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LTW's avatar

Hunter! This was a fantastic essay. I’m curious as to what you think about content influencing writing. Is it possible for problematic descriptions/words/prose to also be well written? I’m curious to see if any of that comes out as you read older work.

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Hunter Mclendon's avatar

Thanks so much! And I definitely plan on exploring this in my reviews of a lot of these olders books. I actually think there's a book coming out in January that has some problematic descriptions that, just from a structural standpoint, are well written. I think we can say that something is well-written but also problematic. I think the problem becomes trying to deny one because of the other? Because I think that once we address the fact that something can be well written and also problematic in some way--I see this a lot with ablest descriptions in books, for instance--then we can begin to hold writers accountable and not try to excuse it just because the writing is good. Idk if that makes sense haha, but hopefully I will be able to better articulate these thoughts when concrete examples come up.

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