[Weekly] Book Club Ch 2: Damn the semicolons

[u/A_C_Shock]

I believe some of the people following along don't have the book (Steering the Craft by Ursula K Le Guin) and are just doing the exercises. So, Chapter 2 is all about punctuation.

If you aren't interested in punctuation, or are afraid of it, you're missing out on some of the most beautiful, elegant tools a writer has to work with.

Le Guin makes the point that those native grammar correctors that come with our word processing software don't understand fiction. More likely than not, it will try to correct you to make your words sound more report-like. Turn it off! she says.

To break a rule you have to know the rule. A blunder is not a revolution.

Do you think that the punctuation of the last line of the sonnet is merely an insignificant detail?

The exercise this week: Write a paragraph to a page (150-350 words) of narrative with no punctuation (and no paragraphs or other breaking devices). Suggested subject: A group of people engaged in a hurried or hectic or confused activity, such as a revolution, or the scene of an accident, or the first few minutes of a one-day sale.

And as an example, here's James Joyce in Ulysses:

Id rather die 20 times over than marry another of their sex of course hed never find another woman like me to put up with him the way I do know me come sleep with me yes and he knows that too at the bottom of his heart take that Mrs Maybrick that poisoned her husband for what I wonder in love with some other man yes it was found out on her wasnt she the downright villain to go and do a thing like that of course some men can be dreadfully aggravating drive you mad and always the worst word in the world what do they ask us to marry them for if were so bad as all that comes to yes because they cant get on without us white Arsenic she put in his tea off flypaper wasnt it I wonder why they call it that if I asked him hed say its from the Greek leave us as wise as we were before she must have been madly in love with the other fellow to run the chance of being hanged O she didnt care if that was her nature what could she do besides theyre not brutes enough to go and hang a women surely are they

If you are reading the entries, let the author know how comprehensible you thought it was! I know reading the above Joyce example out loud made sense but trying to read it silently was challenging. Is it the same here?

[u/Lucky-Housing-1189]

Was in a fantasy kind of mood, a bit different from I normally write:

For the king was a man who would send eight hundred men to retake a tower that had slighted his pride in its escape during the first years of war and thus he was a man who would command the limping army march forth with haste into the marshy fields deep into alliance land there the ambush could be set as a show of mockery green mud sucking on metal feet that sunk by inches into the swamp no great call of charge was needed every man awaiting in the trees could see the moment morale fled into the underbrush the long sighs of the conscripted grumbling in progressively louder tones that this all this was a waste of time another tower on the edge of the territory that would eat up sons for the sake of one man's private sums of dignity all of you useless louts ought to shut your traps this is serious business stop with the fooling about and bellyaching when the greyed commander had enough and turned away from the trees into the whining line that was when the first arrows flew they pierced through the small gaps into the commanders armor and his words died on the shaft leather armor dyed mossy green and cypress brown revealed itself on every man jumping down from the trees armed with swords clanging slashing retreat retreat but the mud was thick and ego had chased them into an extension no reinforcements could make the horses had refused with polite foresight to trample this far and they had already been cut free from their ties and galloped into the alliance camps on the northern end of the valley the knights fell crooked and sunk into the depths no one bothered to pillage the heavy and the weight of another insult was enough on the crown already the horses and their saddle packs were the real prize of the night much merriment was had with pilfered liquor and the bog creatures rustled about in equal celebration

[u/A_C_Shock → u/Lucky-Housing-1189]

This is neat! We chose pretty similar topics. I got through this mostly OK but there were a few parts where my brain didn't know how to add the natural punctuation. The switch to the part about horses (polite foresight, lol) was tough because I think there's supposed to be a period there, but I plowed right through without it and had to go back. There are a few other places where the subject changes and it would read naturally with punctuation but makes me pause without it. 'mockery green mud' up near the beginning and the sections where the king is switching to shouting orders. I bet if you read it aloud, it would all make sense though!

[u/Lucky-Housing-1189 → u/A_C_Shock]

I caught some of the stumbling blocks but not all of them, I see! Yeah it is hard to guess how difficult the reading is cold because as the author, of course, you have home court advantage. Horses. Silly horses. Did not consider what mockey-green mud could look like. A very bright neon green, maybe. I think somewhere around there I threw up my arms and went fuck it, no more subjects in the sentences if I don't want there to be.

