[FFML] [Info] Came across some brilliant advice about writing….

[ambulatory.kettle at yahoo.com]

I disagree.  There are no issues with clarity or ease of reading for me, so any "punctuation and grammar errors" you might perceive, I see merely as stylistic choices.  To each there own, I suppose.

The paragraph may not be revelatory but it is passingly clever, and (I think) well presented.  Obviously no one writes in nothing but five-word sentences, but the author is clearly encouraging awareness of rhythm, which is a worthy notion.  I'm reminded of Hemingway: his style is incredibly sparse, which can lead to a succession of many very short sentences, without much variance.  Hemingway famously said, "Prose is architecture, not interior decorating."  For me, Hemingway's utilitarian "constructions" serve their purpose and are fine to "visit," but I wouldn't want to "live there" -- which is why I enjoy his short stories, but not so much his novels.  One tends to get bored and lost in a warren of rooms that all look exactly the same.

________________________________
 From: Larry F <lwf58 at cvalley.net>
To: The Fanfiction Mailing List <ffml at chez-vrolet.net> 
Sent: Tuesday, March 19, 2013 7:12 AM
Subject: Re: [FFML] [Info] Came across some brilliant advice about writing….
 
On 3/18/2013 10:31 PM, Joseph Palmer wrote:
> (Ripped from /r/writing)
> An excellent and relevant quote by Gary Provost (sorry if you've heard it before):
> "This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important."
> 
> 
> J.

    The thing is, the quote has numerous punctuation and grammar errors, so it's lousy advice if you go deeper than the surface. It's also fairly irrelevant; I've never seen anyone write entirely in five-word sentences. I have, however, seen endless examples of run-on sentences like the last one in this quote. The author needs to learn that long can easily become /too/ long.
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