Prose is Architecture
“Prose is architecture, not interior decoration” -Ernest Hemingway
This quote grabbed my attention because I have a passion for architecture. I love looking at the facades. I love learning how they were built and what is hidden behind them. When I really started dissecting the advice, I came to a realization. I have been stuck in a single box, writing in an analytical format my whole life. Even my personal writing began to mirror what I had learned for school. The advice stood out because it says that writing is not about filling a given space, but about creating the space itself.
I have been trained to write analytical papers and five paragraph essays my entire life. Graders for Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate like them; it makes it easy for them to assign points. Slowly I’m learning that my writing life isn’t always going to entail an analytical essay about Heart of Darkness or an essay explaining the social effects of the Gilded Age. I will be writing about a multitude of topics for a variety of readers. It would be dull to only write one way. With that format, I could convey the wrong message. I would lose all personality in my writing. I have a sense that I am losing many opportunities because I am not building my own space. I have just been filling the space given to me when I should be creating my own. I do not have to limit my writing to one style or one genre. I am the creator of the box my writing goes into.
Hemingway is saying that there is value in having a strong and original structure. One cannot simply focus on the content. How you write about a subject, your diction, and how you choose to format the words matters. How you convey your ideas is how they spread throughout the world. How well you bring the writing together dictates who and how people read your work. You wouldn’t create an unstable building, so why would you create a piece of writing without the proper structure?
I want to explore and understand the beams, foundations, and materials used by the authors I read. They create their own structures-- their own architecture-- instead of attempting to fit inside a generic box. I am hopelessly in love with the novel The Book Thief. Markus Zusak takes a different approach to telling the story by making Death the narrator. His voices adds darkness to the work: “I will often catch an eclipse when a human dies. I’ve seen millions of them...more eclipses than I care to remember.” (Zusak 11). He adds pictures, small notes, and lists within the book to catch the reader’s attention and give more information. Zusak finds a way to intertwine several stories that seem disjointed: “During the nights, both Liesel Meminger and Max Vandenburg would go about their other similarity. In their separate rooms, they would dream their nightmares and wake up, one with a scream in drowning sheets, the other with a gasp for air next to a smoking fire.” (Zusak 219). Reading the book several times, I have discovered that the stories all connect on a deeper level. Zusak mixes all the thoughts and emotions of the characters into a cohesive piece of writing. He not only formed his own structure but decorated it beautifully.
The strong ties between structure and content are not addressed in this writing advice. Hemingway emphasizes the importance of structure, but the content chosen is essential as well. Both play an integral role in writing. Like we have recently been discussing in class, the format can affect the content and vice versa. Prose is much more than just “architecture” or just “decoration.” As a whole, you cannot just focus on format or on content. The space you create has a great effect on the writing. But you can’t leave it an open space. You have to fill a well structured space with beautiful tools for living. You must fill the space with something meaningful. People are far less likely to enjoy or even read a piece of writing that has an immaculate format but no substance.
I want to be able to experience every perspective of this advice. I want to see the architecture and the interior decoration. I want to fill new boxes, not use the same, analytical format I have been writing in for years. I want to see how changing the functional pieces that fill a space can change a piece of writing; even if the architecture is still the same. I want to write short stories, follow the paths of writers that inspire me, or write a personal narrative without the analytical side taking over. At the same time, I have become increasingly curious about how to change my own writing. I don’t want to be trapped in a single, analytical cage for the rest of my writing career. I want to explore, change, and grow. I want to go about creating a building instead of filling the space someone else has made.
Works Cited:
Zusak, Markus. The Book Thief. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. Print.
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