I'm probably a basher for the most part. If it's an academic essay I might go back through it briefly after I have finished the paragraph, but that's about it.

Je suis un basher.

Now a basher, always was a basher.

depends on my mood

I'm a swooper, yeah, and a lot of my writing is just good-sounding ideas that pop into my head. By my writing, I mean stuff I actually wanted to sound good not something like a rant, in a rant I would just want my point across, and in informative papers I sound like a bloody encyclopedia. Hehe

I don't like the Shakespeare incarnate thing on the poll, though, and I'm pretty sure Shakes was a Basher. Not everyone writes like the Speare (thank God) because, he wrote in this manner that you would know its him using his usual random words and somewhat 'double' sentences/lines and all that shiz he does. Shake, is one I'm not much a fanatic of actually.... regardless, that should say something else because, not many write like Shakespeare and most certainly not all those 'third style' geniuses or whatever you spoke of.

Quote from '[Naimad

I don't like the Shakespeare incarnate thing on the poll, though, and I'm pretty sure Shakes was a Basher. Not everyone writes like the Speare (thank God) because, he wrote in this manner that you would know its him using his usual random words and somewhat 'double' sentences/lines and all that shiz he does. Shake, is one I'm not much a fanatic of actually.... regardless, that should say something else because, not many write like Shakespeare and most certainly not all those 'third style' geniuses or whatever you spoke of.

Huh? Random words? 'Double' sentences/lines? What? You do realize he was a playwright from around 400 years ago, right? The English language isn't what it once was.

Quote from Wyrmspawn

Interesting... you do realize the the Bard (Shakespeare) can be considered a basher? It was the envy of many other writers of his time that he never had to edit his plays at all; he just wrote what he liked and it seemed to work out for him. Some people see those records and state that's because he's a genius, but I personally think he was just a really, really good basher. (Of course, after further thought, having to copy an entire page by hand if he gets it wrong might also be a reason to be a basher rather than a swooper.)

Well I'm so glad you agree with me then. There's you're answer right there, he's the exception. The savant. The Eminem of Renaissance. Just because he can wax poetic by writing what comes to mind, doesn't mean it is an option for the rest of us nor is it a viable mode of writing. And what makes you think he didn't draft and edit all those years ago as well? For all we know, he might have a drawer full of unreleased plays to complement the plays he officially printed for public viewing, but we will never know because as history reveals not every one of his works was ever found (nor would he save what he deemed unworthy of print).

Quote from Wyrmspawn

For me, bashing actually seems like the harder thing to do, if you do it right. Good bashers don't write what comes out of the top of their heads; they make millions of possible sentences in their heads before picking out the best one and moving on. This is the sort of style that should only be used by pros, from my point of view anyway; they have to be good enough to consider all the ways they can portray a certain scene, then pick out the best way and agonize over every single word before moving on.

I can agree that people bash and can bash but. You can't. Bash well. Unless you're Shakespeare or Eminem or your audience has low expectations. It's not something you can learn to do in your lifetime. Authors around the world will tell you that drafting is a necessity and a part of the process. And "your first draft will always suck". Even if you calculated the proper sequence of words to use for that one instance, it still couldn't work in the longrun whence everything is said and done. Professionally speaking, you're writing for an editor with specifications. The ability to write without ever doing a thing to it soon after is bullshit. It doesn't exist.

Quote from Hewitt

Long quote

Now that you say it like that, then I'm the one who got it mixed up!

Let me clear it up in a sentence: To me, people who say they can bash well (not bash only mind you) are people who are just looking for an excuse to never edit their first drafts. It's like animating tests basically and then making a thread about it for everyone to see.

Quote from Hewitt

Just because he can wax poetic by writing what comes to mind, doesn't mean it is an option for the rest of us nor is it a viable mode of writing.

I think it is, actually, if I change my original idea for something too much I probably won't like it so, I usually stick to whatever idea for the line I thought of and it's usually the one that works the best. Every time I've done it has worked out perfectly fine.

Quote from Crankuba

Huh? Random words? 'Double' sentences/lines? What? You do realize he was a playwright from around 400 years ago, right? The English language isn't what it once was.

There goes miscommunication again. I meant that sometimes it sounds like he just wants to shove words in there and the double thing, well he would commonly join two different sentences into a compound of sorts, and I mean without the ';' so, it would sound like he was taking the whole couplet thing a bit too far, if you know what I mean. I hope you do. Whatever, that wasn't really related to my point. My point was that 'Shakespeare incarnate' might be the wrong phrasing, regardless of wether or not I'm a fan of his style. Then again, there's the controversy of him not writing his own works at all (Bill Shakespeare might have even been a pen name, I dunno).

Write for yourself, yes. But write for an audience for that perfect piece, no. And that's what I was talking about. Being a non-harsh critic on yourself is not the way to professional writing. I myself have erased pages of white heat I deem unnecessary just because I thought they were good at the time. To "go with what you have" is utterly lazy and not expected in the Real World.

Hewitt, I don't really write for myself and if I do, then, I don't really care about how it sounds and whatnot. Anyway, what I mean is that what comes into my head at the moment is what usually works best in the end, must have to do with left/right brain states, creativity, and 'flow'. Also, of course, I revise, who wouldn't?

I definitely flip-flop between the two, painstakingly writing out one paragraph as carefully as possible and then changing my mind a few sentences later, deleting the whole thing.

as you can probably infer from my post quality, I write whatever comes to mind and don't read over it before submitting them

that said, I'm not much of a writer

That Shakespeare Incarnate thing was a joke. Like I said, humour just isn't my forte.

Edit: I'm probably going to regret arguing with the mod later on, but that's what later on is for.

Anyway, bashing actually (used to?) hold several really big niches over swooping:

1: Swooping used to be a notoriously difficult process. Imagine copying a whole page over again because you didn't like the way one sentence stood out. Actually, that's possibly why Shakespeare was a basher.

2: When you write a shorter piece; for example a very short story (100 or so words), swooping usually leads to a lot more "fleshing out" of the story than is necessary; Bashing, on the other hand, allows you to control the word limit more easily.

3: When it comes to writing poetry, swooping around for the right rhymes seldom works; you can see that most poets were bashers, just going about their daily lives until, out of the blue, they hit upon the perfect line to the next verse.

4: Swooping usually holds the upper hand when you're trying to describe a scene, or a person, or whatever; but what if you're trying to write dialogue? Good dialogues are defined by being natural; and in this case, a swooper like me would, out of practice, "vomit" the whole idea into the page and move on immediately, to edit it into being "natural" later on. A basher, on the other hand, simply has to choose the best sentence that comes to his/her mind all at once, before moving on, secure in the knowledge that they wrote a good line.

In conclusion: I had initially thought you confused bashing with writing sloppily, but it seems it isn't the case at all. My apologies. However, you didn't consider writing short stories in your model. Writing a novel definitely requires a lot of editing; but what if you're writing a piece that lasts for only 100 words?

Also, "the ability to write without doing anything afterwards" may be wishful thinking; but writing really carefully every time you go on an edit certainly works. Shakespeare wasn't the only writer who did so; Poets have more of the basher than the swooper in them, due to every perfect line appearing to them out of the blue.