# Style



## Olly Buckle (Oct 25, 2020)

The protestant propogandists introduced the concepts of 'Prose so plain, that the least child in the town may understand thee', and to write well was to 'Speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do.'
Before that writing was the province of the elite who 'interlace phrases with Italian terms, powder style with French, English or inkhorn rhetoric to feed the dainty ears of delicate yonkers'.

Do you like your language plain and simple, or do you savor rhetoric, long words, and flowery phrases? Do you write seriously of serious matters, or do you agree 'Jesting is lawful by circumstance even in the greatest matters' ?

Yonkers, later younkers, by the way, means young people, not inhabitants of the city by New York.

I imagine that most will go for 'plain', but I do know those who read Dickens avidly for his florid prose, I can't accept that one is The Correct Way, nor that the other should always be rejected, although it is now a matter of style. One Bishop in the sixteenth century rejected plain prose because it meant common people were discussing matters that were the prerogative of Kings, I guess we all do that now.


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## midnightpoet (Oct 25, 2020)

I think someone (don't remember who) said something like "don't write what readers skip over."  It's not that simple, of course.  A lot depends on genre, some readers expect a certain style, and authors give it to them to sell books.  It's nice to have a good vocabulary, but it's important to know when not to use it.  Personally, I'll read anything if I'm interested in the subject, but writing I usually go for plain - especially if I'm writing mystery/crime fiction.


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## Earp (Oct 25, 2020)

I enjoy both, as long as 'flowery' doesn't mean 'purple'. I divide fiction authors into two groups: writers and storytellers. It's rare to find someone who is good at both. I'll put Stephen King in the storyteller group. I've read most of his work, and enjoy the plotting and characters, but his prose is mundane, and rarely surprises me. James Lee Burke is in the writer category. His stories are pretty ordinary, as regards plot, but his writing style is complex and I often find myself stopping and re-reading a paragraph, just to enjoy his talent with the language.


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## bdcharles (Oct 25, 2020)

~ * ~ 

​My prose, Catholic in style, reads early Presbyterian re: complexity of subject.  


~ * ~​


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## Olly Buckle (Oct 25, 2020)

bdcharles said:


> ~ * ~
> 
> ​My prose, Catholic in style, reads early Presbyterian re: complexity of subject.
> 
> ...


Swap 'His' for 'My' in the first word and have it as an epitaph


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## indianroads (Oct 25, 2020)

Use the words and phrasing that is appropriate to the character POV, the scene, and the mood. I try to use the right word at the right moment.


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## Tiamat (Oct 25, 2020)

For me, it depends on the story. In plot based fiction, I tend to write more plainly. Basic third person past POV -- he did this, she did that, etc. Not that there aren't compound sentences and metaphors and such, but usually if I'm writing third past, it's because I want to tell a story, and I want the writing to convey the story without drawing attention to itself. In character based fiction, where I often default to present tense with a preference towards first person POV (though I've used third present here as well), it's usually a lot heavier on the flowery side of things. Not always though. Style doesn't necessarily have to mean Dickens. I once wrote a flash piece about a goldfish swimming in a bowl on a kitchen table. It consisted of mostly simple sentences and a lot of repetition and frequent call outs to the setting. It's probably the most artistic (and stylized) piece I've ever written, and also the most bare bones, prose wise. Ten-ish years later, it's still my favorite story of mine.


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## EmmaSohan (Oct 25, 2020)

Earp said:


> Stephen King ... but his prose is mundane, and rarely surprises me.



This is a normal thing to say, but my subjective opinion is that King is a master craftsman for writing clearly in a way that feels effortless and friendly to read. Which is to say, he doesn't just decide to write plainly, he's really good at that; he would be almost impossible to imitate without a lot of skill.

 In the grammar book I am working on, I have high praise for his use of "the gun" instead of "a gun" -- I would never have thought to write "the gun", but it works brilliantly. Does that count as surprising? It's not flowery, but is it plain?

But yes, his goal is to tell the story, and if his writing draws no attention that's probably good. Or, to be more precise, he is not just providing information, he is creating a reader experience. He is usually plain, but not when he needs more.



> From above them came a man's voice, heavily disapproving: "If you need to talk. You should go. Somewhere else." (page 377, Lisey's Story)


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## EmmaSohan (Oct 25, 2020)

Can you give an example of the same sentence in both plain and flowery style?

Like, on of my books begins "My friends are discussing shoes." That must be plain, but I don't know what the flowery version would be.

I have another that begins: "Her father suddenly threw aside his newspaper and jumped to his feet."

Would it be more flowery if he leapt or exploded or popped? If I added a metaphor?

What if I added more detail?


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## luckyscars (Oct 25, 2020)

Olly Buckle said:


> I imagine that most will go for 'plain', but I do know those who read Dickens avidly for his florid prose, I can't accept that one is The Correct Way, nor that the other should always be rejected, although it is now a matter of style. One Bishop in the sixteenth century rejected plain prose because it meant common people were discussing matters that were the prerogative of Kings, I guess we all do that now.



