Most articles and opinion pieces on the art of storytelling sye on thing to modern writers; plot. The focus these days is always on a fast-paced, gripping read that will catch the attention of modern, busy people. Description is cut to a minimum, action and plot are made as fast-paced as possible to pack the book full of thrills.
But does this mean that epic storytelling - the use of language as thing of beauty or an art in itself - is dead? Writers from Homer to Tolkein used beautiful descriptive passages, took time to delve deep into their characters' thoughts and feelings, and used a style of slower storytelling and depiction of scenes which I personally find much more powerful than modern fast thriller novels. However, publishers these days apparently mostly just don't even look at descriptive storytelling.
So what do you think? Do you like books with strong descriptive elements, or do you think that more writing than the plot needs is a fundamentally unnecessary feature in a book?
It is most definitely not,
Conn Iggulden does brilliant work with history
China Mieville has the most immersive set of books I have ever read (yes I have read LotR)
In short, these modern 'popular' books suck. :barf:
is Discworld included under this as they are all quite short but still recent
I haven't read Iggulden or Mieville. What are thier books like?
I haven't read them either.
I will challenge that statement with my book that i'm planning to write after College, called The Young Folks (Title Pending, feel free to make a suggestion). I have a MASSIVE vocabulary, and I like to be very descriptive and eloquent in my speech and text, so it may turn out quite good.
^Ditto. My book's called Fire and Water.
Trouble is, will we be able to find a publisher? :ermm:
I found this. (http://publishersglobal.com/directory/publisher.asp?publisherid=3446)
Yea, AFAIK the best thing is to send it to lots of people in the hope some of them might want it.
My writing style tends to be slower-paced (except when constrained by word limits) and strongly descriptive, so I definitely agree that is better than the modern norm. :P
Yep, same as Andalus. By the way, a good read if you're looking for something is Naomi Novik's Temeraire books. I find she writes in the same style as Tolkien did.
http://www.temeraire.org/index.cgi?pagetype=writing&series=Temeraire (http://www.temeraire.org/index.cgi?pagetype=writing&series=Temeraire)
Really good read.