Re: Introducing bit-part characters


"Catja Pafort" <green_knight@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1i4p8l6.1eo9ryuq6z0vN%green_knight@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Patricia C. Wrede wrote:

It seems to me that one of the more difficult things for writers is
keeping
in mind that not everyone reads the way they do. I have one friend whom
I
beat on for *years* to pay at least minimal attention to the prose --
she's
at the extreme end of visual readers, and just *could not* grasp that the
words-in-a-row-ness, the flow of the sentences, syntax, and word choice,
all
*mattered* to some readers as a thing in themselves.

That reassures me, that I am not the only one. On the other hand, now
that I *do* pay attention to it, some books have become unreadable for
me because they're so clunky. On the next tentacle, I enjoy
stylistically beautiful books a lot more, so it's a tradeoff I don't
complain about.

I feel a little weird about it, actually, because I'm *not* a particularly
visual reader...but I also don't pay a terrible lot of attention to style
and/or the words-in-a-row-ness. I'm not sure what I *do* do, but whatever
it is, I *can* construct a mental picture/movie, and I *can* appreciate the
words-in-a-row, but I have to pay a bit of extra attention to do it. Books
at the extreme ends of the scale in either direction -- i.e., ones that have
lovely style but no plot or characterization to speak of, or idiot plots,
and books that have striking images but only if you can get past the
exceeding clunkiness of the prose -- both fall off my readability list.

I think there's a third axis, though. I don't know what to call it, but
whatever-it-is is the thing that's essential to *me* for reading, and it's
not style and it's not imagery. I can happily read things with incredibly
lousy style (see: certain fanfics...) if they have the Whatever; ditto
things that seem to be nothing *but* style. But I can't define what it is,
except by saying, This has it, that doesn't. Which isn't much help, given
the thoroughly eclectic nature of my library.

Patricia C. Wrede


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Introducing bit-part characters
    ... in mind that not everyone reads the way they do. ... at the extreme end of visual readers, and just *could not* grasp that the ... stylistically beautiful books a lot more, so it's a tradeoff I don't ... at the extreme ends of the scale in either direction -- i.e., ...
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  • Re: Introducing bit-part characters
    ... have one friend whom I beat on for years to pay at least minimal ... attention to the prose -- she's at the extreme end of visual ... now that I do pay attention to it, some books have become ... but whatever-it-is is the thing that's essential to me for reading, ...
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