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On November 23 2012 17:20 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
babylon is 100% right and people disagreeing with him are 100% wrong.
^ The literary critic in me initially leapt at the chance to question Shady's exhortation of "good" writing after reading the OP; sadly, I found that Babylon had already beaten me to the punch. To describe "good" in the context of written expression with rigor and sufficiency is to accomplish great things in the literary world. I think Shady just spoke with a bit too wide a scope.
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On November 23 2012 17:30 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2012 17:20 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
babylon is 100% right and people disagreeing with him are 100% wrong. ^ The literary critic in me initially leapt at the chance to question Shady's exhortation of "good" writing after reading the OP; sadly, I found that Babylon had already beaten me to the punch. All I'll add is that speaking unequivocally and describing the genesis of "quality" in writing are almost complete strangers.
farva, could you explain what does babylon mean when he implies that grammatically correct prose is going out of fashion (and not necessarily so)? I mean, does it have to do with structuring your sentences and with careful diction, you make your writing evolve into something better (whatever better entails in this situation)?
Goddamn I use parentheses too much.
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I agree with babylon as well. He isn't simplifying the fiction writing process by telling people to just start writing; it's actually the opposite. Personally, I think fiction should leave a lot of room for experimentation and change, and just take on a free-form style. OP's statements actually remind me of technical writing funnily enough. I'm not saying that having reasons for writing certain things is bad, it's actually really good, but I think that's different from say, requiring the characters or even the plot pursuing a goal. Instead, I think the author should be the one with goals or reasons.
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Baa?21244 Posts
On November 23 2012 17:34 Azera wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2012 17:30 farvacola wrote:On November 23 2012 17:20 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
babylon is 100% right and people disagreeing with him are 100% wrong. ^ The literary critic in me initially leapt at the chance to question Shady's exhortation of "good" writing after reading the OP; sadly, I found that Babylon had already beaten me to the punch. All I'll add is that speaking unequivocally and describing the genesis of "quality" in writing are almost complete strangers. farva, could you explain what does babylon mean when he implies that grammatically correct prose is going out of fashion (and not necessarily so)? I mean, does it have to do with structuring your sentences and with careful diction, you make your writing evolve into something better (whatever better entails in this situation)? Goddamn I use parentheses too much.
You pretty much answered your own question already with the second part, but I guess you can generalize it a bit more.
Grammar is great, amazing, and grammatically correct prose is something everyone should master. However, when you know exactly what you're trying to convey, you just use the words and constructions that accomplish your goals, regardless of "grammar." It's just an issue of saying what you need to say, however you need to say it.
It's not even a recent phenomenon. From Shakespeare inventing words to Joyce redefining our understanding of English, great authors have always shown that rules (once mastered) are meant to be broken.
There is, of course, a difference between confidently expanding horizons and breaking rules for the sake of breaking rules with no deeper thought behind them except for some vague idea of "rebellion." The latter is stupid and is sadly all too common.
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On November 23 2012 17:34 Azera wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2012 17:30 farvacola wrote:On November 23 2012 17:20 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
babylon is 100% right and people disagreeing with him are 100% wrong. ^ The literary critic in me initially leapt at the chance to question Shady's exhortation of "good" writing after reading the OP; sadly, I found that Babylon had already beaten me to the punch. All I'll add is that speaking unequivocally and describing the genesis of "quality" in writing are almost complete strangers. farva, could you explain what does babylon mean when he implies that grammatically correct prose is going out of fashion (and not necessarily so)? I mean, does it have to do with structuring your sentences and with careful diction, you make your writing evolve into something better (whatever better entails in this situation)? Goddamn I use parentheses too much.
