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Free writing vs Grammatical writing
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Mehreen
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May 31, 2016 07:20PM
Free writing has been around since the turn of the 20th century. How literary do you think free writing is compared to grammatical writing? Should it be endorsed as a convention?
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I think free writing is an excellent way for writers to unearth the often inaccessible components of what it is they wish to convey and can serve as an associative prop, if you will. The freedom from conventional writing rules can unburden the imagination and give shape and substance to ideas and themes the writer can then expound upon with more care and structure. I don't believe, however, that free writing should be foisted upon the reading public as a finished product - at least not without a strong disclaimer notifying them of what it is they are going to be dealing with. I think this is especially true for indies, who are under no stringent guidelines when it comes to editing their own work. Each indie author edits his or her work to the extent they feel adequate and the result can often be a product that lacks professionalism.
In conveying abstract thinking particularly, I do believe that free writing is an effective technique. However, the literary community must accept it as such. More so for indie writers, as they enjoy a kind of creative freedom that most traditional writers don't. To the effect, stream of consciousness becomes paramount.
I agree and I do believe there is an important place for it and its use. It is even helpful for non-fiction writers. I think of it as a tool in the writer's arsenal - a way to hone the craft.
Honing the craft - the more opaque, the better to view and represent the subconscious of the mind.
Mehreen wrote: "Honing the craft - the more opaque, the better to view and represent the subconscious of the mind."free writing as in writing down whatever comes to mind in that writing session and trying to maintain a continuous & contiguous output for that entire session. as opposed to "stream of consciousness" which is a narrative technique and it is structured and edited but it imitates an interior mode of thinking; whereas, free writing--in my definition--is without conscious molding and post-editing.
Equivalent to removing a gift from its packaging, imo.
@Alex They are dissimilar, yet quite not. Ulysses and The waves are both written in SOC style. However, to me Ulysses reads more like free writing than The Waves. Easily distinguishable but categorised as SOC just the same.
Kerouac is a great example with his jazz skat style that feels literary/considered. Poetic, as per Ulysses. And something a lot more fragmented you can see in the kinetic eye parts of John Dos Pasos' USA, which uses free writing to suggest the freneticism of modern city life. I think it's a great in smaller doses, even in straight prose. I recently used it to describe the aftermath of a bombing.
That right James. I used stream of consciousness technique in my book, Moirae. However, I do believe that Free writing can filter through stream of consciousness technique sometimes.
On the Road is another example undoubtedly.
The thread brings association (if I use SOC for a sec -:)) with the discussion about using plain language in law and simplifying legal language in general. There are movements promoting this direction and it has some appeal. I mean why laymen shouldn't be able to understand laws that are presumed to be known and apply to their lives? I mean can a regular person understand a tax code of his country? It's easier to decipher hieroglyphs.I haven't read The Ulysses nor The Waves, but I've started reading Moirae. Reminds me a videoclip as compared to a movie. It definitely succeeds in delivering thoughts, messages, situations, so it's quite an interesting technique and surely may have a broad application even within the standard 'grammatical' books, especially to stress situs of confusion or involving strong emotions.
I guess it depends on what you mean by free writing. For me, the rules of grammar are there for one major reason: to remove ambiguity. It also conveys mood, when properly used, although how many now use the subjunctive properly is an interesting question. Grammar is also changing. Compare the original Fowler with the modern one.
