# Does this make sense?



## cinderblock (Jan 7, 2016)

Can you make sense of this description? *

The man operates the remote controller. An orange car with colossal back wheels soaring above its plastic frame comes whizzing over and pulls to a stop. The rims of the back wheels have tiger stripes. On the wing, it says PSYCHO.

He motions for me to get inside. Stepping up, I notice the same roof design and pair of seats on the underbelly as on top, like two identical cars were ingeniously sandwiched together and given oversized tires to be driven on whichever side the circumstances fit. Given the extra option, I pause to wonder which side to get on, realizing if I were to go with the bottom, I would have to get in upside down and thereby employ a peculiar technique.  

No matter, the man hops onto the top side and says, “Well, do you wanna get there or not?” 
*

Or are you still scratching your head?

I was trying to describe the following without saying it's a toy. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQ4z2Xnf5Qg


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## Sam (Jan 7, 2016)

Why don't you just say it's a toy? 

No, I didn't get a picture of a toy at all.


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## Wandering Man (Jan 7, 2016)

I can see it, although I didn't visualize the toy you referenced.

My only comment:

Run! Run! Don't get in the car!


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## Jeko (Jan 7, 2016)

The description is dull and overstuffed regardless of whether or not it's supposed to be a toy. This is not what it feels like to get into a car, or to see one in motion. There's a description, but no image, mainly because every opportunity for the image to come through is described rather than imagined.


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## Blade (Jan 7, 2016)

> * Stepping up, I notice the same roof design and pair of seats on the underbelly as on top, like two identical cars were ingeniously sandwiched together and given oversized tires to be driven on whichever side the circumstances fit.*



I got lost right here.:blue: I could see one car inverted and placed atop the other but what exactly does 'sandwiched' mean? :-k 



> *realizing if I were to go with the bottom, I would have to get in upside down and thereby employ a peculiar technique.
> *



Well I would think that the bottom section would be upright and that you would get in normally.:cookie:

I am :scratch: :indecisiveness:.


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## cinderblock (Jan 7, 2016)

Sam said:


> Why don't you just say it's a toy?
> 
> No, I didn't get a picture of a toy at all.



Because it operates on its own dream logic. 



Cadence said:


> The description is dull and overstuffed regardless of whether it's supposed to be a toy. This is not what it feels like to get into a car, or to see one in motion. There's a description, but no image, mainly because every opportunity for the image to come through is described rather than imagined.



This is the first impression. I also have a description of what it feels like to ride in it, but I thought I'd set it up, because it could cause confusion. Hmm.

As for dull descriptors, I try to keep the prose as plain as possible.


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## cinderblock (Jan 7, 2016)

Blade said:


> I got lost right here.:blue: I could see one car inverted and placed atop the other but what exactly does 'sandwiched' mean? :-k
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I used "sandwiched," like an Oreo cookie, because I thought it immediately gave the impression the cars were put together top to bottom. If I just said they were "pressed" together, someone may have got the idea it was extended like a limousine. 

As for the bottom section being upside down, I guess I thought the extra "roof" would clarify that. But I could see where the confusion may occur. You thought there were just two cars stacked on top of each other. Hmm.


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## Blade (Jan 7, 2016)

cinderblock said:


> You thought there were just two cars stacked on top of each other. Hmm.





> * Stepping up, I notice the same roof design and pair of seats on the underbelly as on top,*



Note use of 'top' implying a top and bottom.:listening_headphone


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## BobtailCon (Jan 7, 2016)

*The man's fingers operate the remote controller. An orange car with colossal back wheels and a tough plastic frame soars over itself. The rims of the back tires are camouflaged in stylish tiger stripes. Painted onto the wings is the word; PSYCHO.

     He motions for me to get inside. Stepping up, I notice the same roof design and pair of seats on the underbelly as on top. Two identical cars were mechanically sandwiched together, like a metal worker welding two slabs of metal. Each side sported oversized tires to be driven on whichever side the circumstances fit. Given this extra option, I had to pause in wonderment of which side to get in. Realizing that if I were to go in the bottom cabin, I would have to enter upside down, thereby being left in a peculiar position to strap myself in.  

     No matter, the man pounces into the top side and says, “Well, do you wanna get there or not?” 



Hope this helps.
*


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## Jeko (Jan 7, 2016)

> I also have a description of what it feels like to ride in it



That's your problem.

I don't want a description of that feeling. I want to feel it!



> As for dull descriptors, I try to keep the prose as plain as possible.



This is about as plain as a Christmas tree celebrating Gay Pride with extra fireworks and jugglers and jugglers juggling fireworks, and not in a good way.

*The man operates the remote controller. An orange car with colossal back wheels soaring above its plastic **frame **comes whizzing over and pulls to a stop. The rims of the back wheels have tiger stripes. On the wing, it says PSYCHO.

He motions for me to get inside. Stepping up, I notice the same roof design and pair of seats on the underbelly as on top, like two identical cars were ingeniously sandwiched together and given oversized tires to be driven on whichever side the circumstances fit. Given the extra option, I pause to wonder which side to get on, realizing if I were to go with the bottom, I would have to get in upside down and thereby employ a peculiar technique. 

No matter, the man hops onto the top side and says, “Well, do you wanna get there or not?” 

*If you want your prose to be 'plain', I take issue with anything labelled in a colour. Grey is for features of the prose that deflate, slow down or obscure the tone. Green is for verbs and verb phrases that I want to run over with the car. Red is for details that aren't 'necessary' or interesting and feel noticed by an artificial speaker and not someone actually interested in the image. Purple is for purple-prosaic parts of the piece that I want to run over with the car. Blue is for inaccuracies - the 'side' you get into a car is far more naturally referential to left/right seat, not top/bottom, and you 'sandwich' something between two things. Unless you're happy to make a sandwich with just bread, these cars aren't 'sandwiched together'. An oreo cookie has cream in the middle. These cars don't.

This 'first impression' of this toy would make me want to take it back to the store. Watch the advert you posted again and work out how they make car move, and sell.


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## Patrick (Jan 7, 2016)

After the first sentence, I was happily imagining a remote-control monster truck pulling up alongside the narrator, then I had to imagine another monster truck, upside down and glued on top of the other one somehow, in the second paragraph. As you can imagine, I was left scratching my head how anybody would get into the upside-down monster truck, let alone jump on top. You certainly would have to employ a peculiar technique!

Alright. Here's a plain description.

A remote-controlled racing car whizzes across the ground towards me and comes to a stop. It is blue and has proportionate front wheels either side of a scoop like that of a Formula One car, but the back wheels dwarf the rest of its construction, raising the rear of the vehicle so that it is wedge shaped.

The man with the remote control motions me to get inside. I then see the top half of the chassis is mirrored by its orange lower half, suggesting the car can, by some design of its enormous rear wheels and pointed nose, be turned upside down and driven all the same. Its design even enables it to be turned onto its side to perform a nauseating spin. As I contemplate the difficulty of sitting upside down in the lower half of the chassis, the man with the remote control jumps onto the vehicle and says, "Well, do you want to get there or not?"

Something like that. You can edit any repetition.


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## cinderblock (Jan 8, 2016)

BobtailCon said:


> *The man's fingers operate the remote controller. An orange car with colossal back wheels and a tough plastic frame soars over itself. The rims of the back tires are camouflaged in stylish tiger stripes. Painted onto the wings is the word; PSYCHO.
> 
> He motions for me to get inside. Stepping up, I notice the same roof design and pair of seats on the underbelly as on top. Two identical cars were mechanically sandwiched together, like a metal worker welding two slabs of metal. Each side sported oversized tires to be driven on whichever side the circumstances fit. Given this extra option, I had to pause in wonderment of which side to get in. Realizing that if I were to go in the bottom cabin, I would have to enter upside down, thereby being left in a peculiar position to strap myself in.
> 
> ...



Thanks, I appreciate your take. I like the imagery of metal workers welding two slabs of metal, though I'm not sure if it helps the reader understand the configuration of the car. I really like the "camouflage" to describe the tiger stripes. 