In favor of being brief, I'll go with a short hand rule of writing my favorite teacher once taught me. He said that oftentimes the best writers are very observant of the conventional rules of English prose style..........................as they pick and choose which rules to smash, alter, or challenge. In other words, one must know the rules before they begin to break them, but that breaking ends up being perhaps the most significant affect of the persuasive narrative voice, save for particular cases of extreme content or genre indictment. For example, some of my favorite authors, the likes of Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and Thomas Pynchon, will string together odd phrasing, forgo a comma here or a period there, or even challenge the narrative framework of rising/falling action by interposing and interweaving multiple story lines or perspectives. In the end, these idiosyncrasies become the aspects by which criticism can be levied towards a work and judged accordingly. I suppose here it is worth mentioning the sometimes dramatic divide between popular lit and "good" lit. Stephen King writes with a style of unimaginative drudgery that I find absolutely terrible, and yet, he sells many many books because he has a good thumb on the pulse of the popular American horror imagination.
Edit: ninja'd by da sheep 
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Since this is a topic about art, and since I am an aspiring music producer, I will share some notes I have found on the internet those times my inspiration had abated, but the thirst was still there.
The War of Art - Steven Pressfield
Commentary by Owen Cook
"The fuckin' pro, he wakes up every day, let's say he's a writer; he's gonna do his writing today, like every day. Some days the Muse is there; other days it's not. The amateur wants to do it when they're fuckin' feeling it. The pro does it no matter what! The pro knows the art won't give him anything until he gives something to the art."
Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Poorly
by Ken Fong
http://www.intervarsity.org/slj/article/2273/0.1
So how do you counter the pervasive voice of self-criticism? Let me share with you another illustration that explains why anything worth doing is worth doing poorly. Dan K. is a world-renowned jazz fusion performer and recording artist. He’s been a special friend for fifteen years. Our worship leaders and I approached him once to ask if he would arrange some of our favorite worship songs so that they’d sound more soulful and jazz-tinged. He first said, “Those songs you sing are rock-based, so it’s not possible to jazz them up. Jazz and soul music are blues-based.” We then asked him to compose some soulful worship songs for us to sing. That’s when he said, “Just write your own songs.” We thought we were being humble when we claimed that none of us were talented enough to write original songs, worship or otherwise. That’s why we were coming to him, a professional songwriter.
Dan shocked us with his Buddha-like response: “All of you can write songs. You just never finish the first verse of the first song you’re trying to write. Before you’ve even gotten to the end of the first stanza, you stop cold because you hate the tune and you think your first verse’s lyrics are infantile and weak. Because you never finish your first song, you never end up finding out which of the songs you’ve written have any potential. Since I’m a professional songwriter, I try to write one new song every day. I didn’t say that I write a great new song every day. I just said that I try to write one song each day. It’s often not until I’ve finished, say, twenty new songs that I’m ready to step back and listen to each one more closely. If I never finish the first song—no matter how poor a song it might turn out to be—I will never write the great song.”
As he finished, I just had to blurt out, “So, anything worth doing is worth doing poorly?” Dan agreed that it was. So you see, one of the best ways to thwart your self-critical voice is to not worry so much about doing something perfectly or not at all. You will never discover the treasures if you don’t first dig a lot of holes with nothing in them.
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To farva and Sheep,
How do you gauge whether the author understands grammar if the only books of his/her that are published has his own version of grammatical rules? You know, the missing commas, the weirdly structured sentences, and all that Joyce-esque jazz. It seems the only way you can tell is if the work is actually smart to you, or just plain rubbish. So is it all subjective as well? What if someone thinks Joyce is bad because the style is not something that he "gets"?
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Baa?21244 Posts
On November 23 2012 17:59 Azera wrote:
To farva and Sheep,
How do you gauge whether the author understands grammar if the only books of his/her that are published has his own version of grammatical rules? You know, the missing commas, the weirdly structured sentences, and all that Joyce-esque jazz. It seems the only way you can tell is if the work is actually smart to you, or just plain rubbish. So is it all subjective as well? What if someone thinks Joyce is bad because the style is not something that he "gets"?
Because Joyce wrote this:
+ Show Spoiler +The air of the room chilled his shoulders. He stretched himself cautiously along under the sheets and lay down beside his wife. One by one, they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. He thought of how she who lay beside him had locked in her heart for so many years that image of her lover's eyes when he had told her that he did not wish to live.
