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

[edromia@my-deja.com]

In article <38997d50.16461409@newsserver.epix.net>,
  emayer00@epix.net (Eric Mayer) wrote:
>
> Writing has to be clear enough to express what the writer wants
> expressed -- period.

I must fervently and respectfully disagree with this -- or at least,
with the last word of it.

Again:

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

Sure, when the writer's *only* goal is to express herself clearly --
period. It's a good philosophy for writing newspaper headlines, or
interoffice memos.

> If writing is also nicely polished, that's an extra

It is not an extra, it is a necessity -- if your goal is to produce
polished writing.

, 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.

Personal taste is certainly involved, but that doesn't mean the entire
field of literature is utterly devoid of any aesthetic compass. There
are indeed rules -- or "guidelines," if you prefer. Part of the craft
of writing is an understanding of the guidelines, and part is also a
keen intuition of when and where and how to most effectively depart
from them. The latter can't be taught, but it can be illustrated, and
discussed. And even critiqued.

> 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.

You'd be surprised. Although there are obviously talented authors who
have made names for themselves with largely intuitive, Jackson Pollack-
esque styles of composition, there is also plenty of great literature
out there that was crafted sentence by painstaking sentence. James
Joyce, to pull one oft-cited example, allegedly spent days agonizing
over a single word.

> And that is what counts - the overall effect, not the
> individual words and phrases.

If your bricks are made of shoddy material, the overall effect is that
your house will fall down. It is the meticulous selection of words and
the careful placement of phrases that creates effective sentences; it
is the combination of effective sentences that creates memorable
paragraphs; it is the procession of memorable paragraphs that creates a
polished and possibly brilliant piece of prose.

It's a common enough misconception that within this philosophy there is
no room for individual expression, but this simply isn't true. In fact,
it is the mistaken impression that one cannot learn anything from the
efforts of others that prevents many beginning writers from rising
above hackneyed, derivative mediocrity.

-M.


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