Prose is anything that isn't poetry. see explications by typing "definition of prose" into google below for more details.
Definitions of prose on the Web:
* ordinary writing as distinguished from verse * matter of fact, commonplace, or dull expression wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
* Prose is writing distinguished from poetry by its greater variety of rhythm and its closer resemblance to the patterns of everyday speech. The word prose comes from the Latin prosa, meaning straightforward. This describes the type of writing that prose embodies, unadorned with obvious stylistic devices. Prose writing is usually adopted for the description of facts or the discussion of ideas. ... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prose
* straightforward' writing without recourse to the patterned regularity of metred verse. It can encompass speech or description or narrative. (Prose poetry has the ornateness and imagery of poetry but, like prose, has no discernible metre.) Bosola is the character for whom Webster most consistently employs prose. members.fortunecity.es/fabianvillegas/drama/glossary-p.htm
posted
I thought it meant "stance" - you know, as in, "He struck a manly prose."
I stand corrected, however, and realize now that the given example really means the subject beat up a book by Ernest Hemingway or Louis L'Amour. What a weird little sentence.
[This message has been edited by trousercuit (edited July 30, 2007).]
posted
Matt gave a lot of examples of the definitions of prose which should give you some idea that the definition differs depending upon your source and who you are talking to. The problem with the word is that it is something that is more fuzzy than concrete. Many people will point to a specific author, usually from the distant past, and usually in literary rather than genre fiction, and point to their prose, claiming it to be the greatest writing ever. The thing is that there are just as many people who would look at the same example and claim it was too wordy or stuffy.
From my own experience with writing, prose is something that just comes naturally out of your writing once you find your voice. Your voice is that special thing you find after writing awhile and gaining confidence in your work. The more you write, the more natural the words flow, and the more it becomes yours and yours alone. A lot of people would call that style, and definitely prose is part of style.
The key to finding prose in your own work is to continue to write and gain confidence in it. Don't try to add prose to your writing, it just won't work because it won't be your writing, but something you just made up. Eventually you will find the pacing and rhythm in your writing if you write often and consistently as your confidence grows. Also don't worry whether your writing has prose, or if someone starts to criticize your style as lacking prose. That'll just be one person's thoughts and likely they don't understand prose either. Nobody likes everything, especially when it comes to the written word.
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wow... I have to say I haven't found many threads with so many clever replies, that's why the community of hatrack is worth being a part of
Posts: 2195 | Registered: Aug 2006
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I'm still waiting to hear what it is Matt is infamous for. If it's good, it could be the plot for my next book Posts: 1304 | Registered: May 2007
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Being serious for a moment, Theodore Sturgeon, among others, would write in meter -- iambic pentamiter, say -- but lay it out like prose. It's an interesting technique.
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Trying to figure out a style is too hard. I just try to write as clearly as I can to get the story out. OSC said that's how you develop style.
Posts: 657 | Registered: Jan 2007
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I've never figured out what passages of Sturgeon's work were written that way---either it's an exaggeration of his writing method, or he's so good I just don't notice. (I just bought Volume Eleven of Sturgeon's collected stories---read through the stuff at the back of the book and the Ellison intro, but haven't dived into the stories yet.)
I do remember a passage in Heinlein's "Time Enough For Love" that was bunched-together poetry---the Kalevala / Hiawatha meter, I forget what it's called.
quote:Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane.
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