Re: here's what you do...
Brendan McKennedy (suburbantourist@hotmail.com)
Thu, 16 Apr 1998 22:22:16 -0700 (PDT)
...I guess I'm all for writers knowing not only
>what they want to say, but understanding the medium they are expressing
>themselves in...I think you are supporting a myth which may be a muse
for
>some very talented and rare writers, but for most, I think seeking
>knowledge works better. will
I'm agreeing with Will here, and expanding:
That a would-be writer learns the tenets and nuances of his craft does
not make him a Good Writer...it does not even teach him how to Write. A
person can study music theory all his life and still never write a
simple piano melody with any skill. Certainly the composer can only
profit from a knowledge of theory--the same, I believe, is true for the
writer. Are you a fan of Bach, Scottie? He was a brilliant composer
who made beautiful music--he and Mozart, and both of them relied
entirely upon theory. Debussy relied upon theory in a completely
different way; he liked the use the chord inversions that were
specifically not allowed in his texts--but he would not have known those
inversions were it not for his training.
Am I making sense here? Is my parallel too far-fetched? I can't see
how learning your own craft could possibly hurt it. At the worst, we
end up with a lot of technically good writing reads cold and
hollow...and we have that in abundance. I still love to read.
Brendan
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