The Art of Plain Speech · 12:46am Aug 18th, 2012
This is the introduction to a short-story book by Ben Bova. I typed it all out for you peoplez, so here it is:
It is the secret of the artist that he does his work so superlatively well that we all but forget to ask what his work was supposed to be, for sheer admiration of the way he did it.
–E. H. Gombrich, The Story of ArtI agree with that statement–up to a point. The esteemed Dr. Gombrich may be totally correct when speaking of painting or sculpture or even architecture, but when it comes to writing fiction, Sir Ernest and I part company.
In fiction, I believe, the true art is to engage the reader so intimately in the story that we forget about the writer, for sheer involvement in the tale that the characters are weaving before our eyes.
Maybe I feel that way because I started out in the newspaper game (it's never called a business by the workers in the field). Or maybe it's because I've spent most of my adult life working with scientists and engineers. Or maybe it's because I care about my readers too much.
Whatever the reason, I have always felt that the writer should be drawn into the story, rather than forced to admire the writer's brush-strokes. Only after the story is finished should the reader be able to sit up and think, “That was an enjoyable piece of writing.” During the reading process, the reader should be so engrossed in the story that the writer's art (or craft) is barely noticed, if at all.
I have never felt that writing should be a contest between author and the reader, a battleground filled with obscurity and arcana. I don't want my readers to struggle with my prose. I don't want to impress them with how smart I am. I want them to enjoy what I'm writing and maybe think a little about what I'm trying to say.
Problem is, when you write clearly and simply without stylistic frills or rococo embellishments, some people think you are not a “deep” thinker or a “stylist.”
Isaac Asimov ran into this predicament often. Critics could not fault Isaac on his knowledge or his success, or even his earnestness or political correctness, so they belittled his style, calling it “pedestrian” or “simplistic.” Yet Isaac's style was the one thing that made him such a success, at least as far as his non-fiction work is concerned.
Other specialists knew their subjects in more depth than Isaac did. Isaac had a tremendous breadth of knowledge, but in any particular field–be it cosmology or poetry, biblical scholarship or even biochemistry–there were specialists who knew a lot more of the details than he did.
But it was Isaac's genius to be able to take any of those specialized fields and write about them so clearly, so naturalistically, that just about anyone who is able to read could learn the fundamentals of Isaac's subject. That took style! And it was definitely not intuitive, the work of an unreflected genius. Isaac thought about what he did, every step of the way. He deliberately developed a writing style that was so deceptively unpretentious and naturalistic that critics thought what he did was easy.
In fiction, the academic disdain for straightforward, honest prose has led critics to dismiss Hemingway and praise Faulkner, although today we are seeing that Hemingway's work is standing the test of time better than most of his contemporaries'. Maybe Hemingway was also influenced by his early days of newspapering. We know that he deliberately developed the lean, understated style that became his hallmark. He worked hard at it, every year of his writing life.
Lord knows that no one has accused the science-fiction field of overemphasis on style. If anything, the accusations have been just the opposite, that science-fiction writing is too pedestrian, too mundane. Yet the field has produced some marvelous stylists: Fritz Leiber, for example. Alfred Bester. Ray Bradbury.
There is a good reason why most science-fiction is written in a plain, naturalistic, realistic style. Out-of-this-world settings and incredible feats may abound in science-fiction stories, yet the prose is unusually unadorned and straightforward. Why? Because if you want to make the reader believe what you are saying, if you want the reader to accept those out-of-this-world backgrounds and incredible deeds, it is easier if the prose you use is as simple and realistic as you can make it.
In science there is a dictum: don't add an experiment to an experiment. Don't make things unnecessarily complicated. In writing fiction, the more fantastic the tale, the plainer the prose should be. Don't ask your readers to admire your words when you want them to believe your story.
In my own work I have tried to keep the prose clean and clear, especially when I am writing about subjects as complex as space exploration, politics, and love. Those subjects are tricky enough without trying to write about them in convoluted sentences heavy with opaque metaphors and intricate similes.
Then, too, there is the difference between the optimists and the pessimists. Somehow, somewhere in the course of time, darkly pessimistic stories got to be considered more “literary” than brightly optimistic ones. I suspect this attitude began in academia, although it is really a rather juvenile perspective: teenagers frequently see the world they face as too big and complex, too awesome for them to fathom. Healthy adults saw off a chunk of that world for themselves and do their best to cultivate it. That is the message of Voltaire's Candide, after all.
