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

[emayer00@epix.net (Eric Mayer)]

On Wed, 02 Feb 2000 19:55:50 GMT, Nick Montfort
<nickmontfort@my-deja.com> wrote:

>This is a rather lengthy and detailed discussion of the writing
>in Losing Your Grip, this month's IF Book Club selection. It's
>focused on a small amount of text in the first fit, in the belief
>that close reading is important and that the very beginning of a
>work is a critical part.


Just a general comment on all this -- if I gave any thought to one
tenth of the stuff mentioned here I'd never get a word written.

I'm not saying that there isn't any legitimacy to anything said, or
that there aren't some interesting talking points and matters on which
people might compare opinions, but effective fiction just simply isn't
written at the level of the preposition. The ideas, the characters,
the overall structure, is far more important for the vast majority of
fiction than the individual words chosen and my feeling is that
there's little to be gained and a lot of spontaneity to be lost in
this sort of intricate dissection. 

Writing has to be clear enough to express what the writer wants
expressed -- period.

If writing is also nicely polished, that's an extra, but as soon as
you get into matters of style, anything beyond whether the words
express what they're intended to express,  you're in the realm of pure
opinion and what one person likes someone else won't. There aren't any
rules, no right or wrong way, despite what some might tell you. .And I
guess I would be a little put off by opinions of style presented as
anything more than opinions. 

Anyway, although there's sure to be an exception somewhere, writers
generally aren't thinking about prepositional phrases when they're
writing. If they are they might as well toss it in.

I've only started Losing Your Grip, by the way, and I found it  well
written. Again, a couple points made may have some validity, once your
attention is drawn to them, but I never noticed them while actually
reading. And that is what counts - the overall effect, not the
individual words and phrases.




--
Eric Mayer 
Web Site: <http://home.epix.net/~maywrite>

"The map is not the territory." -- Alfred Korzybski