How do you stack it?

[reverie]

The written matter pecking order as I understand it goes something like this:

 

***

Lyric Writing (low end)

Personal Essays and Journalism

Memoir

script writing

vignettes

short stories

novels

poetry

dramatic plays

opera (Opera also tops my list of the music world.)

epic poetry

philosophy (High End)

 

***

 

What's your hierarchy look it? If "Writing" is too limiting a catagory than feel free to delve into the other creative arts.

 

 

rev...

Edited June 24, 2006 by reverie

[Ayshela]

hmmm... interesting. I know I'd be rearranging several, there, and balancing a couple. Will have to think about this. I'm assuming, here, that you want the "pecking order" as each of us views it, whether it includes these or other categories? Or do you want the types you've listed arranged as each of us would prioritize them?

[reverie]

I shooting for your own personal take on it. So feel free to discard my labels for your own and or expand upon them.

 

rev...

[Gyrfalcon]

Could you define what you mean by 'writing pecking order'? Is it what you prefer to write given the opportunity, or your viewpoint on the relative merit of the various types of writing compared to each other?

[Sweetcherrie]

err....somehow...

 

I think there is no order for writing.

 

Personally I just go there where inspiration goes, and half the time I just write what my guts tells me to write. No order, not even thought about it, just writing

[reverie]

Oh I mean the order is established by the escalating levels of refinement or sophictication needed to pull off a master work within each field. I.e. the level of craftsmanship that goes into the works creation. Not effort nor energy, craftsmanship.

 

Lyric writing is in my low end, because lyricist typically don't write the music they are setting down words to. If you already know the tune to something than words come realitively easy. They are some great lyricist out there like Elton John for one, but his dual status as a performer is really what built his reputation.

And honestly it is not that hard for mediocre lyrics to get a pass on a catchy tune. Just take a look at the lyric sheets of pop songs that you don't already know, and you'll see what I mean.

 

Philosphy's on the high end because it requires the most exacting language possible to make sense of the most profound abstractions in life.

 

Epic Poetry is high too, because to write it you not only have to have mastered story telling, poetry, and dramatics, but also you have to have lived a life insane enough for you to gained the insights into your own culture inorder to pull it off.

 

High Opera's up there because you have to master musical composition as well as drama within a set vocal range. You don't have to like it, but opera is cleary superior in craftmanship and form to say an American musical and even the symphony.

 

Refined Poetry trumps Prose because your have to do more with less. You don't have a whole novel to establish the development a of character, and sometimes you have as little as a framented phrase. (Just ask any english literature teacher). I believe it's harder to write a single poem that will endure and that people will continue to enjoy through the ages, than a best selling novel that only endures for a few years. You don't have huge blocks of story and plot for people to hang on too, so you have be precise as possible or no one will understand you. But in general prose pays much better than poetry.

 

 

rev...

Edited June 24, 2006 by reverie

[Sweetcherrie]

Hmm…so if I read this correctly you’re saying that writing lyrics is easier than writing philosophy? And does that mean that someone who writes philosophical works would very well be able to write lyrics, but not the other way around?

 

Cause somehow that doesn’t entirely work I think…

 

The boxes (you do seem to like boxes) you’ve put up here don’t simply stack I think. They flow over, and mix, and I think most philosophical writers would have problems writing a hit song.

 

They are simply different genres, and to give them an order sounds like one is less important than the other, well…I would gladly do without philosophical works, but I wouldn’t want to miss that happy song giving me a good feeling inside

[reverie]

Well that's the thing. Talent for one discipline does not neccessarily translate to another. You can be an outstanding lyricist but poor at everything else. Or a great composer but a terrible painter. Does that lessen you in your choosen field? No. However, some things do rank higher than others in regards to the level of artisit preperation needed to excell in that field. A pop tune is not a symphony. Just as a sketch on a note pad is not a mural on a wall. Raw talent will shine throug for cream alway rises to the top. Yet how brightly that talent is able to shine is a direct reflection of the artistic media or filter that you choose to refine it through.

 

Some things do require a higher level of refinement in order to just be accepted as decent. Whatever your choosen field, with the rarest of exceptions you must first learn to be an craftsman before you can fully realize you potenial as an artist. So fields just require most time in the novice trenches before you an excel. To be a considered a decent violinist takes longer than a pop rock guitar player. Sheer talent alone may allow you to shine briefly with metaphorically speaking a one-hit wonder, but eventually you'll have to pay your dues and work to improve.

 

The rarest of people can throw off all the rules and attempt to recreate the wheel in the vacuum. But most others require something or someone to stand on. And the steps taken to reach that preverbial launching pad is what IMHO makes the difference between all the arts.

[Katzaniel]

I would tend to agree that "stacking" of anything is something to stay away from. Of course it's different for everyone, because everyone finds different things easy and different things hard. I know you mean no harm and are only trying to ask who of us finds which things easy, but it's too easily misunderstood as classifying one thing as more important, or those who do it as more skilled. It reminds me of the generally accepted stacking at my university: so many people think, for example, that engineering is harder than art, but most engineers find art just as difficult as any artist would find engineering. I happen to live in both worlds, I can write in English and in Java, but then again I know if I'd tried to study biology I'd have flunked out pretty quickly. Anyway, what I'm saying is that I always get annoyed with people who look down on the artists, or any other discipline, because it's different for everyone.

 

Again, I doubt that you're trying to say that lyricists are useless, or that nearly anyone can do it. But tread carefully, because your words can be interpreted that way, and besides, how many of us have really tried each of those things enough to make an accurate stacking, even for ourselves? I just doubt that this conversation can go on much longer before someone, either poet or short story / novelist or otherwise, gets seriously offended because someone else said that their area of writing was easier than their own, whether that was the intention or not.

[reverie]

Hey, I just trying to get so thought going.

 

Science is a whole different ball park though. It's like the difference in cooking and baking. Cooking is Art. Baking is Science.

 

But I'm not getting at how hard or difficult something is to do. I'm trying to point out that some things have more layers of complexity than others. And for those gifted in any given field, no matter how complex the art form becomes it may be realitively easy for them (or at least seem that way). But as someone looking from the outside in, you can still appreciate the intricate nature of that complexity.

 

A slighty different example is if you were serve a professional chief a meal he's never ate before or is familar with, he will still be able to appreciate how finely that meal was prepared.

 

The same goes with muscians when hearing new forms of music. Of when we read a new book.

 

rev...

Edited June 26, 2006 by reverie

[Quincunx]

Note: reverie listed the original in ascending order, but I speak about a descending order. I see a pyramid of accessibility: the more widespread an activity is, the lower it is on the list.

 

Push scriptwriting up a few notches, past vignettes certainly and possibly short stories as well: dialogue can be difficult, and consequential dialogue is beyond many people's skills in real life, let alone on the printed page. Break personal essays away from journalism, pair it with blogs, and drop it to the very bottom of the accessibility list; move journalism above memoirs, for the research it implies. Swap poetry and novels, for although they're of equal difficulty, novels will consume more time. Lower opera below dramatic plays, both have the same function, but opera has music to assist it. (Less objectively, drop opera to the level of popular lyrics.) Insert scientific reporting at the level of the novel, for that is a difficult and precise form of writing.