Thursday 3 February 2011

Putting the Cart Before the Horse.

For some years before I turned pro, I was a keen amateur photographer. I was also much more into the swim of general life then, and so I encountered several other amateur photographers as well as being an avid reader of the better quality magazines. I noticed that my peers tended to fall into one of two categories when it came to gadgets like filters and extreme focal length lenses. There were those who took the view:

‘This is the picture I want to make. Is there a gadget that would help me do it better?’

And then there were those who took the converse view:

‘Here’s a gadget. What can I do with it to make a picture that will look fancy?’

Since I turned to writing, I’ve noticed that a lot of aspiring writers do the same with words. My own view is that writers need to find their own dialect, and it doesn’t have to be clever. What it needs to be is suitable for whatever the writer wants to say. Sometimes it needs to be lyrical, sometimes it needs to be quirky, and sometimes it needs to be simple.

Don’t misunderstand me; I’m a great lover of well crafted English. What turns me off is when it looks forced for its own sake.

4 comments:

Maria Sondule said...

I agree. However one would hope to be able to express the story in all those forms. Do you know anyone that can do that?

JJ said...

In my limited experience, no. I think the best writers gravitate to a style that suits their plots, characters, settings and so on. Charlotte Bronte was supremely elegant, Flann O'Brien was devastatingly quirky, and if the single page of a Harry Potter book I've read was typical, JK Rowlimg kept it neat and simple (for which I respect her, incidentally.)

What I have in mind is certain aspiring writers I've read who string a load of fancy-sounding words and phrases together, but they're often ill-chosen and don't ultimately say very much. And, in case you're wondering, I don't include you in that.

Maria Sondule said...

If you read the first page of the first book of Harry Potter, I'm afraid to say that it was not typical. The second book instantly lowered the quality of the writing style, and it stayed flat after that.
I find that people who string together long bits of superfluous words are at least more bearable than those who are horribly simple and cannot write. Actually, that's not entirely true. I'm just annoyed by people who think they CAN write but obviously can't, and make no effort to improve.
I think I fall more into the simple category, but I'm working to get better.
And your writing is definitely quirky. A book of this blog would be very engaging, I think.

JJ said...

Thank you, Maria. My style tends to vary according to my mood, what I have to say, and whether I'm joking or not.