On the pairing of prose and emotion
If you like putting it another way, please find your way to the comments
I can write about my life bluntly. Fiction is another matter. I feel exposed every time I start to write a story with made up characters.
Once, I thought poetry was a great way to put down my feelings without the annoying detailed content that drove them. I was wrong. I don’t know what poetry is. I think poetry is quantum mechanics. If you think that you understand quantum mechanics, you are probably wrong. On the other hand, a bad choice of math for a problem might lead to a lack of insight.
Reading has become annoying. I find a lot of text driving my feelings too slowly. I’m ready to move on before the author had reiterated their point for the fifteenth time. Other times, I get lost in the description. What does it matter, the walls were red? Is this a Chekhov’s gun thing? Is there a quiz at the end?
What’s that? I’m moving too slowly? I’ll quit while I’m ahead.
I get it. But for me, poetry is a magic trick. I don’t know how I do it or how others do. It’s alchemy.
But I want details in everything. Good writing is in those. You can still be blunt, but be detailed.
Watch Robin Williams in “The Final Cut.” It’s brilliant.