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.
I dont know what arguing with a mod has anything to do with this conversation.
1: It's called Write and Revise. You know, the bread and butter of any professional writing ethic. Once again, what proof do you have that Shakespeare
didn't make mistakes or second guess as he went along. For all we know the bard could have had tons of unpublished work all part of his process with the stuff we see as the finished products. It appears that you are in fact not joking about the Bard, otherwise you wouldn't have brought the point back up.
2: What exactly is 'necessary' is subjective to the writer. You can't say that I constantly like to refine something over and over and therefore that makes me inefficient. And length has nothing to do with the tools you use. I can write a short story and refine it
once and be satisfied (we're talking pre-critique stage here). Doesn't mean refining it was cumbersome or "more than necessary". It's part of the process.
3: Uhh no. It's obvious you've never studied poetry before. Poetry isn't just about the rhymes, if at all. It's about expressing something from an entirely new perspective or device, where every word counts. Perhaps you're referring to the Nursery-Rhyme-esque shit that amateurs often use and then claim they're natural poets by heart. There is as much time and thought put into making
good poetry that just clicks in as much time it takes to write a short story. Once again, what's not to say the "basher poets"
didn't come up with something else entirely, only to revise them later?
4: I surmise that you just swoop dialogue because it's the easiest thing to write in a piece that you can bother editting later. It has nothing to do with being the proper tool for that proper situation. Of course you would bash dialogue if the story isn't dialogue-laden or if that isn't the focus of the tale. You can't automatically exclude one part of a story to one kind of style just because it doesn't suit you. In the greater scheme of things, when it's all written and done and you go out and take a walk, you'll find that certain things don't really sound right. That always happens. White Heat and Cold Blood.
In conclusion: It doesn't matter what length a piece is. Revising is a
process. It's not a step you can simply skip over lest you get called out for being an amateur writer. I think you have this backwards idea of how poetry is. It's not simply like a Pollock piece where you toss things and see what sticks. Even freeforms have their own structure. They're only called freeforms because the rhyme and meter of Structured poems are actually the "training wheels". In Freeform, it is you who has to determine the proper shape, size, and lyrics used. It is still a science, and one that cannot be bulldozed with Bashing.
