Advice on "pretty prose" and how important is it?

Layla Nahar said:

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I think prose like this is not 'transparent', which I understand to mean writing that you don't notice you're reading. If you're *noticing* it for any qualities at all, and you become aware that you are reading, then the writing has failed at being transparent.

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My point was that writing that many readers don't notice and consider "transparent" is exactly the same writing that other readers stumble over -- for the very qualities that make it invisible to the first group. "Transparency," in other words, is at least partly an artifact of the reader's perception, and some readers pay attention to aspects of the writing that other readers don't notice or care about at all. If you notice it, it's not transparent to you -- but others may disagree.

Michael Myers said:

What say you all to Hemingway's opening of "A Farewell to Arms"?

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I always go back to read the opening chapter, in fact I just did it again yesterday. I personally likes it, and think the reason it works for me is how he lingers on the images of the village and valley and roads and gradually add layers to it, the climate, the soldiers, the war, the different times that passes, stroke by stroke, using simple but not-cliche descriptions, and it kind of comes alive for me. It's more the structure of it than the language (great also) that seems to be the key here, just my opinion. (or maybe because I lived close to the area he described for two years, so I am biased!)

Michael Myers said:

What say you all to Hemingway's opening of "A Farewell to Arms"?

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Meh, Hemingway is not my cup of tea. His prose is too bare for me.

Hi EvilPenguin.

Lots of good comments already, and even here in the discussion you can see how subjective it all is.

I enjoy "pretty prose" if it's not overdone (though many readers like what I consider overdone prose) and I also enjoy transparent prose at least as much. Either way, for me, as Herder of Hamsters says, story trumps all - I'll overlook some issues in the prose if I'm enjoying the story and characters b/c I'm reading for those (though I get that many readers are more focused on the language and such than me). In the in-person writing group I was recently in, it was filled with surprisingly many writers with lovely prose and extremely boring stories, and one newbie with an interesting story but awkward prose - and I kind of feel like that newbie has more chance of getting published once she learns and gets her writing in a little better shape.

Agents and editors are now flooded with more publishable submissions than they can possibly take on, so to break in traditionally right now, you'll likely need to excel at both story and language (though thankfully tastes vary, so there's room for different styles).

Best to you!

CJ

Michael Myers said:

What say you all to Hemingway's opening of "A Farewell to Arms"?

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Simple but vivid. The style is tied to the character's voice.

Michael Myers said:

What say you all to Hemingway's opening of "A Farewell to Arms"?

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A definitive study of EH's repetitive style is a brilliant master's dissertation at Idaho State University entitled A Literary Confluence: Repetition as a Modern Prose Device Channeled through Gertrude Stein to Ernest Hemingway.

You may need to wait your turn to check out a copy, as it's in great demand as a cure for insomnia.

The main thrust is Stein attempted to replicate Picasso's modernist artistic images in poetry and prose without much commercial success. Hemingway took the ideas and wowed the literary world in his time.

You won't find the following smarmy opinion in ALC:RaaMPDCtGStEH, but for many readers these days, I think the opening of AFtA lacks adequate punctuation for ease of reading and is far too repetitive for enjoyment.

Most important to me as a reader, and what I try to do as a writer, is make sure that the prose suits the story--the premise, the setting, and the MC.

Every reader is different. What writing style one finds transparent another will find too ornate, yet another too bland. We can only do our best to use a style they WE find suits the story we want to tell. We'll never get it perfect, but we can do a good enough job to suit ourselves. And hope enough readers agree to sell enough books to make the effort worth our while.

Love Hemingway. Straightforward description--of intense and near-universal underlying human experience. To me, the emotional punch of Hemingway comes from the second of these attributes, not the first.

I've been plumping for The Emotional Craft of Fiction endlessly lately, and recently got to exercise #25: Emotional language. Maass compares words to gems and sentences to necklaces. One can appreciate a gem of a word for it's rarity, it's clarity, its brilliance. But the beauty of a necklace--with lines, and balance, and flourishes--is a step beyond a gem.

I think conceptualizing sentences as necklaces is pertinent here, because there are so many different kinds of beautiful necklaces. Some are simple gold linked chain, fine against the neckline, a mere hint of elegance. Others are dazzling assortments of diamonds and emeralds evocative of wealth and power, and others are beautiful for their cultural meaning and implications, and so on and so forth.

Different people are drawn to different styles at different times and for different purposes. Maass recommends introducing linguistic flourishes into one's sentences as a means of 'crafting necklaces,' and these recommendations include but are not limited to the use of: repetitions, parallels, reversals, symmetry and contrast. He also says "Or, heck, just make your prose sound good." (page 157.)

"Strong words strung in a shapely pattern." He quotes one of Churchill's speeches:

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.

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OP: A suggestion for you to take or leave: "Emotional language," exercise #25 in Maass's Emotional Craft of Fiction.