This is a subject I'm struggling with at present (mostly enjoyably), both as an editor and as a writer, so am very interested in your views.

It's the subject of prose. Or rather, good prose. And it's general absence today. For example, I recently attended the Milford Workshop, with thirteen other writers, all published. The work being critiqued was of a high standard; however, in my view there were only two writers whose prose was more than functional and in itself great to read.

Interestingly, one of those two was a professor of Celtic languages, so perhaps no surprise that words are important to her. Also, although her first novel is about to come out, the publisher had it for 13 years before offering her a contract! Now, that seems incredible to most of us, I'm sure. But while she admitted to being a ditherer, I also got the feeling that she approaches her work in a much less rushed manner than most of us. Her prose is rich, intelligent and surprising--it never settles for the easy or obvious words to use. It could be said (and some of us did say so) that at times the prose clutters the story-flow, but at least it's enjoyable clutter.

The other writer's prose was not so obviously original, but very effective. She is a successful and busy author, bringing out two books a year, and her work is mostly accessible science fiction/fantasy. What her prose does is add value to the story. This is a hard thing to explain but it is somehow more than the sum of its parts. It's a bit like an extra sense for the reader; or another view on events, apart from the characters'.

In some respects, I think good prose is like good acting. A skilful actor can imply a lot with small actions, while a bad actor waves his arms around and over-intones but still doesn't get much meaning across. So, perhaps there is an element of less-is-more about good prose; and it's corollary for bad prose is more-is-less.

It seems to me that most prose today--in published and unpublished fiction--is functional at best. Which is fine if the plot and characters are strong, but when the author isn't quite so sure of these factors, the prose tends to get out of control. Hence the increasingly common appearance of book series in which the novels get longer and longer but with less and less clarity.

As a first stab, I think some of the reasons for lack of good prose are:

• The hasty world we live in--authors want to get published now; publishers want to make money now; booksellers want to get 'old' books off their shelves now--all of which doesn't provide much encouragement for taking the time which good prose requires.

• Lack of awareness in the author that their prose can even be better.

• Lack of desire to improve--which is understandable in a hasty world. But perhaps it's also indicative of a lack of love for telling detail, too: maybe an impatience to deal with what's perceived to be the more important 'bigger' picture of the story, like the plot.

I'm very interested in your views, especially on how you go about working on your prose; how important it is to you to be original/effective/inspiring with it; and some examples.

Here's an example, the opening paragraph from 'The Fan Man' by William Kotzwinkle, introducing us to the narrator, Horse Badorties. For me, this is value-added first person prose, in that it not only gives you salient details of Horse's life, it does so in his voice and rhythm.

I am alone in my pad, man, my piled-up-to-the-ceiling-with-junk pad. Piled with sheet music, piled with garbage bags bursting with rubbish and encrusted frying pans piled on the floor, embedded with unnameable flecks of putrified wretchedness in grease. My pad, man, my own little Lower East Side Horse Badorties pad.

I like to try and keep my prose lyrical, as I enjoy writers who do that, where the writing contains a certain richness.

I can think of a good example in many of Clive Barker's works, but here is one of my favourites:

She moved in her sleep, and the whorls seemed to leave traces of themselves in the air where she'd been, their persistence exciting another motion, this other in the ring of sand that bounded her hard bed. It rose around her like a curtain of the Borealis, shimmering with the same colours in which her glyph had been painted, as though something of her essential anatomy was in the very air of the room.

Clive Barker Imajica

There are better example, but I love the erotic nature of his writing. It always conjures up such a rich tapestry.

Another new-ish writer I am really impressed by lately is Steph Swainston. It's a different kind of fantasy all together, with some sharp prose:

I doubt that I cut a fine figure at court, since the fashion's long gone for looking pale and dishevelled, but there is no denying the effect I have on them. I may not command the battlefield but I can put the best spin on the outcome. I might not be a keen huntsman but I can gut a weekend newspaper. At sparring, I prefer words to swords, and I used to shoot drugs not arrows, but I'm free of all that now.

Steph Swainston - No Present Like Time

Swainston also wrote the brilliant line:

'

I'm not so much love them and leave them, as fuck 'em and flee

'

Good prose really lifts a story, and I'm quite a fan of it.

JB

I think what lifts a story for me is an unexpected quality to the writing - doesn't have to be polished or perfect - can be quite raw but just something that makes you smile at the page - then sense of excitement where you feel the author is breaking new ground?

I'm probably not putting it too clearly

I can't think any of us settle for 'good enough' - we all try to be inventive - sometimes too hard?

I used to have this affectation where I was reluctant to use the same word twice in a paragraph - still have to fight it - because sometimes the effect is just too 'mannered'?