Generous tears filled Gabriel's eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love. The tears gathered more thickly in his eyes and in the partial darkness he imagined he saw the form of a young man standing under a dripping tree. Other forms were near. His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself, which these dead had one time reared and lived in, was dissolving and dwindling.
A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubliners
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Interesting. Is it possible for someone to put up a convincing argument that James Joyce was actually rubbish and everybody that thinks he's good has only been made to believe that he's good? (I'm not saying that he's shit)
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On November 23 2012 17:59 Azera wrote:
To farva and Sheep,
How do you gauge whether the author understands grammar if the only books of his/her that are published has his own version of grammatical rules? You know, the missing commas, the weirdly structured sentences, and all that Joyce-esque jazz. It seems the only way you can tell is if the work is actually smart to you, or just plain rubbish. So is it all subjective as well? What if someone thinks Joyce is bad because the style is not something that he "gets"?
It's usually when they do it for a particular reason and if that said reason is good enough. Does it make the writing better? How would it be different the correct way vs. the way they did it, and is it better that way? They don't just do it cause they can, they do it for a purpose.
With that said, my experience with fiction writing styles is pretty limited, but it can apply to technical writing as well.
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On November 23 2012 18:04 Azera wrote:
Interesting. Is it possible for someone to put up a convincing argument that James Joyce was actually rubbish and everybody that thinks he's good has only been made to believe that he's good? (I'm not saying that he's shit)
Certainly, everyone has their critics, though in the case of Joyce, most respectable detractors are hesitant to call his work "bad" as opposed to simply not their cup of tea.
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On November 23 2012 18:04 Azera wrote:
Interesting. Is it possible for someone to put up a convincing argument that James Joyce was actually rubbish and everybody that thinks he's good has only been made to believe that he's good? (I'm not saying that he's shit)
Lol it sounds like you're a high school student suffering through Ulysses or something
Dont sweat it buddy we've all been there.
To everyone else who has commented on this blog:
1) The title, I agree, is too broad.
2) The actual content of the post rests something along the lines of "a beginner's guide to fiction writing". That's what I meant by putting "good" in quotation marks; I meant something that the vast majority of readers, both literary and non-literary, will consider to be passably decent.
EDIT:
+ Show Spoiler +Joyce's Ulysses remains one of my most hated novels, ever. I had to parse through its mangled prose in AP Senior English when I was heavily infected with senioritis
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Baa?21244 Posts
On November 23 2012 18:04 Azera wrote:
Interesting. Is it possible for someone to put up a convincing argument that James Joyce was actually rubbish and everybody that thinks he's good has only been made to believe that he's good? (I'm not saying that he's shit)
Joyce is actually great example to examine this question with; if you don't want to read a wall of text by Joyce, turn away now.
To elaborate on my Dubliners example, you need to know a little bit about Joyce's evolution as an author throughout his career.
His first major work was the linked Dubliners, a collection of masterfully written short stories with grammatically perfect prose and some of the (in my opinion) most beautiful and haunting sentences in English literature.
Then comes A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, in which Joyce examines how language/perception of language changes as the main character ages from youth to manhood. The language becomes more advanced and sophisticated as the main character ages. The opening is conceivably written by a young boy:
"Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the roadmet a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo..."
The ending is noticeably more complex:
"APRIL 26. Mother is putting my new secondhand clothes in order. She prays now, she says, that I may learn in my own life and away from home and friends what the heart is and what it feels. Amen. So be it. Welcome, O life, I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.
APRIL 27. Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead."
Then we have Ulysses, where Joyce begins to break down the walls of conventional grammatical structure (the ending soliloquy consists of ~24000 words, divided into eight "sentences" without any punctuation), to Finnegan's Wake, which reads almost like gibberish.
