on_writing.htm

Notes on Writing

The Sense of Style by Steven Pinker

Good writers are avid readers. They have absorbed a vast inventory of words, idioms, constructions, tropes, and rhetorical tricks, and with them a sensitivity to how they mesh and how they clash.

Starting paragraphs

• Good writing starts strong. Not with a cliché (“Since the dawn of time”), not with a banality (“Recently, scholars have been increasingly concerned with the question of . . .”), but with a contentful observation that provokes curiosity.

On Writing Well by William Zinsser

Four articles of faith when writing: clarity, simplicity, brevity and humanity

When to use "--"

• Use -- when writing about a thought in the middle of a sentence
• The dog was taking a shit - he always does that - then he walked off

Why to write

• I’ve used writing to give myself an interesting life and a continuing education. If you write about subjects you think you would enjoy knowing about, your enjoyment will show in what you write. Learning is a tonic.
• If you want your writing to convey enjoyment, write about people you respect.
• The moral for nonfiction writers is: think broadly about your assignment. Don’t assume that an article for Audubon has to be strictly about nature, or an article for Car & Driver strictly about cars. Push the boundaries of your subject and see where it takes you. Bring some part of your own life to it; it’s not your version of the story until you write it.

On connecting paragraphs

• Every paragraph should amplify the one that preceded it. Give more thought to adding solid detail and less to entertaining the reader. But take special care with the last sentence of each paragraph—it’s the crucial springboard to the next paragraph. Try to give that sentence an extra twist of humor or surprise, like the periodic “snapper” in the routine of a stand-up comic.

On deciding what to write

• Every writing project must be reduced before you start to write. Therefore think small. Decide what corner of your subject you’re going to bite off, and be content to cover it well and stop.

Know your relation to the reader

• For example: “In what capacity am I going to address the reader?” (Reporter? Provider of information? Average man or woman?) “What pronoun and tense am I going to use?” “What style?” (Impersonal reportorial? Personal but formal? Personal and casual?) “What attitude am I going to take toward the material?” (Involved? Detached? Judgmental? Ironic? Amused?) “How much do I want to cover?” “What one point do I want to make?”

Read what you write

• All your sentences move at the same plodding gait, which even you recognize as deadly but don’t know how to cure, read them aloud. (I write entirely by ear and read everything aloud before letting it go out into the world.)

Learn the intricacies of words

• If you have any doubt of what a word means, look it up. Learn its etymology and notice what curious branches its original root has put forth. See if it has any meanings you didn’t know it had. Master the small gradations between words that seem to be synonyms. What’s the difference between “cajole,” “wheedle,” “blandish” and “coax”? Get yourself a dictionary of synonyms.

Read great writing

• Writing is learned by imitation. If anyone asked me how I learned to write, I’d say I learned by reading the men and women who were doing the kind of writing I wanted to do and trying to figure out how they did it. But cultivate the best models.
• Find the best writers in the fields that interest you and read their work aloud. Get their voice and their taste into your ear—their attitude toward language.

Use simple words

• But the secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.
• Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that’s already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what—these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence.
• Writing improves in direct ratio to the number of things we can keep out of it that shouldn’t be there. “Up” in “free up” shouldn’t be there. Examine every word you put on paper. You’ll find a surprising number that don’t serve any purpose.
• Beware, then, of the long word that’s no better than the short word: “assistance” (help), “numerous” (many), “facilitate” (ease), “individual” (man or woman), “remainder” (rest), “initial” (first), “implement” (do), “sufficient” (enough), “attempt” (try), “referred to as” (called) and hundreds more. Beware of all the slippery new fad words: paradigm and parameter, prioritize and potentialize. They are all weeds that will smother what you write. Don’t dialogue with someone you can talk to. Don’t interface with anybody.
• Writing that will endure tends to consist of words that are short and strong; words that sedate are words of three, four and five syllables, mostly of Latin origin, many of them ending in “ion” and embodying a vague concept.

Show yourself in your writing

• Writing is an intimate transaction between two people, conducted on paper, and it will go well to the extent that it retains its humanity. Therefore I urge people to write in the first person: to use “I” and “me” and “we” and “us.” They put up a fight.

Avoid adverbs

• If an action is so easy as to be effortless, use “effortless.” And what is “slightly spartan”? Perhaps a monk’s cell with wall-to-wall carpeting. Don’t use adverbs unless they do necessary work. Spare us the news that the winning athlete grinned widely.

Make paragraphs short

• Keep your paragraphs short. Writing is visual—it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain. Short paragraphs put air around what you write and make it look inviting, whereas a long chunk of type can discourage a reader from even starting to read.

Elements of Style

When to use commas

• In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term except the last.
• Avoid commas when the interruption is slight

Stephen King

Don't use complex words when simpler ones will do

• Use the first word that comes to your mind
• Writing is about meaning; you can't be using the cousin of the word you intended when the first one will do

Avoid passive voice

• Passive voice often comes from fear and timid writers. Put the subject before the verb. Let people know who did what and where

Avoid adverbs

• "Merrily joe did this", better to just say Joe did this
• Adverbs often end with -ly, it is also the result of timid writers
• If an action is so easy as to be effortless, use “effortless.” And what is “slightly spartan”? Perhaps a monk’s cell with wall-to-wall carpeting. Don’t use adverbs unless they do necessary work. Spare us the news that the winning athlete grinned widely.

Writing is telepathy

• Our role is to pop ideas out of our head into the reader's head

Be honest in your writing

• Talk about what you know; e.g., the author of The Firm wrote about his experience with lawyers

Write 1000 words a day

• Take 1 day off per week
• Stephen King would write most days of the year

To write well, you have to read a lot

• Make it a priority, read lots of fiction and non-fiction
• You can't try writing if you don't already read many books
• Read in waiting rooms, airports, queues, anytime you get the change
• Always carry a paperbook or an e-reader with you
• Learn to read in small sips and big gulps

Have a sense of humor

• Most writing is dull, and people are easily distracted
• Use humor to engage people

Your art shouldn't adapt to your space, but your space to your art

• It doesn't matter where you write, what matters is that you do

Writing involves describing the scenery, the characters, and the narrative; the plot will come along

• Its hard to know the plot of our lives, your role is to set the stage and let the stories unfold

Paul Graham

Put ideas into words

• Half the ideas that end up in an essay, will be the ones you thought while writing them
• If writing down your ideas albways makes them more precise and more complete, then no one who hasn't written about a topic has fully formed ideas about it. And someone who never writes has no fully formed ideas about anything nontrivial.

Writing, briefly

• If you can't get started, tell someone what you plan to write about, then write down what you said; expect 80% of the ideas in an essay to happen after you start writing it, and 50% of those you start with to be wrong;
• don't (always) make detailed outlines; mull ideas over for a few days before writing; carry a small notebook or scrap paper with you; start writing when you think of the first sentence
• when you restart, begin by rereading what you have so far; when you finish, leave yourself something easy to start with; accumulate notes for topics you plan to cover at the bottom of the file; don't feel obliged to cover any of them

How to write clearly

• Use simple words; easier words means people focus on the ideas and not on the prose
• When you write in a fancy way you make readers do extra work
• Writing simply exposes ideas for what they are
• When you write sentences with fancy words it can be offensive and clumsy
• Write the first draft then spend time editing it. Cutting.

How to write usefully

• Importance + