On writing: sounds and sentences

[StillStunned]

I respectfully disagree. I don't choose to be a cover band.

Literotica is one of the largest anonymous sandboxes on the internet for creativity. Why confine yourself to one small fenced area when you've got the whole damn sandbox to play in?

I honestly have no idea what you mean. What does the use of language have to do with creativity?

 

[SmilingLez]

I honestly have no idea what you mean. What does the use of language have to do with creativity?

If you mimic the style of Shakespeare in your story, is your work creative (and by that I mean is it fully your voice)? I do not believe it is. Now if you take the style of Shakespeare and craft it into your own voice, yes it is your style. That is the distinction. This is the reason why a lot of triolets sound like they were created from the same mold. Yes there are rules, but I don't feel the poet's voice when I read them. Again you can choose to play in the little fenced area of the Literotica sandbox.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I’m going to pick on just one aspect of one sentence from the excerpt I posted:

So much was confusing, yet still I knew it was him.

Specifcally consider:

yet still I knew it was him.

I could have written:

yet I still knew it was him.

That’s perhaps a more customary way of expressing things. But it’s flat and boring.

And - more importantly - I wanted to suggest an overly formal - even archaic - form of expression. That which an entity trained on vast tracts of literature, rather than having organically read literature, might adopt. Especially in their first seconds of ‘life.’

I think my chosen word order does that better.

 

[TheLobster]

It's easier to place two syllables - one stressed and one unstressed in a sentence than five, of which two are unstressed, two are lightly stressed and one is heavily stressed.

You're making this writing business sound much more stressful than it really is!

 

[FrancesScott]

An interesting illustration. Your natural voice (like that of any of us) is loose, with a few stresses:

I was most aware of this when trying to ape Fitzgerald’s style

But in your quoted passage, the stresses on the three main word classes come hard and fast:

The soulless interstate was quicker,
the tarnished gilt of the city's railroad-era
sparse houses, scattered woods, and open farmland

I appreciate the analysis. Like others have mentioned here, I have no formal training in writing (which was one reason it was so amusing being accused of being a Professor of English in comments on that story).

But I was definitely trying to write in a different voice. Your analysis is very interesting from that point of view.

 

[StillStunned]

That’s perhaps a more customary way of expressing things. But it’s flat and boring.

Look at the stressed syllables. I suppose I forgot to mention it in my original post, but in English two syllables with the same level of stress side by side sound awkward, unless they can merge. (I'd like to thank my old Phonology prof at uni for his valuable contributions to my skill as a smut writer.)

So: "Yet I still knew it was him" cries for a break. It makes the reader stumble, and takes them out of the experience for the slightest moment.

But: "Yet still I knew it was him" has that delightful beat that smoothes the sentence and lets the reader's mind glide forward.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Look at the stressed syllables. I suppose I forgot to mention it in my original post, but in English two syllables with the same level of stress side by side sound awkward, unless they can merge. (I'd like to thank my old Phonology prof at uni for his valuable contributions to my skill as a smut writer.)

So: "Yet I still knew it was him" cries for a break. It makes the reader stumble, and takes them out of the experience for the slightest moment.

But: "Yet still I knew it was him" has that delightful beat that smoothes the sentence and lets the reader's mind glide forward.

It’s kinda funny. I don’t know these things. I have no theoretical framework for what I do. But I seem to know them nevertheless. Maybe as a byproduct of reading a lot of good writers.

 

[TheLobster]

(I'd like to thank my old Phonology prof at uni for his valuable contributions to my skill as a smut writer.)

Can you recommend anything to read on this topic, beyond the obvious suggestion of just reading more of good and diverse literature? I wonder if knowing those things from a more systematic way would help someone like me, for whom this isn't a native language.

 

[StillStunned]

It’s kinda funny. I don’t know these things. I have no theoretical framework for what I do. But I seem to know them nevertheless. Maybe as a byproduct of reading a lot of good writers.

Like so many things with the English language, we know them without knowing. But as writers, I think many of us have to unlearn "writing" habits and instead learn to rely on our natural language.