Cadence said:


> That's your problem.
> 
> I don't want a description of that feeling. I want to feel it!
> 
> ...



I appreciate your feedback. It's apparent from reading your criticism, I'm not trained classically to write. You really have a technical way of deconstructing a passage. 

To get a better idea/example of the kind of writing you find exhillarating and full of "feels," what are your favorite books? 

Also, have you ever read Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien? Wondering what you thought, if you have. 



Patrick said:


> After the first sentence, I was happily imagining a remote-control monster truck pulling up alongside the narrator, then I had to imagine another monster truck, upside down and glued on top of the other one somehow, in the second paragraph. As you can imagine, I was left scratching my head how anybody would get into the upside-down monster truck, let alone jump on top. You certainly would have to employ a peculiar technique!
> 
> Alright. Here's a plain description.
> 
> ...



Very much appreciate your take. I decided not to get into the whole wedge-shaped thing, after a couple tries, and resigned ultimately to let the reader just imagine a dualsided vehicle, period. This whole process has been tough for me, because describing things is not my strength. I try to avoid it, and I pretty much get away with plain prose until this scene, or whatever the hell I think plain prose means. Clearly it differs from the technical definition according to Cadence. 

So this is what I've settled on. I took out the functional description, although I love it, personally. Found it too "information-dumpy" for me. But I've already incorporated sort of what this car does throughout the scene. They drive upside down because they ram into a wall and flip over, and then flip back upright, while they're on the run from all the cars they hit... and then they spin like a top upon a collision but I digress... (BTW I will email you my response on your book. Things have been extremely hectic due to some personal problems.)

*The man operates the remote controller. A race car whizzes over and comes to a stop. The rims of the colossal back wheels, camouflaged in tiger stripes, rise above the plastic construction. On the wing, it says PSYCHO.

He motions me to go ahead.

It’s worth considering the twin-body design, as if the chassis of two cars were fused together to form mirror halves, effectively occluding the vehicle from the notion of a top and bottom. Stepping up, I wonder which half to get on, the upper half with the upright seat or the bottom half with the upside down seat, and settle on the latter. But before I could even get down on my hands and knees to enter from below, the man hops on top of the car and says, “Well, are you coming or not?”

I follow him into the upright seats and buckle up.*


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## Patrick (Jan 8, 2016)

Perhaps those are irritations for Cadence, and you might consider them, but I shouldn't worry too much about how many adjectives you use or whether your verbs please everyone.

What I have tried to emphasise in my response is that the precision of the language is what matters. When you say the enormous wheels, I am forced to imagine all four wheels being enormous, but now that you've corrected that, I have more of an idea. *Edit*: where you say "back wheels" my brain is scanning the word "black". That may well be entirely my fault and not yours, but it keeps happening; I think partly because you have it in bold. However, the natural inclination is to imagine black wheels, so I would change back to rear.

"Occluding" is another example of a lack of precision in the language. And let's look at the final clause of that sentence, "*effectively occluding the vehicle from the notion of a top and bottom." *The vehicle is being prevented the notion? I would simply say, preventing the notion of a conventional top and bottom. "*But before I could..." *Before I can.


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## cinderblock (Jan 8, 2016)

Patrick said:


> Perhaps those are irritations for Cadence, and you might consider them, but I shouldn't worry too much about how many adjectives you use or whether your verbs please everyone.
> 
> What I have tried to emphasise in my response is that the precision of the language is what matters. When you say the enormous wheels, I am forced to imagine all four wheels being enormous, but now that you've corrected that, I have more of an idea. *Edit*: where you say "back wheels" my brain is scanning the word "black". That may well be entirely my fault and not yours, but it keeps happening; I think partly because you have it in bold. However, the natural inclination is to imagine black wheels, so I would change back to rear.
> 
> "Occluding" is another example of a lack of precision in the language. And let's look at the final clause of that sentence, "*effectively occluding the vehicle from the notion of a top and bottom." *The vehicle is being prevented the notion? I would simply say, preventing the notion of a conventional top and bottom. "*But before I could..." *Before I can.




I do like rear wheels more than back wheels. Good catch, I missed that.

I personally can't stand when there's a description or action sequence I don't quite understand in a book, so I aim to be as clear as possible. 

I'll go with "preventing the notion of a conventional top and bottom." I like that more. Simple. Plain. Easier to understand. 

I'll also go with "can." I just looked up the difference, and I didn't even know, haha! See, I don't even think about these things. I just go with what "sounds about right." That's what I get for self-teaching myself. I just read things and go, "I like what the author did there," and try to emulate that into my writing. I think that's why I'm prone to throwing opaque expressions and terminology from time to time, because unless you're reading Bukowski, who's as plain as can be, it seems most authors do this, so I've been influenced that way. There are clearer ways to say something, but they tend to use a sort of unconventional term but you "get the idea" or at least what they were shooting for. Flann O'Brien's style in the Third Policeman is extremely whimsical and written in this nebulous manner and sure there's a frustration to it, but also a delight I think you can only obtain from such style of writing. Not that I'm at all trying to be like Flann O'Brien, but I can appreciate that style. But going back to my lack of classical training, I'm sure an editor will destroy me. I get overwhelmed when I think of these things, and it's also the reason why I avoid books on writing. I think if I read about how many things I wasn't doing properly, I would get too intimidated to ever write again.


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## Patrick (Jan 8, 2016)

cinderblock said:


> I do like rear wheels more than back wheels. Good catch, I missed that.
> 
> I personally can't stand when there's a description or action sequence I don't quite understand in a book, so I aim to be as clear as possible.
> 
> ...



I love poetic expression; my writing is full of it. I am also an autodidact (with great help from my friend and teacher, Rob), as most writers are, and learning the efficient use of language is part of the writing process.

"and emulate them in my writing." :read:


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## Jeko (Jan 8, 2016)

> I shouldn't worry too much about how many adjectives you use or whether your verbs please everyone.



The writer should care immensely about every word they use. Would you buy a car if you knew the manufacturer had paid a lot of attention to the wheels, but not, say, the comfort of the seats?



> To get a better idea/example of the kind of writing you find exhillarating and full of "feels," what are your favorite books?



_Fight Club_. Anything by Neil Gaiman. Ginsberg's _Howl_, to name a poem.



> You really have a technical way of deconstructing a passage.



This isn't technical. This is me reading the passage, noticing anything that doesn't feel pleasant or productive to read, and labelling it as one thing or the other. I haven't even started to point out issues with your grammar, for instance. I'm just pointing out issues in the vocabulary that hold the writing back from feeling 'plain'. If I was trying to write it in 'plain' prose, while trying to maintain an interesting scene, I'd probably do it like this:

*He gets out the remote. A whirring in the distance. An orange chassis around thundering giant tiger-stripe-rimmed back wheels hurtles towards us. The glare reflected on the windshield blinds for a second. Still accelerating. 

It screeches to a halt before collision. What a stopping distance. 

On the wing, it says: 
'PSYCHO'​
A motion for me to get inside. The design is clearer this close up - a second body on top has the seats the right way round, but the lower body is all upside down, like a mirror reflection, beneath it. Both use the same set of wheels. The car could flip and still go on. Won't do my insides any good. 

No problem. He's going to ride with me on top. He clambers up first, one hand still on the remote.

'Coming?' I nod. He extends a hand to help me up before we buckle up together. 

The chassis must be made of model-car, breakable plastic. These belts better not be.
*
This version attempts to 'occlude' any verbs like 'occluding', maintain a more gripping pace that would fit the thrill of stepping into this vehicle, and minimise vague adjectives. It is, however, in the style that I free-write prose; a lot of fragments and the character's voice breaking into the narration. Also, no thought-verbs. I don't think they help us feel what the character is feeling in this moment.

Also:



> "preventing the notion of a conventional top and bottom." I like that more. Simple. Plain. Easier to understand.



