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How to write English prose (2023)

thelampmagazine.com

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Re: How to write English prose (2023)

#11

Post by GCA10 »

Barrin92 wrote: post #7
GCA10 wrote: post #5

Kept out of sight in this rogue essay is the classic question: Who's your audience? If you're writing for yourself (and maybe a very small number of equally erudite readers) cut loose! Embrace "anfractuous density and heedless flamboyance." But if you're trying to change people's minds, or share knowledge widely, everything in this essay is defiantly at odds with what's necessary to get the rest of the world to pay a…

does anyone need to get the 'rest of the world' to pay attention? That's already a crowded market of questionable characters. There's something ironic and self-defeating in trying to write to the whole world while also having such a low opinion of the whole world that a writer thinks they can't express themselves the way they want to or lose their audience. As DBH says at the end of the essay, don't write down to wha…

Can we roll back the debate a little? If I'd said "wider audience" instead of "rest of the world," we could explore the question of scope more amicably.

I've been at two memorial services in the past six months where Mary Oliver's poetry has brought consolation and closure to people who needed it. Her choice of words is deceptively simple. A public-school 10th grader can follow along.

Could she go deeper with a much richer vocabulary? Perhaps. Is she most effective -- and surprisingly subtle -- with the words she chooses? You bet. And what's true for Mary Oliver also is true for highly admired (and read!) historians, technical writers, etc. For me, at least, there's great power in simplicity.

Re: How to write English prose (2023)

#13

Post by jacobolus »

Animats wrote: post #8

This guy hates Strunk and White’s Elements of Style , the famous "omit needless words" book. He's plugging for a baroque style that would be unreadable today. We do have baroque styles today, but they're different from classical baroque literature. They're the postings that start with a bio and cover the author's hobbies before getting to the point, perhaps including an anecdote from the author's past. There are writ…

Strunk and White promote all sorts of prescriptivist nonsense, taking arbitrary personal preferences and elevating them to sacred rules (including many which they themselves constantly violate because they don't accord with idiomatic English).

Re: How to write English prose (2023)

#15

Post by boznz »

Writing styles like this actually gets in the way of reading a story in my opinion and, I also assume, is also some high-brow writers way of getting around for the need for an actual story anyway. Many of the books I had to read at school, and that "cultured" friends read are like this, but truthfully they put me off reading, and is the type of writing I (as an author) go out of my way to avoid unless the character implicitly demands it.

Re: How to write English prose (2023)

#16

Post by Atlas667 »

Damn, so pretentious.

I agree with many things, in particular his sentiment about styles and "rules", but his demeanor is uninspiring.

He doesnt provide much clarity around good writing and just comes off as rationalizing his own taste.

You cant scorn popularity and accesibility, you gotta understand it and work with it to the extent that its important for what you want to achieve.

Art, history and social contexts fold in on themselves, if you're using a baroque style of writing then understand where it belongs and do something cool with it. Be conscious of it.

Re: How to write English prose (2023)

#17

Post by hecreto »

Animats wrote: post #8

This guy hates Strunk and White’s Elements of Style , the famous "omit needless words" book. He's plugging for a baroque style that would be unreadable today. We do have baroque styles today, but they're different from classical baroque literature. They're the postings that start with a bio and cover the author's hobbies before getting to the point, perhaps including an anecdote from the author's past. There are writ…

There are a handful of these every day on the front page. It is very jarring when they suddenly shift topics completely, using some vaguely tangential connection between what they started with, and the vapid thing they want to write about. Honestly - it’s wankery.

Here’s one I just came across: https://asteriskmag.com/issues/15/rust-and-boll

And there are plenty of others.

Re: How to write English prose (2023)

#18

Post by juleiie »

For me there is only one rule of writing: Reader must enjoy reading what you wrote. They are ultimately the final judge - the very reason to write anything at all.

Anything else is just huffing your own farts for the kick of it. No matter how flowery the words are in your book or how intricate nuances of language. Such things can be outright counterproductive.

Re: How to write English prose (2023)

#19

Post by orphereus »

Animats wrote: post #8

This guy hates Strunk and White’s Elements of Style , the famous "omit needless words" book. He's plugging for a baroque style that would be unreadable today. We do have baroque styles today, but they're different from classical baroque literature. They're the postings that start with a bio and cover the author's hobbies before getting to the point, perhaps including an anecdote from the author's past. There are writ…

The modern response to baroque text is "mucho texto" jpeg with a gangster Yoda

Re: How to write English prose (2023)

#20

Post by djray »

arduanika wrote: post #10
GCA10 wrote: post #5

Kept out of sight in this rogue essay is the classic question: Who's your audience? If you're writing for yourself (and maybe a very small number of equally erudite readers) cut loose! Embrace "anfractuous density and heedless flamboyance." But if you're trying to change people's minds, or share knowledge widely, everything in this essay is defiantly at odds with what's necessary to get the rest of the world to pay a…

Kept out of sight in this dismissive comment is the pressing question: What year is it? Up until four years ago, your notion of "what's necessary" was the law of the land. Starting from sometime around Hemingway, we produced a century's worth of flattened, easy-reading slop, and much knowledge was shared very widely. There was a certain art to the blandness. (One notable master of that art is pg, the creator of this…

One would hope that you change minds and differentiate yourself through the strength of your argument, rather than the anfractuosity of your prose or a propensity for sesquipedalian verbiage.

Clarity does not equate to genericity. I am regularly struck by clear writing that is both lucid and powerful without resorting to ten-dollar words or tortured syntax.

The fact that AI text is often so easily spotted is a clear sign that so-called 'slop' is not the same as a writing style focused on brevity and understanding over florid meanderings.

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