Hey there, thanks for writing this detailed, thoughtful, and well-crafted response to my article about the perks of invisible prose. After posting mine last week, the various comments helped me understand the subject more broadly.
It’s a subjective topic; however, I realize now that I was injecting my preferences into the article, which came across as dismissive of other writing styles. As I stated, I wholly support other writers embracing their unique styles; the crux of it for me was defending a style that I like to read, therefore, gravitate to when I write. I’ve since revised certain sections to remove these pejoratives, such as “purple prose” and my italicized inflections, but I still need to clarify my overall meaning to convey the point I had in mind, which I think you explained pretty well here:
“Now, I do have a theory that your writing should be simpler and more straightforward as your story becomes conceptually trickier—and this is something Wolfe often chose not to do. For example, if you’re writing a surreal scene where reality itself begins to bend and blur and finally break, the best way to accomplish this, I think, is by writing as plainly as possible, even to the point of potentially stripping extraneous beauty or metaphors from the prose.
I would say the same is also often true when writing an action scene. If it’s important that the reader follow the action very closely, it’s best to write quite plainly (I’d argue that Sanderson’s writing in this regard often reads like a description of rock, paper, scissors, however).”
I enjoy writing action scenes, so that’s likely why I lean into simple prose, that and I’m a developing writer trying to understand the craft. Your article is incredibly insightful, and I aim to share this with my subscribers to invite further discussion. Thank you!
But, yeah, we're all learning, even when we've been doing this for twenty years. And I think part of that journey is putting your ideas out there and receiving pushback. Not necessarily because it will change your mind, but because it may cause you to consider something in a new light.
I don't think much about prose these days, so my response to your article was interesting to me. Didn't know I felt so strongly still!
But, yes, absolutely: it's all subjective. We all have preferences and though we may try to speak objectively, that can only ever be a pose. So I say, lean into the subjectivity! I think that encourages dialogue and, ideally, growth.
That “Cardinal Virtue of Prose” passage made me wrinkle my nose! Poetry, if anything, feels *less* spur-of-the-moment than prose to me.
I think I would like better to read “beauties not germane” not as a universal call for simplicity, but as a call for precision of beauty - for the opposite of Sanderson’s merchant-hoarding-rugs metaphor. The right thing to do is not to cut out the metaphor and leave the action, but to find a metaphor that clarifies, or surprises, or delights, instead of confuses. That would be beauty germane to the prose. I’d say the beauties in Tolkien’s description of Boromir’s fight are all germane, too. A really good writer knows exactly what to keep and what to discard for maximum effect. But the keeping is as important as the discarding.
I agree! They are germane to the scene. I just think a definition like that is slippery, because it can be applied however they want.
They could read that Tolkien passage and say it's riddled with purple prose and should stick to the matter at hand, though. And while people are unlikely to say that about Tolkien, because he's grandfathered into every kind of exemption, but younger and newer writers are often accused of purple prose despite it often being less ornate than Tolkien.
Hey there, thanks for writing this detailed, thoughtful, and well-crafted response to my article about the perks of invisible prose. After posting mine last week, the various comments helped me understand the subject more broadly.
It’s a subjective topic; however, I realize now that I was injecting my preferences into the article, which came across as dismissive of other writing styles. As I stated, I wholly support other writers embracing their unique styles; the crux of it for me was defending a style that I like to read, therefore, gravitate to when I write. I’ve since revised certain sections to remove these pejoratives, such as “purple prose” and my italicized inflections, but I still need to clarify my overall meaning to convey the point I had in mind, which I think you explained pretty well here:
“Now, I do have a theory that your writing should be simpler and more straightforward as your story becomes conceptually trickier—and this is something Wolfe often chose not to do. For example, if you’re writing a surreal scene where reality itself begins to bend and blur and finally break, the best way to accomplish this, I think, is by writing as plainly as possible, even to the point of potentially stripping extraneous beauty or metaphors from the prose.
I would say the same is also often true when writing an action scene. If it’s important that the reader follow the action very closely, it’s best to write quite plainly (I’d argue that Sanderson’s writing in this regard often reads like a description of rock, paper, scissors, however).”
I enjoy writing action scenes, so that’s likely why I lean into simple prose, that and I’m a developing writer trying to understand the craft. Your article is incredibly insightful, and I aim to share this with my subscribers to invite further discussion. Thank you!
Glad you took it in the spirit intended!
But, yeah, we're all learning, even when we've been doing this for twenty years. And I think part of that journey is putting your ideas out there and receiving pushback. Not necessarily because it will change your mind, but because it may cause you to consider something in a new light.
I don't think much about prose these days, so my response to your article was interesting to me. Didn't know I felt so strongly still!
But, yes, absolutely: it's all subjective. We all have preferences and though we may try to speak objectively, that can only ever be a pose. So I say, lean into the subjectivity! I think that encourages dialogue and, ideally, growth.
That “Cardinal Virtue of Prose” passage made me wrinkle my nose! Poetry, if anything, feels *less* spur-of-the-moment than prose to me.
I think I would like better to read “beauties not germane” not as a universal call for simplicity, but as a call for precision of beauty - for the opposite of Sanderson’s merchant-hoarding-rugs metaphor. The right thing to do is not to cut out the metaphor and leave the action, but to find a metaphor that clarifies, or surprises, or delights, instead of confuses. That would be beauty germane to the prose. I’d say the beauties in Tolkien’s description of Boromir’s fight are all germane, too. A really good writer knows exactly what to keep and what to discard for maximum effect. But the keeping is as important as the discarding.
I agree! They are germane to the scene. I just think a definition like that is slippery, because it can be applied however they want.
They could read that Tolkien passage and say it's riddled with purple prose and should stick to the matter at hand, though. And while people are unlikely to say that about Tolkien, because he's grandfathered into every kind of exemption, but younger and newer writers are often accused of purple prose despite it often being less ornate than Tolkien.