Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 1391. page
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![[Cartoon] [Metalocalypse] Astute Observation.png](https://i.imgur.com/zcWhf7m.png "[Cartoon] [Metalocalypse] Astute Observation.png")
What are some bits of writing advice/knowledge/etc. you've heard or read that changed the way you look at writing?
This bit from Ray Bradbury's "Zen In the Art of Writing" changed the way I look at paragraphs:
>I've been lecturing at the University of Southern California cinema department for twenty-two years—I go down there a couple of times a year—and various students have come up to me and said, "Can we make films of your short stories?" I say, "Sure, take them. Do it. But there's one restriction...
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My question is whether that was actually a joke about adapting books into film. Whereas one reader may picture a scene as a close up, another will picture a long shot. Essentially, there is an interactive element to reading that would be lost in a film.
George Orwell said something along the lines of 'If you can cut a word, do it.' I think this is generally true. Makes the writing flow better and feel less bloated.
>>7502365
>George Orwell said 'If you can cut a word, do it.' The writing flows concisely.
Did I do it right
Hello, /lit/, this is my first time posting here and I come in need of insight.
I'm a native portuguese speaker, and, while I am able to understand english pretty well, I am having trouble understanding a rather elusive passage by Lord Dunsany.
It's in the Distressing tale of Thangobrind the jeweller, in the passage that tells the fate of Thangobrind. It's been bugging me for a long time, and, though I enjoy very much the tale, the end just doesn't ring any bells to me. The passage reads:
And there carried Thangobrind the jeweller away...
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I think he is slain in battle, and he's taken to the house "of night" i e judged in the afterlife, after the old woman sounds his death knell
>>7502001
Thanks for yout insight. Yes, it's what I always thought. But there seems to be more to it than that. I should have probably mentioned that the pic is a representation of the tale made by Sidney Sime, Dunsany's collaborator. In it you can see the "house where the two men hang". Also, the hook is mentioned earlier in the tale, and the left-hand thing left me completely wondering.
I mean, I doubt this is what you're asking, but "those" is the subject. That could be tricky for a non-native speaker.
Those [men] whose duty it was to carry away guys like Thangobrind, indeed carried him away to the house where the two men hang.. They switched Thangobrind for the hanging man on the left of the two. The doom that Thangobrind had feared fell on him.
But I don't understand "as all men know though it is so long since." Or what the two men represent.
What books will my brothers in Christ be reading this Christmas Eve?
I'll be rereading Luke by the fireplace.
Merry Christmas, friends
I'll be reading corinthians.
>>7501926
Good choice. Merry Christmas!
Plato's Laws.
Why aren't you learning Sanskrit yet, /lit/ ?
Do you even like literature ? Don't you care about your Indo-European heritage ?
it's on my list. after russian.
i've been told the Aṣṭādhyāyī, the grammar thing, is amazing
>>7501181
What methodology do you plan on using for starting learning Sanskrit ?
>>7501197
i have a system. i just find a hopefully interesting professor willing to teach 1 on 1, then I relocate to where they live and study or work nearby for a couple years.
Where do you even go for literary analyses? Like if you're reading a classic novel, and want to explore further what it means and stuff like that. I want to read really mind blowing essays that makes me think of the work or literature in general in a new light. All I can find online are sparknotes sites, which are okay but not the most enlightening, and youtube is useless for literary shit.
scholar.google.com
>>7500975
jstor
>>7500975
I sincerely hate everyone who enjoys this piece of shit show. I want to pour glue into these two faggots' mouth and keep punching their stupid face untill all of their teeth falls out like two fists and shove those far up their asses.
What are some indications that one's writing is weak?
>begins every sentence with "I"
The structure is repetitive. How do they do it? Do they think it won't be noticed? It's like each sentence is the same. It really frustrates me, then they think a single comma will resolve the situation.
Guys, I'm writing a story, but I feel like it's more of a script.
There's quite a bit of dialogue, about 10 lines of dialogue on each page, and some pages are entirely dialogue.