Even in the science-fiction field, pessimistic “downbeat” stories are often regarded as intrinsically more sophisticated than optimistic “upbeat” tales. I suspect this reveals a hidden yearning within the breasts of some science-fiction people to be accepted by the academic/literary establishment. That's okay with me, but such yearnings should not cloud our perceptions.
It may be de rigueur in academic circles to moan about the myth of Sisyphus and the pointless futility of human existence, but such an attitude is antithetical to the principles of science fiction, which are based on the fundamental principles of science: that the universe is understandable, and human reason can fathom the most intricate mysteries of existence, given time.
Science fiction is fundamentally optimistic literature. We tend to see the human race not as failed angels but as evolving apes struggling toward godhood. Even in the darkest dystopian science-fiction stories, there is hope for the future. This is the literature that can take a situation such as the Sun blowing up, and ask, “Okay, what happens next?”*
Does that make science-fiction silly? Or pedestrian? Or juvenile? Hell no! It's those academic thumb-suckers who are the juveniles. In science fiction we deal with the real world and try to examine honestly where in the universe we are and where we are capable of going.
In good science fiction, that is. As Theodore Sturgeon pointed out ages ago, ninety-five percent of science fiction (and everything else) is crap. All that bears the title “science fiction” is not in Ted's top five percent. But at its best, science fiction is wonderful. And it tends to be optimistic.
Because I try to write clearly and tend to believe that the human mind can solve the problems it faces, I fear that my work is often regarded as simplistic, or lacking style, or less “literary” than some others'.
Such complaints are the price to be paid for writing plainly and basing fiction on the real world and actual human behavior.
One of America's first literary giants, Nathaniel Hawthorne, responded to the accusation of writing without elegance:I am glad you think my style plain. I never, in any one page or paragraph, aimed at making it anything else. . . . The greatest possible merit of style is, of course, to make the words absolutely disappear into the thought.
So–here are fourteen stories that range from tragedy to buffoonery, fourteen tales from the future, the past, and even from the timelessness of eternity. One of them is outright fantasy, coauthored with a friend and kindred soul. Another can be read as fantasy, although I don't see it as such. A few of them might make you chuckle; all of them should make you think.
Each story is written as clearly as possible, with no unnecessary stylistic adornments. They may not be “Art,” in Dr. Gombrich's sense, although I think they are enjoyable.
But you'll be the judge of that.Naples, Florida
1997* If you don't believe me, read Larry Niven's “Inconstant Moon.” Or my own Test of Fire.
theritz.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/moses20first20post.jpg
Also pony butts. dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Octavia_plot.png
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294017 TL;DR Version?
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Don't worry, Irateam is a nooblord.
nooblord
nooblord
nooblord
nooblord
nooblord
294275 dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/shrug_Derpy_Hooves.png
294275 Aren't you one ot the 2 people following me?
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Uh... apparently so. You're still a nooblord, but perhaps you can redeem yourself :3. xD
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Exactly.
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294450>>294504 wat?
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No idea why.
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He probably looked at too much porn and caused his brain to explode.
Sooo, I guess I'll be the first to say it. That was really awesome, and actually made me rethink who my favorite authors were, so yeah.
Also, don't make fluttershy cry.
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[youtube=lcS_zRr14ic]
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294535 dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/Fluttershy_lolface.png
294535 This. 1000% this.
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Looooooooooooooool. So much pr0n.
295496 e.deviantart.com/emoticons/moods/love/lust/unf.gif
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295704 I prefer this dance:
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Oppen Gangnam style!
AKA Open Condom Style. It sounds like that.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY SE-XY LA-DYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.
295863 Oppa Gangnam Style? NOPE. Oppa BEEP BEEP Style! HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY, SEXY RAIN-BOW! dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/Rainbow_Dash_lolface.png
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What the fu- BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
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Knifed a maximum level person on BF3. The best way to describe the ensuing cheering was 'PLAGUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU'
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What did ze expect?
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Exactly.
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Ohh, this is a nice read.
Hmm, my own prose is rather thick, and not always that simple.... Maybe I should run an experiment with really thin prose, see how that works out! (I always found thin to be harder than thick, take that as you will)
406243 I have found this to be quite true
>Hmm, my own prose is rather thick, and not always that simple.... Maybe I should run an experiment with really thin prose, see how that works out!
Do it dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/Pinkie_Pie_lolface.png
>I always found thin to be harder than thick, take that as you will
I take everything ;)
Basically...big words do not equal smartness. If anything, the ability to condense complicated shit into the layman's language is more an indicator of brains.
I added this to my blog post index.
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