No, no it's not. It's something that the reader would want to realise for themselves, first, not something that narrator should be musing about, because, second, it makes them sound like a Design & Technology college student rather than someone being presented with a really interesting car.


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## Patrick (Jan 8, 2016)

Cadence said:


> The writer should care immensely about every word they use. Would you buy a car if you knew the manufacturer had paid a lot of attention to the wheels, but not, say, the comfort of the seats?



Of course, you're talking to somebody who crafts every word on the page, but my preferences will not be the same as cinderblock's, and it would be foolish to impose them on him/her. What I would rather do is focus on an aspect I can objectively help with, which is the precision of language. My description of the car seeks only to clarify the language while remaining as faithful to the author's original as possible.


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## Jeko (Jan 8, 2016)

> Of course, you're talking to somebody who crafts every word on the page, but my preferences will not be the same as cinderblock's, and it would be foolish to impose them on him/her.



Patrick, please stop trying to deflate my advice by emphasising the subjectivity of the craft. One of the main reasons many writing groups are full of bullshit is that everyone in them thinks that terrible attempts at style are just down to 'preferences'. 

I'm not saying I don't like cinderblock's style because it doesn't match or agree with my own. I'm saying it's a bad style, period. It's evidently over-ornamented and sluggish to the point of dithering around certain points. You can demonstrate that by pulling it apart, as cinderblock should be doing in this editing phase.


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## Patrick (Jan 8, 2016)

Cadence said:


> Patrick, please stop trying to deflate my advice by emphasising the subjectivity of the craft. One of the main reasons many writing groups are full of bullshit is that everyone in them thinks that terrible attempts at style are just down to 'preferences'.
> I'm not saying I don't like cinderblock's style because it doesn't match or agree my own. I'm saying it's a bad style, period. It's evidently over-ornamented and sluggish to the point of dithering around certain points. You can demonstrate that by pulling it apart, as cinderblock should be doing in this editing phase.



I've been around a lot longer than you, and I've received the help of teachers much better than you or me, and because of that experience I know what facilitates improvement and what simply tears a writer down. The question asked by the op is: does this make sense? You weren't asked to present cinderblock with an entirely different style of writing. I am not deflating your advice by pointing this out. You really aren't providing the help the thread asks for. And your style of writing is certainly not the only one on the table. I know when I see a young man who thinks he knows it all, because I was one.


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## Jeko (Jan 8, 2016)

> The question asked by the op is: does this make sense? You weren't asked to present cinderblock with an entirely different style of writing.



My immediate impression upon reading the excerpt was that it doesn't make sense because of the over-ornamented style. I gave my best shot at an extremely unornamented style as an example.

Does that make sense?


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## Patrick (Jan 8, 2016)

Cadence said:


> My immediate impression upon reading the excerpt was that it doesn't make sense because of the over-ornamented style. I gave my best shot at an extremely unornamented style as an example.
> 
> Does that make sense?



You gave an example of your own free-write prose, and the frequency with which you use fragments to establish the pace makes the prose very jarring in opposition to the dense flowing style the op wants to write in. I am trying to help them achieve their aims; you're trying to force your style onto another writer while telling them theirs sucks. That is in fact your opinion, and it isn't substantiated by your colour-coded analysis of the example given in the op, which you even contradict in places in your own example, such as here: *An orange chassis around thundering giant tiger-stripe-rimmed back wheels hurtles towards us. *For one thing, that is an extremely clunky sentence. Read it aloud if you don't believe me. And here is what it contradicts: *back wheels **rims of the back wheels **tiger stripes. *All in red font to denote those elements you previously told the op were irrelevant or not very interesting. Some of the words highlighted with purple and green have been chosen arbitrarily, which tells me it is just your subjective preference. The op is asking for objective clarity in their descriptive writing. How does your advice do anything other than obscure the process for the op?


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## Jeko (Jan 8, 2016)

How about you let 'the OP' speak for himself, Patrick?


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## cinderblock (Jan 9, 2016)

Cadence said:


> The writer should care immensely about every word they use. Would you buy a car if you knew the manufacturer had paid a lot of attention to the wheels, but not, say, the comfort of the seats?
> 
> _Fight Club_. Anything by Neil Gaiman. Ginsberg's _Howl_, to name a poem.
> 
> ...



I know that it doesn't sound like a "Design and Technology college student," and here's why: I'm not a Design and Tech student, and I came up with that without any substantial research. By contrast, you get a book like Diary by Chuck Palahniuk, and he shoves esoteric factoids down your throat, regardless of whether or not it has anything to do with the narrator's supposed area of expertise. 

I'm glad you mentioned Fight Club. It's one of my favorite books. It's probably Palahniuk's best, alongside Survivor. After that, he changes up his style and intent from book to book. He's no longer minimalistic. And he talks about the style changes in his interviews, the process of unlearning how to write. Diary is the exact opposite of why I fell in love with Palahniuk. Extremely descriptive, anti-minimalistic, heavyhanded, purple prosaic. I really didn't care for that book, but if you read the reviews on Amazon and watch reviews on YouTube, you'll find a lot of people who loved it. But by your logic, he should've stuck to one style of writing. I wonder what Chuck would say to that. 

I've read Gaiman's Graveyard Book, Coraline, and American Gods. He has a very measured pace. His writing is great. There were however a lot of descriptions about the gods in American Gods that I just didn't get. I felt he went a bit overboard especially toward the end, where they're setting up the stage for war, for your standards of clarity.

As for Ginsberg's Howl, boy does that surprise me. I would've thought people here would've eaten him alive. His style honestly reminded me of how I used to write poems when I was an adolescent, just these pretentious, angst-riddled rants with eye-popping words, abstract to the point it could be interpreted a hundred different ways. And when you read interpretations of his poems, it's true. He's referencing insular stuff from his childhood and issues with his mother that occlude the general public. If we're talking about clarity, I'm absolutely dazed on this one. I get the emotional/unfiltered/visceral argument, as evidenced by your prose, but stuff like Howl and Naked Lunch are notorious for going on what people would call drug-induced, stream of consciousness rampage of syntax. Where I disagree is that you need drugs to write like that. 




Patrick said:


> Of course, you're talking to somebody who crafts every word on the page, but my preferences will not be the same as cinderblock's, and it would be foolish to impose them on him/her. What I would rather do is focus on an aspect I can objectively help with, which is the precision of language. My description of the car seeks only to clarify the language while remaining as faithful to the author's original as possible.



I get Patrick's perspective, but I agree. I was merely asking if the imagery made sense, regardless of writing style. 



Cadence said:


> Patrick, please stop trying to deflate my advice by emphasising the subjectivity of the craft. One of the main reasons many writing groups are full of bullshit is that everyone in them thinks that terrible attempts at style are just down to 'preferences'.
> 
> I'm not saying I don't like cinderblock's style because it doesn't match or agree with my own. I'm saying it's a bad style, period. It's evidently over-ornamented and sluggish to the point of dithering around certain points. You can demonstrate that by pulling it apart, as cinderblock should be doing in this editing phase.



So you're saying the main reason writing groups are full of BS is that everyone thinks their "style" is just a "preference." How is this opinion different from yours, though? You seem adamant that your style is not preference, perhaps just like the others in the writing group.

Style is subjective, regardless of whether it's terrible or not. Do you like every published author that you read? If not, who are you to tell them and their fans that their style is bullshit?



Patrick said:


> I've been around a lot longer than you, and I've received the help of teachers much better than you or me, and because of that experience I know what facilitates improvement and what simply tears a writer down. The question asked by the op is: does this make sense? You weren't asked to present cinderblock with an entirely different style of writing. I am not deflating your advice by pointing this out. You really aren't providing the help the thread asks for. And your style of writing is certainly not the only one on the table. I know when I see a young man who thinks he knows it all, because I was one.



I have never read Cadence's style before. And his examples were also not written in that style. 

