If you focus only on being clear and concise, will that guarantee that your words will flow smoothly? Or do you need to make certain choices with words and syntax in addition to that? When I write or revise, not focusing on cadence, but on clarity and brevity only, I notice that many times my words do not flow smoothly. This causes me to wonder why I shouldn't just aim for whatever kind of cadence I want. So should I focus only on clarity and brevity, or should I focus also on flow? I seem to be procrastinating over this issue.
No. But fortunately there's a veritable pantheon of clear, concise words to choose from. So pull those Legos from the box, mix and match them, and find a combination that's clear, concise, effectively communicates your ideas, and flows as silky as a river of dreams.
Also, @waitingforzion , you are once again creating, then abandoning, multiple threads in which you solicit and then ignore advice. The topics of those threads may look different to you, but they really aren’t. At best they’re about breaking through your impenetrable writer’s block, but I think that it’s more accurate to say that they exist to ensure that the block remains impenetrable.
Focus on as many - or as little - things as you can. Finish the whole thing, then go back and read it, see what doesn't sound right, and try to fix it. When you reach the end, again, go back to the beginning and read it again, see what doesn't sound right, and try to fix it. Repeat, until it sounds mostly right . Clarity only makes it easier to check if you've included all the plot that needs including. For example, let's say you want to write about a hobbit who lives in a hole in the ground. A rough draft (with all the clarity and brevity) could be: "There was a hole in the ground. A hobbit lived there." Clear and concise, but doesn't flow very well, though. So, next draft with added cadence and flow could become: "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." As you can see, some decisions were taken along the way - sentences were merged and word order was changed.
Concise is not the same as terse. If you are concise, you are using as much verbiage as the situation calls for, but no more. So if you're just minimizing the word count, you're being terse. Some situations call for more expansive language, more leisurely description. Knowing how much is enough, even in those circumstances, is the very essence of conciseness. So the answer to your question is yes. If you write concisely, your writing will flow better.
Nothing is a guarantee of anything. You seem in large part to be looking for a formula, a code, an esoteric take on the matter that will evince a near-magical outcome. There is no such thing. Not long ago you posted a thread concerning free modifiers. It's a term I'd not heard since linguistics classes at university. A quick googling evinced a number of sites dedicated to understanding these syntax structures and a quick flip through them gave me a number of listings that concerned themselves with rhythm and flow. But I have to be honest and say that the information seemed directed at an audience that was either engaging English as a second language or was suffering from an innate inability to grasp idiomatic use of the language. All of the examples given for "poor flow" and "poor rhythm" were constructions that I cannot imagine any person who is a native speaker ever choosing. In short: The forest is being missed, not for the trees, but for the grain of the bark. Do you drive a vehicle? I'm praying the answer is yes. I'm hoping even more that you know how to drive a standard transmission. When you drive a standard transmission, of course there is a learning curve because all four limbs are in play. Left foot, clutch. Right foot, gas and brake. Left hand, steering wheel. Right hand, gear shift. At first the task is daunting because we are forcibly engaging it with our frontal lobes, our thinking brain. As we get more familiar with the process, parts of the task leave the frontal lobes and go where they belong, further back and eventually to the cerebellum. A year into driving and we're not even aware of the motions and actions of our hands and feet. We no longer have to think about what they do; instead they do what we are thinking. If we had to consciously control every movement, with the neocortex, the brain that thinks and parses out the more abstract universe, the car would never leave the garage. That's where you are, in the garage, because you're trying to control the car with the wrong part of your abilities. I read your post here, when you are just letting your natural language centers do the driving, and there is no issue with flow. Let those centers do their job. Yes.
