Post
by A La Vanille » December 23rd, 2010, 3:12 pm
To those that have replied to me:
Ah, well. We all have different opinions of "good writing". Some of us prefer a story well executed, and others prefer a simple writing style. I personally prefer to read a story with not just good characters or good plot, but also with a wonderful writing style. For instance, whenever I read Bram Stoker or Ray Bradbury, I melt a bit with delight inside from reading such great sentence construction and diction. To me, good writing is almost like a good painting, or a good song. A good painting (and this is all IMO, for we also all have different definitions of a "good painting") will not just be, say, a girl smiling. There will always be something in the background, something that you must look closer for to truly understand that this girl is not just smiling because she is "happy". I can't say much about paintings these days, but unfortunately, much like good writing, good songs have been going down the drain. Nowadays, either the story will be lost, bad characterization, or just a rather plain writing style. This, I suppose is comparable to autotune in music. Writing used to be an art form (maybe still is to some), something carefully constructed in order to send a message to humanity. Now, it's all for quick entertainment, which I find quite sad. Note, I'm generalizing here. Not to say all books you find in the "New Release" section are like this. You could tell me that writing back then was used for entertainment too. Yes, but it is certainly a comparable entertainment to the ones now.
I understand what you mean by a simple writing style, I know sometimes I need a break from such flowery language. But when I said "simplistic language", I meant to imply that the language of books has dumbed down and no doubt this is a reflection of the change in society from "classic literature", of which I have been reading a lot of lately, and today's literature, which I've had my share deal of also. There is a difference between that and a simple writing style, which is simple, yes, but still well executed with metaphors, social commentary, or any other good stuff like that.
I suppose my opinions have stemmed from reading some of the classics, and realizing that I wanted a meaning to stories. Strolling through the teen section of libraries and book stores lately, I've been picking up books and reading the summaries, then promptly returning them to the shelf and running back to the classic literature section. Maybe my ideas will change later, but as for now that is what I believe as "good writing".