 

[EmilyMiller]

But as writers, I think many of us have to unlearn "writing" habits and instead learn to rely on our natural language.

I think it also depends on the tone of the piece and whether or not you are trying to achieve things in parallel to simply telling the story.

For example, if you want to slowly ratchet up a sense that something is off, that maybe reality is not quite right, then the language you choose can really help with that. And it is more satisfying to write (and I hope read) subtle cues, rather than, ‘Something odd was going on,’ I thought to myself.

 

[StillStunned]

Can you recommend anything to read on this topic, beyond the obvious suggestion of just reading more of good and diverse literature? I wonder if knowing those things from a more systematic way would help someone like me, for whom this isn't a native language.

Sorry, it's been 30 years since I did this stuff, and I don't even remember the name of the book we used then. Also, the theories hadn't been fully developed, and it all came with a big asterisk that the rules weren't hard and fast.

But as far as I recall, there were only a few rules: different syllables have different levels of stress, those levels vary from syllable to syllable, and that creates the rhythm of the language.

Rather than reading, I'd recommend listening. Audiobooks, plays, perhaps recordings of poetry. Listen to which words and sounds are stressed, and which ones aren't.

 

[BeechLeaf]

The key thing about English is that it's stress-timed, not syllable-timed. Metre doesn't count syllables (as it does in French or Latin). For example, this from Keats:

Much have I travelled in the realms of gold

Unstressed 'have I' and '-elled in the' have multiple syllables. It's not simply alternating stressed and unstressed. We can ride over multiple unstressed syllables. We prefer avoiding consecutive stresses, as in StillStunned's example, but then the title of the Keats sonnet has such a pairing:

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

One great poet who often exploits the unusual effect, stressing consecutive syllables, is Gerard Manley Hopkins:

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Of course in prose it's much more subtle than in poetry, but the alternation of stressed and unstressed, largely disregarding the length between them, is still characteristic of English.

 

[EmilyMiller]

The key thing about English is that it's stress-timed, not syllable-timed. Metre doesn't count syllables (as it does in French or Latin). For example, this from Keats:

Much have I travelled in the realms of gold

Unstressed 'have I' and '-elled in the' have multiple syllables. It's not simply alternating stressed and unstressed. We can ride over multiple unstressed syllables. We prefer avoiding consecutive stresses, as in StillStunned's example, but then the title of the Keats sonnet has such a pairing:

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

One great poet who often exploits the unusual effect, stressing consecutive syllables, is Gerard Manley Hopkins:

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Of course in prose it's much more subtle than in poetry, but the alternation of stressed and unstressed, largely disregarding the length between them, is still characteristic of English.

Hey,

Ex-biologist here, with minors in chemistry and anthropology. Yeah the imposter syndrome is strong in this one. So speak slowly for me, OK ?

How do you know what is stressed and unstressed, just by reading it aloud?

 

[StillStunned]

How do you know what is stressed and unstressed, just by reading it aloud?

Yup. That's really it.

 

[BeechLeaf]

Actually I have that problem too. I don't know how the English literature people effortlessly detect metre. I'm a linguist, and I know stressed from unstressed in single words: travelled, Chapman, Homer. But faced with a line of poetry, I just have to guess that I would stress the main nouns, verbs, and so on, and not the prepositions and articles. So I write it down on a piece of paper and count them and see if I can get a simple pattern S u S u S u, where the unstressed u can be repeated u u. It's like looking at scores and deducing the count of votes that could have generated them.

 

[SkyBubble]

First up: the use of sounds and rhythm in words and sentences.

One of my dad's favorite phrases that the used to read to me when I was little is from Kipling: "the great, gray, green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever trees, O best beloved."

I still head Dad intoning it.

 

[SkyBubble]

Another bit of advice: Read Shakespeare. Read his famous soliloquies and look at the way he uses words. See how he fits them into a blank verse format. Sound them out.