Do you think Dickens' style is florid, Olly? I always thought that it was fairly accessible stylistically, certainly compared to other nineteenth century writers.

Anyway, my thing is this: Stylistically, I like simple...and I like complex. For me, the issue isn't whether something should be one or the other, the issue is whether it _needs _to be.

I think most writers don't actually get to choose their level of stylistic complexity, because most writers write according to their own personal comfort level and that of their audience. Basically, we're all trying to be as 'advanced' as we can be without wandering into gibberish. But if you write YA, or commercial thriller fiction, you CAN'T write in long-winded metaphors regardless of how 'good' you may be at them, because the audience doesn't want that shit.

Similarly, if you're targeting literary fiction, if your goal is to write 'highbrow' stuff of the sort that might make it into an NPR segment or be discussed as 'serious fiction'...you probably need to push the envelope as far as style. If your story is 'gothic' in flavor it needs to be 'gothic' in style, right? Gothic fiction usually needs some 'flowers'.

*But can you do that?* I can _want_ to write elaborately all I want, but if I simply don't have the intellect and/or skill to use words, it's going to crash and burn. 99.9% of the time I am going to write as high a caliber as I can without losing control. This will place my work as either being simple or complex, depending on who is reading it.

So, part of it's genre/reader constraints, part of it is writer ability. I would suggest a relatively tiny part of how complicated something is comes down to _choice. _


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## EternalGreen (Oct 25, 2020)

It depends on the story. My speculative fiction is not (usually) as flowery as my literary fiction. Sometimes people express dislike at my intricate, elaborate sentences. So I try not to write like that too often.


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## VRanger (Oct 25, 2020)

I think there is room for all of the above. The discussion seems suitable for an Asimov response I often quote. Asked what he most wanted to achieve in his prose, he responded, "Clarity".

There is a middle ground between "simple/clear" and "flowery", and it keeps me from overstepping from flowery to purple. I endeavor to write a simple and clear sentence, then I look at it to see if I can find a more interesting word here and there (if I didn't already think of one while typing the sentence). Not flowery, not something you need to go to the dictionary for, just more interesting.

I don't always come up with the best examples off the top of my head, but here's a try.
Simple: I handed Stella an apple. She ate it hungrily. I asked when she'd last eaten.
More interesting: I offered Stella an apple. She gobbled it greedily. I waited for a break in the constant crunching to inquire when she'd last eaten.

I don't really need the "greedily" in there, but if a bit of fanciful alliteration is appropriate in the scene, there it is. I'd absolutely keep "constant crunching" though.  I wouldn't always substitute "inquire" for "ask", but I'm certainly going to throw it in on occasion.

Style is also appropriate to context. If I'm writing a bucolic scene, I'm going to tend to longer, more gentle sentences, and I might even lapse (horrors) into some passive voice. Then when the monster bursts out of the woods, I'm going to switch to shorter sentences with powerful action verbs to intensify the mood.

I just read a couple of articles on Style vs. Voice since it seemed germane to this discussion. According to those articles, I'm supposed have a "style", such as Olly presented, AND a voice, which narrows down the general style to me. I don't. For me, I apply style to context and genre, and voice to genre and narrator. My third person heroic fantasy doesn't read much like my third person sci-fi. Neither of them sounds like my first person urban fantasy, and my fairy tale is very wide of those voices.

Good idea for a discussion, Olly.


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## Olly Buckle (Oct 25, 2020)

EmmaSohan said:


> Can you give an example of the same sentence in both plain and flowery style?
> 
> Like, on of my books begins "My friends are discussing shoes." That must be plain, but I don't know what the flowery version would be.
> 
> ...



"My friends are discussing shoes." 
My intimate acquaintances are discoursing on the subject of footwear

"Her father suddenly threw aside his newspaper and jumped to his feet."
Violently and impetuously discarding his daily journal her paternal parent vacated his seat to take an upright stance

I found the second much more challenging, and TBH I am less satisfied with the result, anyone else up for having a try?


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## midnightpoet (Oct 25, 2020)

"Her pater popped precariously from his padded pad, his picked paper perambulating playfully." :grin:


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## Theglasshouse (Oct 25, 2020)

I am curious. Do writers here Google poetic devices to practice writing with style? Is anyone learning and using poetry and in which ways to improve their style? So for example I have a barren landscape and want to improve the description. How do I begin to improve it?  Is it recommended that I look for poetic devices and neglected rhetorical devices to make sure it is not boring to read. I am paying attention to the beginning especially to write  and incorporate poetic devices. I tend to not try metaphor as much as I like it. Because sometimes people understand it and other times they can be confused. This would be for the last draft. When I am sure the editing has been done. That I want to add finishing touches.

Also does anyone here mind map images? You write a word and draw a circle and do a concept map. You write of whatever you can come up with.  It can be something you associate with the word circles and then you create another circle.  It an also be an expression the image conveys. For example, as I was writing I kind mapped and wrote. for the word bird, fly, flock together, sometimes are seperated, fly south for the winter. That is a strategy I use for when I must imagine images and can't find these on the internet.

