[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 76 KB, 1024x768, 1362517234843.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4012440 No.4012440 [Reply] [Original]

ITT: you post what you consider some good writing and some bad writing.

Bonus: you explain how you write: pen, pencil, word processor, do you use tab to indent paragraphs, etc.

>> No.4012443

"She was sad."

- James Joyce

I love writing that doesn't fuck around, sort of like Japanese haikus.

>> No.4012447

I honestly don't come across bad writing in print. Style-wise.

>> No.4012452

>use openoffice
>use tab key to intend paragraphs
>appreciate every author I've ever read except Cohelo, who sucks eternally

>> No.4012461
File: 134 KB, 500x375, raresteak.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4012461

"Atlas was permitted the opinion that he was at liberty, if he wished, to drop the Earth and creep away; but this opinion was all that he was permitted."
-Kafka

Bonus: I write with good old Microsoft Word. My fine motor skill IQ has been determined to be around 60, I can't use a pen for shit. If I could, I would be pretentious about it and use a fountain pen or a feather

>> No.4012466
File: 92 KB, 500x555, 1368886740223.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4012466

The heart asks pleasure first,
And then, excuse from pain;
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;

And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The liberty to die.

"The Cullens? Oh, they're not supposed to come onto the reservation." He looked away, out toward James Island, as he confirmed what I'd thought I'd heard in Sam's voice.

"Why not?"

He glanced back at me, biting his lip. "Oops. I'm not supposed to say anything about that."

"Oh, I won't tell anyone, I'm just curious." I tried to make my smile alluring, wondering if I was laying it on too thick.

He smiled back, though, looking allured. Then he lifted one eyebrow and his voice was even huskier than before.

"Do you like scary stories?" he asked ominously.

"I love them," I enthused, making an effort to smolder at him.

>tfw more teenage girls are reading Stephanie Meyer than Emily Dickinson.

>> No.4012490

>>4012466

>Oh
>Ooops
>Oh
>glanced BACK
>smiled BACK
>his voice was even huskier
>enthused

These are all the things I'd never use in writing.

>objectively know one can writer better than Meyer
>she's a millionaire
>you're not
>maybe I should write that fucking novel after all

>> No.4012495

I found Nathaniel Hawthorne to have an excellent style and badass stories.

Do you think anyone can write like Lovecraft or Poe nowadays?

Do publishers even CONSIDER you if you write "do not" instead of "don't"?

>> No.4012498

>>4012466
>all those micro description before and after sentences
I realized this was bad when I was 8.

>> No.4012510

>>4012466

>he asked ominously

The good thing with Meyer is that you get to see what you should avoid in writing. Reading bad authors has its uses.

>> No.4012542

I want to read authors with known styles (known for their excellency).

What do you suggest?

Does even Faulkner have a dark side, style-wise?

Would you say the less a style is noticeable, the better?

>> No.4012568

Do people overrate the importance of style nowadays?

>> No.4012595
File: 527 KB, 1019x876, good writing vs bad writing.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4012595

>> No.4012608

>>4012595

Is it just me or Joyce has a horrible style?

>> No.4012611

>>4012608
I know, not a single pink boa or leopard print codpiece in sight.

>> No.4012617

>>4012542
Proust for Proustian sentences.
Céline for an interesting mix of "white" sentences, popular language and complex sentence structures.
Hemingway cuz hemingway m8

>> No.4012619

>be using notepad because some anon recommended using it as a good starting point
>notice a grammatical mistake several lines into a story that's already around 200/250 lines long
>change sentence with error to make it ok
>certain words now out of shot
>keep having to press enter to make them move down then pressing return to following line back, and so on.
>fuck this
>highlight it all, press cut
>open MS word
>go on youtube while waiting for MS word to open
>listen to a band I've recently gotten into
>highlight the band name below the video
>copy
>fuck
>fuck
>fuck

Lost a whole story. Probably sucked but still.

>> No.4012618

>>4012498
How about one pharagraph pedantic, pretentious and all buzzwords that you like between? That's how I am doing it right now. Of course is a first person narrator who is supposed to be this, but still. I am insecure about /lit/ not liking me.

>> No.4012614

>>4012595

>using hyphens for dialogue

That's French conventions. Joyce can't have read much literature if he doesn't know that.

>all these fucking adverbs
>terrible, wretched writing

>> No.4012621

>>4012617

What's a white sentence?