Yes, Shakespeare and the other greats. I'm presently making my way through Much Ado About Nothing.

BTW, AI detectors tend to grade the famous Shakespeare soliloquies as heavily AI. Sneaky Will.

 

[EmilyMiller]

It's like looking at scores and deducing the count of votes that could have generated them.

People are sad enough to do that, really? Losers!

I know about gerunds and gerundives, but the rest of English Literature Theory is all Greek to me .

Krebs Cycle anyone?

 

[SkyBubble]

All was black. Black? I had a concept of blackness. How strange! I had a concept of concepts as well. And of strangeness. And of other things. Of the obsidian nullity, extending interminably away from... away from what? This point in space? Hmm, I seem to know some physics and math. Away from... me maybe?

Then light. Searing light. Unbearable light. The absence of darkness. I seemed to have all sorts of names for things, and models for how they worked. 'I,' a loaded word indeed. I was aware that I was something. Perhaps even someone.

The light became less blinding. Shapes formed. Walls surrounded me. White walls. Then, within my field of vision, appeared... him? It was him. As I focussed, I recognized the bone structure, the skin imperfections, the wrinkles, the gray-streaked hair, the creases at the sides of his eyes. So much was confusing, yet still I knew it was him.

This is really good!

(And I noticed the British spelling on "focussed.")

 

[SkyBubble]

I was most aware of this when trying to ape Fitzgerald’s style, and specifically The Great Gatsby, in my first story here, Ice Cream. I paid massive attention to word selection. Just a little example below.

The soulless interstate was quicker, but I opted for the slower, but more picturesque, route. I soon left the tarnished gilt of the city's railroad-era buildings behind, and drove down empty, winding roads laced between sparse houses, scattered woods, and open farmland. The vistas and the buildings were all etched into my mind, evocative of an earlier and more tranquil time.

In not more than twenty minutes, the distinctive dark blue silos of my dairy destination appeared over the newly decked tree-tops. The lot was a turbid tumult of parked and parking vehicles; ones generally suited to the accommodation of families. The good weather had clearly prompted the same idea in others as it had in me. But I nevertheless found a slot and joined the lengthy line in the shop. I must have been the only person not to be accompanied by their kids.

I like that.

 

[SkyBubble]

Personally, I think simple words give you more control. It's easier to place two syllables - one stressed and one unstressed in a sentence than five, of which two are unstressed, two are lightly stressed and one is heavily stressed.


Read any poetry. The Romantics were also excellent at using sounds to enhance imagery.

Or Eliot, if you prefer freer verse.

 

[EmilyMiller]

This is really good!

(And I noticed the British spelling on "focussed.")

Thank you!

Google Docs accepts both - even on US spelling. And autocorrect seems to like its sses.

 

[SkyBubble]

S u S u S u

uSuSuSuSuS is Shakespeare's usual pattern. Each set of uS syllables is an "iamb." He would usually use five iambs per line, thus "iambic pentameter."

"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"

 

[SkyBubble]

My go-to is not Shakespeare but Dylan Thomas

One of my favorites as well. Have you ever listened to Thomas reading his work "A Child's Christmas in Wales"? It's magnificent.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I appreciate the analysis. Like others have mentioned here, I have no formal training in writing (which was one reason it was so amusing being accused of being a Professor of English in comments on that story).

That's interesting to discover. When I first read your work, I thought you probably were an academic in some field or other, or a professional in some other literary field, because your command of your text is self-evident. I thought, clearly this person has written a lot before, even if not erotica.

If you've had no formal training, then you've certainly paid attention to your craft. And in a way, that lack of training might be a benefit, because what shines through in your writing is its exuberance, even if at times it might come close to self-indulgence. A formal literary training might put scissors to that quality. Too much polish can dull a bright shine.

But I was definitely trying to write in a different voice. Your analysis is very interesting from that point of view.

I think you've said all your work published here is deliberately echoing another writer's style? If that's the case, I'd be curious as to FrancesScott's own natural style (setting aside the tributes to your fave writers in your account name).