/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19035505]

What the hell do you people mean by "good prose"? Post examples and compare bad and good prose so my teeny tiny green brain can understand.

[Anonymous No.19035518]

>>19035505
If people brin' so much courage to tis world de world done to kill dem to break dem, so of course it kills dem. De world breaks every one and afterward many be tsrong at de broked places. But dose dat gon' not break it kills. It kills de very def and de very gentle and de very brave impartially. If you is none of dese you can be sure it gon' kill you too but dere gon' be no psecial hurry.

[Anonymous No.19035532]

>>19035505
Unfortunately, one cannot be told what good prose is, one must see it for one's self

[Anonymous No.19035582]

"When a stutterer is struggling desperately to utter his first sound, he is like a little bird that is trying to extricate itself from thick lime. When finally he manages to free himself, it is too late. To be sure, there are times when the reality of the outer world seems to have been waiting for me, folding its arms as it were, while I was struggling to free myself. But the reality that is waiting for me is not a fresh reality. When finally I reach the outer world after all my efforts, all that I find is a reality that has instantly changed color and gone out of focus—a reality that has lost the freshness that I had considered fitting for myself, and that gives off a half-putrid odor." - Good prose

"The sun had set by the time I exited the forest, my knees shaking. My hands, stiff from clenching the legs of the deer, had gone utterly numb miles ago. Not even the carcass could ward off the deepening chill.
The world was awash in hues of dark blue, interrupted only by shafts of buttery light escaping from the shuttered windows of our dilapidated cottage. It was like striding through a living painting—a fleeting moment of stillness, the blues swiftly shifting to solid darkness.
As I trudged up the path, each step fueled only by near-dizzying hunger, my sisters’ voices fluttered out to meet me. I didn’t need to discern their words to know they most likely were chattering about some young man or the ribbons they’d spotted in the village when they should have been chopping wood, but I smiled a bit nonetheless." - Bad prose

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19035591]

>>19035505

[Anonymous No.19035601]

>>19035591
Butters posting a good book rather than ruining the threads with libtard politics and lesbo reaction gifs? ...it must be one of the imposters.

[Anonymous No.19035603]

>>19035591
retard did you even read the OP? I swear to fucking Christ why is it that whenever a tripfag barges into the thread it starts to stink.

Stay the fuck out of my threads next time you fucking pedo

[Anonymous No.19035617]

Nabokov is the quintessential example of “good prose” in English. I couldn’t tell you for the life of me why this is, but I suppose it’s fair to suggest that if you copy the writing style of Nabokov, you’ll also be writing good prose.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19035621]

>>19035601
I am not liberal.

>>19035603
Read the book, frogboy. (Pater’s, not this one)

[Anonymous No.19035645]

>>19035505
good prose is uniquely unique.

[Anonymous No.19035665]

>>19035505
I believe it means to either use diverse vocabulary and somewhat unusual descriptions, or particularly evocative, somewhat repetitious language.

[Anonymous No.19035671]

>>19035582
>... , my knees shaking. My hands, ...
I absolutely fucking loathe this. Holy fuck it's bad.

[Anonymous No.19035687]

>>19035505
For me, a major aspect of what makes prose "good" is character: writers like Melville (jn my personal opinion, Melville is severely underrated and underappreciated as a prose-stylist) and Nabokov tend to write with a very distinct style: the best way I could describe it would be bouncy and colorful; this is probably due to the fact that they tend to use different registers in their writing (James Woods claims that one way to tell "slick genre prose" from genuinely engaging prose is by how many registers the writer employs; observe:)
>As Queequeg and I are now fairly embarked in this business of whaling; and as this business of whaling has somehow come to be regarded among landsmen as a rather unpoetical and disreputable pursuit; therefore, I am all anxiety to convince ye, ye landsmen, of the injustice hereby done to us hunters of whales.
Meville, Moby-Dick

