Is it just me, or has the truth been before us, each of us, from the start?
A. The reason you must read widely and study your craft is so you can recognize, understand, and ultimately reproduce good writing. Good writing follows the same general rules of form and content, and always has. There is nothing in its design that will allow fundamental change.
B. A great work, one that is both viscerally delightful and technically masterful contains a combination of two insanely subtle and simple elements, namely the ability to do A. (ie, write a good, traditional story by good, traditional form), while simultaneously injecting both form and content with something brand new and hopefully revolutionary, keeping mind, of course, not to upset the balance in the original design.
So, there's my theory for today: Perfection is an elusive zenith between two static points: 1. adventurous but failed, masturbatory experimentation, and 2. boring, quotidian, predictable hackneyed prose, where the plan is so ham-fisted, you can see it coming a mile off.
