inside your shoes, freezing and plugging up your miserable soul…
With these examples in mind, I’ve made a game. Below are three different versions of the same scene. Can you tell which is the closest psychic distance and which is the furthest?
One
A metallic crash resounded through the dark hall.
“What the hell was that?” Asti shrieked to her companion, Barz.
“I coughed,” he explained.
“That was not a cough,” Asti replied. “Prove it. Cough again.” Barz coughed. Undeniably, the two were different sounds. “See?” Asti continued, now yelling, “Whatever made that sound could be close. Stay alert.” Barz readied his axe. Asti held up a knife.
She inched forward holding the torch, the only source of light down in the ancient ruin. Nothing moved in the dark. Then, as they advanced another step, another metallic racket sounded and undulated, as though something in the darkness had dropped a piece of metal.
Asti yelped. Then, recovering herself, she whirled around, waving the torch to shed light on the cause of the sound. “There! There!” she shouted, pointing her knife at Barz’s shadow. “Something moved.” Barz spun, axe up, and Asti, approaching him, groaned. The light of her torch had fallen on a copper plate, one Barz had been trampling underfoot.
“Oh,” Barz exclaimed, and then chuckled.
“You’re an—” Asti started but she couldn’t finish her thought; a hand reached out of the darkness, snatched the plate, and with it vanished.
Two
KWANG. A horrifying crash made Asti’s heart explode. She swiveled, ready for an ambush from any direction. “What the hell was that?” she hissed at Barz.
“I coughed,” he explained, not bothered at all by the noise.
“That was not a cough,” Asti growled. Barz was so dense, so clueless. He might be the biggest danger to her in this entire ruin and he was supposed to be her friend! “Prove it. Cough again.” Barz coughed. A normal sounding cough, not the sound of a sword unsheathing or a thief shifting just out of sight. “See?” she hissed. “Whatever made that sound could be close. Stay alert.” She took her silver dagger out of the sheath on her belt. Spun it once, a nervous habit. Trouble could be in any shadow.
Cautiously, she crept forward, holding the torch high to scare off any shadows, dagger still ready. Another step and—KWANG –ANG –ANG –ANG another crash made Asti almost scream, but she swerved around, weapon pointed, ready. Something shined in the torchlight right behind Barz. “There!” she directed him. “Something moved.” She pounced on the spot. And wanted to kick Barz in the shins.
“You…” she groaned. It was just a stupid copper plate. The lummox hadn’t even noticed he’d been stepping on it. Honestly. How many times had his mother dropped him as a baby? He thought it was funny, but Asti knew it wasn’t. They coulda been in real danger. As she started to tell him off, something flitted in the corner of her eye. A hand. It reached out and snagged the plate right from under Barz’s feet. Then it disappeared into the darkness.
Three
When a metallic sound snapped through the hall, the explorers froze in the narrow hall. Darkness pressed on each side of them. Asti, prepared for an ambush, swiveled left and right, waving her torch. “What the hell was that?” she hissed at her companion.
“I coughed,” the other, a gigantic man called Barz, explained. He had just coughed, at the same moment he had, unwittingly, stepped on a copper plate. The noise had not upset him. In fact, he had just been hoping that something would pop out of the darkness at them.
“That was not a cough,” Asti growled. “Prove it. Cough again.”
Barz coughed. It was a normal sounding cough. It did not match the sound of the plate being kicked, but did, in Barz’s defense, match the cough he’d emitted before.
“See?” she hissed triumphantly. Barz was unfazed. “Whatever made that sound could be close. Stay alert.” She drew a small blade as Barz grinned hopefully.
As the pair crept forward, Barz kicked the plate again and another sound reverberated, terrifying Asti and startling Barz a little too. She spun around, knifepoint sharp, and saw the plate by the light of her torch. At first, she did not know what it was, only that it gleamed in the utter blackness. “There!” she directed him. “Something moved.” She advanced and realized what had been making all the noise.
“You…” she growled at Barz. Barz laughed, mostly out of embarrassment, though it wasn’t funny at all to Asti. She knew they could have been in serious danger. She opened her mouth to tell him off when a hand emerged from the darkness, seizing the plate, and vanished with it.
Which version of the story did you like best? Do you agree with the poll results? Let me know in the comments and remember to click like!
Two is my fave- probably because I love these characters. I find it richer to be in the head of these passionate quirky characters. May not be my preference for every story or even across multiple situations within a story- depends on the vibrancy of the character(s) and perhaps whether the story or personas are the overall focus.
Two. I like what I see as a flow of perspectives in this example. And it’s fun to see Asti and Barz again!