That's how I came up with an expression. That for example the planet is library that has volumes of living and dead creatures. They live on borrowed time. Although time consuming to mind map on paper it is worth it. It can be done for 500 words at a time per day. I want to know if others do this. Observing is a good exercise but I can't leave home since it is very difficult to practice social distancing from other people in commercial zones. I did read this tip in a creative writing manual. It is a right brain activity that uses the subconcious.


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## EternalGreen (Oct 25, 2020)

vranger said:


> Simple: I handed Stella an apple. She ate it hungrily. I asked when she'd last eaten.
> More interesting: I offered Stella an apple. She gobbled it greedily. I waited for a break in the constant crunching to inquire when she'd last eaten.
> 
> I don't really need the "greedily" in there, but if a bit of fanciful alliteration is appropriate in the scene, there it is. I'd absolutely keep "constant crunching" though.  I wouldn't always substitute "inquire" for "ask", but I'm certainly going to throw it in on occasion.



You're right, you don't need "greedily" in there.

Let's see if we can eliminate some abstractions.

"*I took an apple from my coat pocket and held it out towards Stella. She snatched the fruit and bit into it, scarcely chewing before she bit again. 

'When have--" I said; but her crunching interrupted me.

'When have you last eaten, Stella?'

She held up three fingers as she tore a chunk out of the dribbling apple.
*
"





Olly Buckle said:


> "My friends are discussing shoes."
> My intimate acquaintances are discoursing on the subject of footwear
> 
> "Her father suddenly threw aside his newspaper and jumped to his feet."
> ...



That's actually a common meme. The joke is to slowly find wordier and less coherent ways of expressing the same thought.

But on a serious note:

"*Her father flung the newspaper across the room like a wad of discarded chewing gum. In one motion, he collapsed the footrest of his recliner and leapt to his feet.*"

I find "my friends are discussing shoes," to be problematical - not because of the plain prose - but because of the abstraction.


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## bdcharles (Oct 26, 2020)

Theglasshouse said:


> I am curious. Do writers here Google poetic devices to practice writing with style? Is anyone learning and using poetry and in which ways to improve their style? So for example I have a barren landscape and want to improve the description. How do I begin to improve it?  Is it recommended that I look for poetic devices and neglected rhetorical devices to make sure it is not boring to read. I am paying attention to the beginning especially to write  and incorporate poetic devices. I tend to not try metaphor as much as I like it. Because sometimes people understand it and other times they can be confused. This would be for the last draft. When I am sure the editing has been done. That I want to add finishing touches.
> 
> Also does anyone here mind map images? You write a word and draw a circle and do a concept map. You write of whatever you can come up with.  It can be something you associate with the word circles and then you create another circle.  It an also be an expression the image conveys. For example, as I was writing I kind mapped and wrote. for the word bird, fly, flock together, sometimes are seperated, fly south for the winter. That is a strategy I use for when I must imagine images and can't find these on the internet.
> 
> That's how I came up with an expression. That for example the planet is library that has volumes of living and dead creatures. They live on borrowed time. Although time consuming to mind map on paper it is worth it. It can be done for 500 words at a time per day. I want to know if others do this. Observing is a good exercise but I can't leave home since it is very difficult to practice social distancing from other people in commercial zones. I did read this tip in a creative writing manual. It is a right brain activity that uses the subconcious.



I use a few narrative tricks here and there to add a little oomph. They seem to come as part of my natural voice so I go with them. I hadn't thought of them as poetic devices, but I guess they could be used in any writing. Never done mind maps though. I'm never entirely sure what their purpose should be. To me it seems like an unnecessary step. I suppose if I was looking for that extra creative jump I might try one. I dunno; I probably should. I am conscious that I have negative associations with them; they remind me of someone in particular who was trying very hard to be creative and give themselves an imagination. Meanwhile, there was me, being all snobbish and a purist about it, sitting in my fantasy world. I think I felt the imagination as "my territory" and they were trying to muscle in on it where there had been only denigration before. But that's by-the-by. Thinking about it, I can absolutely see how they would be useful.


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## Phil Istine (Oct 26, 2020)

My thoughts are to try keeping it understandable and manageable for most people, without pandering to the lowest denominator because that might be too bland for those who wish to read something more challenging.  A more complex part of a piece of writing could be written to have a reasonably guessable meaning, even for those who don't fully understand.
I suppose the exceptions to this would be writing that is targeted to specific audiences such as young children, or technical work that is for the scientific community for example.


