I can whip you up a hell of a fight scene and I won't need some fucking metaphor for that. Like sure I could start trying to impress you with my ability to make one thing seem like another but will you really care that I described the sun like it was a tangerine? If anything, you ought to be skeptical of my attempts to confuse the way you order your thoughts. It starts with street lights being will o' the wisps, and ends with you trying to eat your partner's lips because you heard me describe them as "ripe."
Instead, how about some cool fucking swords? Laser swords. Swords made of ice. How about a big ass sword with navigator stars all over it that you can shoot at anyone who manages to deflect the sword part, which is itself practically impossible because it's also an interdimensional sword that cuts only the flesh of narcissists? Writing is about coming up with the best swords, not prose. Publishers will be looking for your sword descriptions, so if you are serious about this whole writing thing you WILL cut it out with the prose and you WILL cut it IN with a cool angstrom-fiber blade.
I'm always impressed if an author can write an action scene that isn't boring as fuck. Joe Abercrombie can do it rather well. Most authors avoid them all together because it's notoriously hard to do.
I quite like Sanderson's, even though his prose is workmanlike at best.
Stackpole writes either amazing action scenes or terrible ones, depending on how you like his excruciatingly detailed descriptions of machinery blowing up.
It's funny just how contentious stackpoling is in the Battletech fandom.
Also depends on how much you enjoy the acrid smell of smoke and the rivulets of molten metal
The pizza delivery scene in Snowcrash is pretty impressive. Stephenson kind of irks me because he likes to let you know he's a pretty smart guy.
Some more authors who write violence particularly well - Jin Yong, Chester Himes, Lee Child
:maduro-katana-1::maduro-katana-2: "Your literary metaphors are no match for my badass sword. I shall strike you down with the power of something that is really good at striking things down. That something is, of course, this sword."
To my understanding, prose is just writing that doesn't have meter/isn't poetry.
Everything you described is prose writing.
This is correct. Seems more like he's got an issue with the excessively flowery writing known as "purple prose", but from the tone of the post he might consider that to be anything not involving swords, which I mean you have to respect tbf
Yeah, I was under the impression that prose tended to use fewer metaphors and less subtext because it's literally writing which is more similar in style to an essay than a poem. But I haven't thought about this since high school.
Blah blah blah where are the SWORDS Mister Crisp?
(He's right but I am unreasonably entertained by my own anti-prose shitposting bit right now)
The best book has 4 things: swords, adjectives to describe them, and the noises they make. Throw in some dialogue to keep the pedestrians interested. Observe:
The big sword: WOOSH. WOOSH. THUD. The small glowing sword: shwink, shwink, swswswiff--hummmm "This should be............interesting." Both swords: CLANG! click-CLANG! SHWING-ING-ing-ingggg.....
All I'm saying is put that alongside 100 years of solitude and it's clear which is the better read.
An Unfortunate Encounter on Monkey Island
A dairy farmer my opponent be
Though bovine claims he are my martial skills
Though simian his manners to a T
So he rejoinders are my Family's willsA dog, say I! is smarter than my foe!
And thrust my blade into his sneering eyes
Yet he shouts this, it taught me all I know
And from that riposte my courage fliesA blackguard I hear him, and doomed to fall
A sneak who is to all beneath contempt!
He says that naught is heard of me at all
And from this stern defeat I have now wept.An error grave, a shame I seek to hush
That fateful hour, I thought to duel Guybrush.
I've complained about this to friends before. Tbf I think prose in his recent books is pretty good, but I went back to reread some of his early stuff a couple years ago and it's bad enough to be actively distracting. Overuse of a lot of weird words like "maladroitly", dialogue where every second paragraph has a character shrugging or raising an eyebrow or something else people don't actually do in conversation, really stiff and unnatural descriptions etc., it gets really annoying
Well, the pen is mightier than the sword. So if you write a sword :thinking-about-it:
You're proposing, basically, the "who would win a fight between X and Y" forum fad and all its consequent power creep and oneupmanship and turning it into a book series.
... What sucks is that might really, really pay off with a sufficiently bazinga audience. :so-true:
Sounds cool but I bet nobody in it holds their sword backwards in a very cool and intelligent reverse grip
What you write about > How you write about it
If I understand correctly
Yes as long as the "about" is a sword that you hold level with your opponent while saying "Care to find out?". The sword should also hum or "keen" while you do this, but if it keens like anything the scene is ruined
I've been reading Proust over the course of the year, and I have to disagree. Some of the descriptive stuff is just absolutely gorgeous, and he has an incredible way of using hard science metaphors to explain human feelings and social messiness. Maybe it's just because I have synesthesia though and tend to experience some of this stuff visually in the first place.
In an action scene? Nah just get right to the punch. I don't read a huge amount of action though.
