The Power of Prose: Or Why I Hate the Way You Write

In case you haven’t noticed, I like writing. My foray in the art has lasted consistently since my junior year of high school, or roughly eight years if we’re rounding up.

And I really do believe it is an art. And art just so happens to be a point where my tastes happen to piss off a great deal of people — including what may or may not have been my date last weekend.

Last weekend as I explored the halls of the Getty Museum with what might have been a date (Jacob has a social life!?! *Gasp* I will neither confirm nor deny that rumor), the lovely young lady I was with asked me what art I thought was the best. I replied, “I think it’s all good. Who are we to judge what’s good and what isn’t?” And so I continue that line of thought in believing that artists had/have certain intentions with their works at all times. They don’t strive to be the best; they strive for contentment — and fail most of the time with that even. That could be why Van Gough thought his ears were a little too ancillary.

Had she asked me what my favorite type of art was, I’d probably reply something Renaissance, something with so much depth and so much life that you wonder how an artist put brush to canvas and came up with it. However, if you ask me literal questions, you oftentimes get literal answers. That could explain why the enthusiasm for a third date has seemingly diminished over the past week on her part, much to my dismay, but I digress. Life doesn’t grant me enough time to worry about that which I cannot control.

Moving on, however, that example of literal simplicity in motion does translate very well to a conception of writing which I do have an opinion. I value relative simplicity. If I were a musician, I’d be a minimalist. I’m not a fan of adverbs in excess or flowery language. The strength of prose ought to stand on the pillars of every word put to paper, er, blog. It is, perhaps, why I hated most of my writing classes in college.

Imagine a class with about 40 percent of the people of the beatnik/hipster/over-intellectual facade/what-have-you variety. Imagine most of them love adverbs and overtly artsy-fartsy language. In such a class, things weren’t burgundy; they’re the deepest shade of passion glistening in a rose pedal. Give me a break.

As an objectivist on the art scene, what in particular compels me to loathe other English majors’ works? Perhaps that’s more a philosophical question than anything else.

Yes, prose is free-form poetry without a doubt. The written word is an art — more so now than ever because most people absolutely suck at it. However, English is still a language, and languages are meant to communicate information. Not that the gobbledygook of the vivid, detailed, poetic description isn’t doing just that; it’s just that it has a time and a place. More so than that, there is an optimal level to the getting the information that needs to be conveyed out along with the creativity. And most people abuse the latter.

Sometimes, people can’t go more than a sentence with a complex simile, a whimsical metaphor to whisk readers off into an allusion, a grand allusion — no wait, the grandest of allusions. And it wouldn’t be complete without a series of commas to mention, to mention its purity, its beauty, as if the writer is running out of breath, because, after all, the topic at hand is, well, breathtaking. *Inhales deeply. Grabs inhaler before moving onto the next paragraph.*

Many African languages, for reference, do not have adverbs (They repeat the accentuated noun several times for emphasis.). Mrs. Okray, my amazing second-grade teacher, read translated African folklore to us back in the day. If anyone would know about such things, it would be her. I remember far more from the second grade than any guy should. I remember my teacher once telling me that if I pulled my lazy head out of my lazy ass, I had the potential to be the sort of person who could find a way to cure cancer. I admit I was a lazy young kid, but with her pushing and my mom’s 24 years of love and constant prodding (she wasn’t quite a tiger mom — I still can’t play a musical instrument to save my life, and I sucked at calc and AP physics in high school), I hope I can honest-to-god tell them I’m still doing something almost as cool as an automotive journalist now.

Flowery language is like anything else — best used in moderation. Camus believed flowery language was more like Charlie Sheen: Using even a small amount of it would have caused his head to explode, and his children would have wept over his dead body. But he did something I challenge every author to try: Make words speak. Make the hollowness of each short word reverberate with meaning — saying something without saying anything at all.

Face it, if your every other word is fluffed up with garbage, some people will say, “Oh, you’re so artistic. Your metaphors are so deep.” I’ll call it the crap it is, laden with excess baggage. Reading that sort of garbage for five years made me adept at spotting it. And while I never got above an A- in any of my writing classes (Note: But I did day in a Holiday Inn Express last night),  I think I have every right in criticizing it.

Running full circle with the initial point, how do I get away with saying that while I can’t and won’t criticize visual art? Simple answer: Visual art is only as cumbersome as you imagine it to be. Who are we to say whether or not it can be properly digested? Conversely, words are meant to communicate, and making it too heavy can dilute one’s attention span, if not the ability to understand them altogether. Words can have an abstract quality to them, but in the end all they are is a simple tool. Overcomplication is simply a way to taint them, to metaphorically add three switches to turn on a single light.

So leave English the way it was meant to be. That is not to say dumb it down; rather, expound upon its nuances and virtues instead of beating a dead horse with every allusion. Keep it simple, stupid.