I may be bold and simple and if you are a literature major you will look down on me when I say: classics kind of suck. By kind of I mean like a lot. Maybe they're were good for their time or you may think they're everlasting. I'm not goingto claim to have read even close to all of them, but of what I have read I stick to my comment. To paraphrase Futurama: "[this play] is as awful as it is brilliant". As is most classic works. Just the way I am writing now is completely out of my character. My writing always has a touch of my style, but it strongly mimics what I am reading at the time. Why do you think I am saying so many words where I don't need to? That isn't me! It's these fucking classics I have to read for class. I usually write some jumbled combination of Vonnegut, Palahniuk, Chrichton and random counter culture magazine (and a constant underlying flow of Chasse of course).
But these classics have me all BLEEEHH. I can't even write correctly. I have to stop reading this wordy aristocratic crap. Say what you will, but classic authors don't have anything on today's super writers. Writing should be about clarity with the least amount of clarity. Classic novels are long, not because they have more to say, but because they double the length of each sentence and drag nothing for pages and pages and pages. Writers have come so far. We say what we mean and we don't say it so only those who can afford private school can understand us. We speak for and to the masses, with beauty and grace [citation needed].
Here's a book to write to: http://http//www.amazon.com/Writing-Well-25th-Anniversary-Nonfiction/dp/0060006641. its called "On Writing well," and I was reading it back when I was writing well.
