SmellOfGoodProse

The other day I started to read a movie review on a web page, and before I had gotten three sentences into it I just knew that it was well-written. What are the characteristics of "good prose"? Nothing that can be put into a bottle and sold. But four (somewhat?) measurable features that contribute:

• vocabulary of "powerful" words — action verbs, concrete nouns, vivid modifiers
• diverse sentence structure: a mix of long and short, ornate and straightforward
• high density of ideas
• surprise

What else is necessary? Preferable? Can writing be top-notch when one of the above is absent? Two, or more? How about the ineffable element of "style", the author's "voice"?

(cf. DreamSongs (12 Feb 2004), ...)

TopicLiterature - TopicLanguage - TopicWriting - TopicPoetry - 2006-07-03

(correlates: TheChronoliths, PiratesVersusNinjas, SiMonumentumRequiris, ...)