modern prose
Today's literary style
Modern prose is written language—fiction or nonfiction—that follows contemporary conventions of style and structure, as distinct from verse or from the elevated, formal prose of earlier centuries.
The term typically implies direct expression, natural speech rhythms, and accessibility: The novel is written in clean modern prose.
In literary contexts, it often suggests the kind of spare, unornamented writing that emerged in the twentieth century.
- autofictionFiction drawn from life
- first personGrammatical self-reference perspective
- flash fictionUltra-short story genre
- creative nonfictionFact-based artistic prose
- literary fictionProse emphasizing craft and depth
essays · narrative voice · voice · unreliable narrator · postmodernism · memoirs · interior monologue · fragmentation · novellas · stream of consciousness · identity · absurdism · sentence · short sentences · colloquial language · alienation · existentialism · metafiction
- prose writingshort stories, essays, narratives, fiction, nonfiction
- Modern Translations
- Japanese LiteratureNorwegian Wood, Rashomon, Confessions, Kappa, Genji
- literary workspoems, novels, poetry, fiction, plays
- French LiteratureVictor Hugo, Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Dumas, Jules Verne
- Norwegian LiteratureHenrik Ibsen, A Dolls House, The Snowman, sagas, Nordic noir
modern prosepoetry
Metrical literary composition
verse · modern poetry · lyric poetry · free verse · epic poetry
modern proseancient literature
Texts from early civilizations
ancient texts · classical literature · ancient manuscripts · Victorian prose
modern proseoral tradition
Culture passed by speech
oral literature · spoken word · oral narrative · folk tales · oral storytelling