/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.13521358]

>I will never be as good as Nabokov
>I will never be as good as Tolstoy
>I will never be as good as Shakespeare
>I will never be as good as Steinbeck

[Anonymous No.13521362]

>tfw no Cioran bf

[Anonymous No.13521367]

>>13521358
(you) will never be good at anything

[Anonymous No.13521373]

>No Faulkner in there
Yep, you deserve it famalamasenpaialama

[Anonymous No.13521375]

>>13521367
I know. Being a midwit is honestly the most soul-crushing thing in the world. I just want to lay in bed and never get up.

[Anonymous No.13521380]

>>13521373
Haven't read him yet

[Anonymous No.13521404]

>tfw born too late to be Nabokov's student and blow him so you can at least feel close to and swallow part of his greatness
thanks for nothing mom dad

[Anonymous No.13521406]

>>13521358
You can still detransition

[Anonymous No.13521410]

>>13521358
>You listed the easiest fucking people to imitate since they displayed only skill, and what innovation they performed was through skill, not conceptual innovation.

Ideas are the hard part. If you want to be as "good at writing" as those writers you can become that easily.

[Anonymous No.13521416]

>>13521410
>If you want to be as "good at writing" as those writers you can become that easily.
Do you realise how insanely retarded you are?

[Anonymous No.13521417]

>you

[Anonymous No.13521436]

>>13521416
Apparently you didn't read my post. "Craft" skill is much easier in comparison to conceptual innovation because it doesn't take as much insight and lateral thinking. It only requires natural talent and practice.

[Anonymous No.13521441]

>>13521416
Apparently you didn't read my post. "Craft" skill is much easier in comparison to conceptual innovation because it doesn't take as much insight and lateral thinking. It only requires natural talent and practice.

And the authors you listed are ones who are much more "craft" based. So if those are the ones you want to be like, go for it.

[Anonymous No.13521445]

>>13521436
What are some examples of "conceptual innovation" to you? We're talking about fiction not philosophy.

Also I called you retarded because you think it's "easy" to be as good a writer as Nabokov, a person who literally had the optimal genetics and upbringing for a writer.

[Anonymous No.13521472]

>>13521410

Um, what? Generic innovation is most certainly conceptual innovation, and, well, Shakespeare wrote the first fantasy (The Tempest). Also, his tragicomedy hybrids were innovative (Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice).

As far as the sonnets go, he was a Petrarch babby.

[Anonymous No.13521480]

>>13521410
>Ideas are the hard part
Nonsense, anyone can have a good idea, the hard part is following through and maintaining a level of quality
>If you want to be as "good at writing" as those writers you can become that easily.
Zoomer, you a vastly overestimating your own ability

>low res pic of meme painting
Ah, this is bait, I see. Well meme'd sire, I tip my fedora to you

[Anonymous No.13521484]

>everybody itt besides me ofc

[Anonymous No.13521498]

>>13521441
How do you differentiate between "craft" skills and things like having interesting ideas? Seems like an arbitrary division.

[Anonymous No.13521501]

>>13521358
I will be better than Steinbeck.

[Anonymous No.13521505]

>>13521501
Post writing

[Anonymous No.13521510]

>>13521445
A lot of things, from Sappho's alleged introduction of the lyrical I, to Rimbaud's Illuminations, Mallarme's "Un Coup de Des", The Waste Land's bricolage technique, Ulysses (sort of), a great deal of Borges' fiction, and too much more to list. And of course stuff in non-literary mediums.

Obviously this mode took off after the end of classicism, in the last two centuries. That said purely conceptual art is kind of stupid.

[Anonymous No.13521511]

>>13521358
Not with that attitude and gender you won’t

[Anonymous No.13521512]

>>13521501
Post writing

[Anonymous No.13521517]

>>13521511
Based

[Anonymous No.13521519]

>>13521480
>Nonsense, anyone can have a good idea, the hard part is following through and maintaining a level of quality

Logic fail. You need both, but one is much more dependable and linear to acquire. And yes, ideas in the generic sense are cheap, but ideas that move things forward are harder.

[Anonymous No.13521523]

>>13521511
based and manpilled

[Anonymous No.13521532]

>>13521480
>Nonsense, anyone can have a good idea, the hard part is following through and maintaining a level of quality
Logic fail. You need both, but one is much more dependable and linear to acquire. And yes, ideas in the generic sense are cheap, but ideas that move things forward are harder.