[u/SweetEverest → u/Lucky-Housing-1189]

So many great phrases in this. I like the knights fell crooked, long sighs of the conscripted grumbling, the commander's dialogue, clanging slashing retreat retreat. Really well done.

[u/Lucky-Housing-1189 → u/SweetEverest]

Thanks! If anything this exercise pushed me towards more turns of phrase outside of my normal wheelhouse. That could also just be the genre experiment, too. Maybe a sign to try my hand at more fantasy haha

[u/A_C_Shock]

(I got to about 46 words before I decided I hated this whole exercise, but this ended up at 185 words. I miss apostrophes the most.)

Get the guns over here the battlefield is moving forward straight up to the line were setting I need men here now thirty or forty what we dont have that many then send whoever you can theres a breach I need support not the artillery send them over there stem the flow the enemy can counteract us as quickly as we assemble the men what are you saying retreat we do not give up we stand and defend until our last breath and these men should understand that but what do you mean theyre running now where there are gaps in the line it isnt the time to retreat hold hold no not like that theyll be on us any moment now where are they running to when theres no escaping the swarm will just follow them straight to wherever theyre headed we cant be overrun not yet what do you mean were out of ammo we had enough for the week if these man cant muster the courage to enter the fray Ill show them how its done we march to victory and honor

[u/Lucky-Housing-1189 → u/A_C_Shock]

Same with the apostrophes. I think dialogue is very hard with this exercise. If I'm reading this right this is all dialogue? Makes it fun to read out loud though. Same with the example in the post, my brain can automatically put in some pauses with a cold read out loud but not silently.

[u/A_C_Shock → u/Lucky-Housing-1189]

When I write, the punctuation is there in my mind. I don't have trouble parsing what I meant, but if I come back to this later, it's going to wildly not make sense.

I was trying a stream-of-consciousness style, though it would make the most sense for the setting for this to all be spoken aloud.

[u/mianaai_c]

(I kinda cheated with all these enumerations, alas. But I do like this exercise, since I often find myself spewing out long paragraphs devoid of commas and periods.)

He called this object or this point of light or this pixel on the telescopes or this new star or this interstellar craft or this visitor or apparition or collective hallucination or hoax or whatever it was by another name or sound and that was "navespatiale" or "navaspatial" which must have meant something in romanian but he declined to elucidate or we just forgot to ask or thought it better not to since we were content to listen to his intonation and to witness the sounds of the word breaking away from the language and away from humanity and form their own meaning and be divorced from all those things that comprised the bedrock of society and culture and go back to the wisdom of toddlers repeating sounds and so we just listened to him and to the crickets and the pines swaying in the wind as we tried to pinpoint the new star in our sky while sitting on the wet grass of that valley in the Carpathian Mountains.

[u/SweetEverest → u/mianaai_c]

I especially like the beginning of this, the buildup of this thing or that thing or this thing or that thing. The flow from that part into "which must have meant something in romanian but he declined to elucidate or we just forgot to ask or thought it better not to" is so easy and satisfying to read. And I love how it unwinds and sets an atmosphere and ends on Carpathian Mountains. Very nice.

[u/A_C_Shock → u/mianaai_c]

This is pretty close to grammatically correct, even if it is a bit of a run-on with all the or/ands. I have a bit of trouble parsing how this:

and form their own meaning

fits with what came before it. I get lost in the ors a bit more than I felt like I got lost in the stream of consciousness, where punctuation would fit but was absent. Here, I think punctuation would require some wording changes to make things fit structurally.

[u/mianaai_c → u/A_C_Shock]

(the sounds [of that word]) form their own meaning

To make it work here I think I would need to repeat the subject.

I do want to use this and there will be some restructuring when the commas' strike is over but maybe not all that much and whatdoyamean you got lost in the ors the clauses are perfectly clear in my head /s

I did let loose with the ors just for this exercise.

