Why Brevity is the Soul of Wit | Responding to THE Devil's Advocate

There has been a long-running debate among writers between how to best write prose. Simplifying a little, it can be broadly characterized as a division between those who argue for minimalism and those who argue for more ornate prose. Both sides have been derided—the former as "beige" or "dry," the latter as "purple." But I would say that minimalism is probably the most common form of writing, if only because it is easier. As a result of this, the debate almost always takes the form of someone like myself criticizing Sanderson for his prose, and a fan of his replying that his prose doesn't need to be ornate or poetic to be good. In other words, I usually find myself on the snotty "ornate" side of the debate. But I recently came across a few videos that seem to embody the literal caricature presented by the simple prose side, and I find myself on the other side of the argument. Now I want "minimalist" prose. Obviously, the division between minimal prose and ornate prose is grey, but I think there is more to this.

How to account for this? I think we can construct two dimensions to prose that account for this shift. The first would be how poetic the prose is. The second would be how complex the prose is. The logical consequence of placing these things on different dimensions is that they cut across one another, like in an x-y coordinate system. Four categories result: complex poetic prose, complex unpoetic prose, simple poetic prose, and simple unpoetic prose.

The traditional assumption is that poetic prose is complex, and unpoetic prose is simple—but I don't think that at all. Poetic means that the text has rhythm, that there is a recognizable flow to how it sounds. Complexity refers to the amount of working parts in the text. Alongside this, I think that text has different aspects to it: syntax and diction. So, when talking about a certain text’s poetic content or when talking about its complexity, it is important to distinguish syntax from diction. Going back to complexity, syntax can be complex and diction can be complex, and these are separate things.

Some examples for the four? R. Scott Bakker is complex and poetic, especially by the end. Phillip Roth is complex and unpoetic. Susanna Clarke is simple and poetic; Chuck Palaniuk is another one. For simple and unpoetic, take your pick: just read any generic mystery, romance, or horror that gets churned out every six months.

I think this distinction explains some of the problems that these debates fall into when the two sides argue against one another. I would argue that Sanderson has simple unpoetic prose. Maybe I wouldn't use those words, but the point is made. Fans would critique me by bringing up complex poetic prose or even complex unpoetic prose (again, not using those words), arguing that it is either unnecessary or bad in its own way, respectively. In the opposite direction, as we will see, when arguing for "ornate" or "beautiful" prose, advocates will argue for complex poetic prose (as before, not using that exact terminology), and cast criticism as simple and unpoetic.

Joseph V. Logsdon

Logsdon posted a couple videos in the past few days about ornate writing. The first video was about how purple prose was ruining fiction. However, it was a devil's advocate video. The second half rebutted the premise. He followed it up the next day with a video that argued in the opposite direction. In other words, he is a firm advocate for "ornate" and "beautiful" prose, as he describes it. Before we even begin to unpack his views on the subject, I think we should start by reading a quote from his own book. This is quite emblematic of how he approaches writing. He reads it in his own video as well, but I want the quote up front and center:

"Memories never truly die; they simply sail on the lusters of our tears. They are like sonorous susurrations in the mesmeric gales of eternity, through which all sentient ecstasies evanesce into penumbral welkins. The most poignant of redolences whisper and harmonize, beholden to the ornate fevers that zestfully beautified them with remembrance, but just as the sun must acquiesce to the despondency of the moon, so must the raptures of the spirit fade into the orchards of phantom ruminations. Like melancholy nectars of wistful rain, my thoughts became blind to the luminescent caresses of my past. They found refuge upon the surface of a cross, the pious treasure that bedimmed summer's kiss. No longer two distinct entities, the cross and my conscience melded together, forever entangled in the vespers of my dreams. Lost in a sea of misbegotten sophistry, my specter embraced the piety of dawn, like a loquacious sonnet bleeding over into a prosaic soliloquy. I endured, regardless of how many tears fell from the stars."

Now we can move on to the video. I will share clips of him talking about his perspective, alongside the timestamps, if you want to see the wider context.

In the following clip, this is a steelman position that he puts forward for the minimalist approach:

0:23-0:53

He states that beautiful writing must be true. Abstractions, by extension, "boggle down" the writing and end up obscuring the truth, and the beauty, by extension. Shortly after, he specified that writing should be "effortless" and "invisible." After he goes on to read the previously quoted excerpt from his own book, he makes a distinction between "concrete" and "abstract," with the assertion that there must be something concrete to grasp onto.

To be clear, this is not his position. This is the steelman that he has put forward for minimalism.

After he reveals that he was playing devil's advocate, he goes on to put forward his rebuttal:

6:38-7:24

The key point to draw from this is the claim that truth is more than simply propositional. Logsdon makes a distinction between statements about the world and poetic truths. Poetic truth "is meant to be felt and interpreted." The point about interpretation is to claim that there can be multiple interpretations to the text. He builds on that point here after going through the excerpt I provided:

11:23-11:42

And this is the general idea. There are poetic truths that are emotional, and they allow for multiple interpretations.

