Writer's Block: Writing: Makes Me A Better Writer

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Latin.

To be fair, Latin has perhaps not made me a better writer, but it's certainly made me a more interesting one. Because when you study Latin for more than a couple of years you wind up studying speeches, and studying speeches means studying cadence and all manner of rhetorical tricks. Alliteration may often be over-used, but it's also almost always undervalued. If you can write with cadence, you make your material a pleasure to read. And being able to vary cadence means you have the tools to iluminate worlds that may have different habits and graces than our own, as surely as you have the tools to pen a call to arms. It is those two things are what form stories over and over again. What is this place like? and I challenge you to be here! Characters examine and change their worlds as surely as the author, and it all trickles down through the layers of the story the wirter means to tell and the stories then accidentally revealed within.

Comments

languages. YEAH!

[thauron.livejournal.com]

Awesome! I must say that, even though my knowledge of Latin is minimal, in general having knowledge of other languages (the more the better!) is definitely a good thing. Reading works in another language and getting the feel of their style is an awesome influence on me. That said, my favourites would be Old Norse, Old English and definitely Finnish. (No, I am not Tolkien, nor do I desire to be...;))