Writing Forum

I am no writing coach, nor was meant to be---"am an attendant, Lord, one that will do to swell a progress, start a scene or two, deferential, glad to be of use, politic, cautious, meticulous, full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; at times, indeed, almost ridiculous---indeed, at times, almost the fool."

I think, Tobber, the answer to your question depends on what you want your individual writing style to be, how you want your writer's voice to sound to readers. As you can see from my first paragraph up there, I'm a big fan of T.S. Eliot (as if my penname didn't already give that away). Eliot has been profoundly influential, I believe, on my writing style, but then again it's a bit too early to say how my reading of his work has impacted me with absolute certainty as I am still an aspirant myself, one who is still developing his own individual writer's voice.

Given your question above about 'excellent prose,' I took the opportunity to do some impromptu research on John Steinbeck. Check this out...

"Steinbeck tried to find an organic means of expression for each book that he wrote. He considered his work to be experimental. He intentionally used a documentary style for The Grapes of Wrath, the fabular for The Pearl, the picaresque for Tortilla Flat, and so on. Generally he belongs to the myth-symbol school of the twenties. Dreams, the unconscious, reccurring myths, symbolic characters--these qualities are characteristic of what Jung called the "visionary" style." --Cliff Lewis, Georgetown University

Apparently, Steinbeck could be quite versatile---'experimental' is the description used above---in his writing style. So, just grabbing a Steinbeck novel or short story at random might or might not provide the sort of research and enlightenment you're seeking.

I also ran across some comments speaking specifically of Steinbeck's novel Of Mice and Men. If you're reading that novel right now, then you will recognize the first line of the book:

"A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green."---John Steinbeck

According to my research, Steinbeck wanted his prose in that particular novel to reflect the nature of his characters, to harness the force of their own earthiness and straightforwardness. In a word, he wanted his prose to be "simple," just like the plain folks he was writing about who, for better or worse, had found themselves caught up in extraordinarily 'unplain' circumstances. Okay, so I just made up the word 'unplain,' but that's a central element of my own writing style---if I can't think of a word that works to perfect function, meh, I'll just make one up. So it goes.

My point, however, is this. While Of Mice and Men might be a great work of literature, a true masterpiece, it might not necessarily showcase a particularly artistic prose style---or if it does, it won't be because of the ornate beauty of the language used therein, but it is because that particular language, the prose-craft employed by Steinbeck's, was integral and necessary to that particular story and the characters who peopled it. Perhaps even in Steinbeck's mind, he felt such simple language was obligatory to his tale.

Does that make sense? As I said, I'm still learning this craft myself. I often have other aspirants here at WDC and elsewhere scold me for taking so long to develop as an author, saying things, like, "Just write stories, dude---you're never going to be a writer if you don't freakin' write." And I just laugh silently at them while nodding in faux agreement. As far as I'm concerned, I already am a writer because I write---I just threw down about six hundred words in this post. But as for being a novelist, I have all my life to decide how I want my voice to sound on the written page. I'm in no hurry. I want to cultivate a writing style---a writer's 'voice'---with which I am personally comfortable, one that entertains my own ears, and that manifests in the minds of readers like fairy music played by Rush. Yeah, that would be cool.

So, I would say determine firstly how you want your own prose to sound to others---decide what you want your writer's voice to be. Lyrical? Mysterious? Straightforward? Documentarian? All of the above? None of the above? Altogether other-worldly and like absolutely nothing ever heard before in English Literature? Once that is decided, or at least once you have a "feeling" for how you want your prose to sound, then perhaps you make a study of others who have been successful using that particular prose style or one close to it.

Again, I am certainly not a writing coach---would never presume to be. But I have been trying myself to decide how I want my writer's voice to ring in reader's ears for quite some time. I believe such choices are just another aspect to the overall craftwork involved in telling your stories.

Good luck with whatever you decide.