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## Olly Buckle (Oct 26, 2020)

Those protestant propagandists I referred to in the OP had other problems as well; they were open to censorship and prosecution if they expressed views too wide of the official views. For this reason they developed various tactics. A short pastoral poem in the form of dialogue known as an eclogue for example could put risky ideas into the mouths of ordinary people and distance the author from the views expressed. Allegorical expression of ideas was another way of doing it. Using the plain prose of ordinary people was a good way of adding to the distance as they discussed the matters that were supposed to be the prerogative of their superiors. This was really the beginning of ordinary people being allowed to hear and discuss ideas, prior to this they were preached at and told what to think. Even when they heard the bible read to them it was in Latin which they did not understand and they had to rely on the interpretation of the preacher in his sermon.

To my mind the better writing is still doing this, telling a story which provides entertainment, but also causes one to think about larger social issues. The writing which is dictatorial in its aim may well try to disguise this with fancy prose, talking down to the reader in effect.


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## bdcharles (Oct 26, 2020)

Olly Buckle said:


> "My friends are discussing shoes."
> My intimate acquaintances are discoursing on the subject of footwear
> 
> "Her father suddenly threw aside his newspaper and jumped to his feet."
> ...




Hmm.

My friends are trading anecdotes - thinly veiled competition, really - concerning the latest footwear _du jour. _Horrified's not the word when I discover Barb practically bleeding out from their metaphoric jabs.

Where father had been sitting quietly moments ago, the newspaper shot skywards in a rage of supplements, showering the old man  in printing-press confetti as he went to his boxer stance.

As you can see, for me, it's all in the serif. I enjoyed writing these versions. Interestingly I seem to default to sports metaphors. I'm not even particularly into sports. I suppose they've rather crept into the vernacular, what?


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## Theglasshouse (Oct 26, 2020)

Those are cumulative sentences I believe. You use intransitive verbs such as showered that require no direct object. I was reading Brooks Landon's book the other day. From my understanding you use other parts of the sentence. Intransitive verbs is just one of them, and I haven't had the chance to study the rest. It would produce long sentences which is why knowledge of punctuation is a must. The reason I studied it is a long story in and of itself. But I wanted to learn about how to expand sentences. Even though mine will be short for a good while. I need to learn more rules. That being said when done right it can work since you use artistic license.

The mind map is something I will have to workshop to know if it works. I appreciate the opinion. I consider it as a way to compose something that is difficult for me. It helps me imagine the setting as I said. I am still trying to acquire more books. Clarity is a priority of mine. So much that I am buying a 4th program that is text to speech.


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## luckyscars (Oct 26, 2020)

Olly Buckle said:


> To my mind the better writing is still doing this, telling a story which provides entertainment, but also causes one to think about larger social issues. The writing which is dictatorial in its aim may well try to disguise this with fancy prose, talking down to the reader in effect.



It seems that the problem lies in the term 'fancy prose' and the semantics. It's subjective, but if one's perception is 'this is fancy prose' the chances are what they really mean is _it's unnecessarily/distractingly ornate.
_
Kind of like when people ask 'do you prefer to be too hot or too cold?' the correct answer to that is ALWAYS 'they're both the same' because _too much of anything is too much. _If either one is tolerable, then neither is 'too'.Likewise, if something is 'fancy' then we are calling it as such, usually, according to our own subjective standards and 'fancy' is generally (though perhaps not always) a negative observation, or at least a neutral one, as opposed to, say, 'poetic' or 'masterful' or something that is usually a positive -- a 'plus'.

Not sure if that all makes sense but that's essentially why I feel 'fancy prose' is generally a bad thing although potentially separate from complex prose.


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## indianroads (Oct 26, 2020)

Olly Buckle said:


> The protestant propogandists introduced the concepts of 'Prose so plain, that the least child in the town may understand thee', and to write well was to 'Speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do.'
> Before that writing was the province of the elite who 'interlace phrases with Italian terms, powder style with French, English or inkhorn rhetoric to feed the dainty ears of delicate yonkers'.
> 
> Do you like your language plain and simple, or do you savor rhetoric, long words, and flowery phrases? Do you write seriously of serious matters, or do you agree 'Jesting is lawful by circumstance even in the greatest matters' ?
> ...



Flowery prose often flows around description and is used to provide a mood to the scene. Still though, the wording doesn't have to be overly ornate - I believe it's best to provide the bare bones of description with just enough decoration to show the mood of the POV character - then leave filling in the details up to the reader.

I ride a motorcycle (not so much this year thanks to covid and the riots in the big cities) and will work on my writing as I ride by mentally describing the surroundings. What does the air feel like when riding across the Mojave Desert in the middle of summer? What do the restaurants smell like when riding through Bar Harbor Maine? The more I pay attention the easier it gets to describe them.

Again though - these descriptions are best when word usage is economical.


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## EmmaSohan (Oct 26, 2020)

People here took my plain sentences and rewrote them to be a lot more interesting. Context was irrelevant for that, but now it is not. The start of the book is a lot of uninteresting sentences with one interesting event that is supposed to stand out.



