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

["Philip Goetz" <pgoetz@i-a-i.com>]

I was very glad to see Nick's interesting post about prose style
(though sad to see it quickly digress into yet another discussion
of how to implement directions).  I'd like to see more such
critiques.  Though, in a small community like this, it might
be good to get the author's approval first.  Generally agreed
with the comments on the muddy field, the head, and the
cramped office.  (My nit: "The room is small enough that
the light switch beside the door is within arms reach of the
desk." -- if the desk is in the same corner as the switch
then this tells us nothing about how small the room is;
if the desk is in another corner, then there is no space
in the room for anything other than the desk.)

> Did said talents go to workshops?  I'm not being a wise-guy, I want to
> know!  I'm certain they worked diligently on their crafts.  Is writing
> something that someone else can help you improve?

There are many writers' workshops; there is disagreement on how
useful they are.  Some people say the most useful thing is having
your own work criticized.  Some say it is more useful to see
someone else's work criticized.  I don't understand why the
distinction.

In science fiction,
there are well-known, well-patronized workshops, most notably
Clarion, Clarion West, and now Odyssey.  There are invitation-only
workshops for SF professionals, notably Turkey City and the one
that produces the Intersections anthology (Sycamore Hill?).
Notable authors including Karen Joy Fowler & Bruce Sterling
attend such workshops.  Tim Powers, on the other hand,
thinks you should go to one good workshop (he teaches at
Clarion) & then never go to another.

Re. the comments on style being a personal thing:
There is such a thing as bad style, at least within a given
culture -- see The Eye of Argon if you doubt this.
Still, the writer's choice of a style is a personal preference.
Writers tend to choose topics which match the styles they
like writing in.  But even supposing that all styles were
equally valid, critics could still help you in two ways:

1. A style can be inappropriate to the content.
2. Once you've chosen a style, others can
   point out where you're slipping out of that style,
   just like they can point out where you're slipping
   into a different point of view.
   Style slippages & point-of-view slippages
   are 2 of the most common amateur mistakes.

> I'm paraphrasing Adam Cadre quoting someone else whose name eludes me
> for the moment, but that the first million words most authors write are
> crap.  So does that mean one has to learn for oneself?

Believe it was Robert Heinlein who said that.

Magnus wrote:

>Sometimes I wonder if the best way isn't simply to move the list of
>exits out of the room description altogehter, and simply put it
>in a separate window or on a line below the description proper, like
>you do with movable objects:
>
>| Witch's Kitchen
>|
>| This is a dark, gloomy room with cobewebs hanging down from the
>| rafters.
>| (Insert 15 lines of atmospheric description here)
>| A large pot filled with a greenish liquid is simmering over the
>| open fire.
>|
>| Exits lead north to the bedroom, east to the garden and down
>| to the cellar.
>|
>| You can see a large rusty knife, a keyring and a human femur
>| here.

This is the style Scott Adams used.  I liked it much better.
Too, too many times I gave up on games, and on coming
back to them years later after finding walkthroughs,
discovered there was an exit in some room that I had
missed in the room description.  If you want to focus on
a particular exit, or describe it in detail, feel free; but
prose enumerating exits is routinely painful.
I never felt like they broke a fourth wall, because I am not
pretending I am reading a book.  It's more like having
another sense.  An air traffic controller doesn't feel
that the radar display destroys the feeling of reality.

But see how quickly our interesting discussion on prose
style was sidetracked into an extensive debate on
how to implement compass directions & exits?
A debate that we've already had, what, 10 times
on rec.arts.int-fiction?

Phil Goetz