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/lit/ - Literature

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10740654 No.10740654 [Reply] [Original]

How can I stop comparing my own writing to that of the literary masters? Sometimes while writing I can't help but thinking "Faulkner wouldn't have said that" or "Tolstoy would find that gay." Anyone else learned to at least shut this out?

>> No.10740679

>>10740654
pick a classic writer and make it your mission to annoy him. write the thing that tolstoy would find the gayest.

>> No.10740703

>>10740654

Pretty much every writer goes through this phase. If you look at the juvenilia of almost any major author, you will find him copying someone or other - usually a string of someones. For example Philip Larkin wrote what he himself called "Yeats-and-water" for a long time before suddenly turning into Philip Larkin. Similarly, Sylvia Plath went through a marked Dylan Thomas phase (among others).

The key is to work *through* that. And the way to do that is
WORK HARDER
and
WRITE MORE

(These days most people are absurdly lazy and dilettantish about writing and everything else. Life was tougher in the past and people felt a bit more urgent about things.)

WORK HARDER
WRITE MORE

and all your problems will be solved.

>> No.10740717

>>10740654

Why would you shut it out? That's how you criticize yourself and grow as a writer.

>> No.10741488

>>10740703
Eh I know you're right I just wish I could avoid it all. For example, I noticed that a paragraph of mine read like an imitation of Cormac McCarthy so I opened up Suttree and got frustrated because it felt like I couldn't phrase myself without falling back on my influences. Maybe I'm just a first world pansy is all.

>>10740717
Ideally I want to be known for my own voice and not for what comparisons could be made about my work.

>> No.10741521

>>10740654
Why should you stop comparing yourself to them? If you compare yourself to shit writers then you'll only become slightly better than a shit writer. Compare yourself to the masters. That's the only way you'll become good.

>> No.10741525

>>10740679
Fpbp