Writing Forum

My Lord Matt,

I wish more people would take the opportunity of these forums, which you graciously provide, to engage with these thoughts and concepts. There is no way to know if people are reading and not commenting, but they are missing out (imo) if they aren't.

Perhaps there is a need for organization. I think I've noticed "Good Prose" and "Excellent Prose" and believed we were always talking about the same thing. Perhaps that isn't the case. I know that Eliot is working toward achieving "Excellent Prose" which I believe he views as something transcending "Good."

I think, most recently, I was linking connection to the audience as being an element of goodness in prose. "Effective" might be a term, Appropriate, Aligned (with the audience), and I got nothing else... ... Call it "Effective Prose" meaning that it effectively carries the story to the audience.

I had to laugh when I read from Kat, "What I meant in my previous comment is that I would have one hell of a time finding examples of excellent prose in the romance genre. I dislike the genre. But that's just me." I suspect it is due to stress and Low T, but I've been seduced by the purple side of late, and I think that may be what I'm on about. Now, in my defense (or perhaps as evidence of my moral and literary failure) I'm not talking about the sort of romance that is a genre to itself, but rather things like... ...well... ...I've listened to a few, well, several of Diana Gabaldon's works which have a significant "romantic" component AND the Lord Jon stuff too, mind and I have a pretty good reason for it. But that's beside the point.

And too, I'll confess... ... NO, I will state with pride that I LIKE Lois MacMaster Bujold's Sharing Knife series. And I'm not sure if it is the prose or the story, but there it is.

But never mind that. Why did I... OH! audience.

I think that the audience that identifies itself as literary, or literarily high brow, or we who are not subject to the frailities of the pathetic non-literary troglodytical doggerel that passes for literature now days identify what they like as Excellent, when they really mean "Superior Prose." Often they are actually offended by story and feel it is merging on the troglodytical to accept any such in their preferred reading.

"Western Prose," "High Victorian Prose," "Pornographic Prose" (in the sense of truly eliciting sexual arousal) and on can provide an audience with entertainment if they, in all their flavors are good at communicating their stories to their audience. It remains for a few to break through their genre bounds to transcend.

Now quickly, let me say, Eliot, I DO think you should consider putting some-things to final fictional form. I think in struggling with the act of fiction that you may find your voice much more than by trying to develop it outside of the work that it will eventually be put to. You are a ways down the road to figuring it out, perhaps it was not the time before, but now I think it is.

And thanks again Matt for what you provide us.

LSO