Yzabel / November 22, 2005

I’m currently reading The Cobra Event by Richard Preston, and in all honesty… I think someone should fire his editor. Quickly.You see, it’s not always easy, as a person whose mother tongue isn’t English, to appreciate one’s style. What is “good”? What is “bad”? Am I entitled to have an opinion about the quality of one’s writing style, or should I just shut up, since I can’t possibly be knowledgeable enough? Often, I’ve been wondering about that. I’ve been studying English from the age of 11 up to 20, went through three years of intensive lessons in high-school due to the program I was in, and after this, I’ve practiced daily thanks to my use of the Web and reading books (along with chatting with pals through Skype). If I don’t have the right to voice an opinion, I don’t know what it takes.Anyway, this book. The story is mildly interesting, but the style makes me cringe at every page, not to say paragraph. “He went off to slide down the slide.” Even in my deepest sleep-deprivated state, I doubt I’d be able to write a novel filled with this kind of sentences, and let me tell you, the only times I’ve seen that much second-person used is in technical documentations, never in novels. I don’t like being addressed when I’m reading. It reminds me way too much that I’m outside of the story, which tends to kills my enjoyment. For those who haven’t read it, another annoying detail is that the author regularly switches to present tense to explain the use and function of the tools and procedures he describes; although it is interesting, it’s also pretty disturbing, and I’m sure it could be explained in a more flowing way.To be honest, at times, I think that even my first crappy draft of a NaNovel isn’t worse, in terms of style, than that.Now, what I need to do is to learn to recognize good writing. Bad is easy enough, it jumps in my eyes all the time. Good writing seems to be more seldom available, more elusive—compared to “average, normal writing”, that is. I’ll be open to every piece of advice regarding books to read, books that are considered like examples of what a good use of modern English is. I refuse to believe that a crappy style is the current prerequisite to get a publisher and reach a large enough public. Or is it? I do hope there’s a limit to “simple enough language”, because if there isn’t, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to compromise myself to write drivel just to sell a few more copies.quality, style, writing