/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.5265785]

>painters/artists/sculptors practice by copying old masters
>musicians practice by playing old songs

Why don't writers learn by copying other writers? I copied some Poe short stories word for word and then wrote my own story for a class, and everyone was pretty impressed and enjoyed the Poeness of it.

I think copying other writers has it's benefits

[Anonymous No.5265803]

>>5265785
>I copied some Poe short stories word for word
This is fucking weird OP

[Anonymous No.5265805]

>>5265803

weird or ingenious?

[Anonymous No.5265807]

>>5265785
Fan fiction exists, anon.

[Anonymous No.5265808]

>>5265803

Bean Franklin learned to write by doing this.

[Anonymous No.5265810]

>>5265785
Do you mean by typing or actually writing the words on paper?

[Anonymous No.5265815]

>>5265808

Hunter S Thompson did too. It makes sense, I dunno why more people don't do it or teach this method

[Anonymous No.5265821]

>there is no medium specificity

Ok brah.

[Anonymous No.5265826]

>>5265821

[Anonymous No.5265827]

>>5265815
Because it sounds like plagiarism even though it is not.

[Anonymous No.5265833]

>>5265785
>copy paintings
>improve your precision

>copy songs
>improve your rhythm

>copy words
>improve your handwriting/wpm

I'd say writing in the style of a writer would be the actually useful equivalent

[Anonymous No.5265838]

>>5265785
My old french teacher mumbled when I was 12 something about the importance of taking notes because even if you remember something, you form a stronger bond with it by writing it down.

I don't know if any studies have been made on this but I've used it my entire time in school and it works for me, I'm guessing it can be related to your idea OP.

[Anonymous No.5265845]

>>5265833
The only advantage it brings is forcing you to more closely engage with the text. If you're a very good reader, you don't have to copy, but it could help.

[Anonymous No.5265849]

>>5265833
>>copy words
>>improve your handwriting/wpm

well you aren't just copying words, you're trying to copy the voice, the vocabulary, the sentence structure. If you do it consciously instead of mindlessly you will get something out of it

you can play around with it too, copy a few paragraphs, and then try to write your own paragraph in that style, continuing the story in a different way...using that same voice and syntax, etc...its fun

[Anonymous No.5265855]

>copy Ulysses to absorb the skills of the greatest English prose stylist to ever live
>become pretty good (although no where near as good as Joyce)
>my writing is now too advanced even for my English teacher
>"this is set in Boston, right? ....why do all your characters have Irish accents?"

pleb bitch. alay alay we go on merry way. if real life was reddit and her face was a post on reddit, I would have downvoted that shit so hard.

[Anonymous No.5265875]

i remember writing out kafka's a country doctor in a notebook once, although i'm not really sure why. it was enjoyable though and it meant that i paid a lot of attention to the text, and noticed that the phrase 'what am i doing here in this endless winter?' is right in the middle of it without any real context (well, apart from him being stuck in an endless winter)

[Anonymous No.5265880]

>>5265833
when people copy paints they are analysing and trying to understand the cohices that the old masters did, why worked, and so.

it's not about copying words, but understand why that words, sentences, paragraphs, work. The problem I see, is that it's harder and more time consuming trying to focus on one aspect of a writing, than one aspect of a painting or a song.

[Anonymous No.5265890]

because writing is about content and language, and not stuff like neatness of handwriting and pen flourishes and shit.

[Anonymous No.5265893]

>>5265855
>my writing is now too advanced
Read: too shitty to understand

[Anonymous No.5265894]

>>5265855

>why do all your characters have Irish accents?

rofl

[Anonymous No.5265908]

>>5265849
I agree. There's no better way to learn how to write than to imitate the style of your favourite authors.
Proust, among others, was a master of pastiche; he could write exactly like Flaubert.

[Anonymous No.5265947]

I have heard this recommended as a tool. It's not as out there as a few anons seem to think.

We learn to speak well by imitating others who speak well. Imagine instead reading well-written speeches aloud to yourself each day. You internalize the word choice, sentence structure, and general flow, and so on. Do you think you would not speak better in general during your day-to-day activities if you did this?

Copying another writer is the same way.You become better because you are internalizing the author's style, and it becomes natural to you to write in that way.

[Anonymous No.5265960]

It's called readiing, you morons.

[Anonymous No.5266351]

>>5265785
I mean that's a pretty regular thing that people have done for centuries. Take Virgil, he pretty much had all of Homer memorized before he wrote the Aeneid

[Anonymous No.5266360]

>>5266351
How do you know that?

[Muck Bulligan !!ryE2gEjGbpu No.5266382]

>>5265785
most people know how to write and they do it with fair frequency. our writing is the culmination of the influence of every other writer, including the greats and the laymen.

we learn to paint by copying painters. we learn to sculpt by copying sculptors. we learn to write by copying writers.

a painter retains some of the rigorous rules impressed upon him by the people he copied and so does the sculptor and so does the writer. then, they break some rules, or alter them, and attain their own style.

we do exactly what you're suggesting we do, we just do it in a way that is less retarded than copying poe poems.

[Anonymous No.5266404]

>>5266382
>we do exactly what you're suggesting we do, we just do it in a way that is less retarded than copying poe poems.

>we

what have you published? links?

[Muck Bulligan !!ryE2gEjGbpu No.5266436]

>>5266404
we is the human assemblage of authors. there are a lot of them.

[Anonymous No.5266440]

>>5266436

if you aren't a published author, use the word "they" not "we"

[Anonymous No.5266461]

>>5266440
>published
Are you aware that the distinction must, soon, one day, vanish?

What will you do then? Switch to "critically aclaimed"? :^)

[Anonymous No.5266486]

>>5266461

>in the year 2525...

until then your usage is incorrect and your entire persona is unconvincing.

[Anonymous No.5267720]

>>5265785
Even here I can't escape my lord Varg