Sunday No Snippet

[forestofglory]

I finished a draft of the fic I posted a snippet of last week, but its so short that there's not really a good new snippet to share.

But I like posting on Sunday to muse about writing so here are some things I've been thinking about. I've love to hear any thoughts you might have on these matters.

What makes prose good? Like on the sentence level? I've become more aware of the prose in the fic that I read since I started writing it. I've noticed that I like some of it better, and find some of it easier to read, but I can't really identify what traits make me enjoy prose.

I've been thinking about the difference between writing non-fiction and fiction and they are actually surprisingly similar, which confuses me. One thing that is different though is that I have to think lot harder about how much to say between the words. With non-fiction i have learned that if I haven't said something in so many words people won't know that I thought it. But with fic its harder. For example in fic form close third POV sometimes have very clear ideas exactly what the other characters are thinking but of course I can't just come out and say it.

I guess that's food for thought.

Comments

[owlmoose]

I've talked with justira about this a few times, and one thing they often bring up is flow. It's hard to describe exactly what that means, though -- it's sort of a "you know it when you see it" thing. I think what lunabee34 above says is part of it -- not chopping up your prose into short sentences or getting lost in long, convoluted sentence structures. Another aspect is word choice. Is your language too simple for what you're trying to say, or is it too dense? Striking those kinds of balances is a challenge.

[forestofglory]

Oh flow is a good word! I think a lot of the prose that I struggle to read lacks flow and I get tangled up in things.