a) there are no guarantees - one night this week I was in the groove and wrote nearly two thousand words in an hour, another night I struggled to get two hundred out in two b) when I write I focus on being clear, appropriate to the scene and character I am writing, pacing, syntax, word choice etc - I have never consciously focussed on cadence c) At the end of the day if you want to focus on cadence go for it, its a free country - but please in the name of the small furry Cerberus stop asking for advice about it, and move on
Depends what you mean by flow. simple def: the changing rhythms of sentences. (Grammar) artistic def: the poetic verse. (Style) prose def: the momentum of the story. (the character's movement through the Story, which should have tension) Flow shows up at the paragraph-level for (1) and (2). It appears mostly in the scene, arcs, and story for (3). Grammar controls the basic structure, which is what you're asking about. Style shapes the grammar and breaks its rules. And then the character's plot (path) through the story slips into that. Basically, that's tension (asking a question and not answering it). All of them together build the flow. The key to grammatical/stylistic flow is variation. I can't stress it enough. Short/long, metaphorical/literal, simple/complex wordings, shifting structures, and a thousand other changes. Having all florid phrases will leave your readers cold. Long wordy descriptions will read like stereo instructions. All short-wordings sounds like a grade school primer. The best writing might lean in one direction, but it doesn't stay there. Don't over-correct by aiming for a third grade level, because that's not great either. (variation, always.) But . . . if your baseline is simple, it's much easier to work with than if your baseline is complex. The sentence is your unit of expression . . . but not enough is ever said about the paragraph. It's where the mechanics and artistry come together. It's why when you read one opening paragraph, you know the author is worth reading, because you feel the flow.
I was trying to follow Wrey's lead on treating him gently and without regard to his other multiple threads on the same question ... but yes, that
I don't know . . . he just wants to write better. How do you say something that sounds natural while still being profound? That's all he's asking. He keeps coming back because it still isn't working for him. I know the feeling. You don't want to sound drab, yet you don't want to be overwrought. The great authors can do it and the mediocre ones can't. Practice makes perfect is a lie. Perfect practice makes perfect. And when you're working like a hermit in a cave with no input and contradictory advice, it's hard to feel confidence. I've heard writing workshop instructors say that some students can write a sentence and some students can write a story. There are the rare students who can do both. They don't mention those that can do neither. They're along for the ride too. I guess they don't want to discourage anyone from paying the entry fee. . . Anyway, the student they can turn into an author is the one who comes in knowing how to write a sentence. I guess it's easier to teach a person storycraft than it is sentencecraft. Having a natural ear for expression is an unfair advantage. Life is full of those. Now I'm naturally surly, but everyone here, in spite of their personalities, are brothers and sisters in the writing craft. So I try to be understanding with Zion. Even if he does ask questions in Rondo form. ABACADA . . . (where A=rhythm, B=flow, etc.) He's still asked the single best question I've ever heard on this board. It's the one that opens the gates if you're determined enough to pursue it. (Of course it was laughed at. But I wasn't laughing.) I would just urge him to stay curious and stay humble and look at what techniques the pros use to succeed.
Sure but he keeps coming back with the exact same question, without taking any of the advice hes given on any of the preceeding threads and without actually writing anything and has been doing this since 2009 That isn't going to open any gates - or more accurately he won't notice they are open because hes too busy trying to open them all over again Its like the saying that a definition of insanity is to do the same thing repeatedly while expecting a different result
Yes, but he can't write better if he won't write. And he won't write. He's waiting for perfection to land on him, waiting to produce the work of genius without ever having produced any below-genius work, and it doesn't work that way.
This is kind of how I see it. @waitingforzion keeps asking pretty much the same thing without even letting enough time go by to see improvement or if anything is working. And I have never heard the word cadence used so much. I get that it's his favorite word, but it doesn't seem to be helping him write any better or get to the heart of the problem. Writing a lot more and reading a lot more is almost always the answer to everything.
I’m taking a writing class. The instructor was just talking about how a lot of his classmates stopped writing because they spent so much time reading the greats that they critiqued themselves into a state of paralysis. Hard stuff.
I would demand your money back. Seriously! Reading never hurts writers. I would say a teaching job could hurt a writer a hell of a lot more than reading.
I might not have been clear. He was warning us against the perfectionism that paralyzed people in his past.
Well, it distorts your pleasure of reading Pop's old 'Vikings' and 'Battle at Sea' airport novels: 'This shit is so much dot to dot crap, I could, any fool could write this...rubbish...daddy...are you, were you a moron reader, is this what you read on trains, my daddy?'' Bernard Cornwall's first novel, I felt his agony on the page - squeezing on, and on, on and on toward a conclusion, linking his four characters together, THE END. 'I've done it, baby, I've done it..! Honey?' Once he'd discovered his formula there was no stopping him - in Azincourt - ,'Aye squire, I said and mounted my horse for battle, the year was 1415...' No it's not, you're sitting in your vest, sitting at your desk, fatso...come on, work harder.