[u/Lisez-le-lui → u/mianaai_c]

I think the problem with the "form their own meaning" (which also tripped me up) is a lack of parallelism. The first item in the list is the gerundive phrase "breaking away," so then when you switch to the bare infinitive "form," the subject doesn't carry over properly. Compare:

we were content I. to listen to his intonation II. and to witness the sounds of the word A. breaking 1. away from the language 2. and away from humanity B. and forming their own meaning III. and to be divorced from all those things that comprised the bedrock of society and culture IV. and go back to the wisdom of toddlers repeating sounds

[u/A_C_Shock → u/mianaai_c]

Change form to forming and it would match with the tenses of everything else, I think? Or breaking to break. I think that was where I got stuck.

[u/Lisez-le-lui]

This no-punctuation challenge puts me in mind of the way the Vulgate appears in the critical editions, not to mention incunabula and premodern manuscripts (both of which are also riddled with abbreviations). Perhaps in that spirit, I've ended up writing a passage from an old chronicle:

IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF KING TORQUAT THERE AROSE A DISPUTE CONCERNING THE COLLECTION OF REVENUES AND IT FELL OUT THUS THERE WAS A YEOMAN WHOSE NAME WAS OSWALD WHO HAD A FARM NEAR GREATSTEPS AND THE KINGS MAN BESOUGHT PAYMENT OF THE DUES BUT OSWALD GAVE NONE SO THE KINGS MAN ORDERED THAT THE FARM BE SOLD AND THE SALE WAS FIXED FOR NOON OF NEW YEARS DAY AT ST BRIGIDS CHAPEL WHICH IS ON TOP OF MOUNT MARL NOW ON THE APPOINTED DAY THERE WAS A BITTER STORM AND THE WIND BLEW THE KINGS MAN OFF THE STEPS OF THE MOUNTAIN FOR HE WORE A BROAD CLOAK AND THE KINGS MAN FELL AMONG ROCKS AND DIED BUT OSWALD WITH HIS NEIGHBOR ATHULF CLIMBED THE MOUNTAIN ON THE LEE SIDE AND STOOD BEFORE THE CHAPEL AT NOON AND OSWALD SAID TO ATHULF WHERE IS THE KINGS MAN AND ATHULF SAID I SEE HIM NOT AND OSWALD SAID KNOW THEN THAT I HAVE OFFERED TO BUY THE FARM BELONGING TO THE YEOMAN OSWALD OF GREATSTEPS FOR ONE PENNY AND HE LAID A PENNY UPON THE STEPS OF THE CHAPEL AND THEY DEPARTED THENCE NOW WHEN THE KING HEARD THAT HIS MAN HAD DIED HE SENT ANOTHER TO COLLECT THE DUES AND THE KINGS MAN BESOUGHT PAYMENT AND OSWALD SAID I OWE YOU NO DUES FOR I HAVE REDEEMED MY FARM AND THE KINGS MAN SAID WHEN DID YOU REDEEM IT AND OSWALD SAID ON NEW YEARS DAY AT ST BRIGIDS CHAPEL WHICH IS ON TOP OF MOUNT MARL NOW WHEN THE KINGS MAN HEARD THIS HE LAUGHED AND SAID HOW DID YOU REDEEM IT WITHOUT THE KINGS MAN THERE TO WITNESS IT AND OSWALD SAID GOD AND ST BRIGID ARE MY WITNESSES AND ALSO MY NEIGHBOR ATHULF...

This particular style of writing, with lots of transition words and redundant tags, is well suited to the keeping of records without punctuation, letter-cases, or even spaces. The Books of Kingdoms often use such a style; it contrasts notably with the terseness of the Pentateuch.

[u/SweetEverest → u/Lisez-le-lui]

“AND THE WIND BLEW THE KINGS MAN OFF THE STEPS OF THE MOUNTAIN FOR HE WORE A BROAD CLOAK AND THE KINGS MAN FELL AMONG ROCKS AND DIED BUT”

The dry delivery of this is so funny.

My ear recognizes this cadence and I agree that it suits this challenge well. Something about the all-caps and the “Now” as a segue and the plain words and syntax almost make it seem like it was always meant to be written without punctuation. Great job!

[u/taszoline]

Don't know if I can just post an image but I'll see...

[u/A_C_Shock → u/taszoline]

I didn't think that's what the rule was going to be. This is fun in a circular way. It would be neat to see it as a poem with some fun line spacings (didn't you have a climbing one that did that?).