How much dialogue is too much dialogue?
What can I do to break up the dialogue? I try to add it as many actions that the characters are doing, but there's only so much I can add. And I'm not so good with being over-descriptive.
>>7501192
eh, just make it a straight up script, then send it to hollywood or something. You'll probably be much more successful doing that then going into writing books.
Christmas Eve /lit/, whatre you gonna be reading to escape your broken family life.
Pic related
>people call calvino one of the greatest writers of all time
>always writes semi-boring short stories with little gimmicks
>wouldn't be fit to shine the shoe of Borges in terms of speculative fiction
I'll be reading Mervyn Peake's gormenghast novels
>>7500568
He's not as good as Borges, but his shit is imaginative and easy to read, which is good for that childhood, nostalgic longing during the holidays. Some stories in Invisible Cities were even kinda provocative, but /lit/ does love him more than it should.
>>7500580
>his shit is imaginative
sample please
In the next few weeks Im going to start my first adult 9-5 job out of college. How does one balance reading a high volumes of books per month with a full time job and a social life?
Schedule
>>7500556
Im pretty decent at time management but holy shit is my time going to be limited now
>reading
>working
>socializing
pick two
![frans-hals-descartes[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/gGMxE71.jpg "frans-hals-descartes[1].jpg")
Descartes was wrong.
The only thing that is certain isn't thinking it's experiencing.
Discuss this ground-breaking revolution in the canon of philosophy.
Hegel thought that first.
I Think Therefore I am Already Wrong was the title of an essay I wrote critiquing him last month.
>>7500361
What was your critique?
I also wrote a 800 word essay in under an hour and I probably fucked it up hard last week.
>mfw I realized that Socrates was describing a fascist states in The Republic
>>7499985
>aristocracy
>fascist
lad...
>>7499987
The first book after Justice is going on about how important censorship
>>7499991
>withholding knowledge
>fascist
>necessarily a bad thing
So according to modern standards, poetry doesn't have to rhyme. Poetry doesn't have to have regular meter. Poetry doesn't even have to be arranged in verse (see prose poetry).
What the fuck is poetry, then? How are we to distinguish it from the other written arts?
poetry is when
you have line breaks
like this
poetry is when
you cut the flow of a regular
sentence
by adding
line
breaks
I am awash in blood and pain
tearing
shattering
black roses are strewn in my path
i write in inks of doom
the normals all hate me for they are fools
i cry even as i write
could i find a lonelier place to be
intoxicated with blood
no solace for the unforgiven
i will show the world one day
endless life in the darkness
what are the best books on (non greco-roman) mythology?
Bumping for infinite interest. Can you tell us a little about picrelated OP?
>>7498323
Start with the Mesopotamians
>>7499132
Yes. This. You boutta learn where the bible got the idea for a big ass flood. (along with plenty of other neolithic founding tropes)
What are the essential works of Art History?
I would also take recommendations on biographies of particularly influential artists.
Also what is your favorite work of art?
>brb revolution
>>7496431
Patrician as hell tƅh.
>tfw can't enjoy your healing bath because of damn anti-revolutionaries
>>7496312
Giorgio Vasari's "Lives of the Artists." It's the source of most of our knowledge on DaVinci.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT4L4LxNBvI
are there any other god tier book tuber?
pic unrelated
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNJ4UTo1yCE
>>7497134
How can one read so many books and not one of them look interesting
For OP, you are probably aware of better than food book reviews.
There was once, before anons ruined her.
I just finished this book and thought it was going to be somewhat of a let down just because of how often I see an image of the cover posted on here. I wasn't sure if it was a joke or not. I'm not joking. I legitimately thought /lit/ might be talking about it ironically because I hadn't ever really heard it mentioned by any of my fellow literature majors at college and it's never been on a syllabus or discussed by a professor. I was wrong.
I need to talk about this with people because it made me feel more emotion than any other book. I wish there were...
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blaze it
dab it 710
D