Sarah

JB, thanks. I agree that good prose really lifts a story, even if it's hard to pin down what it is exactly, and that it's no doubt subjective to a degree. It's good to see some examples from genre writing, since the fact that a lot of genre writing is, to be charitable, functional, tends to obscure the good stuff.

Sarah, 'an unexpected quality to the writing' is a good way of putting it. When prose is expected/predictable, it doesn't really make the reader work. Unexpected prose makes the reader stop and check, pay more attention to the story, sit up and realise that this author means business--that there will be levels and depths that might be missed.

In some ways, it's odd that a lot of writers don't seem to pay close attention to their prose but just see it as a means to the story end. Yet if an artist didn't pay attention to his brush work, and colour use, the results would be difficult to even look at.

And now, at the risk of finding myself in Pseud's Corner, I'm thinking that the effort to write good prose can produce moments of transcendence--that unexpected quality again. Once upon a time I was a signwriter. I was taught by a man who had a lifetime of experience. He watched me do what everybody does at first, which is tentatively make little brush strokes, trying to build up a letter shape. Then he said, you can't do it like that, you have to use the whole brush and develop a flick of the wrist. He got some paint on the brush then, in one stroke, started edge on, turned and flattened it, using both sides of the brush as the two straight edges of the letter, then finished by turning and flicking. This is why signwriters prefer to paint letters with seraphs. Anyway, the result he achieved could not be done 'logically'--you had to use the entire brush confidently; then the result was transcendent above anything produced by someone using the 'normal' method.

I think a similar process takes place with good prose. The writer grabs hold of the meaning he's trying to encapsulate and moulds the words and grammar to release it. Which is very different to being functional, where the writer is impatiently trying to get to the end--of the sentence, the chapter, the book--slinging in whatever words will fill the hole fastest. I slightly disagree, Sarah--I think writers do often settle for 'good enough'--and justify it on the grounds that the overall story is the important thing.

Terry

This is an interesting discussion, as I do feel that I've been putting less effort into the prose in my second novel.

With my first book, I was convinced the plot was fine but I had a rubbish writing style. So I spent months editing and honing, cutting out superfluous words, searching for unusual but understated images, examining every sentence for awkwardness of flow, and for what? Rejections that say 'You write very well, but...'

From my limited experience, it seems that agents/publishers value characters first, story second and writing third. There is a lot to be said for wanting to improve our prose for our own sense of achievement and development, but it's hard to fight off the sense of futility that comes from suspecting no one will ever read it.

Caro

Caro, I guess that's the challenge: to improve one's prose but not at the expense of character, plot, etc. For me, good prose is not something that exists separately to the other elements of a story, it adds to them. Having said that, I think you're right, that these days improving one's prose is probably more to do with personal satisfaction than landing a book deal. Which maybe says the first step is to write good invisible prose, i.e. where there are no obstructions like bad grammar or clichés that get between the reader and the story. Which is really what Show and Tell is all about in my view. People always get hung up on what is Show and what is Tell, and how much of one or the other to use; but the point is, if your prose is invisible, it's all Show. And the second step--if it's ever possible--is to then build added value into the prose, taking your faithful fans, agents, editors, Booker prize judges, etc, with you. Simple, really.

Terry

I agree with you, Terry, that a fair proportion of authors seem to settle for 'good enough'. Perhaps it's actually that they are oblivious to the difference between good and mediocre prose, because not only do they not strive for it in their own writing but they do not seem to seek it or admire it in their reading?

Personally I can't bear to read anything other than beautiful prose for fiction. Finely-crafted prose feels almost like a form of worship, whether you read it or write it. (I'll probably be put in the corner with you now... )

I'm not saying I write beautiful prose, but I certainly appreciate it in the fiction I read, and I certainly aspire to write beautiful prose.

But beautiful prose means different things to different people, which is another element to throw into the mix. I agree with Sarah that it often means there's an unexpectedness about it - a freshness. It's also the prose that takes you straight to the emotion rather than telling you about it - as you suggest, Terry, with your comments about Show and Tell.

(Oh dear - discussing this makes me feel self-conscious about how I've written this msg!)

Deb

Deb,

I feel self-conscious, too. Maybe it's because we're discussing one of those delicate subjects, i.e. how much effort is any of us making to be better writers rather than just more published writers? That, while there's a subjective element to what makes good prose, there is also the perhaps uncomfortable fact that some writers are better at writing than others. And probably the reason they are is that they put more effort and work into making their prose special, rather than settling for rudimentary. It's like when Bjorn Borg was asked the secret of his success; he said, 'Six hours practice a day'. And while there are probably plenty of writers who write for six hours a day, I wonder how many actually practice in that time, rather than just refine and edit.