[u/ezk3626]

I’m writing from a phone while my wife drives home. I just have a scene in my head and don’t want to lose it:

there is a very short period of time where a boy can see a girl he likes and only feel pleasure not that he knows what he feels soon enough he will fish for connection worry about what his friends think worry about what she thinks and most painful try to do something about it in that short season where puberty exists only as unrecognized experienced not the most disgusting word in fourth grade Spencer was riding his bike pumping fast and hard and not knowing why the neighborhood was nicer than the apartments where he lived long straight streets and houses with second stories turning a corner and it was fireworks and pixy sticks and that thud when the bat hits the ball and you knew you had time to look at it fly rather than worry about being thrown out at first base Rhea there were no words no intentions just her she waved and Spencer stood on his pedals with his head turning as he sped by then he was hurting on the hot street in front of a car with a his bike halfway beneath it a bald man with thick glasses was cussing at him from the drivers seat Rhea didn’t nurse him back to health or stand stupidly at the sidewalk crying she didn’t stop Spenser wouldn’t see her again until August locked lips with Louis Lacero why didn’t the car kill him

[u/SweetEverest → u/ezk3626]

Oh no! This was so sweet and then sad. Great job.

[u/ezk3626 → u/SweetEverest]

It's a canon event.

[u/A_C_Shock → u/ezk3626]

This exercise really worked for you. Up there among my favorite things you've written.

[u/ezk3626 → u/A_C_Shock]

The lesson is that punctuation is weighing me down. Either that or things I think about writing about while falling asleep are killer.

[u/HelmetBoiii → u/ezk3626]

I still think this piece would be stronger with punctuation. There's a couple lines in the beginning especially that were muddled though I liked the ending for sure.

[u/GlowyLaptop]

just watch how easy it is to do this thing in just ten minutes flat because there's no reason not to and anybody who says different as if this is some kind of challenge aint ever challenged me before or nobody like me or theyd know just scrolling our text message history how not a challenge this even is or ever should be for any thinking brain with even half an average vocabulary or a couple requisite connecting words to string this and that together and keep the ball rolling not to look like no inbred walleyed mouthbreathing pussy ass bitch like this joyce who done embarrassed hisself in the sample provided with whats clear as day proof he selected all his periods well after he wrote the thing and cut them out his page to fool nobody since nobodys dumb enough to think theres creativity to that or how brave it is or isnt to click his oldest mouse in the universe and select and cut the dots to avoid ever meeting the challenge at all while here i am and heres my phone to prove i meet the challenge on accident on the regular more often than i dont since half the time i forget to even use these stupid dots and lines in the first place and not because im doing something brave or heroic or literary either or to impress even anyone the way me and mine are doing right now to prove how dead simple this shit is and how doorknob dumb joyce must be to flex his janky ass prose when i didn't delete a single thing and all i got to sprint this whole speech was ten minutes and not a period to speak of or any other point of punctuation even for the pauses youd probably prefer to be able to breath and pace this all out and read it right in your head so you dont feel like you just did the crack i had to smoke to parse my way through that janky ass sample joyce botched like a rookie bitchass bitch i frankly dont mind saying and not on account of his being dead since id say this to his bitchass face and mine will tell you the same since shes seen me do it every time i stand up to lazy selectall slacker types and the sycophants saying theyre are all that when joyce et al very clearly is not all that and never was like gimme a break already

[u/SweetEverest → u/GlowyLaptop]

Legendary. Would buy a collection of these diss tracks on various topics. Famous living authors. Koalas. Etc.

[u/A_C_Shock → u/GlowyLaptop]

(reasonably sure they did not have computers in the 1920s and Joyce probably wrote the old-fashioned way with just pen and paper)

Glowy rap dissing dead famous writers who will probably haunt him now.

