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In operation of craft, Ursula K. Le Guin mentions one of the exercises she most commonly uses with her creative writing students, the so-called purity exercise. To avoid overloaded and pompous styles, ask for an entire page of prose to be written without adjectives or adverbs. It’s complicated, he tells us, because even basic words like “sun…”
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In operation of craft, Ursula K. Le Guin mentions one of the exercises she most commonly uses with her creative writing students, the so-called purity exercise. To avoid overloaded and pompous styles, ask for an entire page of prose to be written without adjectives or adverbs. It’s complicated, he tells us, because basic words like “only” or “then” are also adverbs, so sometimes it’s not possible to eliminate them all. But of course you can remove all the adverbs and pompous adjectives ending in “mind”. In the end, the result is a very solemn and very plain prose text. And because you’ve put all your energy into verbs and nouns, it’s stronger and richer.
Distinctive and elaborate styles abound, it’s true, and purity won’t hurt at all for some people. Where did this misconception come from that to write well you have to overload the text? It is clear that, when this happens, the author is more concerned with demonstrating how well he writes and how many adjectives he uses than with expressing a specific idea or feeling. He wants to impress and fears that he will not be able to do so unless he uses flowery language. And it does not fail: the one who writes this way is not at all interested in hearing that he has enough words. He is happy with his obesity and takes offense at suggestions of a diet.
And what about spoken language? Contrast this “obesity” in written expression with the current verbal poverty, especially among young people. Generalizations are never fair, as always, there are exceptions, but I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that sometimes it’s really scary to listen to young people’s conversations. I am sitting in the cafeteria of the Faculty of Literature in Madrid. Some students next to me are talking and I am listening. “Like, man,” one of the young women begins, “I’m surprised Marta caught Chema. Like, I don’t understand how that guy rents to you. “It’s an ugly deck.” To which his friend replies: “I like it too.” Fillers, cliches, limited vocabulary. In two seconds, all hope of nourishing the imagination with a compelling story vanishes.
I believe this anemic spoken language, at least in appearance, is for several reasons. One of the reasons always given is that people read less and less. I think no one doubts the importance of reading and it is not my purpose to delve into it here. The concise language of social networks permeates the language of someone who has suffered a serious illness: it remains in his bones. In any case – and here we return to written language – it is not about improving expression with a calorie diet based on adjectives and adverbs. It is not (only) about expanding vocabulary, but about giving importance to what is really important, which are verbs and nouns. Deep down, and although their origins are different, both languages suffer from the same obesity: construction from scraps and flourishes, from everything that adorns language.
Language should be effective, relevant to what is being said. Whenever they ask me which novel I learned the most from, I give the same answer: big notebookWritten by Agota Christophe, the story of two children, twin brothers, who are left by their mother in the care of their grandmother in a small village during World War II. Well then; The vocabulary of this novel does not exceed a thousand words. As she herself explained in an interview, “Just enough, without fillers, without fat.” What, then, lies the magic of its expressive power?
Christophe himself wrote in his autobiographical book Illiterate The genre of the novel was due to the fact that he was writing in a foreign language; After fleeing Hungary for political reasons, crossing the border with her husband and young son, she settled in Switzerland and had to learn French. He writes in language that may seem clumsily French, but which has a compelling effect in its economy and rigor, which is essential to what he is saying. So much has never been said in so little.
It seems to me that Ursula K. The practice of purity that Le Guin talks about is somewhat similar to the practice of efficiency. And effectiveness, in both written and oral expression, relates to whether we succeed in conveying an idea or feeling. Avoid loose language full of clichés, adjust the substance and form, look for vivid phrases and the right words. Flaubert claimed that he found it when his ears told him: when it sounded good. Virginia Woolf expressed this with some beautiful words addressed to her friend Vita Sackville-West: Style is rhythm, “a wave in the mind”, the wave, the rhythm comes before the words and makes the words fit. And the truth is that, beneath the smooth surface of the text, there seems to be a hidden life pulsating, something that makes us feel and that somehow disturbs us. Poet Emily Dickinson said, “If I have the physical feeling of my brain being tired, I know that is poetry.”
(TagstoTranslate)Opinion(T)Language(T)Writing(T)Youth(T)Books(T)Writers(T)Social Networks(T)Virginia Woolf(T)Emily Dickinson(T)Gustave Flaubert