>He groped under the bubbles, around the goblets, and under the melodious bowl, for any piece of forgotten silver—and retrieved a nutcracker. Fastidious Pnin rinsed it, and was wiping it, when the leggy thing somehow slipped out of the towel and fell like a man from a roof. He almost caught it—his fingertips actually came into contact with it in mid-air, but this only helped to propel it into the treasure-concealing foam of the sink, where an excruciating crack of broken glass followed upon the plunge.
Vla-dee-meer Nabough-koff, Pnin

[Anonymous No.19035736]

>>19035505
There's no cook recipe for making good prose, it depends on context. However, most share one of the following for me:

Is concise.
Paced well - it feels like one sentence naturally flows from the other -
Has personality.
Can be fancy as long as It doesn't feel like it's contriving the text for that.
Feels honest; I despise rhetorical prose.

[Anonymous No.19035804]

>>19035505
Only my prose is good. Everyone else's is terrible.

[Anonymous No.19035810]

>>19035505
it's all about vibes
the technical aspect, like with all art, is only secondary to the act of consumption, and a person's reaction to it

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.19035820]

>>19035591
Walter pater seems an odd choice for you,
Seems unfitting to your style and your hue.
Isn’t the confessional mode your tune?

Don’t you prefer children’s literature?
Are thou not but a lesbian-Vulture
are you into decadence of culture?

Lustful woman, lusteth thou for a she?
Speak! in Walter pater what do you see?
Butterfly explain thy tastes before me.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19035937]

>>19035820
You know me not.

[Anonymous No.19035978]

>>19035505
Just fucking read dude lol

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19035982]

>>19035820
And on second thought
Pater, you know not.

[Anonymous No.19035997]

A death-bed has scarcely a history; it is a tedious decline, with seasons of rallying and seasons of falling back; and since the end is foreseen, or what is called a matter of time, it has little interest for the reader, especially if he has a kind heart. Moreover, it is a season when doors are closed and curtains drawn, and when the sick man neither cares nor is able to record the stages of his malady.

[Anonymous No.19036021]

For some reason the following passage from Pynchon stuck with me
>What voices overheard, flinders of luminescent gods glimpsed among the wallpaper's stained foliage, candlestubs lit to rotate in the air over him, prefiguring the cigarette he or a friend must fall asleep someday smoking, thus to end among the flaming, secret salts held all those years by the insatiable stuffing of a mattress that could keep vestiges of every nightmare sweat, helpless overflowing bladder, viciously, tearfully consummated wet dream, like the memory bank to a computer of the lost?

[Anonymous No.19036029]

>>19035582
>near-dizzying
>I smiled a bit
Get off the fence bitch

[Anonymous No.19036036]

>>19036021
Horrible.

[Anonymous No.19036048]

>>19036021
i was thinking about that quote yesterday but couldn't be bothered to look it up

[Anonymous No.19036108]

>>19036021
This one always reads to me as if he had the 'prefiguring the cigarette' section knocking around in his notes, and crammed it in somewhere it doesn't quite fit because he wanted to use it somewhere

[Anonymous No.19036187]

>>19035505
Good prose wows you and keeps you engaged. That's it. It can be as minimal as Hemingway at his most minimal, or 20 line sentences of McCarthy or Proust.

[Anonymous No.19036222]

>>19035820
>>19035937
>>19035982
Kek, wholesome /lit/ moment

[Frater Asemlen !XS8vrClKs2 No.19036470]

>>19035982
Pater knoweth I,
by his essays by.

I Know his portraits painting great men, work on doctrines epicurean,

Lapidary-inlaid was his style,
Engraved so each may reader-beguile.

Tell me what you like of his style?