Terry

Which makes me think about what is actually hard work, in writing terms. For instance, if I know I'm going to sit down for eight hours (with the odd necessary break for an episode of Two and a Half Men, of course) and just edit something I've written, I feel comfortable and industrious. But if I have to work on a story in order to make it better no matter what--perhaps even completely different--I start getting the itch to watch an entire series of Becker even though I don't particularly like it. I guess the former is set out for me while the latter is a scary wilderness of new creatures that I've somehow just got to go in after and capture.

Terry, I agree about a lot of prose in genre fiction being 'functional'. I really try to seek out books that stand head and shoulders above the hoi polloi, as I'm not so into the constant stream of same-y stories written in the same-y style. I like it when the writer's art itself is exceptional - such as Lovecraft, Barker, Mieville, Gaiman and yes, definitely Swainston - and worthy of wider recognition. I think that little list comprises more than one writer who are far far superior in their art than any Booker winner I've read, but there you go. Because it doesn't take place in humdrum reality, it isn't taken seriously, and that's a crying shame. I've learnt more about human existence in these kinds of books than any other I could name.

JB

Well, I can think of three questions concerning prose.

1.) Are we talking about using prose for second person or first person view novels? It seems to me that prose is a lot easier to write for a second person novel. A first person novel character would not talk in a prose manner.

2.) Out of a hundred readers, how many would enjoy a novel that had good prose? Perhaps most readers just want good junk-food-reading for entertainment. What I mean is, if an author went to the trouble to write his/her book with good prose, how many readers would even notice? Perhaps most readers don’t care, and its just an added time-waster for a writer. What if a writer doubles the time spent to finish a book by adding good prose, but only one reader in a hundred appreciates the prose.

3.) If good prose is not ‘part’ of a writer’s natural way of writing, is it a pretense? I could go back rewrite my book in a literately prose manner. I could take it sentence by sentence and ‘prose away’ . . . but would I be a fake?

I would like to add that I have no position on prose, either fore or against. I am just playing the devil here.

Azel

I think it depends on your definition of 'good prose'.

It doesn't have to be 'literary'?

Not going to play 'genre wars' - there is IMO (I'd say IMHO but as someone said - there is no such thing as a 'humble opinion' - lol) good and bad prose to be found everywhere and - if you look hard enough - many writers - especially one's favourites - are guilty of both?

I think if I am honest for me a good story well told will always win over 'perfect prose' but then doesn't 'a good story well told' inevitably contain good prose as the invisible ingredient?

On the other hand - and playing devil's advocate too - if you have too much time to admire the scenery maybe something is missing from the foreground?

In 'The Horse and his Boy' C S Lewis briefly mentions the moonlit garden the heroine is fleeing through but makes the apt observation that characters seldom have time to 'stand and stare' on adventures as the most picturesque scenery is often fraught with incident? Ok - description not prose but the best imagery has to have a point?

Sarah

I think if I am honest for me a good story well told will always win over 'perfect prose'

Absolutely, but sometimes a piece of excellent prose can steal my breath away. I don't think I'd like one without the other.

I thought the 'h' in imho signified 'honest', not 'humble'. Says a lot about me.

I think it's tricky to talk about 'fakery' in art. Art, after all, is all a kind of fakery. Fiction is made up stuff, as in 'not authentic'. I think integrity is overrated and writers should just concentrate on telling a good story. Generally, if you believe in what you're doing, the reader will too.

JB

<Added>

Sarah, I like your point about C S Lewis. I also think so much relies on the power and strength of a reader's imagination. I can read things like 'a tree stood in a windy field', and already I have a full orchestra of sights, noises and sounds in my head. Sometimes (and I'm guilty of this myself, until my butt gets kicked) a writer overwrites to the point where the reader's mind cannot breath.

I'm giving some thought to this issue, but as an aside… isn't In my humble opinion a quote, or misquote, from Uriah Heep in David Copperfield? As in ‘For I am an ‘umble man, Master Copperfield.’

Dee

This is all so subjective.

When prose is expected/predictable, it doesn't really make the reader work. Unexpected prose makes the reader stop and check, pay more attention to the story, sit up and realise that this author means business--that there will be levels and depths that might be missed.

Not all readers want to work. When I'm reading for pleasure (as opposed to reading as a writer) I don’t want to notice the writing. If the prose makes me stop and check, it pulls me out of the story and, no matter how brilliant it is, it reminds me I'm just reading rather than experiencing the story.

And when I'm writing I want my readers to lose themselves in the story. I want the writing itself to be so subliminal they forget they're reading, so embellishing the prose to make it noticeable would be counter productive.

Dee