[Anonymous No.13521538]

>>13521532
>but one is much more dependable and linear to acquire
How are you drawing this conclusion?

[Anonymous No.13521546]

>>13521441
You have no idea what you're talking about. Tolstoy was certainly not about craft, and Shakespeare was innovtive in many respects. Only Nabokov mght fit your distinction in the way you claim he does.
The sad thing is you don't realize "lateral thinking" in art is about understanding for the first time a yet untapped possibility of craft. Your dichotomy isn't even properly working.

[Anonymous No.13521549]

>>13521510
All you described is playing around with craft tho.

[Anonymous No.13521559]

>>13521510
I don't understand. Are you saying "conceptual innovations" are just experimental pieces that divert from the basic norms of literature in regards to form, content, style, etc.? Because those are my least favourite types of fiction.
>>13521532
This is very easy to test. Simply take an idea from a pre-existing book, let's say Lolita, and try to do it as good as the original author did it. Then you'll see how "easy" it is. Do it, anon. Write a novel about a man molesting a girl and make it as good as Lolita.

[Anonymous No.13521618]

>>13521546
Any idea can be processed and englamorated with artistic skill to create something pretty.

>>13521441
>Your dichotomy isn't even properly working.
It's a spectrum not a dichotomy. And it's just about the sorts of mindsets that are involved in something.

Yes, Shakespeare was innovative but it's still basically middlebrow stuff that is transformed, through craft, into something better.

>>13521549
>I don't understand. Are you saying "conceptual innovations" are just experimental pieces that divert from the basic norms of literature in regards to form, content, style, etc.?

Definitely not. "Experimental" art stays revolutionary not because there is an eternal, static center of how things are that it's always divergent from, but because the mental process involved in that experiment stays palpable in it and that discovery is always exciting (and because if it actually discovered something then that discovery is likely still relevant).

[Anonymous No.13521657]

>>13521618
But it's not incidental that these "discovery" pieces always end up involving, as the other anon aptly put it, playing around with the craft.

[Anonymous No.13521875]

>>13521657
I gave the example of Mallarme, here's one place where this spectrum manifests. Un Coup de Des took drastic freedoms with formatting. Many writers who were inspired by this took a very hardheaded material approach -- take the Charles Olson quote, "in the 20th century poetry began to be written for the page" -- which held them back because the real revelations of Un Coup de Des are more conceptual ones about nonlinearity, dissonancy, indeterminacy and so no.

This is not me encouraging immaterialism, just more expansive kinds of thinking. And I haven't said these two elements of concept and craft are in conflict or don't interact. I do think one is less rare and more reliably acquirable which was my point to OP.

[Anonymous No.13521888]

>>13521417
The real me

[Anonymous No.13521890]

>>13521657
>>13521657
I gave the example of Mallarme, here's one place where this spectrum manifests. Un Coup de Des took drastic freedoms with formatting. Many writers who were inspired by this took a very hardheaded material approach -- take the Charles Olson quote, "in the 20th century poetry began to be written for the page" -- which held them back because the real revelations of Un Coup de Des are more conceptual ones about nonlinearity, dissonance, indeterminacy and so on.

This is not me encouraging immaterialism, just more expansive kinds of thinking. And I haven't said these two elements of concept and craft are in conflict or don't interact. I do think one is less rare and more reliably acquirable which was my point to OP.

[Anonymous No.13521897]

>>13521358
post tits or gtfo

[Anonymous No.13521928]

>>13521890
Your point in OP was not that "skill" is "less acquirable" than "concept" (which I doubt very much) but that "skill" was "easy to obtain"; even that being as skilled as Nabokov Tolstoy Shakespeare and Steinbeck was "easy".

So my challenge to you still stands. If skill is easy to acquire, and concept is the only thing holding writers back, simply take concept from a pre-existing book, let's say Lolita, and try to do it as good as the original author did it. Then you'll see how "easy" it is. Do it, anon. Write a novel about a man molesting a girl and make it as good as Lolita.

[Anonymous No.13522020]

>>13521358
So?
Of course you wont. You are not any of those people.
And most likely you will get no acclaim whatsoever, no matter how good you write.

There.

Now we have that out of the way, so you can go ahead and write your thing without worrying about any of it.

[Anonymous No.13522033]

>>13521358
>you will never be a female
>nor will you ever be a male

[Anonymous No.13523594]

Don't worry. Now that the internet is a thing no author will ever reach those heights. It's all amateur fanfic tier wriring that's only claim to legitimacy is subverting your expectations from here on out