In his follow-up video, he brings up a quote from a Stephen King novel. He uses this to illustrate minimalism's lacking in contrast to his more ornate writing. The King quote simply relied on propositional truth. He was just delivering the facts of what was happening. More ornate writing gives the reader access to poetic truth, in contrast.

Response

Abstract?

Logsdon connects poetic prose with feeling, and the logic seems to be that these more abstract elements in his text are a way in which you link the reader to their emotions. The problem with this is that we should question how the text is abstract. Which elements are making that contribution? Is it the diction? Many of the ten dollar words that Logsdon uses in the quote provided are not necessarily abstract. Abstract means that the thing in question "exists" as an idea or a concept. If I wrote a passage about how democracy is justified or unjustified given certain principles, then that would be an example of something that is abstract. But let's look at some of the words he uses:

"Sonorous," which is an adjective describing an imposingly deep and full voice/sound. That is not abstract. That is quite specific and concrete. "Susurration," which is a noun for a soft sound. Also not abstract. It is quite specific and concrete. "Mesmeric," which is an adjective describing something as transfixing. I would not call this abstract, either. I have a clear picture of someone being mesmerized in my head, by something else. "'His mesmeric eyes." You can go through the passage yourself. In each case, you will find that the word is not necessarily abstract; it is not talking about ideas and concepts.

What is the best way to characterize these words, then?

They are big words. Ten dollar words. They are words you need a dictionary for. "Evanesce," "penumbral," "welkins," "redolences," "zestfully," "despondency," "bedimmed," "vespers," "loquacious," "prosaic," "soliloquy."

"Welkin" is literally a synonym for sky or heavens. That's it. The referent is the exact same thing.

The question then becomes, why are these big words better at connecting the reader to their emotions than others? Why should "welkins" be used, instead of "sky?" I am not saying it can't be justified. Indeed, I like big words when they are used sparringly. But the reason it must be "sparringly" is because the text risks losing emotional connection with the reader. The more ten dollar words there are, the less immersive it becomes. How immersive is the writing when the reader is hopping to their dictionary every other word, like they're learning a new language? What is the objection to this? Are they to just plow on through reams of empty signifiers? Logsdon's word choice has nothing to do with the passage's level of abstraction; he just assumes that "welkins" will trigger an orgiastic reaction in his reader, as opposed to just saying "heavens." But why?

You want to know a word that is abstract? "Memories." Yet we all know what that word is. The meaning of the text itself could be about something that is abstract. Like memory. He does seem to be talking about memories. Yet I don't think this—the mere fact that he is talking about the features of mental experience—explains why the text is so hard to understand. According to Logsdon himself, this passage is also talking about how the main character is seeking refuge in her religion from her loveless marriage. There may be abstract elements to that. Love. But the context is largely concrete. Yet none of this comes through. His diction is a significant and needless contributor to this problem.

Rhythm

The rhythm of the text primarily results from syntax, but it is also affected by word choice, given that some words are longer and more complex, internally. So far, I have only talked about word choice, because that seems to be the only noticeable thing about Logsdon's quote. But I mentioned in the beginning of this post that complexity in prose can apply to both syntax and diction. Logsdon has fairly simple syntax in this quote, and that can be made obvious with a little experimentation. Consider the following edited passage:

"Memories never truly die; they simply sail away on our tears. They are like murmurs in the winds of eternity, through which all human ecstasies fade. The most poignant of emotions harmonize, beholden to the fevers that beautified them with remembrance, but just as the sun must acquiesce to the moon, so must the raptures of the spirit fade away into ruminations. Like wistful rain, my thoughts became blind to the caresses of my past. They found refuge upon the surface of the Cross, the pious treasure that dimmed summer's kiss. No longer two distinct entities, the Cross and my conscience melded together, forever entangled. Lost in this sea of sophistry, my soul embraced piety, like a sonnet bleeding over into a prosaic song. I endured, regardless of how many tears fell from the stars."

In this passage, I absolutely did not perfect it, but I simplified the diction to reveal some of the meaning. And with that, the sentence structure might stand out as well, given that it is somewhat readable. Instead of slogging through a haze of ten dollar words that have little to no emotion, I think there is something to be found, though it might require a few rereads. The problem with this exercise was the question of where to stop. I mostly swapped words for synonyms. For example, "evanesce" became "fade." I also eliminated unnecessary or nonsensical adjectives. For example, "sonorous susurrations" makes no sense. The two words seem outright contrary. Why did he even use the word "luminescent?" I have no idea.

But I forced myself to stop.

And at this point, you can see that some of the clutter comes from the word choice. It comes from the excess of adjectives. It does not necessarily come from the syntax of the sentences. This is in contrast to authors like Phillip Roth, who I have reviewed on this channel. In American Pastoral, he relied on syntactic complexity to disrupt the flow of the sentences and make them harder to understand. Think, lots of inserted clauses. Logsdon is largely only complex because of his diction, at least in this particular quote.