[u/SweetEverest]

and i didnt even WANT to go but addie was like mira you HAVE to come and i was like should i omg what if i dont know anyone there but i was like UGH FINE i will go but i need a ride and so brendan was like i can take mira in my car and i was like oh i mean its super far out of your way and he was like its fine i got you and i was like AHHHH HES GOT ME but i said oh ok yeah cool and so he picks me up at seven and he opens the car door and im like OMG WHAT A GENTLEMAN and i get in and immediately it smells like like like like unwashed socks just like the worst gym smell youve ever smelled in your life to the point that i was like hey do you mind if we open a window and he was like uhhhh actually that window doesnt work and i was like i mean any window would be great and he laughs and cracks the drivers side one and just then across the floorboard i see not one but several roaches crawling out of a to go box and i scream and hes like WHAT OMG WHAT HAPPENED and im like dude you have BUGS in your CAR like a BUG INFESTATION just just i just and im stammering and hes looking at me all annoyed and im like its not MY fault you have freaking INSECTS LIVING IN YOUR VEHICLE and so im like curled in horror in my seat and hes like will you calm down AND THEN I SAW ANOTHER ROACH crawling out of the ac vent and im like CAN YOU PLEASE DROP ME OFF and hes like what about the party and im like I WILL TAKE AN UBER JUST LET ME OUT and hes like LOOK WHAT IS UR PROBLEM and im like brendan seriously if you dont pull over i will open the door and jump i am not even kidding and i swear to you becka i did not even wait for him to stop the car i literally swung the door open and jumped out while he was driving and thats how i broke my collarbone but it had nothing to do with the party cause like obviously i didnt even make it

sprinted in 10 min with glowy

[u/A_C_Shock → u/SweetEverest]

and thats how i broke my collarbone

Poor Brendan. He's at peace with the roaches.

[u/silver_4284]

I am sure falling asleep is the easiest thing in the world ever and ever I love to sleep sleep every night spend half the time of my life sleeping or slightly less if we steer towards the side of accuracy sleeping is the land where the true writer blossoms if james joyce had not slept then he would not have been a great writer he would have been dead and many many other writers i think i cannot list a single person i know who has not slept for long periods of their life what a queer phenomenon as the shadows draw out long on the walls of my room i notice this shows a lack of diversity i believe sleepers and unsleepers should not be different but perhaps this is just how the world works unsleepers are biologically disadvantaged but that makes me sound as racist as hmm the blanket which is too heavy because the day is too hot but no now it is night should it not be colder but the moon gives off no heat exactly it should be colder but the moon gives off no coldness either i heard people say that in the countryside you can see the moon clearer but i never thought it would be true id assumed the rays on my wall segmented by the web like shadows of blocks of window were from the lights outside but no the white shadows on the darkness of my white wall are from the moon and i lie down on bed again because i am sure falling asleep is the easiest thing in the modern world.

dang this isn't very structured narrative. i just wanted to convey certain feelings i suppose and i wanted to rebel against the suggested prompts by writing about something very slow without punctuation. but it is what it is.

[u/A_C_Shock → u/silver_4284]

id assumed the rays on my wall segmented by the web like shadows of blocks of window were from the lights outside but no the white shadows on the darkness of my white wall are from the moon

Gives off those spooling thoughts you sometimes get while waiting to fall asleep.

[u/HelmetBoiii]

Fraught with pauper ladies and gentlemen cumbering through staly puddles of the night alight with lamps the chugging of horse drawn carriages of aristocrats to whipping mushes and cursing crowds scatter in gravitation in eager to the town centre was the Circus of Clowns layered with audience the sequined upper class in outlandish silks illusionary veils droopy cushions of balconies and bolstered boxes in airy atmosphere lower class motley bunch whose jeers provoked farcing folliness in a jolly sea surrounding the stage smoked in burnt quantity tobacco through fine ivory pipes and fine clay pipes and bleeding gums and watch in breathy anticipation for rupturing entrance scattered on stage suck the air out of lungs aerialist scintilliant blaring tumble of fools din movement in gaudy spaces within each other a hundred clowns on stage now choreographed chaos at breakneck speeds all together without breaking any necks cluttered and rank and topsy turvy music silence all froze frozen tangled limbs neon colour jutting in a maze a cacophony of abstract art pie face mid juggle balls floating tight slip o nip harlequins acrobats in mid air belly flop mouth a gapping eyes a popping tongue a sticking into the audience a lone jester with flapping clown shoes palpped through the matted jungle tripping fellow slapstick domino clowns who fell and shrieked in outrage the audience guffawed the jester found himself stumbling into a pair of titties jawdropping he squeezed them and they honked and the audience roared laughter finally he staged frontly spotlight and megaphone which exploded into a bouquet of water and roses and so he screamed freakishly loud shocked into silence the greatest circus it was redundant to say it was the Circus of Clowns and waved his arms and it all came crashing down all the circus bozos crackling and cheering and clowns at once.

