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Stories

Stories are how we sense reality. And, literature tells stories (fictional or otherwise) which let us travel in experience and thus life itself.

  • Words are fictional constructs to communicate whatever we think, feel or dream, even if approximately so.
  • They can also utterly confound us if we hop on the wrong ones while playing across language games.

Writing

  • Writing involves binding structure and chaos into music.
  • Good writing = good composition
    • Just the right amount of stickyness in the composition
    • Rich enough to let you experience and feel another character and reality
    • Provides an exploratory platform for philosophical thinking, shaping or destroying or questioning ideologies
    • Entertains as well as makes you wonder and awe (over emotions, values etc.)
  • What separates good from great?
    • Verifiable yet ellusive.
    • It must have aura.
    • "Great art" is transformative?
    • Outlasts? Universal theme?
    • Influential on downstream work? Innovative in some fashion?

This sentence has five words. Here are five more words.
Five word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous.

Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring.
The sound of it drones. It's like a stuck record.
The ear demands some variety.

Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music.
Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony.
I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length.

And sometimes when I am certain the reader is rested,
I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length,
a sentence that burns with energy and
builds with all the impetus of a crescendo,
the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals—
sounds that say listen to this, it is important."

So write with a combination of short, medium, and long sentences. Create a sound that pleases the reader's ear. Don't just write words. Write music.

References

  1. What is literature?
  2. What is literature for?
  3. Write Music by Gary Provost
  4. Philosophy through fiction
  5. A Novelist’s Tips for Writing Philosophical Fiction
  6. Plot as argument, argument as plot
  7. Philosophy and the Literary Medium: The Existentialist Predicament by Kleppner
  8. What Makes a Great Book? with Sir Jonathan Bate, Roosevelt Montas, Catherine Zuckert, & Michael Fink
  9. Why read the classics?