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/lit/ - Literature

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File: 76 KB, 520x826, the-elements-of-style.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
10357411 No.10357411 [Reply] [Original]

Pic is a book recommended by an old prof. What would you recommend?

>> No.10357425
File: 62 KB, 382x499, tech.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
10357425

This, but ironically.

>> No.10357429

>>10357411
Write.
Don't stop writing.
If you're on 4chan, anything you learn from a book is simply relaxation and contemplation. To truly learn, you must do.

>> No.10357433

>>10357411
the best book on improving technique is harsh and personal feedback from a writer you don't mind reading

>> No.10357456

Read lots of Nabokov

>> No.10357595
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10357595

Pic related.

>>10357429
Is also right.

>>10357456
I would disagree. Nabokov has his own voice and you will get nowhere trying to imitate him. You are better off learning to write clear, concise, elegant prose and develop your own voice.

Some good advice from Steven Pinker on the "classic style" of writing and on writing well:

"Every prose style has a particular pretend scenario and the one that leads to clear prose, which they call 'classic style,' is the following: you, the writer, have noticed something in the world. It's objectively out there. Your reader, who is your equal, happens not to have noticed it yet. Your job as the writer is to point out something in the world that the reader can see with her own eyes if only you give her an unobstructed view. And the reader and writer are equals and the style is conversation. So, those are the ingredients of classic style"

>> No.10359080

bump

>> No.10359301

>>10357595
>[X] has his own voice and you will get nowhere trying to imitate him/her

That's where you are wrong.