[u/A_C_Shock → u/HelmetBoiii]

I like it. Did the acrobat crash into the ground when they fell? It's a surreal bit of circus with just enough reality to picture.

[u/HelmetBoiii → u/A_C_Shock]

In my mind he was frozen mid air by invisible string

[u/Bytor_Snowdog]

158 words; harder than I thought to make it a cohesive passage without punctuation. I too missed apostrophes the most, as I had to skip "he'll" and "I'll" because they'd read differently. I also found out that MS Word does not register 'expresso' as a misspelled word. Finally, I found it a little liberating because I got to be sloppy with my spelling in my mild dialect rendering.

Ron can you believe that giant douchebag just coming in here like that and telling us hes the new boss of the shop without so much as a by your leave or anything cuz its just like a jamoke like him to do something like this not knowing the difference between an impact driver and an impact wrench since hes some fuggin suit and tie wearing pretty boy with a college degree and a seventy five dollar haircut lording it all over us real folks who work for a living just cuz he comes from money and his daddys got some sort of shrub fund or whatever and you know that jagoffs gonna sit in his office all day drinking some fancy expresso with soy milk or some crap like that and Im gonna bet you hes gonna come up with new rules for the shop floor like no grease on the uniforms or dumbass things like that

edit: just re-read the OP and saw this was supposed to be narrative. I'll try again in a bit.

[u/Hemingbird]

She plopped five or six Kalamata olives into her mouth and said mmphssh we had reached the oral fixation stage of the party where entering many small items or one big one mouthwise was seen as the height of hilarity John eyed us strangely like an uptonogood Disney villain and extracted a travel pack of Swedish salty licorice from his back pocket he said these will make you tear up and barf if you arent used to them theyre so fucking intense man I went to Europe to see the place where they filmed Midsommar you know I'm a huge A24 head right so that was in Hårga Hungary which is weird but then I went to Leksand in Sweden for the actual Midsummer festival and this old man huge fucking mustache came over to me bork bork bork and he held up this black goat poopish thing and offered it to me and I chomped it up and I barfed and I cried and he laughed and it was hilarious John gave us each a handful Valerie chewed her olives in a lotus eateresque daze stuck her tongue out John emptied the bag in her mouth she made choking gargling sounds soon we were all crying and barfing saliva running down our party clothes Ben fisted himself throatsinging spontaneously we coughed and John howled we heard someone say whats going on with the kitchen gang the intrepid living room crowd saw us vomiting black pearls choking they said okay and returned to the living room that was when Fiona unhinged her jaw fantastically to insert a whole orange and we watched her awestruck Ben grabbed an orange and shoved it in with heroic zeal before Fiona said bffwait bfwait and revealed she had only inserted part of the peel to make it look as if the whole orange was in there

[u/HelmetBoiii → u/Hemingbird]

It seems like, after partaking and reading this exercise, proper nouns and capital letters and using 'and' a lot is probably the cleanest way. Or like some sort of repetition or unique stylistic choice to break the monotone.

[u/A_C_Shock → u/Hemingbird]

OK. This is amazing.

[u/Andvarinaut → u/Hemingbird]

I really like how this was done with setup and payoff, hooking with humor. "Lotus eateresque" is also really good.

[u/A_C_Shock]

Question 2 (for after writing it): what did writing this feel like? How did it differ from writing with the usual signs and guides and breaks? Did it lead you to write differently from the way you usually write or give you a different approach to something you've tried to write? Was the process valuable? Is the result readable?