What convinces me, and the vast majority of readers of Joyce, that his works have value and is not some literary prank of the century, is that we can trace the way his views on language changed through his major works extremely well. We can see exactly how he went from Dubliners to Finnegans Wake, and can discern a logical thought process underlying it. This is not someone who one day decided "grammar sucks, let's write random shit." Dislike/disapproval of Joyce's style is plentiful; however, it is difficult to find substantive criticism of his work that labels it as "bad." Detractors (credible ones) still understand why Joyce is perceived as important by many, and a little basic research into Joyce will reveal at least some of his underlying logic for doing what he did. You will obviously get people who just dismiss Joyce out of personal taste, but again, I stress the difference between substantive criticism and a general dismissal due to preference/ignorance.
Joyce has proven he can write "conventionally," and deliberately chose, over a long career, to "devolve" from proper prose. Nearly a century of literary scholarship have backed his endeavors. That is not to say it's good because everyone says it's good, but because there has yet to be any "real" criticism beyond personal preference.
To summarize, the short answer to your question is no; the long answer is no, with an asterisk.
For full disclosure, I have not yet read the entirety of Ulysses (close though; I aim to change that soon) and have not yet made a substantial headway into Finnegans Wake, so my word on Joyce is nowhere close to authoritative.
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On November 23 2012 18:26 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2012 18:04 Azera wrote:
Interesting. Is it possible for someone to put up a convincing argument that James Joyce was actually rubbish and everybody that thinks he's good has only been made to believe that he's good? (I'm not saying that he's shit) Joyce is actually great example to examine this question with; if you don't want to read a wall of text by Joyce, turn away now. To elaborate on my Dubliners example, you need to know a little bit about Joyce's evolution as an author throughout his career. His first major work was the linked Dubliners, a collection of masterfully written short stories with grammatically perfect prose and some of the (in my opinion) most beautiful and haunting sentences in English literature. Then comes A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, in which Joyce examines how language/perception of language changes as the main character ages from youth to manhood. The language becomes more advanced and sophisticated as the main character ages. The opening is conceivably written by a young boy: "Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the roadmet a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo..." The ending is noticeably more complex: "APRIL 26. Mother is putting my new secondhand clothes in order. She prays now, she says, that I may learn in my own life and away from home and friends what the heart is and what it feels. Amen. So be it. Welcome, O life, I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race. APRIL 27. Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead." Then we have Ulysses, where Joyce begins to break down the walls of conventional grammatical structure (the ending soliloquy consists of ~24000 words, divided into eight "sentences" without any punctuation), to Finnegan's Wake, which reads almost like gibberish. What convinces me, and the vast majority of readers of Joyce, that his works have value and is not some literary prank of the century, is that we can trace the way his views on language changed through his major works extremely well. We can see exactly how he went from Dubliners to Finnegan's Wake, and can discern a logical thought process underlying it. This is not someone who one day decided "grammar sucks, let's write random shit." Dislike/disapproval of Joyce's style is plentiful; however, it is difficult to find substantive criticism of his work that labels it as "bad." Detractors (credible ones) still understand why Joyce is perceived as important by many, and a little basic research into Joyce will reveal at least some of his underlying logic for doing what he did. You will obviously get people who just dismiss Joyce out of personal taste, but again, I stress the difference between substantive criticism and a general dismissal due to preference/ignorance. Joyce has proven he can write "conventionally," and deliberately chose, over a long career, to "devolve" from proper prose. Nearly a century of literary scholarship have backed his endeavors. That is not to say it's good because everyone says it's good, but because there has yet to be any "real" criticism beyond personal preference. To summarize, the short answer to your question is no; the long answer is no, with an asterisk. For full disclosure, I have not yet read the entirety of Ulysses (close though; I aim to change that soon) and have not yet made a substantial headway into Finnegan's Wake, so my word on Joyce is nowhere close to authoritative.
In a sense, it's a little like abstract art. Picasso and Jackson Pollack could both make photorealistic sketches and beautiful imitations of Rembrandt-style oil paintings if they so chose; instead, they "evolved" their skills into a more progressive form, and that, at least, is why critics hold them as great artists.
