Purple is a lovely color, except for prose
Ranty McRant time, folks.
Y'know, I admire planetalyx for a number of reasons, starting with her being a pretty darned kick-ass writer (not to mention that it's because of her I ended up meeting another kick-ass writer, jess_ka, and yes I'm pimping both their work because if I'm going to be evil and ranty about bad writing, I might as well direct people to good writing, too). But right now what I really admire about her is that she's brave enough to teach people how to write. Not just on one occasion, but frequently. Not something I think I could manage, and I salute those who can.
I found myself thinking of Alyx because this weekend I ran into yet another example of the kind of writer who produces the kind of stuff I ... hm. Hate? Despise? Scorn? Would encourage to take up a more socially useful occupation if I thought they'd listen? Pick a verb.
Here's the sitch: The kid (I suspect he's 18, which makes me old enough to be his mother, which means I'm calling him a kid, and yes I'm being a snobby bitch, or a bitchy snob, take your pick) has erratic punctuation skills, with commas apparently dribbed at random throughout his sentences, even between verbs and their objects. Don't get me started on how he misuses colons and hyphens. He blurs the line between his strongly-held opinions and other people's opinions and objective facts--that is, he assumes other people (who he has not consulted prior to speaking for them) will agree with him on matters that are, to him, self-evidently true but that are arguably open to interpretation. But y'know, one sees a lot of that online, so I've tried to develop a duck's back about it when I encounter it outside work. If I'm not getting paid to worry about it, and if I haven't spent money to read it, it's probably not that big a deal, right?
Then the kid hit a new low on my list of annoying people. He declared himself a writer and proceeded to proclaim his own writerly ideals, which include pouring on oodles of adjectives and adverbs and other parts of grammar to make sure that his hypothetical readers understand every single nuance of emotion he is trying to convey.
Yes, my first reaction was a derisive snort, for several reasons. First, no matter how much love and care you're going to bestow upon your precious words, someone out there is going to misinterpret them, generally in ways you never expected. It's gonna happen, either by a critic or an ordinary reader, and you can pretty much like it or lump it.
Second, I'm of the "less is more" school, because I think readers shouldn't be spoon-fed every step of the way. Give them what they need to follow the story, yes. No cheating if you're wanting to draw the proverbial Chekov's gun. But gah. Steam the flab out of your writing, please. It's a hard habit to break, I know. I only managed to break it when I sat down with my own precious manuscripts and started going ruthlessly through them to identify unncessary words. Then I put together a list of the words I was most likely to overuse and posted them at my desk. After I'd finished a draft, I'd search for those words; more often than not I'd cut out whatever examples I found. By golly, I learned. I became a better writer for it.
Third, and this is related to the second point ... there's such a thing as information overload. Drown your readers in too many details, and they're likely to miss what's most important. Take a scene from near the ending of Terry Pratchett's Men at Arms, when the Patrician has decided to take Carrot into the throne room to see the magnificent golden throne of Ankh-Morpork. Does Pterry describe the throne in excruciating detail? No, he does not. He gives sufficient description to evoke the setting and the point the Patrician is making to Carrot (and perhaps the point the writer is making to the reader, but that's another discussion). It's a lovely little gem of a scene, and it is just as long as it needs to be. It's vivid, it's powerful, and it's stuck with me since I first read it. That's writing.
Fourth, and this is related to the second and third, too many words at the wrong time can sabotage what you're trying to convey. Take an egregious example I encountered in college, when a gal I knew back then wrote that her protagonist's love was "shot down before her precious jewels of sight." Yes, this avoids the cliche of "shot down before her very eyes" or the cliche of "shot right in front of her" or any other cliche you care to think of. That doesn't mean it's a good phrase.
In short, Mark Twain was right. Lightning. Lightning bug. You choose.
Snarly O'Snarl, argle, grr, mrat. I really don't know how you manage it, Alyx, but good on you. Sincerely. You're braver than I am.
PS - In case anyone's wondering, no, I'm not going to identify the bad writer in question. I also didn't offer him critique at the time because he wasn't asking for it and I didn't think he would want it, and the situation did not warrant it. (Not to mention it would've potentially involved humiliating him in public; I'd have serious qualms about doing that in a workshop situation, much less in a social gathering.) This rant is to get the frustration out of my system and to compliment people I know.
