I’ve been thinking about my prose style, and how it’s shifted over thirty years of writing. When I started, I was a 20-something in love with language, and I indulged in some pretty purplish prose passages. (Like the alliteration there? đŸ™‚ )
Over time, I stripped a lot of that away, and my style evolved to something that’s generally a lot more minimal. (Clear window, instead of stained glass, to use a common writing metaphor.)
Even when I do SF/F, my world-building tends to be concise, woven into the text, so you don’t get long descriptive passages. (Sometimes my workshop complains enough about not being able to picture the world that I put a tiny bit more in.)
But I just re-read the Harper Hall of Pern, and I was reminded that some of what my teen self loved about these books was the description of the fire lizards, clothing, the world, etc. Not necessarily long stretches of description, but lovely phrases that stuck in my head.
And I’m wondering if I’ve gone too far in the lean and mean direction — if I should let myself be a little more indulgent with description.
This is perhaps mostly a matter of taste?
But I also wonder whether I’ve been influenced by market considerations — I know that I’m more likely to sell a story (or a novel), if it’s not too long, because editors who pay by the word (or the printed page) are likely to prioritize shorter over longer pieces.
This kind of ties to various thoughts I’ve been having about fan fiction, and how it seems like my students who come out of AO3 tend to write longer scenes with more description, longer conversations, etc. They didn’t learn to write with space constraints — if anything, their fans might be encouraging them to write more, at length, so the market pressure might go in the other direction?
I guess I don’t really have a question here re: my own work, but invite general pondering and pontificating (and piffling!) along these lines.
Pic of an elegant little swamp milkweed (native), and a profuse head of Annabelle hydrangea blooms (not native, though I thought it was when I planted it, sigh…). You could think of it as two different styles of prose…