It's so different from what I've been reading, it's a little hard to digest at the moment, actually. Just from first impression, it seems like a pretty tough style to emulate for me, personally. I only emulate styles I feel not only connect with my "writing voice," but something I could prodigiously apply to my writing. For example, descriptions don't come easy for me, like it does Neil Gaiman or Haruki Murakami or Stanislaw Lem. But Neil Gaiman's characters are also pretty cardboard and more or less plot devices in my view. He doesn't delve into their psychology, because that's not his strength. His strength is descriptions and pacing. Descriptions are a huge weakness of mine, so I tend to hate writing them. I try to write what excites me. I think too many writers try to write in styles they admire, more so than one that's compatible with their natural, prosaic voice. It's my opinion these writers often talk about how much they hate writing, and also the reason I believe many authors commit suicide... but boy have I digressed. 

I guess I could see Cadence's style catching on.  



Patrick said:


> You gave an example of your own free-write prose, and the frequency with which you use fragments to establish the pace makes the prose very jarring in opposition to the dense flowing style the op wants to write in. I am trying to help them achieve their aims; you're trying to force your style onto another writer while telling them theirs sucks. That is in fact your opinion, and it isn't substantiated by your colour-coded analysis of the example given in the op, which you even contradict in places in your own example, such as here: *An orange chassis around thundering giant tiger-stripe-rimmed back wheels hurtles towards us. *For one thing, that is an extremely clunky sentence. Read it aloud if you don't believe me. And here is what it contradicts: *back wheels **rims of the back wheels **tiger stripes. *All in red font to denote those elements you previously told the op were irrelevant or not very interesting. Some of the words highlighted with purple and green have been chosen arbitrarily, which tells me it is just your subjective preference. The op is asking for objective clarity in their descriptive writing. How does your advice do anything other than obscure the process for the op?



I don't think Cadence is shooting for clarity. I appreciate the book examples he shared. Ginsberg goes a long way in explaining where he's coming from - visceral/raw/hyper realistic/hip/stream of consciousness writing. 




Cadence said:


> How about you let 'the OP' speak for himself, Patrick?



If the circumstances were right, I wish I could take a dozen classes with writers who all write in drastically varying styles, so I could try adopting each one and seeing for myself, the advantages, disadvantages in first person. 

However at this juncture, I just learn as I go and implement a little here and a little there, based on how much I'm affected by something. And I know this answer sucks, but that's all I can say for now.

A huge part of what makes writing exciting for me, is reading wildly different styles. And regardless of whether I loved it or hated it, it's this somewhat simple but profound observation that really, you could write a book in so many different ways. I love reading a style that makes me go, "Wow, I never knew you write a book like this. And this is a classic? This touched an entire generation?" Like how I felt about Howl. Or how I felt about Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America. Or Bukowski's Post Office or Factotum. 

I think Bukowski gave a LOT of hope to the everyman, because he proved you could write a book with plain English and no story, and still connect with a massive audience. He's the posterboy for anti-academia and form. 

So although I disagree with any "absolutes," you've certainly made an impression with your advocacy for "feels" over "description." Definitely something I'll think about in the future, so I appreciate your efforts.


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## Patrick (Jan 9, 2016)

cinderblock said:


> As for Ginsberg's Howl, boy does that surprise me. I would've thought people here would've eaten him alive. His style honestly reminded me of how I used to write poems when I was an adolescent, just these pretentious, angst-riddled rants with eye-popping words, abstract to the point it could be interpreted a hundred different ways. And when you read interpretations of his poems, it's true. He's referencing insular stuff from his childhood and issues with his mother that occlude the general public. If we're talking about clarity, I'm absolutely dazed on this one. I get the emotional/unfiltered/visceral argument, as evidenced by your prose, but stuff like Howl and Naked Lunch are notorious for going on what people would call drug-induced, stream of consciousness rampage of syntax. Where I disagree is that you need drugs to write like that.



His reflections on women all seem to be liquored free-flowing misogyny.


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## Jeko (Jan 9, 2016)

> I'm not a Design and Tech student, and I came up with that without any substantial research.



I'm talking about the fact that it sounds too specifically interested in the design of the car. Like an architecture student might be more interested in the arrangement and material of door-frames in an old building  - your average person might note them if they have striking features, but not rest too long on them, as I feel the example given does with the car's build.

I also agree that I can't stand Palahniuk's later work. It lacks an image, the vivid.



> I was merely asking if the imagery made sense, regardless of writing style.



You need to get it out of your head that the two are exclusive to each other.

Writing style is _everything_. It is the window you give me on the words and images and sounds that were buzzing in your head before you put them on paper. If imagery - which is not just description - isn't clear, the style is often to blame. That is, not the category of style, but its execution. 'Plain' prose, a measured voice, can do this scene great justice. But in executing that style, you'll want to avoid a number of things: the higher register, indulgent language, and other purple features of prose that have featured in previous examples. You'll also want some sense of immediacy to the pacing. 



> So you're saying the main reason writing groups are full of BS is that everyone thinks their "style" is just a "preference." How is this opinion different from yours, though? You seem adamant that your style is not preference, perhaps just like the others in the writing group.



This is the problem we come up against - once we get into the semantics of there being no definable 'good' or 'bad' style, we get nowhere as writers, because we give ourselves no way to learn.

'The Elements of Style' is a good starting place to know what constitutes a 'good' and 'bad' version of one particular style, which is probably the 'plain' prose you're going for. A lot of my comments so far have been in line with the advice given there.

There will always be grey areas, but, for instance, words like 'occluding' and 'ingeniously' aren't plain - they're ornate; ornaments, and not good ones in the context of the rest of the passage. Patrick commented on the inclusion of 'occluding' being not best for the line; it doesn't help the style you're going for. It pulls the register up and drags the impact down. The reader and writer's ear, and Strunk and White, for that matter, can agree on things like that being bad for your style, or just 'bad style'.

And, for the record, it's not someone's style I refer to as bullshit, but this attitude of writers being protective of their style by arguing that no-one has a right to call it 'bad'. Painters learn their style from the masters, as we learn ours from the masters of literature. You can say their style is better than yours - else you wouldn't be learning from it. A bunch of agents could say that your style is not fit for publication, and they know what they're talking about. So one writer, as long as they can justify it with reasoning excluding their own style of writing (my comments on your style have nothing to do with my own, as I'm mostly working in this thread from the advice of style books on writing 'plain' prose that I've even discounted parts of for what I now like to stylistically go for), can say another's style is 'bad'. 

Patrick just noted that mine is in the aforementioned line, for instance. I agree with him, though not with it contradicting my advice, as my note that the 'back wheels' weren't interesting was because a wheel is a thing of movement and the description you gave felt incredibly stationary. A wheel is as interesting as you make it in context; I didn't think your wheels, and their adornments, were interesting. I was told they existed, and nothing more. And I wanted so much more. Big wheels on a weird car would be really cool to see, if I could see and feel them move.



> you've certainly made an impression with your advocacy for "feels" over "description." Definitely something I'll think about in the future, so I appreciate your efforts.



That's what I've been going for, so that's a good thing - though I'd use the word 'image' over 'feels'. Ezra Pound once wrote a 30-line poem to try to capture an impression walking out of a metro station one day. He shortened it down to two lines in the end. He described far, far less of the 'image', but he captured it so much better:_
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
_​_Petals on a wet black bough._​
You can describe the car all you like, but the 'image' of it, in your scene, is a moving, complicated beast of a machine. Capture that - and show, rather than tell it - and you'll capture your audience. My rough attempt at doing that was mostly with the line 'an orange chassis around thundering giant tiger-stripe-rimmed back wheels hurtles towards us'; it compacts all the features of the car into a single sentence and the syntax of adjectives tries to give it a rolling, almost ceaseless effect, to try to make the sentence feel like the car moving towards you. It's shoddy in a lot of places, but what I'm aiming for is for more than just telling the reader what it looks like or what it's doing. 

You can do that in more strictly 'plain' prose as I've tried to in my more fragmented, jittery style. Look, for instance, at Gaiman's first paragraph in American Gods:_
Shadow had done three years in prison. He was big enough and looked don't-fuck-with-me enough that his biggest problem was killing time. So he kept himself in shape, and taught himself coin tricks, and thought a lot about how much he loved his wife. 

