coaltide | One Wank After Another

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2025

One Wank After Another

A blank assignment is a funny thing, isn't it? When you have it, you don't appreciate it, and when you miss it, it's gone.

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Not to be old woman yelling at cloud, but that's just punctuation. Stylistic writing quirks?? We need to stop being so worried about everything being "something".

It's fine. Feast on 'em. No rules.

+1

From another old woman yelling at cloud: Distinctive writing styles in fiction are good. "Prose should be invisible" my ass. It's fiction, not a user manual.

+0.5

I think, like all writing advice, "Prose should be invisible" has a valid kernel to it but is constantly applied more broadly.

Prose shouldn't get in the way of the story, but like looking at a series of paintings by the same artist, it doesn't at all mean that it needs to feel the same as prose by another author. Maybe one artist draws cats entirely in shades of blue, but you can still recognize that they're supposed to be cats, and after the initial "Oh that's a strange color for cats to be painted in", your brain adjusts and the stylistic oddity is no longer an obstacle to immersion.

OC

So I majored in literature, and the worst time I had in college was reading and presenting an article about The Theory of Modern Drama, which was all about this stuff. Form and content, basically.

It literally made me cry in frustration at how difficult it made something very simple: Sometimes form and content are variations of the same thing.

Like, the style is the story. If the style distracts every reader from the story in such a way that they cannot enjoy it, and this was not the author's intent, then it's bad writing. But how often does that happen?

TL;DR: 90% of this is preference.

+2

I've opened so many books in the last year or two just to check the first page and see if I had any interest and at all, and the prose was such total nothing that I couldn't. (And also in first person about 98% of the time, which I also don't want.)

"Prose should be invisible" what the
that's the
that's the fucking words

It's the difference between looking through a large clear pane of glass and looking through a dirty window or intricate stained glass when what you came to see is on the other side.

DA: This is such a depressing POV. There's nothing on the other side of the window that prose doesn't create.

If that were true translation and abridging would be impossible.

I'm sorry you can't handle anything more complex than See Spot Run.

I'm sorry you're incapable of grasping that a story told in other words still has value.

Okay, then it's difference between looking at a painting and a payntin covverred ina mud or only occasionally visible between the gossamer fronds of ostentatiously shimmery ferns. To be fair, I don't think there's anything actually wrong with a distinctive writing style. Lots of people have one and it works perfectly fine. But if I am paying more attention to the *structure* of *your* prose than the *contents* of your *story*, you done fucked up. That's what "prose should be invisible" people mean when they say that, not "you can't have style at all". (Some people are actually saying the latter, but those people are dipshits. Also, the asterisks make no sense. Why did I emphasise "your"? Are you thinking about the intent of the sentence or about that?)

I just thought you *were* writing in *te's* style.

Boy that dates me, doesn't it.

Sure does but it gave me flashbacks so win some kill some

I *first* encountered *Te* in DC comics fandom and I *thought* it was really *interesting* and *cool* how they'd chosen to *mimic* the weird way *classic* superhero comics used *emphasis* in *dialogue*.

...then I read some of their stuff in other fandoms

NC

I still have fond memories of their writing, quirks and all.

Re: Your stylistic quirks too precious to give up

(Anonymous) - 2025-10-31 18:57 (UTC) - Expand

It's the difference between looking at a *painting* or looking at the *brush strokes* and going "oh, those are some weird strokes, what's that supposed to be?" except if you want to make some statement out of it like "brush strokes should he invisible" you'd be a *cretin*.

I mean... if the painting is supposed to be photorealist, "the brush strokes should be invisible" would be a perfectly reasonable thing to say. As opposed to an Impressionist exhibition where it would be incredibly stupid.

That said, the vast majority of paintings before the Impressionist era were done in styles that intended to make the brush strokes as invisible as possible, the idea for most of the history of painting was to create an image where most people didn't notice the limits of the medium, so someone talking about how it's ridiculous for anyone to think any painting wouldn't have obvious brush strokes also sounds kind of stupid.

Well, yes, if you thought paintings of the 18th century were the apex of art and what people strived to achieve through most of history, I can see why you'd hold similar beliefs about invisible prose.

Re: Your stylistic quirks too precious to give up

(Anonymous) - 2025-10-31 19:41 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Your stylistic quirks too precious to give up

(Anonymous) - 2025-10-31 19:54 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Your stylistic quirks too precious to give up

(Anonymous) - 2025-10-31 20:02 (UTC) - Expand

Re: Your stylistic quirks too precious to give up

(Anonymous) - 2025-10-31 20:17 (UTC) - Expand

coalie, please go look at some paintings sometime up close instead of in a book or on the internet. For fuck sakes.

Re: Your stylistic quirks too precious to give up

(Anonymous) - 2025-11-02 03:20 (UTC) - Expand

what if i like stained glass

are you writing for you

DC

So what? Like that's invalid or something? Sure, in Yuletide specifically, you're writing for another person, but you can still be interally motivated. The only reason using a specific style would be shitty in Yuletide is if your recipient DNWed that style.

That's kinda the point of the metaphor? Some people are in it for the stained glass, some people would rather have a clear view of the story. Neither of you are wrong. (Although if the story behind the the glass is already dull and foggy...the fancy glass won't look great either.)

However if you're writing a gift fic you should probably do your best to only write stained glass for people who like it. (My canon is 100% stained glass, my recip better be ready for some nice purple jewel tones.)

+2

Conversely, there's no punctuation other than full stops where I'd be that thrown off if someone doesn't want them. One long unpunctuated sentence is probably my line.

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