A writing observation

[hmpf]

One thing that is extremely important to me in my writing is... I don't even know if there's an 'official' term for this... 'rhythm'? 'Sound'? 'Flow'? I spend a lot of time listening to what I write - rereading sentences and paragraphs and just listening to them, not for aspects of meaning but for things like... I dunno... sound, or sequencing,

Comments

[lozenger8]

It's funny, I was just thinking about this yesterday - that one of the reasons I write vignettes is that I am obsessive about fine details of the sentences - how they sound, how they flow, how they fit together. Short, then long, short, short, long, too long, deliberately long. I've easily spent an hour rearranging one sentence (though, often, I say 'ten minutes' as it sounds less anal - and this is still less than you, but still quite a lot.) I thought I was the only one who did this, too, so thank you for that.

Just one hour? ;-)

[hmpf]

I'm not kidding when I say that with some particularly problematic sentences, it takes me months before I settle on a final form. Which may just differ from the original form by the position of a comma, or the replacing of a comma with a semicolon. It drives me crazy, but I can't let it go before it 'feels right

[sylviavolk2000]

Hey, the same thing happens to me. I often know what I want the sentences and paragraphs to look like, what rhythm I want out of them, before I know the actual words.

Hm, maybe it's a normal writer thing!

[hmpf]

Or maybe we're the same type of writer in that respect.

I've also noticed that in some writers' works I'm more conscious of these issues than in others. Ray Bradbury, for example, clearly pays attention to this kind of thing.

I always wonder about writers whose fiction just kind of flows very, very evenly. Is that a conscious effort, too, or does it just come naturally?

[space_oddity_75]

Yeah, I know the feeling. There's a Sam/Annie fic I've had in the works for months and has so far undergone no less than 10 almost complete rewritings... just to return to its original form later on. But I'm usually more obsessed with grammar rather than rhythm, and with the fact that I never seem to 'capture' the right feeling I want to convey to the reader, and this is pretty irritating.

Re: rewriting

[hmpf]

I've been working a little bit on my fic nearly every night for the past few days, and noticed something: *something* usually happens. It may not be much, it may just be a moved comma - but so far, I've solved *some* little problem, every night. So, it seems as if keeping at it pretty regularly actually does help.

Re: rewriting

[space_oddity_75]

You know, maybe I should try that technique, too. A more regular approach may be useful to even out my writing and take it to a better level.

If only I actually had the time to work on my fics every night!