> My friends are discussing shoes. They're excited, enthused, sometimes appalled, sometimes thrilled to agree. I love sitting here, sopping up their emotions -- this is what I live for. But something's bothering Celeste. Ugh, I'll try talking with her later.
> 
> I look around the lunchroom. There's silliness, intensity, posing, loneliness, people just -- what's with that one guy at the jock table? I can't read him. That's really strange.
> 
> Elaine pokes me and says, "Grade on the Chemistry test." They switched topics.


I'm building character and setting, so all the sentences are working hard. But the reader's interest should be drawn by the anomaly -- that guy across the room.

So making the first sentence interesting would undermine my intended effect. (It might be suicidal to have an uninteresting first sentence, of course.)

There is one fancy thing in there -- a dash to show interruption of thought. But that's the most important part of the passage.

Even making that one intended-to-be-interesting sentence more interesting to read might defeat my purpose too. I want the event to be interesting, not the sentence. The event can't be too interesting, that doesn't work for the story flow of her attention going back to her friends.

And it's that way for the other rewrites. Adding a simile makes a boring sentence interesting -- but the actual context was a fast-action scene, and I don't think I would ever use a simile in the context of a fast-action scene.


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## Tettsuo (Oct 27, 2020)

How complex or mundane a sentence is depends on the narrator. If a character is narrating, that character's level of education, social environment, who they're speaking to and age (and more) must all come into play, imo.

Personally, I'm more prone to write plain, mostly because my goal is never to impress with language, but to express an idea. It's actually difficult to explain something emotional in plain language and make it understandable to most than to go digging around in an thesaurus looking for words to impress people (mostly other writers) with. I'm always more impressed with writers that can get tears to fall than writers that make me go to the dictionary to understand what they're trying to say.


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## indianroads (Oct 27, 2020)

I believe it's a good idea to vary the length and complexity of our sentences because it makes for more interesting reading.


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## Earp (Nov 5, 2020)

EmmaSohan said:


> This is a normal thing to say, but my subjective opinion is that King is a master craftsman for writing clearly in a way that feels effortless and friendly to read. Which is to say, he doesn't just decide to write plainly, he's really good at that; he would be almost impossible to imitate without a lot of skill.
> 
> In the grammar book I am working on, I have high praise for his use of "the gun" instead of "a gun" -- I would never have thought to write "the gun", but it works brilliantly. Does that count as surprising? It's not flowery, but is it plain?
> 
> But yes, his goal is to tell the story, and if his writing draws no attention that's probably good. Or, to be more precise, he is not just providing information, he is creating a reader experience. He is usually plain, but not when he needs more.



I should have been more clear. As I said, I have read (and enjoyed) most of King's work. I think he's a great writer. But I consider him to be a different kind of writer when compared with Burke. A quote from James Lee Burke:

“I would start with four fingers of Jack in a thick mug, with a sweating Budweiser back, and by midnight I would be alone at the end of the bar, armed, drunk, and hunched over my glass, morally and psychologically insane.” 

Ironically, it's an almost King-esqe situation, but Stephen King would never have written that sentence, or anything like it.

I enjoy a good story regardless of the prose, but I like reading a lot more when the author's skill with words delights me.


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## EmmaSohan (Nov 5, 2020)

Earp said:


> “I would start with four fingers of Jack in a thick mug, with a sweating Budweiser back, and by midnight I would be alone at the end of the bar, armed, drunk, and hunched over my glass, morally and psychologically insane.”



Wonderful writing. So powerful. It makes a great example.

 I will note, that it could have begun



> Starting with four fingers of Jack....



So the underlying grammar is a little simpler and more direct than it might look. The complicated grammar part is the list at the end, and I'm not sure Burke maximized on that, though it looks like a very thoughtful sentence and I don't like to criticize thought-out decisions. I think it's clearer with "hunched over" moved up, and I like more isolation of the powerful ending. I am probably just changing style, but:



> I would start with four fingers of Jack in a thick mug, with a sweating Budweiser back. By midnight I would be hunched over my glass and alone at the end of the bar -- armed, drunk, and morally and psychologically insane.”



I think that might be a more complicated grammar. But I am trying to find a structure that best brings out the ideas.

So, a lot of the glory of that sentence is the ideas. This seems like an important sentence, so the precise detail that brings it to life seems very appropriate. Slowing down the reader to visualize that is great.


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## EmmaSohan (Nov 5, 2020)

There is still an issue when the detail is devoted to a sentence I will not bother finishing because it seems unimportant and is too hard for me to process and will probably be unrelated to the story.



> At dawn the antebellum homes along East Main loomed out of the mists, their columned porches and garden walkways and second-story verandas soaked with dew, the chimneys and slate roofs softly molded by the canopy of live oaks that arched over the entire street. (Burke)



It takes me a while to visualize oaks (as opposed to trees), and I cannot imagine them making a canopy of an arch over a street. This picture has a kind of an arch, but I would not call it a canopy.

I do not know what an antebellum home looks like and frankly could not distinguish one from a "prebellum" house. I suspect Burke meant antebellum South, and if you read between the lines, I don't think he cares about antebellum except as a fancy word for old. Why would we see a garden walkway from the street? I think it would have to be dirt to be soaked with dew, right? I don't think we're supposed to imagine dirt, I suspect we're supposed to imagine beads of dew on the paved sidewalk. I don't know how the tops of houses can loom out of the mist.