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On November 23 2012 18:30 Shady Sands wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2012 18:26 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:On November 23 2012 18:04 Azera wrote:
Interesting. Is it possible for someone to put up a convincing argument that James Joyce was actually rubbish and everybody that thinks he's good has only been made to believe that he's good? (I'm not saying that he's shit) Joyce is actually great example to examine this question with; if you don't want to read a wall of text by Joyce, turn away now. To elaborate on my Dubliners example, you need to know a little bit about Joyce's evolution as an author throughout his career. His first major work was the linked Dubliners, a collection of masterfully written short stories with grammatically perfect prose and some of the (in my opinion) most beautiful and haunting sentences in English literature. Then comes A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, in which Joyce examines how language/perception of language changes as the main character ages from youth to manhood. The language becomes more advanced and sophisticated as the main character ages. The opening is conceivably written by a young boy: "Once upon a time and a very good time it was there was a moocow coming down along the road and this moocow that was coming down along the roadmet a nicens little boy named baby tuckoo..." The ending is noticeably more complex: "APRIL 26. Mother is putting my new secondhand clothes in order. She prays now, she says, that I may learn in my own life and away from home and friends what the heart is and what it feels. Amen. So be it. Welcome, O life, I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race. APRIL 27. Old father, old artificer, stand me now and ever in good stead." Then we have Ulysses, where Joyce begins to break down the walls of conventional grammatical structure (the ending soliloquy consists of ~24000 words, divided into eight "sentences" without any punctuation), to Finnegan's Wake, which reads almost like gibberish. What convinces me, and the vast majority of readers of Joyce, that his works have value and is not some literary prank of the century, is that we can trace the way his views on language changed through his major works extremely well. We can see exactly how he went from Dubliners to Finnegan's Wake, and can discern a logical thought process underlying it. This is not someone who one day decided "grammar sucks, let's write random shit." Dislike/disapproval of Joyce's style is plentiful; however, it is difficult to find substantive criticism of his work that labels it as "bad." Detractors (credible ones) still understand why Joyce is perceived as important by many, and a little basic research into Joyce will reveal at least some of his underlying logic for doing what he did. You will obviously get people who just dismiss Joyce out of personal taste, but again, I stress the difference between substantive criticism and a general dismissal due to preference/ignorance. Joyce has proven he can write "conventionally," and deliberately chose, over a long career, to "devolve" from proper prose. Nearly a century of literary scholarship have backed his endeavors. That is not to say it's good because everyone says it's good, but because there has yet to be any "real" criticism beyond personal preference. To summarize, the short answer to your question is no; the long answer is no, with an asterisk. For full disclosure, I have not yet read the entirety of Ulysses (close though; I aim to change that soon) and have not yet made a substantial headway into Finnegan's Wake, so my word on Joyce is nowhere close to authoritative. In a sense, it's a little like abstract art. Picasso and Jackson Pollack could both make photorealistic sketches and beautiful imitations of Rembrandt-style oil paintings if they so chose; instead, they "evolved" their skills into a more progressive form, and that, at least, is why critics hold them as great artists.
It's funny you mention abstract art; many of the trends in literary Modernity can trace their roots to an exhibit of Post-Impressionist art, chiefly by Manet, which took place in London in 1910. Art critic Roger Frye would be the man to organize this show, and his place amongst the Bloomsbury Group (a sort of literary club which included the likes of Woolf and Forster) as a medium of contact between the visual arts and literary worlds would influence a great many Modernist authors. Granted, Joyce was altogether not a part of the Bloomsbury Group (they thought him poor and low-class), but his writing is most certainly influenced by more abstract trends in art of the time.
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I need awhile to digest this, I'm as confused as I was when farva explained post-modernism to me.
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On November 23 2012 18:04 Azera wrote:
Interesting. Is it possible for someone to put up a convincing argument that James Joyce was actually rubbish and everybody that thinks he's good has only been made to believe that he's good? (I'm not saying that he's shit)
haha, Azer, you're awesome in this thread! Well done posting the vonnegut "rules" for writing fiction.
I am very interested to answer your question.
