Running into the marsh, Laska at once detected, all over the place, mingled with the familiar smells of roots, marsh grass, slime, and the extraneous odour of horse dung, the scent of birds – of that strong-smelled bird that always excited her more than any other.
versus
Running into the marsh, Laska at once detected the scent of birds all over the place – that strong smell that always excited her more than any other. It mingled with familiar smells of roots, marsh grass, slime and the and the extraneous odour of horse dung.
That’s a paragraph from Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, widely considered a masterpiece of literature. The first one is verbatim from the book, the second is an ‘improved’ version, according to AI writing tools. The software tells me that the second paragraph is more ‘correct’. Apparently it’s better because it gets to the point more quickly and it has shorter sentences (and is therefore easier to read).
But, it doesn’t sound the same. It doesn’t feel the same.
I’m often wondering whether how I write and draw is ‘correct’. Do I write the way I write, and draw the way I draw, because I’m just not competent enough to do it ‘better’? Or, is my ‘style’ just my style because, well, I just think it’s better that way – simpler, less ‘technically’ good and more ‘quirk’.
There is, of course, no right answer here, but if art is about feeling one’s way through something, than perhaps going with what feels right might be an OK way to be.