I mean, I understand there are readers who like this. Obviously I am not one of them.


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## Earp (Nov 5, 2020)

EmmaSohan said:


> Wonderful writing. So powerful. It makes a great example.
> 
> I will note, that it could have begun
> 
> ...



Your version is good too, though I doubt if Burke has ever used a em or en dash. I should mention that my favorite author is Hemingway who does much the same thing as Burke, but with far fewer words. Another example of the kind of prose I love to read, from John D. MacDonald, not for the sentiment expressed, but the way he says it:

“I do not like the killers, and the killing bravely and well crap. I do not like the bully boys, the Teddy Roosevelts, the Hemingways, the Ruarks. They are merely slightly more sophisticated versions of the New Jersey file clerks who swarm into the Adirondacks in the fall, in red cap, beard stubble and taut hero’s grin, talking out of the side of their mouths, exuding fumes of bourbon, come to slay the ferocious white-tailed deer. It is the search for balls. A man should have one chance to bring something down. He should have his shot at something, a shining running something, and see it come a-tumbling down, all mucus and steaming blood stench and gouted excrement, the eyes going dull during the final muscle spasms. And if he is, in all parts and purposes, a man, he will file that away as a part of his process of growth and life and eventual death. And if he is perpetually, hopelessly a boy, he will lust to go do it again, with a bigger beast.” 
― John D. MacDonald, A Deadly Shade of Gold


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## Earp (Nov 5, 2020)

One more quote, and I'll go away.

This one sums up what I've been saying about my reading preferences:

“To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the music the words make.”

 - Truman Capote


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## LCLee (Nov 5, 2020)

I develop my opening scene with bare bones and go back to fill it out.
When I read—if there are no redundancies I don’t mind a lot of fluff, especially in the opening.


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## indianroads (Nov 5, 2020)

Less if often more I believe. Describe the bare bones and leave the rest to the reader's imagination.


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## Pamelyn Casto (Nov 6, 2020)

I'd also love to see us try to tackle the difference between "literary" and "mainstream." Someone mentioned that literary suggests "highbrow." I'm not convinced that's so.  Some “literary” writers I like are far from anything I’d consider highbrow in style. Highbrow to me suggests pretentious. I’m talking about plain style writers like Hemingway in his short-short stories or Raymond Carver or Lydia Davis. Or even some of Charles Bukowski.  The “highbrow” label just doesn’t fit them but they don’t lack a thing in style—and they do wear the label of literary quite well. When done well, a plain and simple vocabulary does the job. 

I also like a large vocabulary in a writer. I love to run across a new and interesting word. I was reading about what a monster of a vocabulary Edgar Allen Poe had. He seemed to enjoy using words others aren't necessarily familiar with. I guess he expected his readers to stretch a bit. Here are just three of many he used in his stories or poems: animadversion, Batrachomyomachia, caoutchouc. I don't know the meaning of a single one. Here’s a site that shows the various words he used and where he used them https://poestories.com/wordlist.php


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## Olly Buckle (Nov 7, 2020)

> Some “literary” writers I like are far from anything I’d consider highbrow in style.


I so agree. I found a Raymond Chandler I have not read in the charity shop recently. Really looking forward to that, sure it will be a 'lowbrow' detective tale, but his writing is brilliantly unexpected sometimes, definitely literary.

I think I must have a fair vocabulary, of the three you gave one I knew, one I could work out and only one meant nothing to me, and when I look at that word list I find I know most of the words in it.


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## Pamelyn Casto (Nov 7, 2020)

Okay, Olly, I'll admit to knowing a lot of Poe's words too. (But I didn't know those I mentioned.) I love word games and love taking those tests that determine how large your vocabulary is. I guess that's what wannabe writers do-- play with words all the livelong day. 

I once was quoted in a California newspaper because I used the word "chthonic" in a short piece I'd written (in the piece I'd claimed my ancestors were a chthonic people.) That was such a nice surprise to have the paragraph I'd written appear in someone's monthly newspaper column. He claimed I used $5 words (not 50 cent words):-D.

But I'll also admit that I didn't make the school spelling bee. I've always been a good speller and had hopes I'd make the bee. The word they gave me was "cattle." Simple enough, huh? Not for this grade-schooler who had a thick southern accent at the time. They tossed the word to me, "cattle," and because I was a bit nervous, I automatically spelled it the way my southern accent ears heard it, "C-A-D-D-L-E." I knew I'd failed the second the letters were out of my mouth.  I got to sit back down . . . fast. No bee for me. 

I've not read any Chandler but have heard lots good about his writing. Raymond Carver and Charles Bukowski (two writers I like) write gritty and raw stuff-- nary a highbrow thing about either of their work (none that I've read, anyway). Nor is there anything flowery. But they are definitely considered literary. 