Yes, it is possible for you, and other people to decide that the writing of james joyce has little value. To write it off as rubbish however, i think is impossible. For example you might appreciate a beethoven symphony as a great artistic achievement but can you explain why, exactly? i would not be surprised if you had trouble explaining how the beethoven symphony has more artistic value than a chart-topping fifty cent rap song (even though it so obviously does)
You may not appreciate joyce. That does not give you any authority. you may speak with authority once you understand the appeal.
If someone tries to tell me Joyce is a bad writer, i will evaluate their reasons. Usually it's easy to dismiss one's reasoning because its plain to see if they have had what i would call "my joyce experiences"
Sometimes I read joyce, and there is no effect. It's big words, descriptions that are vibrant and skillful and yadda yadda but its not effecting me. Sometimes though, it can just... run through me like some strange magical voice that i have never even fathomed was possible. its just hard to describe and it is something you have to see for yourself.
Joyce's diction is different than what many might expect as skillful writing. Someone like Hemingway can describe occurences in the ourside world through precise prose. Joyce is different in my opinion. He is painting pictures of one's inner emotional word with how the *words* *themselves* make you *feel*.
Ok, that was fun. Now I want to side against babylon and carnivorous sheep (as cool as a name as that is) . I liked the guide. It said STORY not GREAT LITERATURE and its just so easy to pick apart anything. You have to start somewhere and those are some nice simple writing goals from someone who can obviously write a story. I see no reason to shit on it.
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On November 23 2012 17:20 Carnivorous Sheep wrote:
babylon is 100% right and people disagreeing with him are 100% wrong.
I haven't seen anyone disagree with babylon, would you care to elaborate?
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On November 23 2012 17:59 Azera wrote:
To farva and Sheep,
How do you gauge whether the author understands grammar if the only books of his/her that are published has his own version of grammatical rules? You know, the missing commas, the weirdly structured sentences, and all that Joyce-esque jazz. It seems the only way you can tell is if the work is actually smart to you, or just plain rubbish. So is it all subjective as well? What if someone thinks Joyce is bad because the style is not something that he "gets"?
The way you tell if it's good is if it makes you giggle when you read it (edit: also, most literary critical discourse doesn't really concern itself with aesthetic quality in this day and age, so you won't really find somebody spending much effort trying to argue why Joyce is "good")
you guys ever read beckett? like logical positivism on acid
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Joyce's Ulysses remains one of my most hated novels, ever. I had to parse through its mangled prose in AP Senior English when I was heavily infected with senioritis
I think it is almost impossible to get high school students to enjoy literature. More often than not when introducing them to these novels they develop a lifelong aversion to literature. It is hard to convince a person studying math, science, history etc on a pretty packed schedule on very little sleep (most teenagers want to stay up late and aren't mature enough to know they need to go to bed early to wake up early), that reading anything for 8 hours is good for them. Especially Shakespeare, when it is their first time seeing these words and it just seems like another stupid hurdle full of bullshit. Combine that with the idea that it is already rare enough to have a teacher that can deliver the material properly, and you're pretty much ruined. Instead kids would rather read hackney trash that is easy to grasp because it is rooted in stereotypes and cliches. And maybe that is a phase we all have to go through before we can appreciate something that challenges these cliches and gives us a chance to think.
I think even if your guide had been good you would have received a lot of backlash. Most people are unwilling to accept the idea that they can be taught how to do something artistic. However, I think your guide is not helpful for beginners anyway. It identifies that most stories have characters, plots, and intrigue. It is too broad, and is like writing a guide to StarCraft that says most players utilize micro and macro and tactics to win a game. Well what specific tactic? What specific micro? How does one actually macro? You can't just say "well that's for you to figure out with practice" or else you haven't written a guide at all.
I think I tried responding to this thread twice the other day, deleting what I wrote and thinking "someone is always wrong on the internet, there's no point in getting in a discussion this misunderstood." But that last line about TV tropes keeps nagging at me. It is like you've written a guide advising people to use stereotypes and cliches. That might be something everyone does to start, but it's not where you want to end up... It would be way more helpful to use TV Tropes to identify cliches and purposely avoid them... But that's not at all what you're saying.
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EPT
