Continuing from Writing about writing 09, I had the following:
“‘Til Saturday, I’d read only one Stephen King book - “Misery” - and for a long time I’d been resolved never to read another. It was more its content than its style; to be honest, I just found it unpleasant. I read towards the ending with the sort of dread intrigue you might have when craning to see a car crash or a burn victim; you want to see it, but you know you’ll regret it when you do. It’s not an experience I want to repeat.”
To continue from the reduction in Writing about writing 07:
I had been planning to read On Writing for ages.
I thought it was a sort of technical manual like S & W’s.
Now to expand this, with little thought to style:
“Nonetheless, I’d been planning to read his book “On Writing” for ages. It’s rare enough, to find a popular artist of any sort talking about how they go about doing the things they do, and like I said, I have no problem with King’s writing style. I understood “On Writing” to be a sort of technical manual, a bit like Strunk and White’s “Elements of Style”, but aimed more at composition.”
Now, I feel like there’s some awkwardness in the arrangement here. The first paragraph, from Writing about writing 09, states “it was more its content than its style” early on and then digresses. When we come to paragraph two, I feel like I’m sort of having to remind the reader why I’m interested in Stephen King’s opinions on writing. In other words, I’ve just spent two and a half sentences and an analogy complaining about him; why do I still care?
This creates a disjoin, where the point has started to sandwich an aside. Better to rearrange things to be more cohesive.
Intriguingly, I may have to move around only a few words to satisfy this - “It was more its content than its style”:
“‘Til Saturday, I’d read only one Stephen King book - “Misery” - and for a long time I’d been resolved never to read another. To be honest, I just found it unpleasant: I read towards the ending with the sort of dread intrigue you might have when craning to see a car crash or a burn victim; you want to see it, but you know you’ll regret it when you do. It’s not an experience I want to repeat.
But it was more its content than its style, and for ages I’d been planning on reading another Stephen King book, “On Writing”. It’s rare enough to find a popular artist of any kind talking about how they go about doing the things they do. I understood “On Writing” to be a sort of technical manual, a bit like Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style”, but aimed more at composition.”
I quite like this. What could be improved?
Well, the second sentence of the latter paragraph strikes me as awkward. Firstly, there’s the damnable lump of words “how they go about doing the things they do”. Secondly, even if that sentence read better it would still be a bit isolated in its purpose: “It’s rare enough…” So what?
So the two elements that need to be improved are context and style, and I should focus on them in that order, because there’s no sense styling it before it makes sense. So what else should I say on the issue of it being rare to find a popular artist talking about how they do stuff?
Well, what matters here is that it’s a mystery. How does anyone go about being creative? The methods of the professionals are rarely discussed. Possibly this is intentional - didn’t Michelangelo destroy his earlier works so that people would think he was born perfect?
So it’s an interesting question, how writers write, and it’s rarely talked about.
I think I need to turn the paragraph around a little for it to read more neatly:
“But it was more its content than its style, and for ages I’d been planning on reading another Stephen King Book, “On Writing”, which I understood to be a sort of technical manual in the vein of Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style”, but aimed more at composition.
It’s rare enough, to find a creative person of any kind talking about their methods and practices and they way they do art, and it seemed golden, the opportunity to learn from so revered a novelist.”
This is good enough to be going on with:
“‘Til Saturday, I’d read only one Stephen King book - “Misery” - and for a long time I’d been resolved never to read another. To be honest, I just found it unpleasant: I read towards the ending with the sort of dread intrigue you might have when craning to see a car crash or a burn victim; you want to see it, but you know you’ll regret it when you do. It’s not an experience I want to repeat.
But it was more its content than its style, and for ages I’d been planning on reading another Stephen King Book, “On Writing”, which I understood to be a sort of technical manual in the vein of Strunk and White’s “The Elements of Style”, but aimed more at composition.
It’s rare enough, to find a creative person of any kind talking about their methods and practices and they way they do art, and it seemed golden, the opportunity to learn from so revered a novelist.”
