Are modern writers too "Curt"?

[hectorberlioz]

In alot of the new fiction of these days...namely Crichton and Grisham, they are quite lazy when they form sentences.
for example....
here is a sample of "Crime and Punishment" by Dostoyevsky, and following will be a sample from Grisham's "The Client"


"With the greatest pleasure. On arriving here and determining on a certain...journey, I should like to make some necessary preliminary investigations. I left my children with an aunt......."


and it goes on...


but here,

Roy stood slowly and stared at McThune.

and all throughout the book, the sentences are usuallyshort and curt. the dialogue as well.



It seems that these modern day authors arent really trying hard to write. Lazy. Like me. huh. ;)

[BelegS]

I won't call them curt exactly, but the sentence lenght has certainly decreased mainly because of the influx of American writers like Hemmingway in the mid-20th century.

[zinnite]

Also, Crichton and Grisham write 'popular' fiction that's meant to appeal to anyone literate who simply wants to be entertained. It's not so much laziness as it is astute marketing. Most people (in my experience anyway) simply don't want to have to think too much while they read.

And Beleg is right--it's all part of the evolution of written language.

I'm with you, though, Hector--I'd take Dostoyevsky over Grisham.

[sun-star]

Maybe people just talk in shorter sentences than they used to, and writers reflect this? I don't know much about Grisham and Crichton, but I'd guess they are aiming for a different effect - perhaps a more pacy, informal style. I don't think it's laziness ;)

[katya]

I think the older longer style of sentence is "different" as opposed to "better". I suppose than in a lot of stories, the older style of writing wouldn't work well with the overall tone of the story. However, I too much prefer Dostoyevsky. It's a personal preference.

[IronParrot]

Think of prose in terms of four quadrants:

Brief and good (Hemingway)
Brief and bad (entire airport bookstores)
Lengthy and good (Dickens)
Lengthy and bad (Robert Jordan)

[Count Comfect]

One thing I would look at is if you are comparing writers who write the same type of fiction: as zinnite pointed out, Grisham, Crichton et al are writing pop fiction, which is not exactly what Dostoevesky was writing. If you look at those who think of themselves as "literature" I'm sure you'd find longer sentences.

[BelegS]

Erm, Robert Jordan has many faults but I don't think long, winding prose is one of them.
Tad Williams faces patches when his prose can be put into the last category.

[Dreran the Green]

Like sun-star pointed out, people do use noticeably shorter sentences nowadays then they used to, and writing can reflect that. I've...ahem....never read Grisham:o ...but generally i do prefer I writing style that's lengthier and more descriptive.

I also tend to have a problem with that myself when i'm writing. I can't help but use really, really long sentences to describe even the pointless stuff. hehe.

[hectorberlioz]

Thats a good thing Dreran!:)

I can see what you guys are saying about how people express themselves differently these days...but I cant help but think that the world would be smarter if we used longer and more complex sentences in modern writing.

[Starr Polish]

A good example of long and bad would be Jane Auel. Ugh.

I agree, to a point. While I enjoy both modern and "classical" writing styles, if well written, I think I enjoy the longer, eloquent descriptiveness of older literature. I also agree that "pop" books tend to be just for entertainment and thus shorter sentences, although "literature" doesn't necessarily have to have long sentences.

I've noticed, however, that if one is writing a modern story, the dialogue would sound very forced. I'd feel strange if I was reading a book set today that had dialogue that sounded similar to that in The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James.

I do tend to want describe things and characters down to the tiniest detail, because I am very close to my stories and characters and am also an extremely visual person. This worries me, though, because I want to get published, and I have a feeling there isn't much of a market for writing like this.

edit: When I say describe, however, I don't mean in the elementary style where people write "She had blonde hair and blue eyes, and she was very short. Her teeth weren't perfectly straight, but they weren't snaggle teeth, either." I prefer to introduce them through long inner musings of other characters, through dialogue, or just inserted randomly...