_​What an IMAGE! We start with a mundane detail that gives us a bunch of questions, and a fantastic dark name to prop up those questions with expectations of the sinister, but then go into descriptions that keep a measured tone and yet ooze the character's presence, like we're in the cell with him and his whole body is saying 'don't fuck with me'. Plus, the 'killing time' adds to the edge of danger in the setting that he has surpassed. But the notes on 'coin tricks' and 'how much he loved his wife' immediately complicate this tough character, giving him dexterity and softness. In a single paragraph we have not got just a description of a character - we have a description of what impression he gives off, what he's done and being doing - but instead, we have an _image _of him. We don't just see him there, but feel him there, and know what it's like for him to be there. All in really 'plain' prose, too. Note the simplicity of the language, the tone it gives off, and how that down-to-earth mood fits the situation.

Experiment with simple language and phrases that speak of more than what they say when trying to get the 'image' across, and you'll soon have the reader's imagination buzzing.

As for the discussion between 'clarity' and 'vividity', you want both here. Language that's specific, but also language that hits you like that advert hits you. Howl's vivid language was unclear to fit the nature of civilisation being depicted; some writing is clear but not vivid in order to express its subject's dourness - Beckett comes to mind. But this needs to be both clear and vivid. You shouldn't worry about emulating the style I gave as an example (it was only really 'plain' in trying to avoid ornaments), but I recommend trying to outdo it. Make you kind of 'plain' prose capture the 'image' stronger than however strong it is in my rough attempt. Imagery is little without the most significant senses exploited, and when it comes to cars, second - or maybe even paramount - to the visual is the touch, the feel, of the car. Then we'll get the _image _of that advert in the prose, rather than just a description of the car featured in it.

John Green once did this really well in The Fault In Our Stars:_
Augustus Waters drove horrifically. Whether stopping or starting, everything happened with a tremendous JOLT. I flew against the seat belt of his Toyota SUV each time he braked, and my neck snapped backward each time he hit the gas. I might have been nervous—what with sitting in the car of a strange boy on the way to his house, keenly aware that my crap lungs complicate efforts to fend off unwanted advances—but his driving was so astonishingly poor that I could think of nothing else.
_
_We’d gone perhaps a mile in jagged silence before Augustus said, “I failed the driving test three times.”
_
_“You don’t say.”

_​Again, this style isn't just 'plain' prose - it's ornamented with capitalization, some complex vocabulary that fits the character's voice, and some slack grammatical features that reflect the voice of a teenager - but can't you _feel _the car being driven? Violence of language - _I flew against the seat *b*elt of his Toyota SUV each time he *braked*, and my *neck snapped backward* each time he *hit *the gas _- is one way to communicate the feel of something through prose.​This is what I'd call 'good style', and the book's success would agree. Green knows how to start his second chapter with a bang. You could, howver, in many ways rewrite it and notice how it can lose its edge. Just the first bit, for instance, without the sharp langauge.
_Augustus Waters drove badly. Whether stopping or starting, everything was really uncomfortable. I flew forward each time he braked, and backward each time he pushed the gas pedal.

_​Or we could ornament it with even more of a higher register:
_Augustus Waters drove abominably. Whether halting or commencing, everything happened with an absolutely gargantuan jolt. I careened forward each time he braked, and backward subsequently after he engaged the gas pedal.

_​This is hyperbolically bad, of course, but it ought to convey how a 'good style' can be turned into a bad one. Try butchering it yourself, over and over again, seeing if you can recreate Green's feeling with different words, or how far you can go from it. Then return to your small bit and rewrite it. It's an exercise I always enjoy doing, and it often yields fantastic results.


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## Patrick (Jan 9, 2016)

That's a good and fair post, Cadence. 

I agree with sentence structure and language choice matching the subject.


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## cinderblock (Jan 10, 2016)

Cadence said:


> I'm talking about the fact that it sounds too specifically interested in the design of the car. Like an architecture student might be more interested in the arrangement and material of door-frames in an old building  - your average person might note them if they have striking features, but not rest too long on them, as I feel the example given does with the car's build.
> 
> I also agree that I can't stand Palahniuk's later work. It lacks an image, the vivid.
> 
> ...



I honestly would have to take a class with you, if I wanted to understand exactly what's going on here.

As far as the whole design student thing goes, I don't know. I did my best to describe it as close to the narrator's voice as possible and in an understandable manner. 

Your description to me, wasn't sufficient to depict what the car looked like... "*The design is clearer this close up - a second body on top has the seats the right way round, but the lower body is all upside down, like a mirror reflection, beneath it. Both use the same set of wheels. The car could flip and still go on."

*This description would confuse me. It seems to sacrifice clarity for style. 

The narrator also is not an "everyman." I despise the "everyman." I call it the every idiot or every crutch, but I digress. 

I appreciate your technical breakdown, and I understand what you're trying to teach me, but I'm not "getting" it. When you give me a passage and say, "Aren't these two lines great?" I scratch my head. 

I just look at it and say, "Well, you're describing people getting out of a train station... what do you expect?"

You seem like you come from an advertising background, where they come up with a hundred different ways to say the same thing, and then whittle it down to one. That's great if all you need to do is come up with one line, and you have a month to bounce it back and forth. I don't know how long it would take me to write a story using this model. 

Can I ask you how long it takes you to write one sentence for a story? 

Does it ever come naturally? I personally wouldn't ever even sit down to write if this was the process. And that's probably what separates the greats and the amateurs like myself, but unfortunately, it's just not my process. 

I totally accept your advice, but this level of scrutiny is too much for me to digest right now. I need help just putting together my thoughts to form a coherent story, haha. This technical stuff, I'm hoping will come with maturity, as I continue writing. I don't plan to write my masterpiece right now, or competing for the National Book Award, and I don't plan on submitting anything to agents. I just want to write stories and self-publish them and take it from there. I'm not trying to appeal to publishers or conventional, commercialized writing. I just write what I like, and then edit it so others can "understand" it. That's the level I'm at right now, sadly. I just take it one day at a time, although it would be great to take a break from everything and just take a bunch of professional writing classes. 

Again, I feel extremely stupid for not being able to understand the subtle differences of what makes a sentence great or flat. I understand your examples, but it's hard because there are factors that play into whether you "feel" something or there's an "image." And that's the story itself - is it fun? If not, it doesn't matter how technically precise the prose is. You're out of it. Also, is the style of the author enjoyable for you?

I'm extremely dyslexic. I pretty much remember the last five words of a sentence, which is why I need to concentrate extra hard with long sentences. This might be why these writing differences aren't very obvious to me. When I read a book, I remember the "big picture," not word-for-word breakdown of it, and that's probably why I'm missing all these things you're talking about. 

My approach is pretty primitive when I read a book, and it's, "Is this interesting, and do I wanna keep reading?" My favorite author is Philip K Dick. Now if you read his books, you would tear it apart. He wrote in a very conventional pulp style, but to me, nobody has captured this "image" or imagination of reader better than he has, because he had interesting things to say, and his writing was easy to follow. That's all I really ask from a book. 

The Neil Gaiman example, I don't doubt those are good sentences, but I would need ten more examples of those, some bad, some good, for me to really grasp which ones give me an "image" and which ones fall flat. 

As for the Fault in Our Stars example, I'm not even sure what it meant when is meant about his "crap lungs fending off unwanted advances." Is the character gay? What does having bad lungs have anything to do with fending off unwanted advances? 

Also, do you have any more book recommendations I can add to my queue that practice what you preach? Now that I'm aware, I can try to look out for these differences. 

You wanna know what this reminds me of to an extent? Watching America's Top Model, where as a view, I'm just looking at beautiful people in beautiful photographs, and yet the judges are going, "This is flat. I'm not feeling it." And then there's a picture that I think is comparatively plain and blase, and they're like, "Stunning. Breathtaking. This is it!" 

