/lit/ - Literature

Personal preference.

Lol you're the dude that posted the shitty excerpts from his shitty fantasy novel and got BTFO. Stay mad cuck

>>6845268
This is not even true. /lit/ is all about MUH PROSE. The problem is that many people don't know how to write it well and it becomes purple prose.

>>6845268
>Steinbeck
>lacking 'vivid physical scenery'
What are you smoking, OP?

Sparse prose is one of the worst literary developments of the 20th century, if not THE worst. While some artists can do it quite well (such as Carver), more often than not this style is grating, gimmicky, and altogether unpleasant to read.

I get the impression that half of /lit/ has never read anything from the 19th century after high school, and that these people cling to conversational, undescriptive prose because it's generally less challenging.

There's nothing wrong with flowery prose when it's done properly. I don't know how long you've been here but Hemingway, Camus, and Steinbeck (who is not even a minimalist so I don't know why you included him) are not the most popular writers on /lit/, their threads are usually full of shitposts and insults. The most popular writers on /lit/ like James Joyce and Thomas Pynchon are explicitly admired because of the aesthetic beauty and maximalist excess of their writing.

However, your writing is not beautiful. It is awkward and I don't like reading it. When you say "enamored" I imagine a fat virgin sitting on his laptop daydreaming about being a chivalrous knight. It's a disgusting image and it upsets me.

>>6845268
>Hemingway
>Steinbeck
>lifeless prose

what the fuck

can't comment on camus since I'm pleb and can't read him in original language

good hemingway has one of the liveliest prose styles of the last century. when it's shit it becomes a parody of itself though

>Why can't "fluff" add to the text by creating vivid physical scenery and building an atmosphere?

"In the late summer of that year we lived in a house
in a village that looked across the river and the plain to
the mountains. In the bed of the river there were peb-
bles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the
water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the
channels. Troops went by the house and down the road
and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the
trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the
leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops march-
ing along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred
by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and
afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves. "

no atmosphere? pls

>>6845268
Attention span.

A reader has a window of interest to imagine a scene. You want to create that as vividly but as quickly as possible. You don't have infinite space with an audience, you have a very short parameter to work with and that's why succint verse succeeds. You don't need great verse to capture a feeling, just intelligence and imagination.

>>6845268
>creating vivid physical scenery and building an atmosphere?
you're an idiot if you can't experience this in either of the authors you listed

>>6845268
Aren't you the guy that posted the really shitty sample from his fantasy novel?

>>6845615
I think he's the guy who posted the paragraph from his fantasy novel which was full of needless descriptions and purple rose.
Of course the anons on /lit/ told him why it's not good but now he seems to insist that his style is actually good because reasons.

>>6845615
>>6845638
I suppose you guys don't happen to have that shit saved somewhere?

>>6845675
>>/lit/thread/S6828200
>He even used the same OP

>>6845268
>lifeless prose
>Hemingway, Steinbeck, or even Camus

i'm just thanking god that I'm not this pleb rn

>>6845268
Your criticisms (Hemmmingway is 'largely lifeless'?) and examples (Steinbeck has shit-tons of scenery description) are ridiculous, but I think there is a valid question in here somewhere.

My guess is that the spare, concise style is usually recommended because it's easier to write well in that style. At the very least it conveys plot and dialogue quickly. If you write badly in Hemmmingway's style, at least it's over soon. If you aim for Nabokov and fall short, the results can be far worse.

>>6845677
My man, thank you. And Jesus fucking Christ.

This is a bAiT thread

>>6845268
Prose is always flabby, lifeless.

Prose writers almost always end up in detailing trivial facts, ending up in a banal naturalism/realism. They can't help it. Prose form encourages it.

>>6845677
Wow. That was fucking terrible. It's like Game of Thrones combined with those shitty dimestore romance novels.

>>6845268
fluff isn't bad always you just sucked at it when you posted that gay lemon oil shit faggot

Victor Hugo is where it's at. American authors always felt like they were afraid they were going to run out of words if they used too many on setting the tone. How can you beat writing like this? Only the second page and it only gets better.

>>6845268
>Why is /lit/ so enamored with naked, largely lifeless prose in the vein of Hemingway, Steinbeck, or even Camus? I don't understand why this "American" style is seen as the gold standard, especially when so many /lit/erates love many Victorian novels.

