Literary self-analysis

I think it's healthy to examine one's own style of expression, in writing, particularly. I've noticed that my own writing has a few key features.

I write a lot of flowery prose. This is driven in part by how I feel when I'm writing something - I want people to meander and curve through what I write, however, I feel that making a reader follow a convoluted path can sometimes choke my intended meaning. As with absolutely everything, there is a balance to be found. Reading back the last few paragraphs helps a lot.

I think this problem is compounded by the often abstract, figurative nature of what I write. It wouldn't be such a problem if I kept to describing only the literal.

I also tend to use quite a lot of big words. I do this for two reasons. Firstly, to improve precision of my writing and to reduce ambiguity. If there is a small ambiguous word and a larger unambiguous word, I'll use the larger word every time (unless it interrupts the rhythm). The same applies if I can condense a string of shorter words into a single longer word.The second reason is to add a stylistic flair to what I write. Small words are fine, but they're universally dull.

I also tend to coin neologisms on the spot. I have a goal at the start of a sentence, and if I can't find a perfect word, I'm liable to modify an existing word or hammer together two words to fit the role.

Obviously, the drive to add flair isn't enough in itself to justify twisting, prosaic passages with inaccessible vocabulary and terminology. It needs to be backed up with the need for precision and those two need to be balanced against the need for writing to be accessible and fairly concise.

When I'm writing to forward my own perspectives, I've noticed that I will often qualify what I say with 'I think', 'I feel', 'I believe', 'personally' and etcetera. This is because I know that not everyone who reads this will be a skeptical, humanist, liberal, non-theist, and I don't want to look like I'm imposing my opinions. Nonetheless, I do feel that having to qualify the things I say in this manner can interrupt the flow of what I write.

In terms of structure, I believe that I overuse the single sentence paragraph. It's done for emphasis, and for maximum effect, should be used extremely sparingly. I've noticed that whenever I want to drive a point to a conclusion, I'll mark it with a single sentence paragraph. This is a habit I should probably get out of, and I'm trying to minimise my use of single sentence paragraphs.

My paragraphs are generally over-short. I try to make sure that each of them covers a single point. Perhaps I need to expand my definition of a 'point'.

Refreshing depressing

Peter Watts is my new favourite author.

His particular brand of character-driven science fiction drives all the right themes home for me, with a tinge of realistic world-building. I could never get through H. P. Lovecraft, because his characters are almost literally cardboard cut-outs. It can't hold my interest. Watts, however, makes his characters three-dimensional, and they echo his themes.

The first novel of his I read, Blindsight, was an original take on first contact and an exploration of consciousness - concluding that consciousness is most likely worse than useless from an adaptive standpoint, and us humans are oddballs indeed for possessing something like it. It's essentially a philosophical treatise, but with a plot that manages to be non-trivial. The book is worth reading simply for his realistic treatment of vampires (yes, you heard right).

I'm now reading Starfish, which is the first of a trilogy, and I continue to be impressed. His daring is refreshing; the main characters are rapists, pedophiles and abuse victims, shoved into a cramped environment under 300 atm. of deep, dark seawater.

I also like Watts because he releases his works as free ebooks, which is fast becoming my preferred medium, not least because I have close to zero money and couldn't afford the dead tree versions anyway.