45 replies to this topic

[Christian]

Happy 40th, Darren!! Yeah, I was thinking "blast from the past" when I read through the thread yesterday.

[J.A.A. Purves]

Darren H, on 08 May 2012 - 07:25 AM, said:

Wow, this thread is a blast from the past -- a depressing, soul-deadening blast from the past. And of course it re-emerges on my 40th birthday!

Ah, well I didn't mean to bring up something that was depressing. For what it's worth, I've highly enjoyed your writing whenever you do write an essay or a film review. And, happy birthday too.

[J.A.A. Purves]

NBooth, on 08 May 2012 - 12:11 AM, said:

It also helps to read the text out loud; you're forced to slow down and hear the words as they flow.

EDIT: Hmm. My comment seems a bit simplistic now that I look over it, but it's a method I swear by.

No, you're right. Proofreading out loud helps a lot, if not always with hidden grammatical errors, at least stylistically.

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very few of my friends read what I write. "Write for yourself" seems like inane advice, but it's sound, I think. Your audience generally finds you, not vice versa.

I'm still not sure about this. There's something to be said about both, but writing for myself seems so much easier than writing for others.

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On 6--it's a constant struggle. I had a professor at Covenant who apparently wrote his dissertation right after reading the complete novels of Jane Austen. Looking over it years later, he commented that it was virtually unreadable. I find it very inadvisable to try to write anything after reading Faulkner, myself. But re-writing generally takes care of that (though I hardly ever re-write 'blog posts. I honestly don't put nearly as much effort into them as you do).

Funny. Yes, I've personally found trying to write immediately after reading either Ayn Rand or Jean-Paul Sartre a hopeless exercise in futility.

[NBooth]

biblioklept, one of my go-to blogs for interesting stuff (seriously; I check them every day even if I look at nothing else) just posted H.P. Lovecraft's advice to young writers:

On reading:

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No aspiring author should content himself with a mere acquisition of technical rules. As Mrs. Renshaw remarked in the preceding article, “Impression should ever precede and be stronger than expression.” All attempts at gaining literary polish must begin with judicious reading, and the learner must never cease to hold this phase uppermost. In many cases, the usage of good authors will be found a more effective guide than any amount of precept. A page of Addison or of Irving will teach more of style than a whole manual of rules, whilst a story of Poe’s will impress upon the mind a more vivid notion of powerful and correct description and narration than will ten dry chapters of a bulky textbook. Let every student read unceasingly the best writers, guided by the admirable Reading Table which has adorned the UNITED AMATEUR during the past two years.

It is also important that cheaper types of reading, if hitherto followed, be dropped. Popular magazines inculcate a careless and deplorable style which is hard to unlearn, and which impedes the acquisition of a purer style. If such things must be read, let them be skimmed over as lightly as possible.

On narration:

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The essential point of fictional narration is plot, which may be defined as a sequence of incidents designed to awaken the reader’s interest and curiosity as to the result. Plots may be simple or complex; but suspense, and climactic progress from one incident to another, are essential. Every incident in a fictional work should have some bearing on the climax or denouement, and any denouement which is not the inevitable result of the preceding incidents is awkward and unliterary. No formal course in fiction-writing can equal a close and observant perusal of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe or Ambrose Bierce. In these masterpieces one may find that unbroken sequence and linkage of incident and result which mark the ideal tale. Observe how, in “The Fall of the House of Usher,” each separate event foreshadows and leads up to the tremendous catastrophe and its hideous suggestion. Poe was an absolute master of the mechanics of his craft. Observe also how Bierce can attain the most stirring denouements from a few simple happenings; denouements which develop purely from these preceding circumstances.

The whole thing's fascinating.

[NBooth]

Q&A: The Secrets to Not Being a Terrible Writer

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How much space is there between writing well and not writing badly?
The not-writing-badly thing is a skill that can be learned, by reading, by following principles, by using the dictionary, by slowing down and all those things. Writing well is a little more mysterious. It’s art. There’s inspiration. There’s individual talent and style.

Certainly a lot of rules about writing and what’s good or bad change over time.
Grammar changes and spelling changes and punctuation changes. Pretty much all of it changes. But it’s a question of how quickly, and you don’t want to be out there before everybody else.

[SDG]

NBooth, on 31 January 2013 - 10:00 AM, said:

Q&A: The Secrets to Not Being a Terrible Writer

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In your book, you mention “grace” as a quality that you look for in sentences. Can you give an example of a graceful sentence?

[Reads from Roger Angell’s Let Me Finish]: “One spring Saturday when I was seven going on eight, my mother brought me with her on a automobile outing with her young lover and future husband, E.B. White.” That’s my nominee. That’s writing well. That’s not just not writing badly.

Oh, this is too good to pass up.

Good: “One spring Saturday when I was seven going on eight, my mother brought me with her on a automobile outing with her young lover and future husband, E.B. White.”

Bad: “One spring Saturday when I was seven going on eight, my mother brought me with her on a automobile outing with her young lover and future husband, Dan Brown.”

Edited by SDG, 31 January 2013 - 10:09 AM.