On Prose
2025-12-15
Something that I've been thinking about lately: there is an immense difference in most prose written in the 21st century as opposed to the 18th-20th centuries. This is an obvious observation, but to me this difference is something that has made me question where I stand in the current literary moment and how I can help to move it forward. In prose of centuries past, there was a greater command of the English language. Semicolons were used audaciously and sentences were much longer with more complex clauses. To me, this signals a deeper investment in thought. Thoughts back then felt much deeper than they do today, but this makes sense.
For most of human history, information has been a much more scarce resource. It was more inconvenient to access and was therefore much more valuable. But more than that, its slowness made the fruit of past prose much sweeter. There was a certain labor felt when writers would craft their texts, whatever those would be. Whether it were works of fiction, technical nonfiction, or even copywriting, the prose felt more controlled and precise and more than that, it was rich in meaning and sophistication. To be a man of letters, as it were back then, was truly a privilege and a measure of prestige. Today, however, this prestige has been replaced with something much more milquetoast and manufactured.
If Hemingway revolutionized prose with his terse and precise style, the 21st century has taken this approach and twisted it and wrung it out so repeatedly and mercilessly that prose today feels not only predictable, but usually an insult to one's intelligence. Writers today are much more concerned with mass appeal than any kind of intellectual merit, so the strategy today is one where it is best to assume that the reader is stupid and that we must coddle them and hold their hands every step of the way so that they don't feel lost, overwhelmed, or offended. We have seen this in popular traditionally published works and in advertising and educational materials, but the most prevalent place for this type of grossly despondent prose is on internet forums.
Users on mainstream forums like Reddit and 4chan have changed modern prose forever. Whereas more antiquated prose feels like a drink sweetened with cane sugar, the prose of today feels like ingesting high-fructose corn syrup. The prose of today is fast, easy, and cheap. The diction is significantly watered down. Never will one see more than a single independent and dependent clause in a sentence. It's the kind of writing that makes one feel dumber after reading it. When comparing an AskReddit thread with even an article in a 1970s Playboy, the difference in sophistication and depth is astounding.
To make matters even worse, the age of AI slop has exacerbated this problem even further. Those who prompt LLMs to generate pieces of text will specifically indicate that they want the text to be easily read by a low IQ person or a 4th grader. With that, the swaths of horrendous prose promulgated by LLMs and redditors alike have made it much more difficult for writing of a higher register to break out into wider appeal.
As for me, I have always enjoyed reading and writing in that more classic "literary" style. Growing up, I enjoyed reading the classics as well as contemporary middle grade work. I always had a great interest in understanding different ways to manipulate language to eviscerate certain ideas or emotions. It was always a pleasure to learn from the masters and take their lessons with me in my own writing. But with today's literary landscape, it seems to be a turgid place.
On the one hand, I want my writing to be simple enough to understand, but still hold the weight of complexity needed in order to espouse unique and interesting ideas. On the other hand, I also want to step away from the pretentious attitudes of more established literary institutions and write in a style that is distinctly working-class and founded in intellectual humility. It's a tough tightrope to walk, but I know that there are readers out there who would appreciate this approach.
On top of that, a big reason why the type of prose that plagues our century is so pervasive is because it is simply easier to write and because of that, it is much easier to produce in high volume. I know that for me, I have a tough time writing the output that contemporary writers must produce. This is because my inner critic is too harsh; it's easy for me to get paralyzed by my own doubts and desires for perfection, but I've been making efforts to overcome this. This diary has been helpful in that. I think too that I have misled myself into thinking that I need detailed outlines and strict plans for pieces. Truthfully, I would say that my best writing comes from a place of improvisation. I struggle with owning my true identity as a pantser.
It's been about two years since I decided to attempt writing as a vocation. While it's been a tough and monetarily fruitless road up until this point, I know that there is still much more that I need to do to become the writer I have always looked up to. I know that I haven't produced a lot of works, but I'm hoping that as I keep pursuing this vocation, I can get closer to finding that groove that I'm comfortable in. I hope that as I get older, I can learn to better lean on my talents and trust my instincts.
With luck and a whole lot of hard work, something will come of all of this. Maybe.