on our modern times and the art of writing
September 6th, 2009 • posts i've written
From the wikipedia article on Hunter S. Thompson,
While working, he used a typewriter to copy F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms in order to learn about the writing styles of the authors.
I had a creative writing teacher in college that made us do this. But since we had no typewriters, and only computers (and he couldn’t tell the difference between copy/paste and actual replication), he had us write down every word of a chapter or a selection onto lined notebook paper. You have no idea how helpful this is to a new author. Every sentence becomes dissected and every choice of word, of comma, and colon carefully studied; and comparing Hemingway to Faulkner to Fitzgerald in this way is extremely powerful. You’re studying the brush strokes of our new Victorian masters.
These days the remixing of different works is itself a new art form, and while I have nothing but respect and awe for the talent there; I do wonder if copy/paste is too simple or too easy. Stringing words together in an intelligible and moving way will always remain a valuable skill and the study of it a worthwhile endeavor.
My professor used to also tell us the story of an author whose name has escaped me over the years, but the story goes that he would hang up all of the typed pages of his manuscript on the walls of his study, and then use a telescope from an adjoining room to move from word to single word to edit himself. I’d love to see that function built into Word or Pages.
I’m not often an old man sitting on his porch screaming at the neighbor kids to get off his lawn, but in this, I am a luddite. Any thoughts of your own on the subject?
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3 Responses (add your comment)
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Joca Melo September 7, 2009at 5:44 pm
I had no teacher doing that to me. My mother language is portuguese. But I use to do that with some brasilian or portuguese autors.
I’ve heard that story too. I Might have red it in a Gabriel Garcia Marques about the work of writing. In portuguese COMO CONTAR UM CONTO. In spanish, COMO SE CUENTA UN CUENTO.
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Thoughtful stuff, Bud. That’s a terrific anecdote and insight.
As an English major in college, I had a non-fiction writing prof who did something a half-bubble off from what you’re describing: He had us write essays in the style and vocab of various authors when we were studying New Journalism–so Thompson was one of them, along with Wolfe etc. You’re not at all a cranky old man shaking his fist–it’s a tradition that has incredible value and is worth talking about and perpetuating.
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I love this. I have been a big fan of HST for a long time and have always pondered how replicating one of his classics word-for-word would help my own writing. I don’t believe it’s antiquated or Luddite-like to believe in attention to detail. While I am working hard at staying on the leading edge of social media/blogging/microblogging, I still keep a sharp eye on the art of writing. And when I say writing, I mean crafting a piece of work that people can dig into over time, not over coffee break. Long live the novel, even if it is on a Kindle!
Great post Bud. Mike