Quote:
Originally Posted by Catlady
No, you are the one misconstruing. Where the heck did I ever say that substance = conventional story? Where did I make a delineation between style and substance? I made a very simple and rather obvious point that because unconventional usage distracts the reader, an author needs to have a good reason for it.
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If you distinguish between style and substance, then what does substance refer to but the story? If you are not referring to the story, then your entire post just begs the question. What is substance? When you distinguish between style (the method of transmission) and substance (that which is being transported), you have two things: how something is being told (the style) and what is being told, i.e. the story (the substance), at least when we are talking about novels. If the style is not substance, then we are talking about a straight up story here. If you are not referring to the story, your use of the word "substance" is meaningless and undefined.
How can you then say that an unconventional style detracts from the substance?
I'm sorry, but I'm not gonna play your sophist games. It isn't possible to have a coherent discussion with people who are deliberately vague and equivocal and use terms in novel ways without expliciting defining them just so you can try to "win" the discussion and pretend that you are being misconstrued or condescended.