[Anonymous No.19036589]

>>19035518
Lol, Ebonics translation of Hemingway

[Anonymous No.19036882]

>>19035505
good prose:

>But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers. And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. And he looked, and, behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again. And the angel of the Lord came again the second time, and touched him, and said, Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee. And he arose, and did eat and drink, and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God. And he came thither unto a cave, and lodged there; and, behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said unto him, What doest thou here, Elijah? And he said, I have been very jealous for the Lord God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away. And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.

[Anonymous No.19038126]

>>19035582
Those are both bad.

[Anonymous No.19038665]

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.

[Anonymous No.19038690]

>>19035617
It is incomprehensible how good his prose is. No one else could have written something as demented as Lolita and have it become a classic through sheer force of pretty writing.

[Anonymous No.19038706]

>>19035820
Holy shit you’re somehow worse than the other one
Tripfag genocide time

[Anonymous No.19038711]

>bad prose
There are some strange summer mornings in the country, when he who is but a sojourner from the city shall early walk forth into the fields, and be wonder-smitten with the trance-like aspect of the green and golden world. Not a flower stirs; the trees forget to wave; the grass itself seems to have ceased to grow; and all Nature, as if suddenly become conscious of her own profound mystery, and feeling no refuge from it but silence, sinks into this wonderful and indescribable repose.
>good prose
nature be lit tho

[Anonymous No.19038715]

>>19035617
I have to agree with this; Nabokov is one of those writers I constantly come back to read, mainly just because of the way he writes; I wonder if the reason his writing is so seductive is because he had such a large personality IRL and it comes through in his writing

[Anonymous No.19038721]

>>19035997
>wow this is lovely; let me read the book
>it’s some kind of nonfiction religious thing
Damnit

[Anonymous No.19038737]

>>19038126
You can debate about the first paragraph if you like, but if you don't see that the second one is immeasurably worse than the first, then something is wrong. It's not even close.

[Anonymous No.19038755]

>>19038737
your ability to elucidate is without equal

[Anonymous No.19038780]

Is this good or bad prose?

>Now after Gandalf had ridden for some time the light of day grew in the sky, and Pippin roused himself and looked up. To his left lay a sea of mist, rising to a bleak shadow in the East; but to his right great mountains reared their heads, ranging from the West to a steep and sudden end, as if in the making of the land the River had burst through a great barrier, carving out a mighty valley to be a land of battle and debate in times to come. And there where the White Mountains of Ered Nimrais came to their end he saw, as Gandalf had promised, the dark mass of Mount Mindolluin, the deep purple shadows of its high glens, and its tall face whitening in the rising day. And upon its out-thrust knee was the Guarded City, with its seven walls of stone so strong and old that it seemed to have been not builded but carven by giants out of the bones of the earth.
>Even as Pippin gazed in wonder the walls passed from looming grey to white, blushing faintly in the dawn; and suddenly the sun climbed over the eastern shadow and sent forth a shaft that smote the face of the City. Then Pippin cried aloud, for the Tower of Ecthelion, standing high within the topmost wall, shone out against the sky, glimmering like a spike of pearl and silver, tall and fair and shapely, and its pinnacle glittered as if it were wrought of crystals; and white banners broke and fluttered from the battlements in the morning breeze, and high and far he heard a clear ringing as of silver trumpets.

[Anonymous No.19038798]

>>19038755
OK, let's look at the second paragraph first, because it's easier to explain why something is bad than why it's good.

First, the paragraph is tonally incoherent. It simultaneously describes: (i) someone almost passing out from hunger and cold, carrying the carcass of a deer, shaking, and desperate to reach home, and (ii) someone fondly and knowingly recognizing a familiar domestic scene, while attentive to the aesthetic subtleties of their surroundings. The narration is rigidly from the protagonist's perspective, but the protagonist has no coherent perspective, and their mood and thoughts are incoherent. Why are we receiving insight into the girlish charms of this character's sister as they are carrying a dead animal, and by all accounts struggling to stay alive? Why would her thoughts wander to a recognition of what her sisters usually talk about, as if she were mundanely and comfortably coming home?