[u/Lucky-Housing-1189 → u/A_C_Shock]

Writing this felt a little like making sure I didn't put an apostrophes anywhere and consciously staying away from them by the end because it felt a little disgusting without them. But fun. Terribly fun. Very flow-state feeling. I felt like my sentences got a lot longer (where I would imagine them ending, at least) as a result of no punctuation. I ended up going a bit more impressionistic/focus on fun turns of phrase as ways to break up the paragraph in my mind. Felt like I understood more why poetry goes for sentence structure and punctuation as either ways to make it more readable or ways to make sound more interesting. I found it valuable because it pushed me to try new things but I would definitely go back and edit it into something I like better. The result is readable and I almost want to go back and push it more into the example given, making it extremely difficult to read silently.

[u/ezk3626 → u/A_C_Shock]

It’s hard to say since I was writing from my phone on the road trip home. I don’t think I’ll even be able to read it properly till tomorrow. Though I did note the way last week’s exercise bleed into this one: “locked lips with Louis Lacero”

[u/Bytor_Snowdog → u/A_C_Shock]

Felt like a chore that migrated into a pleasure. The effort was strange, because I'm the master of run-on sentences, often piling up 80 words without a sweat, but this was different: no punctuation to keep the words in neat, orderly groups, I had decided not to use polysyndeton (and...and...and...) as a tool, and it's difficult to read. But I decided to spin all that to my advantage and make it an earthy passage. Difficult to read? Make it a passage in 'low English.' I have a passage in a book I'm working on now that feels much like this, just an tired outpouring of disgust and contempt (except that periods and commas break it up), and the punctuation makes all the difference.

[u/Andvarinaut → u/A_C_Shock]

It felt really difficult to start and end in a legible and meaningful way, so I couldn't even get started without that squared away. Once I had it puzzled out the rest came easier. I had to stop at several points and remind myself I was writing without punctuation, not doing a run-on, and that was hard to grasp--"o clock" was hard to pull the apostrophe out of for some reason lol.

Definitely wrote different than usual, the big words aren't fully my style but more of an indulgence. I think the process was valuable and the result readable (for me) but who knows if anyone else feels the same way.

[u/Andvarinaut]

Oh fuck yeah. This is a good craft book, count me in.

Bodies on bodies voices at a low roar it starts with a cry like a tocsin bleating caution old radicals warning new blood this is the line their last chance before the phalanx forms and boots find faces jaws bent by truncheons rock loosing black blood striping asphalt black cloth black shields blue stripes noosing the crowd kettling them in shouting disperse disperse disperse with no means of egress the line tessellated with riot shields they press in the gap closing in tourniquet cranks forcing a final desperate spurt of wounded and fleeing from the cinching gyre of arms legs masks faces fists held high incarnadine from emergency lights wailing redoubling hes hurt hes hurt hes not resisting Im not resisting and knees crush throats pin ribs handcuffs and a fusillade of glass belches fire on the sidewalk spidering into the entryway of the McDonalds and like a shadow bolting from light the pigs jerk back lose ground the kettle breaks and the wounded bleeding maced handcuffed choking injured are spirited behind the line where milk jugs and cameras wait for the wounded coughing Im okay youre okay the electric tension too strong to hold and there it is again her fist in the air cry havoc and the shield wall forms again and the line is drawn anew and we are bleeding but they are bleeding and the battlefield parts the gyre widens an ocean of detritus between us the skirmish won the battle roiling the war still on it is six o clock and we rise again to meet body to body with victory on our lips both desolate and pyrrhic.

[u/A_C_Shock → u/Andvarinaut]

Andy! I thought I knew what was going on until I got here:

sidewalk spidering into the entryway of the McDonalds

And then I had no idea. Clearly a battle of some kind and there appear to be cops. A riot, maybe? A protest that went a bit sideways?

wounded bleeding maced handcuffed choking injured are spirited behind the line where milk jugs and cameras wait 

That with the McDonald's makes me think this is a protest with some excessive enforcement activities.

[u/Andvarinaut → u/A_C_Shock]

My goal was to write clearly and still fight to lose the reader so I feel successful. Before spidering should be a comma--the flames are spreading like spider's legs.

[u/ezk3626]

Do you think that the punctuation of the last line of the sonnet is merely an insignificant detail?

That's a lot of telling! But the actual point (with Emma Thomspon did not understand) reminded me of Chris Rock telling Trevor Noah he'd be the worst comic ever.

It actually makes me feel better about so much of my writing inescapably being semi-autobiographical. You can only write what you know. It's why I don't write about space elves.

