Okay, so today I’m gonna spill the beans on something I’ve been messing around with: Hemingway and Gertrude Stein. Yeah, those two literary giants. Figured I’d dive in and see what I could learn, maybe even steal a little of their magic for my own writing.
First things first, I read a bunch of their stuff. Hemingway, obviously "The Sun Also Rises," "A Farewell to Arms," the usual suspects. Stein, I went with "The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas" and some of her more… experimental stuff like "Tender Buttons." I gotta be honest, Stein was a bit of a head-scratcher at times, but I was determined to get something out of it.
Then, I started picking apart their styles. Hemingway, all about those short, declarative sentences, right? Stripped-down prose, iceberg theory, the whole shebang. I tried to mimic that in my own writing. Took a simple scene – me making coffee this morning – and rewrote it about five times, trying to cut out every unnecessary word.
Stein, on the other hand, was a different beast altogether. Repetition, stream of consciousness, playing with language in weird ways. I tried to do that too. Sat down and just wrote whatever came into my head, without worrying about grammar or making sense. It was… interesting. Mostly nonsense, but there were a few glimmers of something cool.
Next, I tried to combine the two. Hemingway’s simplicity with Stein’s experimental flair. This was the real challenge. I took a scene I’d already written in the Hemingway style and then tried to “Stein-ify” it. Added repetition, played with sentence structure, tried to make it a little more… abstract.
Here's a quick example. Originally, in my Hemingway phase, I wrote: "The coffee was hot. I drank it fast. The sun was coming up." Pretty basic, right?
Then I tried to "Stein" it up a bit. It became something like: "Coffee. Hot. Hot coffee. I drank it. Fast. Fast the sun. The sun coming. Coming up. Up."
Yeah, I know, it sounds kinda dumb written out like that. But when you're in the moment, just letting the words flow, it feels… different. Like you're tapping into something primal.
Finally, I stepped back and looked at what I’d created. Did I suddenly become a literary genius? Nope. But did I learn something? Absolutely. I realized that Hemingway’s style, while effective, can also be a little limiting. And Stein’s, while freeing, can easily devolve into gibberish. The key, as always, is finding the right balance.
So, what’s the takeaway? Don’t be afraid to experiment. Read widely. Try to mimic the styles of writers you admire. But ultimately, find your own voice. That’s what I’m still working on, anyway.
- Read Hemingway and Stein.
- Analyze their styles.
- Try to mimic them.
- Combine their techniques.
- Find your own voice.
