Intuition...

[fajrdrako]

I read a phrase this morning that I thought intersting.

It was by writer Steven Berlin Johnson, and he said: "...it lets me see something statistically that I've thought a great deal about intuitively as a writer".

Isn't that a paradox? If you've thought a great deal about something, it isn't intuitive? Or conversely, if it's intuitive, a great deal of thought isn't appplicable?

Anyway, it's an interesting essay: about how writers have typical word and sentences lengths with which they are comfortable. Interesting thought. I'm not sure I'm comfortable thinking about my own ratios. Makes me too self-conscious.

Comments

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

Good point. Maybe "qualitatively" would have expressed what he wanted to say better. But I suppose he could have thought a lot, and felt that some things were so because they "felt right".

I think we tend to use "intuition" both for built-in reflexes and for the results of subconscious data processing, of which we apparently have quite a bit.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I think I understand what he meant - that he'd put a lot of thought into it, and though he couldn't necessarily articulate the answer in words or in coherent logic, there was an artistic satisfaction to what he felt intuitively was 'right'.

The psychology of how we write, and what goes into a particular writer's style, fascinates me. Why do I find some writers unreadable, and others fascinating? How much of it is in the work, how much in me, how much in the talent of the author - or their personality?

I think we tend to use "intuition" both for built-in reflexes and for the results of subconscious data processing, of which we apparently have quite a bit.

Yes, I would use it for either of those things.

p. s.

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

p.s. - thanks for the link. Have bookmarked it and sent it to DW.

Re: p. s.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Excellent!

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

A style I could not stand as a reader:

I could not read Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald because it's all one paragraph continued over hundreds of pages. It drove me crazy not to have paragraph & chapter breaks.

I don't much like Henry James' dense, long paragraphs, either.

As a writer, myself, I tend to write longer sentences -- and then break them up on revision.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It drove me crazy not to have paragraph & chapter breaks.

This is one of my problems with Penguin translations. Reading the Lais of Marie de France, for example, my most recent pick, longs passages including multiple conversations are not broken up into paragraphs. Marie herself was writing in rhyme - she didn't need to use paragraphs. But the translation is prose. Why not use paragraphing?

I also dislike Henry James, and writers with long, dense paragraphs.

This is why I find Livy's Histories difficult.

I often write long, convoluted sentences filled with paragraphs, commas, and dashes, but that's what makes revision a wonderful thing.

[filkferengi]

I tend to have compound sentences with frequent semicolons. This is an improvement; decades ago, I used to write page-long sentences with multiple layers of parentheses [which I always remembered to close off]. Apparently, my youthful writing style was German. ;)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Well, personally, I have no problems at all with semi-colons. I love 'em. I think they should be treated with much more respect than they get. I thnk everyone should use them. I also like liberal use of commas, serial and otherwise.

Brackets? I feel some shame and embarrassment about my use of brackets. They are so seductive. It's so easy to use serial parentheses in the same (overlong) sentence or (interminable) paragraph. But it's only really a problem when I myself get lost in the labyrinth and can't get back to the original point of the sentence.

This of course is why editing was invented.