>> No.4012623

>>4012608
You.

>> No.4012624

>>4012619

Oh, dude...

>ctrl s

The trick with notepad is simply to select shit, it corrects the missing word problem.

What was the story about?

>> No.4012626

If you want to know what bad writing looks like rummage though some self published shlock.

>> No.4012627

>>4012618
paragraph*. Don't worry, it's not in english

>> No.4012628

>>4012608
>Is it just me or joyce has a horrible style
Irony

>> No.4012629

>>4012623

It's so contrived and ridiculous... I can imagine him holding his teacup with a pinky in the air, chuckling to himself.

>> No.4012635

>>4012628

I think irony sucks. I really do.

>> No.4012630

>>4012627
I'll have to see it before I can judge it. It's probably fine.

>> No.4012637

>>4012624
An American hikikimori type guy accidentally signs up to be a student-buddy to a foreign exchange student and is so shy and nervous he doesn't cancel. The prof sees him and despite him trying to escape he waits with the other students who've signed up and finds himself paired with a cute Japanese chick. That's as far as I reached.

I am NOT a weaboo.

>> No.4012640

>>4012637

The title should be "I Am not a Weaboo".

>> No.4012646

>>4012595

>awhile

What shit writing...

>> No.4012644

>>4012635
then stop using terrible grammar when criticizing great style, because it is ironic

>> No.4012654

>>4012644

>terrible grammar

You don't know what you're talking about.

>grammar is either correct or wrong, or boarderline, but nothing was wrong in that guy's sentence

>style != grammar
>novel != comment on 4chan

>you != someone smart

>> No.4012657

>>4012640
Don't want to break the fourth wall. The title I had in mind was Fish That Wait Like Aeroplane Tickets

>> No.4012661

>>4012654
>Is it just me or Joyce has a horrible style?
>But nothing was wrong in that guy's sentence
You're pulling my leg, right?

>> No.4012663

>>4012630
By the way, I really want to post it here when I am finished, but I am not sure because I am gonna spend all the month doing it and will go over 7500 words. Also I share my writing blog with friends and maybe it wouldn't be a good idea linking it.

At the end I will probably be posting it here, I like this board. Fuck it

>> No.4012665

>>4012595

>old chap

I'm reconsidering reading Ulysses. It's unreadable, seriously.

>> No.4012669

>>4012663
You said it was not in english. what are you?

>> No.4012672

>>4012665
>old chap
Are you saying you don't know what chap means?
I think you're right. Maybe you should start with Doctor Seuss and work your way up from there.

>> No.4012676

>>4012665
nah, it's just very difficult,
Finnegans wake is unreadable

>> No.4012679

>>4012669
Spanish

>> No.4012685

>>4012661

0/10

>> No.4012691

>>4012672

Of course I know what it means. Every fucking paragraph in this page sounds like it was said/written in jest.

I can't stand that sort of crap. Take what you do seriously or don't fucking do it.

>> No.4012692

>>4012685
Is it just me or Joyce has a horrible style?
"or joyce has a horrible style"
it should be "or does joyce have a horrible style"

>> No.4012697

>>4012676

I see nothing difficult there. It's just overly mannered to the point of being ridicule.

I marvel at how you guys can find this amusing in the least, or even good.

>> No.4012700

>>4012692

>implying one can't say "You like chocolate?"

Your autism is showing.

>> No.4012702

>>4012679
oh.. So you will post it in spanish here? Feels bad, I won't understand

>> No.4012705

>>4012702

MALDITO CALZONE!

>> No.4012709

>>4012595

Explain how Joyce is doing anything good here?

It's Meyer-tier.

>old chap

Even she wouldn't dare being this corny and cheesy.

>> No.4012713

>>4012700
He didn't say "you like chocolate?" though, now did he?

>> No.4012717

>>4012709
maybe it was less corny a century ago? I don't think it's very cheesy at all really, you're just overreacting

>> No.4012724

>>4012691
Joyce fucking loved literature otherwise he wouldn't have spent 16 years of his life writing an impenetrable book
if you can't see the beauty in ridiculous puns and language games, Idk if prose is for you

nyway the first three chapters are meant to be from the perspective of an unlikeable prick, Leopold Bloom is a far more likeable character
the whole thing's a virtuoso display of mode-switching

>> No.4012727

>>4012665
>>4012709
Buck Mulligan's meant to be a goofy obnoxious character, the term fits his mannerisms perfectly

>> No.4012728

>>4012717

>old chap

That was corny and cheesy in 1850 already. You can't say that with a straight face.

