On writing

[UM-Bot]

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/images/newsitems/writing.jpg

Jann Burner: I think "we", as eternal consciousness visiting, inhabiting and exploring the 3d Earth plain have made an error in the way we view "writing" and especially "creative writing". For many, many years we have taught that if you learn and follow the rules of sentence structure, attend many years of school and read a lot of books that you will be able to write and the rare talented few may even be able to write really well. These rare few are often highly rewarded by their culture and become famous published authors.

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[pbarosso]

um no.

[Likely Guy]

Thank you, 'pbarraso' for your brevity and clarity of thought.

Jann, not so much.

[badeskov]

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/images/newsitems/writing.jpg

Jann Burner: I think "we", as eternal consciousness visiting, inhabiting and exploring the 3d Earth plain have made an error in the way we view "writing" and especially "creative writing". For many, many years we have taught that if you learn and follow the rules of sentence structure, attend many years of school and read a lot of books that you will be able to write and the rare talented few may even be able to write really well. These rare few are often highly rewarded by their culture and become famous published authors.

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By all means of respect, but what on Earth were you inhaling before putting together this gibberish?

Cheers,

Badeskov

[Gatofeo]

I am a writer. I've made my professional living at it since 1985, when I became a journalist.

I was born with a fascination for words, vocabulary and spelling and did well in these subjects in school.

Later, I studied journalism at a large university and worked on magazines and newspapers for 12 years

I continue to write today.

When home computers became readily available in the early 1990s, I was a reporter.

Suddenly, everyone became a writer beause they could pound away at a keyboard. Most had no sense of flow, brevity, spelling, punctuation, communication -- the elements so necessary to good writing.

The proliferation of self-proclaimed, untalented, truly awful writers began. And many of the published books over the past 25 years reflect this acceptance -- if not praise -- of mediocrity.

Good writing is innate. Good writers are born, not made.

Training can only take you so far, you must have the talent as well.

I equate good writing to sculpting. You can send anyone to the finest stone-sculpting schools in Florence to learn about marble, tools, methods, composition, etc.

But unless they have innate artistic ability, their work will be mediocre -- if not downright awful.

I can't draw or sculpt to save my life, but I write well because I was born with certain abilities to build upon.

Burner embraces the notion that proper spelling, punctuation, word-use and grammar are immaterial. Wrong! These tools allow the writer to effectively communicate with the reader. Standardization allows the reader to comprehend, unpuzzled.

The late gun writer Dean Grennell said that good writing is like running your fingers along a wire. The flow should be smooth, without a kink or knot to impede or distract.

I couldn't agree more with Grennell.

What Burner wrote has knots, kinks and breaks in the wire.

Put succinctly: Huh?

[Frank Merton]

I wonder if they have had anything published. Of course by itself that proves nothing as lots of junk gets published, but it would help to see.