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veqq  1d ago (text post)   Edited 1d ago   473 thread views

What's Good Writing to You?

Lately, I've proofread some friends' articles, native and not, on political and technical matters. In no case, did I only guide them to my preferred style (poetic diction, preferring verbs over nouns, participles over finite verbs, archaicizing, Germanic purist including V2, no hyphens) and rather enjoyed seeing, sampling (and rejecting) their distinct tastes. I once wanted to ask a friend who wields fiery invectives to liven up my (technical opinion) prose, but realized his style was ill-suited to sewing my bullet points together.

What is beautiful literature to you? Or clear and precise technical style? What do you just hate? Most importantly, what do you aim for and avoid when writing yourself?

I'm curious for opinions on all languages (even programming or e.g. programming code comment style) but naturally English is our community's shared tongue.

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It’s the skilled expression of the author’s own voice. I can’t be of much help, in the same way Potter Stewart’s 1964 definition of obscenity — "I know it when I see it." — doesn’t help anyone who isn’t Potter Stewart.

Stephen Fry recounted heavily cribbing, paradoxically, from Hemingway and Wilde, and being worried he had no real style of his own. He was then delighted when a classmate sussed out Fry had written an unsigned editorial in the school paper, telling Fry there wasn’t anyone else who could have written it.

Wolfe has a section early in Back to Blood where the slapping of a boat’s hull on waves rhythmically and unrelentingly interrupts his prose. It, specifically, was panned in a couple reviews I encountered. It made me nauseous to read; I thought it wonderful. It works for Wolfe, or it works from him.

In my own writing, elsewhere, I definitely suffer from imposter’s syndrome. Dorothy Parker, in her short story The Custard Heart compares a woman to a painting that looks impressive at a distance but less so upon close inspection. Parker does this in the same paragraph where she employs what starts out as a quatrain, but continues on for a line too long and unravels. It was delightful to read. If I had typed it out myself, I would dismiss it as a cheap gimmick.

And, what works for Fry, Wolfe and Parker is not entirely interchangeable.

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