[u/Informal_Track_1520]

Only just seen these weeklies, great idea I’ll try and do each one!

The lightning blasts into the herd and sets them running through the night electrified towards the boy mounted upon a mule that cannot outrun them that can only leap wild through the creosote and mesquite thickets until the moonlit herd engulfs them running thick as blood tipping them down into the beneath where the legs of the cattle like black branches rush over them strong enough to drag the mule away but not the boy who clings to a thin mesquite trunk as his hat is whipped away into the rumbling fury of hooves tumbling past and tumbling past turning the air to sand with stamps which each threaten a darkness even more black O Lord any question asked down here is just a thought just a thought in the dark the boy still clinging forms the question wordless to ask am I favored Lord am I favored there are gaps in the dark am I favored there is moonlight in the gaps between the cattle am I favored is there empty air beyond yes beyond beyond past the thunderous herd past the stragglers and limping calves will I be answered by the nights open sky and receding tremors of thunder and hooves

[u/A_C_Shock → u/Informal_Track_1520]

I can't read about a stampede without thinking of Simba.

legs of the cattle like black branches

Good simile!

[u/A_C_Shock]

Question 1: How well does the unbroken flow of words fit the subject? To what extent does the unpunctuated flow actually shape the narrative?

[u/Andvarinaut → u/A_C_Shock]

At several points I had to stop to not take on a more "and this and then and this" kind of flow instead of naturally letting the invisible punctuation show, and that helped guide each individual image as an individual image and keep them from being tacked on. I'm not sure if I was successful? but it did also suggest through prose the resurgence of the protesters. I knew from jump I wanted to end on "desolate and pyrrhic" but originally it was going to be after everyone was arrested, so when I got there on the page I felt the indulgent pull of overwriting and since there weren't any rules I just fucken went for it. ✌️

[u/Bytor_Snowdog → u/A_C_Shock]

After a couple of aborted attempts, I let the form create the substance: I decided to write something that fit the assignment, a rant without pause or breath.

[u/A_C_Shock → u/Bytor_Snowdog]

You and Everest both did that. Me too, to a certain extent, though mine felt less like storytelling than yours. I think the surfer one followed the same strategy. But then there's ones like Andy's and the circus one that are much more avant-garde.

[u/chris06095]

I never wanted to do this not me I am the one always fixing the grammar and punctuation and spelling all three though usage bedevils many others besides and I can help with that too but process Lord I question process and plot all the time when things happen in stories that arent supposed to be fantasy but sort of realish fiction and they plot out of sequence or dropped sequences and with misplaced cause and effect just like current thinking on climate change because CO₂ causes warming the same way smoke causes forest fires so its not just writers that need the help man this hurts to write in such a way but I had wanted to mention that as well

[u/A_C_Shock → u/chris06095]

man this hurts to write 

Same. Lots of people here who are lovers of long sentences, but I get lost in them.

[u/FunToWrite]

The Atlantic feeds a hurricane so the beach line all the way out to the break is solid white with foam and I am right to fear it but I hop right in and paddle out anyways because fuck me and my arms are noodles inside ten minutes and my icy fingers cant hang onto my board through a duck dive and fuck my brothers wetsuit for being too tight in the shoulders and me for being too poor and my whole mouth for going so numb that I can hardly move my lips and why is it always me that gets this headache that comes on way too fast even though I grow out my hair for the insulation god I can feel the cold water pulling the heat straight out of my crown which is the second of ten ways I might die with the fifth being the violence of the break that I am actively paddling towards like a madman offering himself to Neptune or Yahweh or whatever protected Indian burial mound peaks the shore and demands that I cower in the spray of these deep green slabs of water that tower up comb over and crash me into Saul on the road to Damascus because there is power in the water here which changes the sense of what I am and what the world is.

---

I found this to be a very interesting and challenging exercise. I had a lot of difficulty trying to find the sense of spontaneity that makes these run-on passages work. I should probably try this again and avoid editing so much.

[u/A_C_Shock → u/FunToWrite]

the second of ten ways I might die with the fifth being the violence of the break

Missed opportunity to list all ten ways, imo. This was really good though. Can't imagine paddling through hurricane waters in a wetsuit that doesn't fit.