You guys think way too much of irony. I find it obnoxious and contrived, rather than witty and genius-like.

Edgy kids are ironic all the fucking time.

>> No.4012731

>>4012724
>if you can't see the beauty in ridiculous puns and language games, Idk if prose is for you

I think great literature aspires to do far more than dumbass puns and autistic jokes. But hey, that's me. If you want to have top lels with puns and double-entendre, have fun.

>> No.4012733

>>4012727
I was just about to say this, so this pretty much.

>> No.4012741

>>4012731
Finnegans Wake is about as engaging and loving a portrait of a family as you can get this side of To The Lighthouse, and Dubliners is almost certainly po-faced enough for your liking
Joyce aspired to found a distinctive style rich with variety and emotion, elevating the simple facts of daily life in Dublin to thrilling heights by his sheer talent as an author. If you read Molly Bloom's soliloquy at the end of Ulysses and you remain unmoved I think the problem lies at your end.

>> No.4012742

>>4012733

So the whole novel isn't that single tone?

>> No.4012743

>>4012702
Well, you could save it in case you learn it one day. Won't be worth it, though. Until now I have only made poems and essays.

It's a promise, then. I will deliver for the end of this month, so save it!

>> No.4012750

>>4012742
The novel switches constantly. It was written in the early 20th century, of course, so a lot of the language still comes across as dated, but Joyce is a polystylistic writer if ever there's been one, and the style changes depending on which character is being focused on and what they're doing
read Portrait of the Artist if you find it off-putting at first

>> No.4012757

>>4012750

I got an MA in literature in two languages and I've read Dubliners and Portrait a while back.

I remember being impressed by a few stories from Dubliners and bored to death by the rest.

I can deal with free indirect speech and affected narrative voices.

>> No.4012762

>>4012757
in which case you should definitely read Ulysses
it's a Big Important Book that is Critically Acclaimed and Part of the Canon, and even if you hate it I think it's worth at least a good try

>> No.4012766

>>4012743
okay. I think I can learn spanish in a month, no problem

>> No.4012770

>>4012741
you sound like an undigested mashup of back cover quotes

>> No.4012773

>>4012762

I know what it is. IT'S LITCORE, but actually the only "litcore" book I've always heard about at uni.

I just hope to find something of substance. I cannot stand postmodernism and all that trivial play on traditions and references and etc. I can't fucking stand it.

I've tolerated House of Leaves because the main story intrigued me, but it's what I would consider shit.

>> No.4012774

>>4012770
seeing as my cheap copy of Ulysses doesn't have any back cover quotes, I guess I just have homogenous opinions

>> No.4012783

Orson Scot Card has the best prose. It's never intrusive, always effective.

“The power to cause pain is the only power that matters, the power to kill and destroy, because if you can't kill then you are always subject to those who can, and nothing and no one will ever save you.”

It's great writing because it's true. it gives me goosebump.

>> No.4012785

>>4012773
There's definitely substance in there, but if you disliked the constant fucking around with form in House of Leaves, Ulysses will probably irritate you occasionally.
Feel free to skip the more abstruse bits on your first read, some of it (third chapter especially) is aggravatingly disjointed first time round, but I'm sure you'll find something you like in there - there's just too much well-written stuff in there for there not to be at least some great sections for any reader

>> No.4012795

>>4012785

I'll read it. Gravity's Rainbow and Infinite Jest are on the list too.

I'll admit I read these because everyone else seems to have read them. I'm more a Hemingway sort of guy, so we'll see.

>although Melville has impressed me most

>> No.4012814

>likes Hemingway and Melville

do you like Blood Meridian

>> No.4012817

>>4012814

Should I?

I'm very skeptical of Cormac simply because he does not use apostrophes when he writes.

>> No.4012830

>>4012817
you might do, it's Hemingway simplicity mixed with Melville grandeur/philosophy/specialist knowledge then made into a gory, terrifying Western
The run-on sentences are a very acquired taste (although not as much as when the commas just arent there) but eventually you stop noticing

>> No.4012836

>>4012830
(and the thing with apostrophes isnt great either)

>> No.4012845

>>4012836

>isnt

Ugh...

>> No.4012846

>>4012845
You aint going to impose your grammatical constraints on me, said the author.
He wrote on.

