Writing Forum

"Good prose means the writer has said something in a way I never would have thought to say it but that portrays the meaning perfectly. Uniqueness and imagination is what makes good prose for me." Kat Hawthorne. Yes, uniqueness. But this is something that works against our goal of formulizing "Good Prose." It wouldn't be unique if everyone is doing it.


I think, and I admit this is unsupported by anything but, well, my own experience, that "Excellent Prose" is a synergy between the author and his readers. It is about communication, it is, in a sense, a theater of the mind. To the degree that the reader is transported by the author's writing, involved in the story, and carried away in the suspension of dis-belief that is required for theater and, to a lesser extent, other visual media, to that degree you have excellent prose.

Someone might say, "My, I am impressed and challenged by the many large words I have to look up as I read this novel. This writer is very much smarter than me." But every time the reader has to look something up they are broken away from the story. Better is when a writer has the reader so involved that the new words are so contextually obvious that the many large words explain themselves.

If you like poetry, flowery prose might appeal to you as someone who appreciates poetry. But much of that is drek, You can probably reference my own efforts as evidence. I suspect "excellent prose" is primarily audience driven after the primary necessity of readability.

LSO