by Daniel Reneau

Created on: August 16, 2009

Prose is more complicated to write on the grounds that it must make sense, have a plot, end logically, and be narrated in some manner. Poetry is word vomit that may: lack sentence structure, inverse subject verb, and it may break most rules of literature. Any Tom, Dick, or Harry can write a poem given any knowledge of any language. Poetry is as a beautiful box with ribbon and lace, and any vista can be put in that box with poetry. In Prose the box can be plain or extravagant, but the point is not the box but how does the character get in and out of the box; does he even know of the box, is he even in the box, or why doesn't he leave the box. This is one of my favourite analogies of writing, and when I speak to others about their writing I say "How do they leave the box."

I have written many poems; most of them consist of short phrases or word clusters, which, do not make complete sense. I could write 3 or 4 poems in one night, I have, but I could write a short story in three to four days. One could end a poem on a dime and be done, no questions asked, but a prose piece that is a different story. Ending early in a story without answering important questions, or not asking them, will doom a story. Logic must exist in a prose piece; it must have its own mythology, its own heroes and villains, it must create its own world in which dark places exist as well as illuminated ones. When writing a prose piece some sort of inspiration, a spark of madness, must burn wild in the forest of thought. Images of far lands, myths of old gods, and a touch of madness will bring forth tales wilder than the twisted mountains in The Twilight Lands to the north.

In prose one must explain, through the narrator, the world around them. Inter-woven into the work must be subplots, metaphors, allusions, suspense, foreshadow, along with other plot devices. Poetry does not require a plot, or plot devices for that matter, all it requires is words. Remember the story is the box, the beginning is wherever in or out of the box the writer wants, the end; well that is how the protagonist exits the box. If the protagonist cannot exit explain why they cannot.

I could write a poem every day but it would be a rehash of before, but I could write a story in a week and it would be different from the last.

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