There's a Texas writer I love (but I can't think of his name at the moment) who loves to pile on the adjectives. It works great for him. (I saved a quotation by him where he talks about distrusting word-shy writers like Hemingway and I'll post it later-- when I locate it again.) 

I'm also playing with a book by a writer who has four (or maybe five) identities, and has four (or maybe five) distinct styles. The particular book I'm reading at present has two of his identities at work-- one identity in the first half of the book, and the other identity in the second half. Interesting. The two halves really do seem like two different writers.


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## bdcharles (Nov 7, 2020)

Pamelyn Casto said:


> I once was quoted in a California newspaper because I used the word "chthonic" in a short piece I'd written (in the piece I'd claimed my ancestors were a chthonic people.) That was such a nice surprise to have the paragraph I'd written appear in someone's monthly newspaper column. He claimed I used $5 words (not 50 cent words):-D.



Great word that I initially came across in 90s first-person-shooter _Quake_. It's only recently that I learned it has to do with stuff below ground rather than - as I assumed - many-tentacled Lovecraftian horrors.


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## Pamelyn Casto (Nov 7, 2020)

bdcharles wrote (on chthonic): "Great word that I initially came across in 90s first-person-shooter _Quake. It's only recently that I learned it has to do with stuff below ground rather than - as I assumed - many-tentacled Lovecraftian horrors."

_I'm a lover of Greek myth so the chthonic deities fascinate me. I've written on Hecate, Erebus, the Erinyes, and Persephone-- all chthonic. I've written on the upper deities too. I collect gods so I have lots more writing work to do on all those overcrowding my two large curio cabinets. When they start up their fighting, it sure gets noisy in there.:-D Seriously, I am working on a poetry collection centered around the gods I have collected over the years.  It wouldn't surprise me at all that Lovecraft made use of Greek chthonic deity images-- especially the many-tentacled horrors. There are some ugly critters down there!


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## Pamelyn Casto (Nov 7, 2020)

I told Olly Buckle I'd name and say more about the Texas writer who loves to pile on the adjectives. Here's a bit about him (and why I admire him so).

I've become a William Goyen fan in part because of his style and his "fat" sentences.  And as one who's recently read one too many articles on "trimming the fat" from our work I like to haul out Goyen's stories and thoughts on writing-- to remember to keep "writing rules" in perspective, to remember that there's still plenty of room for more than bare bones, skinny, trimmed-down stories (especially in flash fiction). 

Goyen has been described as having a dark and rich bard's voice. One book reviewer of his Had I A Hundred Mouths says his stories "Had I A Hundred Mouths" and "In the Icebound Hothouse" are among the best short stories of the century. 

When asked about writing influences he felt he had to reject or throw off, Goyen had this to say (from an interview in the same collection):

"The American writing around me seemed to all just hang at... just at whatever tide there was -- there was Hemingway, whom I couldn't abide. Fitzgerald, totally foreign to me.  I didn't know about that world, the swell life.  Or even Fitzgerald's own transformations.  Hemingway seemed to me to be like the brutes that I knew that I wanted to escape from, in Texas. That physical bravado, that leanness of style, that was anathema to me.  Why would I not use three adjectives?  Why not?  I was a rhapsodist, why would I cut down on my adjectives?  What was Hemingway trying to tell me, what was he hiding?"


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## Olly Buckle (Nov 7, 2020)

"chthonic" is new to me, I would have gone for troglodytes.

Started my Chandler this afternoon, just the first page or so. He is describing someone turning up at a house and the front garden. The last phrase about the garden was , 'and two acacia trees that were worth seeing.'  Two words and I know just what they were like and their seasonal state.


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## Pamelyn Casto (Nov 7, 2020)

Yes, Olly, I too know exactly what they look like with just these words "and two acacia trees that were worth seeing." It would have been less effective (I imagine) to try to describe them any further than just those two words-- "worth seeing." Keep an eye out for more, please. I've not read any Chandler so it would be great if you find us more gems like this one. 

One plant that's spectacular to me is Texas sage. It's usually boring silver gray. That is, until it rains. That's when the entire shrub is decks itself out in thick and amazing purple blooms. Those shrubs are then "worth seeing" and anyone who's ever seen one knows exactly what I'd be talking about. 

Early this morning I was looking at effective first sentences of various stories. How important those first sentences can be. Maybe I'll start a thread where we all post our favorite opening sentences. Or would that topic also fall within this thread on style? (I'm new out here in the forum world. I had limited myself to just one group for a long time and now I'm out here trying to learn how it *all* operates.)


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## Olly Buckle (Nov 7, 2020)

"I went in. The room beyond was large and square and sunken and cool and had the restful atmosphere of a funeral chapel and something the same smell."

There is a word for that, when you write 'and' in full and don't use commas, it affects the whole feel of the sentence, and look at square, sunken, restful, atmosphere, something the same smell. Alliteration using 's' can be really over the top, but putting it in the middle of the two middle words works beautifully. There is a notable absence of 'hard' consonants and the few there are are in words like 'sunken restful atmosphere' where they don't exactly add zip and pop to the feel.


