Re: [bookclub] Prose style in 'Losing Your Grip'

[Nick Montfort <nickmontfort@my-deja.com>]

In article <87apnv$fub$1@nnrp1.deja.com>, J.D. Berry
<jdberry@my-deja.com> wrote:

> What do you think of when you see a book "how to be a "good"
> writer" or a workshop of such.  Mediocrity comes to mind when I see
> "writing by committee."

A book on how to write can be good (I think Natalie Goldberg's Writing
Down the Bones is worth a read, for instance) but it's a different sort
of creature than is a workshop. I'm not talking about a commercial
venture of a workshop when I use the term. I use 'workshop' to mean
authors getting around to talk about their writing. The "Turkey City"
science fiction meetings in Austin (which were attended by Bruce
Sterling, Howard Waldrop, and Chad Oliver among others) would be one
example that has a name I can recall. These aren't committees -- at
best, they are groups of serious artists who help each other improve
their art by critiquing each other's work, discussing, disagreeing, and
arguing.

> > Wallace Stevens [...] William Carlos Williams [...] Linus
> > Torvalds

> Did said talents go to workshops?

Of the sort I'm talking about, I feel comfortable in saying yes without
consulting any biographies -- in that they all recieved critiques on
their work. I *know* Linus gets plenty of constructive critiques of his
kernel programming, from all over the world.

> Is writing
> something that someone else can help you improve?

I can't speak for others, but I think my writing has been greatly
improved based on advice from both teachers and peers. Critique is just
one element -- reading powerful writing, writing a lot, working with
editors, revising one's own work, and even collaborating with other
writers are also all invovled in making improvements, at least for me.

-Nick M.


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