Y'know, I admire planetalyx for a number of reasons, starting with her being a pretty darned kick-ass writer (not to mention that it's because of her I ended up meeting another kick-ass writer, jess_ka, and yes I'm pimping both their work because if I'm going to be evil and ranty about bad writing, I might as well direct people to good writing, too). But right now what I really admire about her is that she's brave enough to teach people how to write. Not just on one occasion, but frequently. Not something I think I could manage, and I salute those who can.
I found myself thinking of Alyx because this weekend I ran into yet another example of the kind of writer who produces the kind of stuff I ... hm. Hate? Despise? Scorn? Would encourage to take up a more socially useful occupation if I thought they'd listen? Pick a verb.
Here's the sitch: The kid (I suspect he's 18, which makes me old enough to be his mother, which means I'm calling him a kid, and yes I'm being a snobby bitch, or a bitchy snob, take your pick) has erratic punctuation skills, with commas apparently dribbed at random throughout his sentences, even between verbs and their objects. Don't get me started on how he misuses colons and hyphens. He blurs the line between his strongly-held opinions and other people's opinions and objective facts--that is, he assumes other people (who he has not consulted prior to speaking for them) will agree with him on matters that are, to him, self-evidently true but that are arguably open to interpretation. But y'know, one sees a lot of that online, so I've tried to develop a duck's back about it when I encounter it outside work. If I'm not getting paid to worry about it, and if I haven't spent money to read it, it's probably not that big a deal, right?
Then the kid hit a new low on my list of annoying people. He declared himself a writer and proceeded to proclaim his own writerly ideals, which include pouring on oodles of adjectives and adverbs and other parts of grammar to make sure that his hypothetical readers understand every single nuance of emotion he is trying to convey.
Yes, my first reaction was a derisive snort, for several reasons. First, no matter how much love and care you're going to bestow upon your precious words, someone out there is going to misinterpret them, generally in ways you never expected. It's gonna happen, either by a critic or an ordinary reader, and you can pretty much like it or lump it.
Second, I'm of the "less is more" school, because I think readers shouldn't be spoon-fed every step of the way. Give them what they need to follow the story, yes. No cheating if you're wanting to draw the proverbial Chekov's gun. But gah. Steam the flab out of your writing, please. It's a hard habit to break, I know. I only managed to break it when I sat down with my own precious manuscripts and started going ruthlessly through them to identify unncessary words. Then I put together a list of the words I was most likely to overuse and posted them at my desk. After I'd finished a draft, I'd search for those words; more often than not I'd cut out whatever examples I found. By golly, I learned. I became a better writer for it.
Third, and this is related to the second point ... there's such a thing as information overload. Drown your readers in too many details, and they're likely to miss what's most important. Take a scene from near the ending of Terry Pratchett's Men at Arms, when the Patrician has decided to take Carrot into the throne room to see the magnificent golden throne of Ankh-Morpork. Does Pterry describe the throne in excruciating detail? No, he does not. He gives sufficient description to evoke the setting and the point the Patrician is making to Carrot (and perhaps the point the writer is making to the reader, but that's another discussion). It's a lovely little gem of a scene, and it is just as long as it needs to be. It's vivid, it's powerful, and it's stuck with me since I first read it. That's writing.
Fourth, and this is related to the second and third, too many words at the wrong time can sabotage what you're trying to convey. Take an egregious example I encountered in college, when a gal I knew back then wrote that her protagonist's love was "shot down before her precious jewels of sight." Yes, this avoids the cliche of "shot down before her very eyes" or the cliche of "shot right in front of her" or any other cliche you care to think of. That doesn't mean it's a good phrase.
In short, Mark Twain was right. Lightning. Lightning bug. You choose.
Snarly O'Snarl, argle, grr, mrat. I really don't know how you manage it, Alyx, but good on you. Sincerely. You're braver than I am.
PS - In case anyone's wondering, no, I'm not going to identify the bad writer in question. I also didn't offer him critique at the time because he wasn't asking for it and I didn't think he would want it, and the situation did not warrant it. (Not to mention it would've potentially involved humiliating him in public; I'd have serious qualms about doing that in a workshop situation, much less in a social gathering.) This rant is to get the frustration out of my system and to compliment people I know.