What the actual fuck are you talking about?
Hemingway and Steinbeck as the 'gold standard'?

This must be your first day here

>>6845857
This is at least his second day here.

>>6845863

maybe it's his 3rd.

>>6845712
I'll attempt a rewrite of his shite

>The red wind blew down from the mountains of her cheeks, rolling and roaring onto the fake leopard bedding where it fought with the Pillsbury dough and tugged at Kektal’s nostrils. He ran a hand across the cheeks as her own pubic locks danced in the autumn Febreze.
>"It’s getting dank...” she said huskily. He smiled and kissed her anus, smelling the Lemon Pledge on her taint and the yeast infection in her cunt.
>“You can’t cum yet.” Kektal breathed, but Shuckyducky had already soiled their bedding and shed much of her vile pubic hair.
>“I’ve been horny since morning,” she whispered. “My mother never lets me do this.” She tried to get down on all fours to assume the position, but Kektal slipped a long arm inside her anus and held her in place. Rusty trombones sounded from all over the trailer park and raised dust which settled on the matted fabric of Shuckyducky's pubes.
>“More meth,” Kektal said, and filled their bowl with blue crystals. Her bowels tightened against his arm, they took hits until the sky was dim and Kektal’s eyes would rather taste the Tiger Balm of dank than linger on Shuckyducky’s enormous pockmarked ass. With only his cock to find the Walmart he felt her ankle. Meth-fucked and rancid, its texture made him violently ejaculate.
>“You need to stay.” Shuckyducky told him again. "Nah bae, I got shit to take care of nawhatImean?" He extricated his excrement covered arm and stood up against the impish anal wind, wrapped a roll of Bounty around his arm to wipe the filth off. Shuckyducky was fifty-six, older than Kektal by several decades, but younger in spirit. She had prolapsed from the fisting and was enjoying the sweet twinges of pain her throbbing anus brought her. Kektal kekked as she took a dragon dildo slathered with Pepto Bismol and sucked on it. With a tip of his fedora, he left his m'lady on the fluid drenched bed, among the green and orange discharge. Kektal took one more hit from the pipe and slipped into his wifebeater, pulled up his sweatpants and left the mobile home wearing purple Reeboks.

>>6845268
Firstly, not sure what you mean. /lit/ adores elegant flowery prose. They like Hemingway and Steinbeck alright, but not for their language.

Secondly, It's a matter of opinion

>>6845913
What he means is that he's assmad cuz /lit/ didn't like his shitty Bill Cosby fanfic >>/lit/thread/S6828200

Ffs guys this is bate

>>6845878
Kek'd

>>6845878
well meme'd my friend

>>6845677
lol I got two sentences in, fucking DROPPED. quit trying to be GRRM OP and write something honest

Have you read Steinbeck? He can be pretty vivid.

>>6845309
That's not why people like affectless dissociative prose. They like it because it's a literary reflection of our world today: stripped down to its core essence, post modern, meaningless. If you write neo 19th century turgid prose you better be able to time travel because no one in this century wants to hear what you think the 19th century was like. Gotta learn how to write for you r own time bro, when everything is a commodity and nature is insane.

>>6846980
Pants-on-head retarded post, tbh.

>>6845297
>implying purple prose is bad

>>6846992
No it isn't, you're just a nigger.

>>6847005
I'm as Caucasian as a stick of chalk in its container. So no, you're retarded m80.

>>6845677
>velvet more alluring than a hundred flaxen maids
>how is it non-literary?
This guy's thread was gold.

>camus
>american
simbly ebin

>>6845268
>Steinbeck
>Lifeless
Just fucking go.

>>6847005
Go to /v/ or /pol/ with that shit.

>>6845268
>Hemingway, Steinbeck, Camus
>'largely lifeless prose'

Do you read?

>Why can't fluff add to the gext by creating vivid physical scenery and building an atmosphere

You see, the problem with this is that it implies that you equate your 'fluff' with good writing. As though maximalist prose just so happens to be vivid and descriptive.

It's almost as if you think mastering prose is a simple matter of throwing enough adjectives in.

Bruno Schulz was vivid. Joyce was vivid. Krasznahorkai is vivid. Their prose is anything but sparse. Hell, Krasznahorkai has sentences that are pages long just to describe a crane fishing in a river. Yet I doubt many would accuse any of them of writing fluff or padding out their stories.

