/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18774422]

Why does prose has to be concise,economic,short, to the point? There is nothing simple about our internal dialogue in real life, why is complexed prose then frowned upon in litterature?

[Anonymous No.18774953]

It doesn’t and it isn’t. /thread

[Anonymous No.18774965]

>>18774422
Because your internal dialogue is already rich and complicated and tangled and uncontrollable. I tell you that she rowed away alone and he sat for a long time on the blanket they’d brought, and your mind hasn’t just read the facts I stated, it’s thought about what they’d feel, it’s remembered times you lost things, it’s settled on a pattern on the blanket and imagined the rowing of the oars getting quieter as she gets further away.

Simple prose is there for you to have a framework against which to feel everything the author hopes you to feel, while keeping focused and not losing clarity, moving from moment to moment and feeling to feeling. Simple prose is the author grabbing your face and grinding your cheek down the page, so you have no choice but to see every scene stark and in sequence

[Anonymous No.18774983]

>>18774422
>Why does prose has to be concise,economic,short, to the point?
Because if it was only concise, economic and short, people might not be sure.

[Anonymous No.18775313]

>>18774422
This is not a requirement of prose writing, except perhaps in instructional and academic writing, it is simply a guideline that has become very popular for good reasons which I'll outline shortly.
Read any literature from the 19th century and before--even in scientific literature, where language is in it's most direct and to the point form that the style of the day would permit--and you will see that the style of writing has a tendency to come off as long-winded simply because that was just how they wrote; even the way people ended their letters would be considered tedious today (e.g. before about the mid 19th century the common valediction wasn't something like "Regards, John Doe", it was something like, "Sir, I remain your most humble and obedient servant, John Doe").
Nowadays with the deluge of information, writers are often urged to draw the reader in, excite them, and get to the point as quickly as possible, which is why I imagine younger readers tend to get peeved at the style of older writers and say things like
>uhh, why won't he get to the point!
>This sentence is going on way to long!
>What's with all these words? is he trying to sound smart?
Different culture really but that's okay. Just know who your audience is and the style should follow from that as regards practical matters; as regards literary or poetic matters though, I suggest you develop your own unique style instead of pandering to the lowest common denominator.

[Anonymous No.18775329]

>>18774953
This. Literally pick up any acclaimed book of the last 20 years. Rushdie, Marias, Sebald, Ishiguro, Houllebecq, even meme women authors like Zadie Smith all have prose that MFA autists would dismiss as 'purple'

[Anonymous No.18775474]

>>18775313
This also has the advantage of allowing one to easily filter people when you'd like to say something that may arouse controversy.

[Anonymous No.18775528]

>>18774422
It gives the empression you're a pretentious roundabout twat who, if he had ever a chance at having sex, would at each stroke ask whether it was okay to go back in.

[Anonymous No.18776103]

>>18775528
Short and straightforward language isn't always the best and can actually be bad for most intellectual writing. In my experience, so called "straight-forward" language can sometimes (mis-)indicate a lack of nuance in thinking, hastiness, sloppiness, or otherwise, a lack of refinement in thought. To properly express one's thought the language one uses must be robust, which in-itself means that language must lean towards the use of some jargon and lengthy exposition.

[Anonymous No.18776139]

>>18774422
you understand you don't need to be obscurantist to form 'complex' thoughts? read literally ANY pessoa. or, really, any great novel. read moby dick. hell, shakespeare. read anything numbnuts

as Terry Davis once said
>an idiot admires complexity, a genius admires simplicity

[Anonymous No.18776151]

>>18774422
>>18776139
although to be clear it's easy to conflate two things here. the best way to express a thought is as concisely and clearly as possible, but that does NOT mean the thought/sentence has to be short or economic, if you can't express it any simpler.

[Anonymous No.18776260]

>>18774965
Should the reader come up with his own emotions or feel the emotions the author meant to convay???

[Anonymous No.18776295]

>>18775313
Thanks for your insights I truly appreciate it. What are we to do then with form vs delivery in regards to literature or is it no longer of any importance given that an author should choose his own distinct niche and genre?

* english isnt my first language

[Anonymous No.18776313]

>>18776151
is this kirin j callinin

[Anonymous No.18776330]

>>18775528
No i am pretty humble in general I just start to doubt my style of writting and at the same time donT see why I should "dumb down" an idea or feeling i wish to give my reader because I think that humans can easly misinterpret feelings and emotions, not that its a bad thing but what if its the wrong e.otion I wish the reader to have at any given point?

[Anonymous No.18776436]

>>18776260
It’s probably going to be the same thing a lot of the time, if you’re writing something that has meaning to you. Reading Blue Champagne, where a guy falls in love with a celebrity who needs a high-tech exoskeleton to move, and she with him, and then is destroyed when she sells the recordings of their falling in love in order to keep the exoskeleton, well, I’ve never fallen in love in space, or needed a computer to be fully me, or had my love literally sold for profit. But I’ve fallen in love, and known how vulnerable I was. I’ve needed medication to be the real, best me, and known all the things I would do to keep it. I’ve had love betrayed. I know the way that hurts.

So the emotions you want to turn into words as you write will probably travel pretty well. Because almost everyone ends up experiencing the breadth of human feeling at some point. And if they don’t, if they feel rage instead of sorrow or hopelessness instead of contentment or fear instead of relief, well, that’s part of what makes art so cool, too.

[Anonymous No.18776447]

>>18774422

[Anonymous No.18776463]

>>18776330
My advice is this: Write your initial draft with regard for neither style nor substance, length or depth. Keep the initial draft around and copy it for every editorial decision you'd like to make. At some point you'll look it all over and make a compound text based in all those facets from your series of drafts that you find the most encompassing what you want to communicate.

[Anonymous No.18776504]

>>18775313
A very good example of where you can see this is Laclos. Sorry for shilling this shit everywhere as of late, I just think it's a good read.

Forever faithful and craving of your love, etc.
Me

[Anonymous No.18776555]

>>18776103
Oh fuck off. Obscuration is a coward's tool to protect their fragile ego. Jargon is literally the product of laziness; not a good faith effort to demonstrate mastery of a topic. Nuance is a cope for admitting, rightfully so, that either you have no fucking idea what you are talking about or you are too lazy to identify and address all the variations. Imprecise language is 9/10 times a smokescreen for laziness, ignorance, and insecurity. 1/10 times it is humble admittance of being out of one's depth. No fucker that first thinks "nuance" and not "transcendence" would ever be capable of producing 1/10 usage.

[Anonymous No.18776558]

>>18774422
It is totally a matter of personal preference

[Anonymous No.18777731]

>>18776555
Didn't read. Too many word and purple prose