Edit; Sorry, I should have said it's from the same Chandler book, 'The high window'. Naughty of me to quote without attributing properly.


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## EmmaSohan (Nov 7, 2020)

Olly Buckle said:


> Started my Chandler this afternoon, just the first page or so. He is describing someone turning up at a house and the front garden. The last phrase about the garden was , 'and two acacia trees that were worth seeing.'  Two words and I know just what they were like and their seasonal state.



I'll bite. What were they like? Can you tell me the species? I saw some nice pictures of acacias, but they were by themselves, I'm having trouble imaging two in a front garden worth looking at.

Two acacias.


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## Olly Buckle (Nov 8, 2020)

EmmaSohan said:


> I'll bite. What were they like? Can you tell me the species? I saw some nice pictures of acacias, but they were by themselves, I'm having trouble imaging two in a front garden worth looking at.
> 
> Two acacias.



Nope, that is all he says about them. In my head it is a cultivar of dealbata, they have really showy yellow wattles. The joy of less is more, anyone who has seen a mimosa worth seeing can give it their own image


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## EmmaSohan (Nov 8, 2020)

Olly Buckle said:


> Nope, that is all he says about them. In my head it is a cultivar of dealbata, they have really showy yellow wattles. The joy of less is more, anyone who has seen a mimosa worth seeing can give it their own image



I think we have had this discussion! If those 8 words create a lovely image in your mind, that's enough, right? I would guess Chandler had not seen an acacia tree, and he was just writing words, but that doesn't really matter. And if it creates a different image in Pamelyn's mind, that's okay too, because she liked her image. The differences don't matter because that tree has nothing to do with the story.

But it can't just be that "less is more." Chandler could have written "two *trees *worth looking at." Then I could have imagined a Japaneses dwarf maple and joined in on the fun.

But I think you want the words to take you to images and places you would not get to by yourself? So tree isn't good? Look at Goyen's "[FONT=&Verdana]a park that seemed like the very pasture of Hell." I would guess that's powerful and evocative. It even creates a feeling for me, though I have no idea what it means, and I am guessing it creates different responses for different readers.

[/FONT]And again it doesn't matter what Goyen was thinking and if he was just combining words. [/FONT][FONT=&Verdana]But, from a long-ago discussion here on computer-generated poetry, I think readers like the sense that they and author are communicating.


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## Matchu (Nov 8, 2020)

_'...Hemingway seemed to me to be like the brutes that I knew that I wanted to escape from, in Texas. That physical bravado, that leanness of style, that was anathema to me. Why would I not use three adjectives? Why not? I was a rhapsodist, why would I cut down on my adjectives? What was Hemingway trying to tell me, what was he hiding?"

_The [classic] fat pussycat dressed in silk...his home a house of mirrors...and we might lead him to school...one day, y'know, and try, and try ever so hard:

"Dear, dear Pudding, these book things are for the readers, if you might fade into the background a moment?  This egocentrical stuff of yours, all over the web, all over the airways. Ghastly earnest, your feelings, your journeys.  Child, see how you induce vomitations in these here elderly folk."

[CUT TO VOMIT]

Although fair point about Hemingway.  Anyway, it's all gone Shirley Jackson at the moment.  They're all saying she is 'the best American.' Hoh...


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## bazz cargo (Nov 10, 2020)

Y'know, there is one writer who nearly always gets forgotten.  Leslie Charteris. His saint character has influenced and been borrowed from like jazz is to music.

My all time favourite character is Hoppy Uniatz. Just a joy of counterpoint.

As for style. I use what feels right. I even did a sci fi short in the noir detective style. Most of the time I am just having a ball and enjoying the moment, I don't overthink what I'm doing. Cramps my creativity.  

Rules is for wimps. Think of them as a challenge.


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## OliviaM (Nov 10, 2020)

Absolutely agree with your thoughts!


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## Olly Buckle (Nov 11, 2020)

bazz cargo said:


> I don't overthink what I'm doing. Cramps my creativity.  .


If it is at the time of writing I can well understand that, but don't you find thinking about such things at other times and then writing actually adds to your creativity?


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## bazz cargo (Nov 11, 2020)

I didn't think about that... 
I just write, I don't go for any technical stuff. Sometimes I write myself into a corner and have to start again.   





Olly Buckle said:


> If it is at the time of writing I can well understand that, but don't you find thinking about such things at other times and then writing actually adds to your creativity?


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## WailingDusk (Nov 15, 2020)

I keep my prose simple enough that it's easy to read, but complex and nuanced enough that the reader has to think. Sometimes they may come to conclusions different than what I intended, but I'm fine with that. They will figure it out in the end.


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## alpacinoutd (Nov 17, 2020)

Earp said:


> I divide fiction authors into two groups: writers and storytellers. It's rare to find someone who is good at both.



Well said. If one call be both at the same time, then they are good to go.


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