I would accuse you of writing fluff. Your writing isn't bad, but it is unpracticed and it needs polishing.

Writing is an art that takes skill to master, and rich descriptive prose takes a lot more finess than you think. I would suggest you read, plan out a booklist and stick to it.

>>6847004
>Implying that adjective soup counts as prose

>>6847196
>implying it doesn't

>>6847196

>le no adjectives or adverbs meme
There's a reason languages have those parts of speech.
But yeah, this guy's writing is awful

>>6847201
You're gay lol

>>6847204
No one's saying you shouldn't use them ever. It's just that if you're bad at using them you should try to keep it to a minimum because you don't have the talent to make it work.

OP, you aren't a complete failure or a worthless writer. You've obviously made some of the necessary steps towards becoming a decent artist, but you've still a long way to go.
Let's take an example:
>The red wind blew down from the mountains and over the empty plains, rolling and roaring into the garden where it fought with the hazel boughs and tugged at Kartal’s hair.
Here are my objections to this:
1.The adjective red is awkward, is the setting really that arid? The rest of the text doesn't exactly imply that it is.
2."Rolling and roaring" has such an ugly sound, it completely ruins the alliteration and then some. The adjective roaring seems misplaced. It "roars," but then goes on only to mate with the verb "tug." It isn't consistent.

Now do you see what all the clamor has been about? In that one sentence, there is so much awkwardness and inconsistency, not to mention the fact that the actual events of the whole thing have been done to hell and back. Perhaps it wouldn't be so trite if we were given more context, but as it is we have no workable knowledge of the characters, of the major plot line, or even of the setting itself. Therefore, we can only judge your descriptions by themselves, so we've looked at your work as something like a prose-poem, and as such it falls completely flat on its face, not only because of its trite and childish nature, but also because the various poetic devices therein have been too clumsily employed.
My advice is for you to read more widely, read literary criticism, and read your own work writing and look for cliches. Look for what you've seen so frequently that it is deadened to you. Good luck OP, you do have some ability. I especially like the way you follow objects in order to track people and events, the way you had us follow the wind, and then arrive at her hair and dress, and the wine as well. You need work. Balzac himself practiced for hours upon hours everyday before he became a decent writer, do you really think that you can put forth almost no real effort and be an exception writer?

>>6845615
Yeah.

I realize that my own prose isn't great, but a lot of commenters seemed to suggest that brief narration is inherently better, or some shit like that.

>>6848015
I was thinking that, in this setting, the red wind is one of the "great winds" that blows around the world, kind of like how the Greeks had the "four winds" and medieval writers always busied themselves with the mistral and the harmattan and shit like that.

I guess I'd be better off capitalizing? But from the critiques here, I might scrap the opening page and start again.

>>6845878
lol

>>6845350
Underrated post

>MFW /lit/ assblasted some genre shitters prose so bad he has reverted psychologically to a point where he keeps posting the same thread about how /lit/ just hates his prose for some reason out of his control.

diagnoses: faggot; and its terminal.

>>6846980
>They like it because it's a literary reflection of our world today: stripped down to its core essence, post modern, meaningless.

can you get any more platitudinous you nigger faggot

I understand he's considered super pleb but I'm still curious: would you call Stephen King's prose a sort of stripped down, sparse style done in a good way? His book On Writing was big on limiting adverbs and stuff. I think he sees a power in stating things frankly and bluntly as if that heightens their affect.

>>6845268
Nobody actually minds verbose prose, but it's way more difficult to write properly. You can't go around in circles; you need to have something interesting to say, it can't repeat itself, you can't write over-describe everything otherwise it'll mess up your pacing. In other words, it requires tremendous skill.

You don't have it, as you demonstrated with your shitty writing sample. Accept criticism and move on.

>>6845677
B T F O
T
F
O

>>6845350
thread should end here

>>6848811
I personally like Stephen King's prose. It is what it is, and it serves its purpose well. His books are a pleasant read, even though you're likely going to get yourself called pleb if you admit it here.

>>6848811
>adverb limiting

this is like the most basic advice ever. any half-decent writer knows that emphasis and power comes from internal contrasts within the text, rather than always having three perfect adjectives.

>>6845677
how in the fuck does wind tug?

>>6847196
why is adjective soup bad?

I for one enjoy being able to visualize what's going on. And adjectives are far and away the best way to characterize.

