{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/2794",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 2794,
    "subject": "Some General Notes on Style",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2001-08-21T09:56:46+00:00",
    "last": "2001-08-21T09:56:46+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<urth-v0030-0653@digest.urth.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes",
        "address": "ddanehy at siebel.com"
      },
      "date": "2001-08-21T09:56:46+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Some General Notes on Style",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I don't know what to _do_ with this. It will probably turn up in\nsome form in a future book review. But I thought I'd toss it out\nfor comment.\n\nThis is, basically, an early report on something that I've been \npondering for some time and which I am beginning to formulate. \nI think I've come to the conclusion that there are at least two\nkinds of writing I call \"good\" -- or, rather, these two \"kinds\"\nprobably represent points on a spectrum, probably the points\nwhich I find most attractive.\n\nThe first is the kind represented by Wolfe, Delany, and their\nilk; the second by (most characteristically) Heinlein. There is\ngoing to be a tendency to turn my spectrum into a hierarchy, so \nlet me state up front that I am _not_ suggesting that the first\nkind is the better.\n\nAt any rate: it seems to have a lot to do with the amount and \nkind of energy required of the reader. \n\nType 1 writing requires that the reader stop, sometimes after each \nsentence, and ponder. Some sentences will be incomprehensible \nwithout this; some will have multiple levels of meaning which will \nreveal themselves only after such pondering; and some will be \ncomprehensible, or yield their full levels of meaning, only if \nyou've done such pondering about _other_ sentences in the text. (A \ngood, if unusually simple, example of this last is the final \nsentence of James Tiptree's novella \"The Women Men Don't See.\") As\na result, the reader spends a fair amount of energy in, so to speak,\nstarting and stopping.\n\nType 2 writing basically drives the reader forward. The amount of\nenergy the reader spends is, thus, characteristically less -- the\nreader is allowed (encouraged) to build up momentum and plow on\nthrough the book.\n\nYou can do things in each \"type\" that are not easily done in the\nother -- type 1 seems to allow for a great deal of subtlety which \ntype 2 would tend to undermine, while type 2 seems to allow for a \nkind of narrative energy which type 1 would tend to subvert. On the\nother hand, you can use the techniques of each type in the others:\nindeed, even a very \"type 1\" book would seem to demand that its \nmore dramatic scenes be ratcheted a few notches toward type 2, lest\ntheir impact be totally dissipated, while a type 2 book allows the\nwriter to plant little bombs of the sort Heinlein loved (frequently,\na subtle reference to his protagonist's ethnic background, as in,\nat least, STARSHIP TROOPERS, FRIDAY, and THE CAT WHO WALKS THROUGH\nWALLS).\n\n--Dan'l"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}