This schizophrenia is reinforced by the diction. We see word choices like 'buttery' and 'fluttered,' which evoke domestic warmth and frivolity, as does 'chattering.' This is stacked next to words like 'stiff,' 'clenching,' 'numb,' 'chill,' 'trudge,' and so on, which imply a cold desperation. The setting is described simultaneously as a kind of Thomas Kincaid painting and as a harsh winter landscape threatening the protagonist's life.

Mechanically, the paragraph also suffers from pointless lack of commitment. 'Near'-dizzying hunger? They were 'most likely' chattering about...?

Finally, the paragraph is actually literally incoherent in what it is trying to express, if you stop and think about the words for a minute. How is 'a fleeting moment of stillness' also a time in which 'the blues swiftly shift[] to solid darkness?' The moment of stillness is a swift change? What? Also, read the last sentence carefully, and it doesn't make any literal sense. Explain to me what it means: she smiled a bit nonetheless. What is the character smiling in spite of? In spite of the fact that they don't need to discern their sisters words to know what they're talking about? What?

The paragraph is literally incoherent, tonally confused, and displays poor craft. It needs to be redone, top to bottom.

[Anonymous No.19038810]

>>19038798
Meanwhile, the first paragraph has none of these problems, though as I said you can debate it because good qualities are harder to parse than bad ones.

It expresses a coherent, extended metaphor over several thoughts, which is far more difficult than it sounds, and it makes use of a repetition that drives home the significance of the comparison. It also conveys an actual thought to the reader – something that is not only coherent, but that can be interesting, if the reader lacks experience with what stuttering is like, and relates the experience to something a reader who has never experienced this can recognize, both by describing it in terms of a powerful natural metaphor and relating it to a more universal psychological experience. In short, whether you like it or not, it is a piece of writing that is actually put together.

[Anonymous No.19039192]

>>19038810
>>19038798
You btfo him anon. Well done.

[Anonymous No.19039367]

When I reread a fantasy novel I read a teen and the writing isn't very enjoyable.

[Anonymous No.19039623]

>>19039367
>reread an old David Gemmell
>were the paragraphs always this short?

[Anonymous No.19039627]

Here is an example of top tier prose.

[Anonymous No.19039633]

>>19039627
What book???

[Anonymous No.19039641]

>>19039633
Jigoku by F. Gardner

[Anonymous No.19039689]

>>19039627

>Jerry's arms reach out, as he grabs the item he had observed.

Jesus Christ

[Anonymous No.19039693]

>>19039627
Reading this was physically painful. What’s the book?

[Anonymous No.19039708]

>>19039627
You know a writer is bad when his prose consists of linear moment-to-moment descriptions of actions in an imagined physical space. Like that pic related.

[Anonymous No.19039954]

>>19039689
>tfw you want to be a bestselling author in the US, but English is your fifth language

[Anonymous No.19039975]

the easiest way to tell prose is good is that it avoids cliche expressions.

[Anonymous No.19040003]

*ahem*

Beat this.

>She stopped, choking with sobs, and, overcome by emotion, flung herself face downward on the bed, sobbing in the quilt. Gabriel held her hand for a moment longer, irresolutely, and then, shy of intruding on her grief, let it fall gently and walked quietly to the window.

>She was fast asleep.

>Gabriel, leaning on his elbow, looked for a few moments unresentfully on her tangled hair and half-open mouth, listening to her deep-drawn breath. So she had had that romance in her life: a man had died for her sake. It hardly pained him now to think how poor a part he, her husband, had played in her life. He watched her while she slept, as though he and she had never lived together as man and wife. His curious eyes rested long upon her face and on her hair: and, as he thought of what she must have been then, in that time of her first girlish beauty, a strange, friendly pity for her entered his soul. He did not like to say even to himself that her face was no longer beautiful, but he knew that it was no longer the face for which Michael Furey had braved death.