>>6847004
Purple prose is a derogatory term used to describe prose that is excessively flowery or ornate or prose that is so extravagant that it pulls the reader out of the story. It doesn't describe ornate or flowery prose itself. So yes, purple prose is bad. Ornate prose isn't.

>>6848794
>implying platitudes aren't the essence of the modern condition.

>>6848073
I didn't think it was that bad

>>6845268
Huh? I always had the impression that it's the other way around. /lit/ masturbates to purple prose for the sake of purple prose. Just read the shit people post or the writers they fangirl over.

Personally I prefer minimalism, I don't need the author wasting my time, my fantasy can do the job and if it has to be flowery, it should have a purpose beyond showing off and be good. Very good.

In the end, it doesn't matter what type of prose you use if the reader keeps reading, it's just easier to accomplish by being brief.

>>6845677
>>>/lit/thread/S6828200

>>6851350
Thanks. I was actually surprised about the backlash, haha. I was just going for a general prose critique thread where I could see how other /lit/ users wrote, and maybe get some criticism on a page I had written that day.

I knew my prose wasn't Faulkner, but I didn't expect so many people to hate it. I've taken a handful of lit classes and submitted works like that, but /lit/'s specific criticisms (irrelevant description, too many adjectives, uninteresting dialogue) were never mentioned.

>>6845268
Hi OP,

Published writer here,

There absolutely is a difference between purple prose and maximalism, you could stand to learn it although your confusion is understandable since everyone commenting in the previous thread clearly didn't know it either, just saw an adjective and started blurting "muh Hemingway" all over the place. No, you don't need to eliminate all description and make your piece just dialogue, if you think the scenery is significant to what you're trying to say. Even Hemingway uses physical description, albeit sparsely and very effectively. Whenever doing this, however, you should ask yourself why you're doing it, what the reader will get out of it, and if the reader could get what you INTEND them to get out of it any more efficiently. That's what "use the fewest words possible" means: use the fewest words necessary to say what YOU are trying to say. Eliminate redundancies, cliches (effectively redundancy as a literary device, since your reader has already heard it), elements that will muddy your imagery or message, etc.

>>6845268
>>6851647
Ex.
Description you did well:

>smelling the lemon oil above her eyes and the lavender beneath her chin
Some anon asked why the reader needs to know this. Said anon has no curiosity or imagination. This tells us about the setting (a culture that uses lavender oil), the characters (probably rich) and allows the reader to share a vivid sensory impression (at least, if you know what lavender oil smells like) that is no doubt of some emotional significance to Kartal.

Description you did poorly:
>Shabon was sixteen, younger than Kartal, but older than her years. She had a poise beyond any other girl Kartal had met, and was the only one he had ever truly known.
For all you've been using concrete detail to develop this particular moment, given the opportunity to explain the significance of this moment you falter and fall back on a bunch of vague abstracts. What does "older than her years" mean? "Truly known" means what: fucked? been in a relationship with? felt he could relate to as a person? I'm sure some of this will be explained later on but until then it's of absolutely no value to your reader.
>her own locks danced in the autumn breeze
Giant cliche, much like
>Rusty leaves
>green and orange arms of the arbor
and these other half-metaphors that just take the reader out of it.

>covering his naked chest with velvet more alluring than a hundred flaxen maids
This is original at least, but it just sounds silly.

>>6845677
>>>/lit/thread/S6828200

>>6851647
Hey

Zach Hill here

Thanks.

>>6845677
>He
Judging by the person's reddit account, it's a 'she'.

Background: someone linked an /r/4chan thread yesterday that had screencapped the original shitshow, blaming an influx of poor quality content on the reddit people driven here.
In the comments of the reddit thread was someone who wrote '...I was the OP :('
Their account history was, sure enough, Game of Thrones stuff, history stuff, and a bunch of female subs.

>>6847004
Hows that Sonic fanfic coming along?

>>6845268
But /lit loves extravagant prose, and if you look at what's written on the internet generally, it's not particularly minimalistic. Perhaps what "internet commentators" and writers would submit for publication is minimalist, but their social critiques and book reviews aren't like that at all.

Also adding fluff and not being minimalistic are different things. Likewise purple prose is a very specific kind of non-minimalistic prose.

>>6851727
That doesn't seem that surprising. The story read kinda like GRRM meets Nora Roberts in all the worst ways.