I feel like we've entered such a complex, complicated, philosophical topic that requires us to meet up and discuss this, instead of the idiotic context-less blurbs I'm giving you, gah. Let me know if you ever come down to Los Angeles. Would love to pick your brain.


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## cinderblock (Jan 10, 2016)

Patrick said:


> That's a good and fair post, Cadence.
> 
> I agree with sentence structure and language choice matching the subject.



I also have to apologize for an earlier mistake I made. I parenthetically said I'd "send you an email" about your book, because that's what I told Patrick Bishop, another poster here. I got my wires crossed, haha! 

I don't even know if you have a book. I'm so sorry. You must've been extremely confused when I made that remark. 

You guys both offer extremely similar advice, and you both have the same names and similar scifi avatars, great, haha! Jesus, my bad.


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## Patrick (Jan 10, 2016)

cinderblock said:


> I also have to apologize for an earlier mistake I made. I parenthetically said I'd "send you an email" about your book, because that's what I told Patrick Bishop, another poster here. I got my wires crossed, haha!
> 
> I don't even know if you have a book. I'm so sorry. You must've been extremely confused when I made that remark.
> 
> You guys both offer extremely similar advice, and you both have the same names and similar scifi avatars, great, haha! Jesus, my bad.



No problem, cinderblock. Easy mistake to make. I don't have a book for you to read, but I have posted the beginning of the novel I've been working on for the last couple of years. It's in the prose workshop. You might have a look at it if you want to see the way I write. My style is the polar opposite of Cadence's, and I don't say one is inherently superior to the other. 

As a writer, considering cadence's comments will stretch you and just by meditating on his opinions, you will improve as a writer. I understand the place you're in. As writers we tend to want those we're teaching to sprint and leap before they feel comfortable connecting one shaky step after another. Concentrate on the precision of your language at the moment and perhaps write some poetry so you get a feel for what it's like to condense a piece of work to just a few stanzas, working intimately with each sentence and each image.


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## Jeko (Jan 10, 2016)

> The narrator also is not an "everyman." I despise the "everyman."



Then you're not looking for a 'plain' style.



> I appreciate your technical breakdown, and I understand what you're trying to teach me, but I'm not "getting" it. When you give me a passage and say, "Aren't these two lines great?" I scratch my head.
> 
> I just look at it and say, "Well, you're describing people getting out of a train station... what do you expect?"



Look at it for longer. Someone with no knowledge of art would look at the Mona Lisa and say, 'Well, it's a woman smiling'.



> Can I ask you how long it takes you to write one sentence for a story?



As long as it takes. There's no standard. Sometimes something comes out immediately, sticks and I never feel the need to change it. Sometimes a sentence goes through a hundred revisions.



> When I read a book, I remember the "big picture," not word-for-word breakdown of it, and that's probably why I'm missing all these things you're talking about.



The 'big picture' is what we're talking about here - what's the 'big picture' of this scene with the weird car? What, in the simplest terms you can put it into, is what you want the reader to grasp? Getting there, though, involves a word-by-word breakdown, finding everything that's useful and cutting out anything that's not.



> My favorite author is Philip K Dick. Now if you read his books, you would tear it apart. He wrote in a very conventional pulp style, but to me, nobody has captured this "image" or imagination of reader better than he has, because he had interesting things to say, and his writing was easy to follow.



I love Philip K Dick. If you're trying to emulate his style, things make a little more sense, but it feels like you're trying to grasp at his command of the ornate without first securing your prose in his abilities with the plain and simple features of language. That's what makes his writing easy to follow. There's no point putting wallpaper up if your walls aren't straight, no point putting a fancy carpet down if your floor isn't flat.



> I'm not even sure what it meant when is meant about his "crap lungs fending off unwanted advances." Is the character gay? What does having bad lungs have anything to do with fending off unwanted advances?



The narrator is female and has cancer, which makes her lungs 'crap', and the male character is a boy she's recently met but will, over the course of the novel, fall in love with. She's pretty much started to already.



> do you have any more book recommendations I can add to my queue that practice what you preach?



If you want to look for 'image' in all kinds of ways, I recommend reading ridiculously widely. Dickens has a knack for setting like no other; Nabokov is a master of letting character bleed through the prose; for a child's imagination realised on page, try Lewis Carroll - Wonderland - or J M Barrie - Peter Pan. If you don't feel comfortable with any writer, move on to another. Don't feel forced to suck up to someone who's supposed to be a legend if you can't get attached to their prose  but give them every chance, every attempt at appreciation, you can muster.

For reading around the subject of reading, I recommend James Wood's _How Fiction Works_, which, he believes, 'asks a critic's questions and offers a writer's answers'. I agree with him. His analysis of narrative has been incredibly beneficial to my work as both a critic and a writer.

You don't need examples of 'flat' prose to know what it is - only good examples, which you can mess around with to learn how they work better. Stick to immersing yourself in the good stuff, and you'll learn much better to distinguish between the presence and absence of image in your writing. You'll know the latter when you see it because it simply won't feel like the former. And you'll know how the former even when you're just starting out because it will speak to you, like Dick has, more vividly. That's the stuff that's good _for you_. All you need to do is get to know it better.

I agree that I'm approach the craft of writing at what must sound like a 'higher level', but that's a good thing. You never want to try to read at your own level - always above. Likewise with writing.


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## cinderblock (Jan 11, 2016)

Cadence said:


> Then you're not looking for a 'plain' style.
> 
> Look at it for longer. Someone with no knowledge of art would look at the Mona Lisa and say, 'Well, it's a woman smiling'.
> 
> ...



I've read everyman characters being written in both plain and ornate styles. I don't see why an intelligent character can't be written in any style, as well. I don't think the intelligent character should necessarily be throwing out SAT words. 

I guess what I meant by bad examples, are vague, unclear examples that seem neither here nor there. So if you were to teach a class, you would present 10 passages and tell the students to pick the best to worst and explain why, or something like that. Of course, the examples you gave were very obvious. 

I look at Gaiman's intro and say, "Decent." It certainly didn't make me "not want to read it," haha. The name "Shadow" itself, is the most powerful image in that whole passage. Replace "Shadow" with Jack, shuffle it up with 30 other novels about hard-luck characters, and it'll probably come off humdrum. 

But I don't look at those first lines and say, "Perfect," or even, "Wow, I wanna keep reading." I never understood book reviewers who throw out praise like, "This book has the greatest first sentence in literature." That's what people were saying about Bukowski's Post Office (It began as a mistake,) or Flann O'Brien's Third Policeman (Not everybody knows how I killed Philip...). 

I look at a book as a whole. I've never read the first sentence and thought, "Next," or "Wow, I bet this is gonna be great!" 

There've been many books I didn't "get" 20 or 30 pages in, and I go, "What is the meaning of this style?" or "What is the author going on about?" or "Why this?" and "Why that?" But halfway into the book, I start to see the method to the madness and understand why the book is a "classic." Like Richard Brautigan's style, where he deliberately screws with your perception (Night and how pleasant it was to lie there in bed with Elaine curled about me like vines upon my shadow. She had outflanked the locusts of memory and that dismal plague with the equally dismal Cynthia.) Now if that same author posted the same 20 or 30 pages on these forums, he/she would most likely get shredded. 

I was thinking about what you've been teaching me, and I think you want a book to be more like a "simulation." That's what I believe you meant when you talked about "feels." 

I always considered the book as the intellectual medium, movies as the visual medium, and videogames as the visual/virtual reality/simulation medium. 

I would also be interested to know if the style you posted could be credibly maintained through a long story. 

I think visceral/stream of consciousness writing has a very slim margin of error, because of the risk of sounding "pretentious." And revealing too much of the character, which is what I imagine the author must do with this style, revealing every emotion and impulse at every moment, would be difficult to sustain. I'm sure if it's done right, it could be great. But again, I would have to see it pulled off successfully to see the strengths and weaknesses of total transparency. 