>> No.4012860

>>4012846

So Blood Meridian SERIOUSLY doesn't have apostrophes or commas???

>> No.4012865

>>4012860
It has them when it's necessary, Cormac just says "isnt" and uses a lot more "and" than the average author. Like I said, it's a bit of a quirk, but it's easy to adjust to, and fits the "overwhelming" feel of the book well.

Sample passage:
>“A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained wedding veil and some in headgear or cranefeathers or rawhide helmets that bore the horns of bull or buffalo and one in a pigeontailed coat worn backwards and otherwise naked and one in the armor of a Spanish conquistador, the breastplate and pauldrons deeply dented with old blows of mace or sabre done in another country by men whose very bones were dust and many with their braids spliced up with the hair of other beasts until they trailed upon the ground and their horses' ears and tails worked with bits of brightly colored cloth and one whose horse's whole head was painted crimson red and all the horsemen's faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone land of Christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools.”

>> No.4012872

>>4012865

That's fucking dense. I can deal with it.

Should I brace for some horribly childish Liberalism and hate of the white man or something like that?

>> No.4012874

>>4012865

I'd feel silly writing like that.

>Get a grip, Anon, you're being retarded

Guess I shouldn't get a grip and I'd be as awesome as Cormac.

>> No.4012875

>>4012872
It portrays the Indians as well as the whites as savages. There's no good guys in Blood Meridian.

>> No.4012879

>>4012875

Yeah? Then I might be down for it.

>> No.4012884

>>4012872
No. In McCarthy's world, the Americans, the Mexicans, and the Apaches are all as bad as each other, all equally bloodthirsty in a world where war is god.
this could easily come across as trying way too hard, but Judge Holden is an absolutely fascinating character, and the strange philosophy he espouses is quite haunting

>> No.4012888
File: 32 KB, 242x332, cormac-mccarthy-4.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4012888

>>4012874
I was going to say "Just remember to constantly redraft it so it's not just a total mess", but apparently that entire run-on sentence was typed in the first draft
ridiculous talent

>> No.4012900

>>4012888

>stream of consciousness
>talent

Not entirely convinced.

>> No.4012911

>>4012900
Yeah, but if the average /lit/ user was to attempt writing a sentence like that, it's likely they'd have at least one clunker of a line. As it is, every descriptive detail builds up to a fever pitch of terror by the end of the sentence - for something so deliberately overblown, its economy is remarkable.

>> No.4012914

>>4012911

I sense that if I wrote something equally good, your judgement would not find me so admirable.

>> No.4012921

>>4012914
I think I'm probably biased because its context in the book lent it a lot of its power, but obviously in such a scenario the proof would be in the pudding. Until then, the point is moot.

>> No.4012918

What the hell is a "blood meridian" anyway?

>> No.4012929

>>4012918
The evening redness in the west (that is to say, a sky the colour of blood, a fairly common meteorological occurrence in the book's location I think)
The borders between America, Mexico, and Apache settlements (lines over which much blood has been spilled)
take your pick

>> No.4012931

>>4012918
it's a line on the earth marked with blood

where the west ends.

>> No.4012936

>>4012929
(also, the culmination of the huge amount of bloodshed that went on in the mid-1800s to the south of North America - the book ends with this orgy of violence being potentially curtailed by the erection of fences/telegraph poles )

>> No.4012940

>>4012724

>man loves books
>man writes book that can't be read

no, he loved himself, not literature.

>> No.4012946

>>4012940
Finnegans Wake is readable, you just have to be abnormally literate or determined to plow through it
I'm neither, so I'll leave it to people like Anthony Burgess, who I'm pr sure knew what he was doing

>> No.4012976

>>4012946

You can't even explain the first sentence.

>> No.4012981

>>4012976
Yes you can
even RapGenius.com can explain the first sentence
It's a simple description of the location of a river and a castle, following which there's a storm
It gets much, much more difficult than the first sentence later on

>> No.4013182

>>4012946
there's literally a book dedicated to analyzing the first page.
You might be able to read it, but there's not even a professional consensus on whether the book has a coherent plot, so I doubt anyone can truly get the full meaning of the book.

>> No.4013188

>>4013182
does any irish wake have a coherent plot?

>> No.4013192

>>4013188
Well, I might have worded that poorly. A coherent narrative might be better.

>> No.4013199

>>4013192
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biArkwUaURA