Meaning?

What the hell is Logsdon even talking about? Even with my lightly edited passage, I still struggle to understand what the passage even means, and this is despite Logsdon's interpretation in his original video. Logsdon frontloads his novel with this passage as the second paragraph, and the other paragraphs provide little to no context. This last part is important, because it looks like it might be a summary of a number of things stated beforehand, but it isn't.

This is where we move on to his argument about his passage being open to interpretation. He makes a distinction between propositional truth and poetic truth and claims that his work, laden with abstraction, is better able to connect to the reader emotionally. This, by extension, allows for wider interpretation.

I would say that there is a difference between having multiple possible interpretations and no possible interpretations. In the beginning, he seems to be talking about memories, how they never die and are part of some transcendent thing. That is fine. But he continues, talking about how they change over time. And then I know from the video that the mention of the cross, despite it not being capitalized, is a reference to religion and that she sought refuge there, from her loveless marriage. But I don't know if I would have ever grasped that. I don't see that in the text.

The apparent openness of interpretation has to do with it either being about one character or about humanity as a whole. But that is actually a straightforward idea, and it can be communicated in simple language. In a way, he did it in his video, and I did it right now.

The real issue, however, is that there is not enough simple description to actually give meaning to the flourishes in his passage. I think some of these rewritten lines could actually work if they were flourishes within a larger description. The gaps just have to be filled in. Or, if he insists, a summary after the fact. Even at that point, each sentence could ostensibly be isolated and expanded upon. Nowhere is there an explicit statement that the woman is married, let alone that she is not in love with her husband. If that was the idea—to connect her experience to something greater, "transcendent"—then the groundwork for the individual character has to be laid first. Then you can follow that up with the more abstract musings.

Logsdon would probably respond by saying that I am conflating propositional truth and poetic truth, but I think the only way the poetic flourishes he uses can possibly work is if the two concepts are linked. People have emotional responses to what they can visualize or sense in some other capacity. That is the ground, and then you can abstract away from there if you are careful.

Poetic?

This is where I want to go back to the model I discussed, when I opened this post. I made a distinction between complex poetic prose, complex unpoetic prose, simple poetic prose, and simple unpoetic prose. I would place Logsdon squarely in the complex unpoetic prose box. This could be because of the overwhelming nature of his diction alone. It undermines the reader's ability to emotionally connect to the text, due to how dense and abstruse the words are. It also makes the text clunky.

Which leads to the next point. Poetic writing is not just about word choice, but about the rhythm of the text. While Logsdon is simple with his syntax, his diction makes the text garbled and hard to read smoothly. I do not envy the audiobook narrator of his book, if there ever is one.

Finally, the text is meaningless. It is not open to interpretation, it lacks any meaning in the text itself, which is a very different thing. Without so-called "propositional truth," there is no way to ground it. And he dismisses this notion, not only with a nonsensical distinction between propositional truth and poetic truth, but also with a caricature in the form of Stephen King. King churns out books every six months. His prose is simple and unpoetic.

Logsdon does not touch upon someone who is simple and poetic, someone who recognizes that good prose is about syntax, varied sentence length, word choice, and clarity. Both the rhythm and the meaning make the text poetic and, dare I say, beautiful.

Thoughts on Diction

I have a few thoughts on diction that I want to get out here. I do think it is possible to use larger words, and I have used larger words. I will continue to. Even the words I eliminated in the example I gave earlier, I am willing to use. This is because diction is a question of density, theme, worldbuilding, and character.

For density, if you use a ten dollar word in one place, you should consider toning down the language in other places, lest you overwhelm the reader with them. I quipped that it is almost like learning a new language, and it really is. There has to be an anchor for the reader to find meaning.

Theme is also relevant. Logsdon mentions his own work, so I will take the opportunity to mention one of my own upcoming novels, A Hollow State of Sleep. I am in the final stages of editing it, at least. Hopefully, by the end of this year. I use words like "supervene," "supervenience," "epistemic," "epistemological," "phenomenological," "qualia," and more. These are ten dollar words, in their own way. I accept that, but if you know anything about them, there is a common theme: philosophy, especially philosophy of mind. Is there a reason why you're reaching for your ten dollar words?

Worldbuilding can also be relevant. This is similar to theme, where you may choose older, lesser known words, because your story is set in an older time. You would also have to avoid recent words. This is common in fantasy novels or historical novels.

Character can also shape the words you choose. If you are writing in the third person limited, or in the first person, then character has to be taken into account. Having an excess of ten dollar words would be bewildering from the perspective of a child.

All of these considerations would have to be balanced off of one another. There are no strict rules.

Conclusion

I could probably go on, but I think I will leave it here. I encourage everyone to go read the sample of Logsdon's book on Amazon and draw their own conclusions. I have it linked below. What are your thoughts?

A final note, I am aware of Jason Fuhrman's video response to Logsdon's second video. I will have it linked below.

Video: https://youtu.be/rgt6H5zaE1w