I get the appeal of it. I love the first person narrative far more than third person. It's so much more intimate, and it forces the author to work harder, because now you need to reveal what's inside the character. I write first person, but I don't feel the need to bombard the reader with what the character's thinking every other sentence. Just the parts that warrant his thoughts. It's like everybody else. We all have a billion thoughts racing through our heads, but we only share the significant ones. First person also requires you to rationalize and resolve the issue in the character's mind toward the end of the story, and that's the hardest part. In third person, you get away with rationalizing/resolving it in the character's mind, because that intimacy and psychological depth was never part of the story. Movie's also get away with this. A story happens just for the sake of it. It's just robots going to and fro, turning left and right. 

The first story I wrote was highly influenced by PKD. I tried to emulate his style, and boy did I get bashed on here. It was my first attempt at writing something, and as a reader, I had no idea PKD's style was considered a bad one. The pulp style has a notorious reputation, and it gets criticized for being lazy, etc etc. I understand now why it was being criticized, but back then, I was confused because he's a legend whose books have been translated into all these languages, turned into dozens of TV and movie projects, sold millions of copies, and yet it was considered bad writing. 

The conclusion I reached was that there is no "bad style," just bad writers. PKD could write pulpy and send the reader for a ride. Same with Alfred Bester's Stars My Destination. On the other hand, a guy I really didn't connect with is another somewhat legendary writer Philip Jose Farmer. It was this flowery, pulp style that just went on and on, snail's pace plotting, overly descriptive. 

Also when I read Great Gatsby, it read like a polished pulp style, heavy on the adjectives, but skillfully done. 

I think we're too easy to dismiss one style based on connotations and stigma. 

As for reading above your level, I agree to an extent. I definitely think you need to continue to challenge yourself. The trouble is knowing what level is too high of a leap for you at the moment. Like kids reading Great Gatsby and Cuckoo's Nest. I read those kind of recently, and I thought, "What kid is gonna understand any of this?" This is why kids think books are boring. 

Obviously if you're a teacher, you would love for your 10th graders to understand Cuckoo's Nest, but unfortunately, it's not happening.

I rarely read PKD these days. Unfortunately I've already read his best works, so when I do pick him up occasionally, I'm often disappointed. His lesser works employ a "lazy" pulp style (unimpressive adjective combinations) that doesn't help the limping story any. 

As for Mona Lisa Smiling, I agree. I think you're multiple tiers above my current writing level. I'm working my way to the more traditional classics, slowly but surely. I'm approaching this at a garage rock level, like a teenager who picks up a guitar and doesn't really bother to learn notes but starts with tabs. And then as the years go by, he's good enough and excited enough and appreciative about music, that he's gonna go through the trouble of learning the bases and foundations. Of course, I'm not a teenager. I wish I was, haha. I'm in my 30s, so I'm starting very late. 

But going back to the whole Ezra Pound thing, I would never write about people coming out of the train station, so I guess there's no personal connection. I think I would get it more if we were all in class, and the teacher said, "Alright guys, we're going to the train station today to write about people coming out of the trains." And then at the end of the trip, we turn in our assignments, and the teacher says, "Ezra Pound summed it up best in two sentences." Then it might lead to a "eureka" moment, like, "Goddamn, he put all of us to shame." But yeah, I understand your virtuous intentions. 

I've been meaning to revisit Dickens from my high school days. I have revisited Stephen King, who often gets compared as the modern day Dickens, and personally, I couldn't connect with King on any level (writing, story, characters, etc). Not really into authors who set the tone with the "setting." I guess it's because it doesn't speak to me, personally. This is why, while I appreciate a guy like Gaiman, I feel his characters lack depth. He's a fairy tale author, and he's great at what he does, giving his characters a legacy. But again, Coraline just going through the motions, Bod just being sort of a stock coming-of-age "good boy," and Shadow being this mute brute, I failed to connect with them on a deeper, intellectual level. On the other hand, what Fight Club did so well was set up the atmosphere through thoughts/dialogue/social interaction. Chuck doesn't describe much in that book, but we imagine it, and it comes naturally, as if he did indeed describe it for us, and for me, that's more fun. Philip K Dick's best books are the same way. He does very little describing, and he doesn't go off on these expository tangents like other scifi authors (prime example: Heinlein).  

I've also been meaning to read Lolita, so it's good you mention it. I've heard rave reviews for it, so I think I'll enjoy it. 

I've read the two Alice books, and it was very clever. I got the annotated version, so I didn't miss the references. There was definitely "image," but maybe it was because I've already seen the movie. However, the book didn't completely connect with me. It only had one dimension to it, in that it was like an intellectual/creative exercise. Tons of wordplay and silliness. But it left me feeling a little hollow to me, the whole experience, although I totally appreciated it. And that's what I mean when I say that I love reading books presented in all these different styles and formats and going, "Wow, there's actually an audience for all this cryptography and inside humor." That said, Flann O'Brien's Third Policeman for me, is the grownup version of Alice in Wonderland. Reading that book really filled up my soul in ways Alice never did. His style is very longwinded and ornate, but he's such a virtuoso at what he does, he could make any story or scene credible. 



Patrick said:


> No problem, cinderblock. Easy mistake to make. I don't have a book for you to read, but I have posted the beginning of the novel I've been working on for the last couple of years. It's in the prose workshop. You might have a look at it if you want to see the way I write. My style is the polar opposite of Cadence's, and I don't say one is inherently superior to the other.
> 
> As a writer, considering cadence's comments will stretch you and just by meditating on his opinions, you will improve as a writer. I understand the place you're in. As writers we tend to want those we're teaching to sprint and leap before they feel comfortable connecting one shaky step after another. Concentrate on the precision of your language at the moment and perhaps write some poetry so you get a feel for what it's like to condense a piece of work to just a few stanzas, working intimately with each sentence and each image.



Thanks, and I will. Just the last couple days, I've been putting a lot of thought into what's been said by both you and Cadence. I have sort of gotten back into poetry lately as well, after reading some by Richard Brautigan (Machines of Loving Grace). 

We all want other people to see the genius that we see in works. Which is why I feel so stupid right now. 

Many times I've referenced a point in a book or movie or whatever, and I've gone, "Wow, that is profound." But the person next to me is just staring at me, going, "It did nothing for me." 

Cadence is going, "This is the be all end all!" And I'm scratching my head, wishing I was smarter.


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## Monaque (Jan 12, 2016)

Wow, I started to read this but it descended a bit, or ascended, not sure which.

I have to say right off, what an awesome toy that is, wish I`d had one of those when I was a kid. 

I didn`t get the feeling that you were describing a toy, I actually got the feeling I was reading part of a Gaiman story or one by Nick Harkaway, where what you read isn`t quite how the world works, because their stories are at least semi-fantasy, if you`ll forgive the vernacular. Fantasy fitted inside the real world but made to work because they are great writers and because we want to see another world inside ours, it would make our world even more interesting than it already is.
The way I saw your description was that it just needed tidying up, clarifying if you will. Just keep writing it and re-writing it and it will gradually work together. The best writers never give up, they just keep writing because they want to improve.


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## bdcharles (Jan 12, 2016)

cinderblock said:


> Can you make sense of this description? *
> 
> ...
> *
> ...



I did get that it was a toy - from the remote control. But then I started to doubt myself when you had people getting into it. What is it you're looking to do here? In terms of the text, for myself, I would use more detail plus more imagery rather than straight "this is that" descriptors, and also don't forget about things that are not the car, which can then interact with those things - props, devices - in a way that you can use to enhance it's presentation (or whatever your aim is), eg:

*The man thumbs the remote controller, flicking one lever up, the other hard left, then back again before slamming into reverse. An orange car, colossal back tiger-stripe wheels soaring above its blended-polymer frame, comes whizzing over the rocks and  pulls to a stop amid a shower of dust and wreckage. On the wing, throbbing with raw heat straight from the thundering engine, the word Psycho pulses in red animal scratch lettering.*

Or something...