>Perhaps she had not told him all the story. His eyes moved to the chair over which she had thrown some of her clothes. A petticoat string dangled to the floor. One boot stood upright, its limp upper fallen down: the fellow of it lay upon its side. He wondered at his riot of emotions of an hour before. From what had it proceeded? From his aunt's supper, from his own foolish speech, from the wine and dancing, the merrymaking when saying good-night in the hall, the pleasure of the walk along the river in the snow. Poor Aunt Julia! She, too, would soon be a shade with the shade of Patrick Morkan and his horse. He had caught that haggard look upon her face for a moment when she was singing Arrayed for the Bridal. Soon, perhaps, he would be sitting in that same drawing-room, dressed in black, his silk hat on his knees. The blinds would be drawn down and Aunt Kate would be sitting beside him, crying and blowing her nose and telling him how Julia had died. He would cast about in his mind for some words that might console her, and would find only lame and useless ones. Yes, yes: that would happen very soon.

(1/2)

[Anonymous No.19040008]

>>19040003
>The air of the room chilled his shoulders. He stretched himself cautiously along under the sheets and lay down beside his wife. One by one, they were all becoming shades. Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. He thought of how she who lay beside him had locked in her heart for so many years that image of her lover's eyes when he had told her that he did not wish to live.

>Generous tears filled Gabriel's eyes. He had never felt like that himself towards any woman, but he knew that such a feeling must be love. The tears gathered more thickly in his eyes and in the partial darkness he imagined he saw the form of a young man standing under a dripping tree. Other forms were near. His soul had approached that region where dwell the vast hosts of the dead. He was conscious of, but could not apprehend, their wayward and flickering existence. His own identity was fading out into a grey impalpable world: the solid world itself, which these dead had one time reared and lived in, was dissolving and dwindling.

>A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.

(2/2)

[Anonymous No.19040178]

When you know, you know.
Good prose strikes a balance between complexity and clarity.

[Anonymous No.19040211]

>>19038810
>>19038798
>>19039192
Embarassing samefagging.

Also, while the second paragraph was objectively bad, the last sentence had an obvious meaning: the protagonist thinks that her sisters have wasted time chatting instead of working as they should have, but can't help but smile hearing their voices.

[Anonymous No.19040224]

>>19039708
>You know a writer is bad when his prose consists of linear moment-to-moment descriptions of actions
Aside from that, when the writer explains even obvious things because he's afraid of losing the reader's attention.
"They feared what he was about to do and wanted to stop him". Geez, thank you for explaining that. Wouldn't have guessed otherwise.

[Anonymous No.19040231]

Good prose manages to make even mundane, boring things interesting. A bad writer can have the most exciting plot to tell, and have it fall flat. A good writer can write about a guy sitting at a table writing a grocery list, and still find ways to make it enjoyable.

[Anonymous No.19040232]

>>19035505
William Gass, John Barth, and Alexander Theroux are good prose writers. Bad would be most pop genre but Stephen King probably has no prose.

[Anonymous No.19040239]

>>19040232
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/11/01/specials/gass-prizes.html
Whenever people ask about what good writing looks like, I send this. It's not fiction but it shows you what a robbust command of language and vocabulary can do.

[Anonymous No.19040250]

>>19040231
And a really bad writer will also write about a guy sitting at a table writing a grocery list

[バイポラーたん !Gh99z/1SzU No.19040301]

>>19035582
>The sun had set by the time I exited the forest, my knees shaking. My hands, stiff from clenching the legs of the deer, had gone utterly numb miles ago.

Sarah J Maas? No wonder I see booktubers talking so much shit on her

[Anonymous No.19040358]

>>19035582
The thing that sticks out to me usually is that poorly written prose focuses on external sensory experience and events and gives the sense that the characters are npcs that the writer is working like sock puppets. When you are going around doing things, the words for the colors, temperatures, shapes in your environment are not going through your head.