Are you developing bad prose?

[cupiscent]

Just adding a note for posterity - I was just browsing Susan Dennard's editing advice before I leap into my editing, and she notes the following from her own experience in writing her first published book:

"Step 1: I spent 2 months drafting. (Keep in mind: this was not the first book I ever wrote. It was just the first book I decided to try to get published with.)
Step 2: I needed a full year to revise.
Step 2.5: I worked with multiple critique partners for 8 months of that year revising."

That's 2 months "getting it down" and 12 months revising and polishing with feedback. (As always: this is just one method, and may not be the best way of working for all writers!)

 

[Incanus]

The Susan Dennard approach described above sounds like the more 'usual' approach to me. I fully acknowledge that my methods are more unusual. But, I've been working on short-stories and a novella--I feel I'm going to have to loosen up a bit when I get to my novel, hopefully in about the next six months or so.

I had one more observation, also for posterity, to make on the subject as well:

I think it was about 9 or 10 years ago that I read through the twelve book series, A History of Middle-Earth, put out by Christopher Tolkien. Many scraps of notes are supplied exactly as they were originally written. After reading through a handful of these in the portions relating the development of Lord of the Rings, I was struck by an observation: Even Tolkien's most scrappy, hastily written notes were all actually fairly well written, complete sentences (unlike mine). I remember thinking something like, "This guy was really amazing. It's like he couldn't write poorly even if he tried to."

I feel that if most of what I write is of more or less similar quality, I should have no problem cutting and adding material that properly serves the story. My goal is to become comfortable with quality.

(one last side note--I agree much, much more with Faulkner than with Hemmingway regarding the above 'exchange'. Hemmingway's comment is based upon an ENORMOUS assumption, which may or may not be true, whereas Faulkner's is demonstrably true.)

 

[Penpilot]

BTW I didn't quote Hemingway fully. The full quote is the following.

Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don't know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.

 

[Incanus]

Interesting. But he's still assigning an intent to Faulkner that he simpy cannot know. And for all I know, he may be lying about knowing the ten-dollar words, since he never employs any. Faulkner's statement can be verified, Hemingway's cannot.

So far, I don't like any of the 'moderist' writers. From what I can tell, Faulkner and maybe Fitzgerald look the most promising. A Farewell to Arms contains some of the worst writing I've ever seen. I have no idea how Hemingway became famous. Of course, all tastes should be represented in liturature and I won't argue with anyone who gets something out of his writing.

Here's my Hemingway rule: the shorter, the better. His six word story is far and away his best.

 

[skip.knox]

@Incanus: give John Dos Passos a shot. His USA trilogy, even if you only read the first volume. Here I thought John Brunner had thought up that approach with Stand on Zanzibar. Nothing new under the sun, etc.

(Skip, trying his best to take the Hemingway exit, not the Faulkner one)

 

[skip.knox]

@Incanus (second direct reply in a row!): Hemingway always re-read what he wrote yesterday as a way to get into today, and he would make an adjustment if needed. I suspect, given that he wrote in pencil, longhand, revisions were not undertaken frivolously, but the impression one gets is that he made a respectable first draft. IMO, writing longhand encourages that.

While I'm at it, here's another. I used to encourage my students (I teach history) to take notes in complete sentences. I have a logice that underpins this, and nowadays it's largely wasted breath anyway, but the point relevant to our discussion here is that if one gets used to writing in complete sentences, and by that I mean writing *everything* as a sentence, then I suspect this is good training for writing better first drafts. If one works in fragments, then one gets habituated to fragments.

Possible advice for those young enough still to mold themselves (nobody molds you; the molding is always yours alone).