But basically what I tried to do is use exciting words - throbbing, raw heat, hard, thunder, slamming, hell, even blended polymer (which can be pretty thrilling, let me tell you) - to paint a picture. Yes, I took some license with reality. don't be afraid to do that in service of your writing.

On a tangentially related subject, the Tyco R/C Psycho looks pretty cool. Try to feel that 'cool', that 'awesome', when you write. I want one


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## cinderblock (Jan 17, 2016)

bdcharles said:


> I did get that it was a toy - from the remote control. But then I started to doubt myself when you had people getting into it. What is it you're looking to do here? In terms of the text, for myself, I would use more detail plus more imagery rather than straight "this is that" descriptors, and also don't forget about things that are not the car, which can then interact with those things - props, devices - in a way that you can use to enhance it's presentation (or whatever your aim is), eg:
> 
> *The man thumbs the remote controller, flicking one lever up, the other hard left, then back again before slamming into reverse. An orange car, colossal back tiger-stripe wheels soaring above its blended-polymer frame, comes whizzing over the rocks and  pulls to a stop amid a shower of dust and wreckage. On the wing, throbbing with raw heat straight from the thundering engine, the word Psycho pulses in red animal scratch lettering.*
> 
> ...



Wow, you have a really beautiful commercial-friendly style of describing things. Such style does not come naturally for me, so I stick to using plain descriptors (at least what I call plain) and focusing on the internalization/social dynamics to create "atmosphere." 

I like that word "throbbing," although certain words have connotations. "Throbbing" has always had sexual associations, which personally, I don't mind at all. A lot of what I write about, are "pop" or at least commentary on "pop." I don't mind vulgar word choices, although they often get criticized as "juvenile" and "pulp." Philip K Dick used that word once on a vehicle for Flow My Tears The Police Man Said, and it's really about this "pop" icon who wakes up at the other side of this crazy dystopian world. I had no problems at all, but I remember reading a review, where the reviewer scoffed at that word choice and immediately relegated the book as trashy writing, hah, but I digress. 

I love the "thumbing" and "flicking" of the remote control. They seem like such obvious word choices than "steer the remote control," which is what I've been saying until you brought it up.

This is one of the things that really baffles me as a writer. Sometimes you come up with a description and you feel it's "just," and then you come across another descriptor in another book or something, and you go, "Wait, that word is so much more optimal than what I used for my story." Descriptive words are so elusive for me, I really admire people whose minds just seem calibrated to flow out with these natural descriptive choices. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I don't think in these terms in real life. If someone is fiddling with a remote controller, I say, "He pushed the remote control to play with the RC car." I would never say, "He was thumbing and flicking the lever to slam into reverse," etc. But then again, who does? 

So my question is: What do you think makes you so good at thinking in these terms? Was it the way you were raised? Did you have parents who read to you since you were three? Did you take a class? etc etc

The other thing is, I'm glad you understood it as a toy. Honestly, with many books, especially the ones with action, there's at least one scene where I don't understand what's happening, but I sort of "get the idea." Or there are some descriptors that don't make sense, but upon reading how it functions and interacts over the next couple pages, I'm able to put it together, so I don't think there's anything too wrong about a reader not immediately grasping it, as long as they get the gist of it. The worst action writer of all time is Robert Heinlein. Take Starship Troopers for example. I dare anybody to say they understood what the hell was going on in his action sequences. This is true, unpretentious stream-of-consciousness writing, literally written like he was writing it shorthand in a diary that only he could understand. And yet these are the favorite parts of Starship Troopers fans. Hell, people who hated the book, tell others to just skip to the indecipherable action.


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## bdcharles (Jan 17, 2016)

^ 

I think of words as having shapes and various other properties. There's a town in California called Zzyzx, and I want to go simply because it is composed of the three letters that possess the highest quotient of end-of-the-alphabet cool. Another example: what's the most unpopular word? A lot of people say "moist". Why? Because it so perfectly describes in every way the sensation of moistness; it looks a bit like moss and it just sounds wet, doesn't it? Use that property. Some words are wet, others are spiky, some are smooth (I love a good iridescent murmuration, mmm incandescent sussurrations - note how these words have alot of low-lying letters, not many stems sticking up). Some go fast and some go slow. Not one of them is like another, etc. (a little Dr. Seuss there). Did you ever feel like days have colours? Monday is yellow to me, Friday red. Why? Dunno. Tap into your inner synaesthete and see what it gives you.

In answer to your questions, I didn't learn this stuff from a class (hah! the very idea!, etc.) but from other writers. Just read and read and be absorbed and dazzled by the stuff they put out there (I cannot recommend, for example, Flash Fiction Online highly enough, and that's after they rejected one of my stories!  ). See how their contributors use words or structure their narratives, and think about what separates them from other writers. It really helps to love words and phrases, and to become incredibly, geekily excited when deploying a choice one at the right moment.

A trick I use is: when you are reading a sentence you have written, for example, and are looking for perfect phrase for it, read up to the problem bit and then stop suddenly. You may find your brain "wants" to fill in the space; listen to what it's got, what your subconscious  supplies it, and pen it down. It helps to have a clear mind or to have read/seen/thought/heard something quite inspiring beforehand to get the voice and mindset right.

Another is good old practise, practise, practise. The monthly competitons here and elsewhere are a great place to just flex your writerly muscle. Yes, there will be many times when you look back on what you've written and posted publicly for all to see, and you'll cringe, or you'll read others' stuff and feel a bit deflated by how good it is. Embrace that; it is all part of the learning process.

I am fortunate enough to have a set of friends who, while not writers,  tend to converse with one another in a very stylised way and where a  good turn of phrase is appreciated and encouraged.

Lastly, be ruthless with yourself. If you write and your own words aren't blowing you away the way that authors you like do, then delete the problem. Maintain high standards; if you think something is cheesy or corny, it is. Kill it. My internal editor sounds like Simon Cowell from Pop Idol, American Idol and all that, which I find bizarrely useful.

Anyway, hope all this helps you out. Good luck!


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## cinderblock (Jan 19, 2016)

bdcharles said:


> ^
> 
> I think of words as having shapes and various other properties. There's a town in California called Zzyzx, and I want to go simply because it is composed of the three letters that possess the highest quotient of end-of-the-alphabet cool. Another example: what's the most unpopular word? A lot of people say "moist". Why? Because it so perfectly describes in every way the sensation of moistness; it looks a bit like moss and it just sounds wet, doesn't it? Use that property. Some words are wet, others are spiky, some are smooth (I love a good iridescent murmuration, mmm incandescent sussurrations - note how these words have alot of low-lying letters, not many stems sticking up). Some go fast and some go slow. Not one of them is like another, etc. (a little Dr. Seuss there). Did you ever feel like days have colours? Monday is yellow to me, Friday red. Why? Dunno. Tap into your inner synaesthete and see what it gives you.
> 
> ...



Thanks, I've tried those techniques - filling in the blank, high standards, practicing, etc. Still, I just don't operate like you do. I appreciate words and their potential beauty as much as anybody else, but when I read, I tend to lock on to the narrative technique of the author, more so than word choice. I think that's just the way I'm wired. And that's why I wanted to ask how you operate. I'm always interested in how other writers and artists operate and process tasks. Even if I know the advice won't directly benefit me and my neurological setup, I appreciate and enjoy the insight. 

This is probably why I'm not a big fan of poems. It's just clumps of words that are supposed to provoke something within you. It seems pretty algorithmic and sterile to me, most of the times. Scarcely do I see the genius of a poem, regardless of how "classic," and often times when an author quotes a poem before the start of the book, it gets lost on me. Everybody gets something different out of reading the same poem, based on their mood, their age, etc. What I got from an Edgar Allen Poe poem when I was 16 is not what I get from it today. Just like songs. So why are they quoting that poem? Unless they're gonna explain to the reader the personal significance and ties to the book. But I digress. I do very much enjoy poetic techniques within a narrative story. John Fante is fantastic at this. 

Having encouraging friends definitely sounds great. And I didn't know about Zyzzx. Sounds like a great place, haha.


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