halogen or ultra violet

[marcilee]

I recently purchased On Writing. The assignment on pgs. 172 & 173 was good for me. I felt like I was in a boat, traveling through an artery and able to take any vein I wanted. I let the story tell itself. The fossill turned out to be bigger than I thought it would. At 5000 words I still had a lot of story to finish but the assignment was over. It was like the groceries steering the cart. Oh ya, I have 22 Eng college hours and nobody ever told me to stay away from adverbs! Duh, the light is on. I enjoyed it.

[Bryan James]

If you borrow only one good vibe from 'On Writing,' it should be that whatever words are left (no matter if or how you personally edit) should be true...even if you're writing fiction. There's a little bit of "wandering room" when descriptionizing. Don't be afraid to make up one word that will save you six...as long as General Reader (not Ideal Reader) will completely understand it without getting frustrated and pulling out their Grandfather's 1st Edition copy of Webster's.

One problem is that too many writers assume they are writing for dummies. That assumption is probably correct. BAD NEWS: Most dummies don't read.

We have to burden ourselves with perfect grammar.

We must intensely describe the magnolia tree outside the slave quarters, down to a single flower that fell, landing upright as if asking the Heavens "Why?", and then that same flower lovingly cups morning dew until the stamen is submerged, creating a cold, burnt sienna colored broth that 293 ants drown in before sunrise. The flower had its answer, and it accepted the Universe.

Nonsense, unless it is integral to the STORY.

A damn magnolia blossom fell off a tree. That's it. Tell me something interesting.

'On Writing' is one of the best manuals out there.

[Mr Nobody]

Thanks, Bryan. The 'purple' version of the magnolia blossom made me lol.

The problem in my experience with English courses (lit. and perhaps especially 'creative writing' ones) is that they like to teach you to write in a 'literary' way - which apparently means engaging in the sort of waffle Bryan uses in his example. They do also make nods to it being 'central to story'...but if it's not and you don't include any 'purple prose', all too often you get marked down and/or comments along the lines of 'more description! I couldn't see the gentle drift of the blossom (or whatever)' - to which my response, one time, was to point out to the tutor (and group) that you weren't meant to fixate on the gubbins; the focus was on the event elsewhere - it was a minor detail (a key one, mind, which is why it was there, but not something to be 'noticed' to a great extent).
But yeah, all to often writers get sidetracked and over-explain, almost like they're lost in rapture at their own use of language.

Tbh, most of the best advice I ever had about the craft was from SK's On Writing.