On Writing: Deliberate Practice Drill - Quick and Dirty Style Analysis

[sboydtaylor]

In everything from sword fighting to martial arts to painting to -- yes -- WRITING, one of the key ways the good get better and the better become experts is to analyze the styles of those they respect

Comments

[anghara]

I've never done anything like it (other than for grading purposes for boring books studied for English Lit in school, and then I was FORCED to.

Yes, I understand the parallels to dissecting a frog to find out how its living organism functions. But dissecting a piece of writing like this - particularly a piece of writing by someone I liked or admired - would quickly kill my enjoyment of that person's writing in particular and quite possibly all writing in general. Kill it stone dead. If I had tried this when I was beginning to write, I would *never* have become a writer.

My recipe? Yes, read a lot - particularly people you admire. Internalise the rhythm and cadence and vocabulary of prose you like. And then let it simmer and cook. For as long as it needs to. The slow-cooked dish will be your OWN voice, seasoned with the spice of the things you have learned to admire along the way.

Of course, anybody's mileage might vary, and usually will. But even if I am the ONLY writer out there who's never ever tried this, who's never "stumbled into this process independently", who doesn't believe it necessarily "works" - well let me serve as an example that there IS another way. To paraphrase the lyrics of a song from the musical "Camelot", the way to handle language and story is to love it... simply love it... merely love it... oh, just LOVE it...

[sboydtaylor]

Thank you for the response! :) I finished this post late last night, and the end was a bit rushed, and it ended up sounding too prescriptive and much more all-inclusive than I had intended.

In a way, though, I think you are in violent agreement with at least one of my key points.

I did warn -- twice -- that beginners should not do this drill, because it is more important to learn to love writing than to drill any specific skills. I have included a third warning to make this clearer.

Thanks again for your feedback, it was both helpful and gave me insight into flaws I could address. I think with the corrections and additions I've made to the end, the piece is stronger.