Clark Clayton Smith Research Paper

Do you know who Clark Ashton Smith is? Smith is an American author who wrote many poems and short stories, mostly horror and weird fiction. One of his novels, The End of the Story, is one of his popular books. It was published in the 1930s and it is filled with short, suspenseful, horror stories. In this book, there are a lot of different aspects within his texts that really bring out his special writing style. Three of these aspects are vivid detail, unique perspectives, and diction. One aspect that made Smith’s writing style so unique was his use of vivid detail. His use of details in his stories are not ordinary, plain details but instead very descriptive. As an illustration, in his book, The End of the Story, he wrote, “Beneath them his eyes were cold and green as ice of ancient floes.”(17) Other authors might just say, “forest colored eyes,” or something of the sort. But Smith says it in such a way, it paints a picture in the reader’s head. Another example of vivid detail in his book is in his short story, The Abominations of Yondo. In it, he wrote, “For Yondo lies nearest of all to the world’s rim; and strange winds, blowing from a gulf no astronomer may hope to fathom, have sown its …show more content…
He doesn’t use your typical words, but instead more expressive words. In fact, in, The Phantoms of the Fire, he wrote, “...with the broiling afternoon sun on his back was hardly less dusty than the trees.”(35) He uses the word ‘broiling’ when your ordinary author would choose a word like ‘burning’ or ‘baking.’ To emphasize, in The End of the Story, he wrote, “I had traversed earlier in the day.” Like stated before, authors would use words like ‘crossed’ or ‘traveled’ while Smith uses ‘traversed.’ Elevated word choice makes stories more interesting and help people learn more words. (22) All in all, Smith’s good word choice was another aspect that made his writing style so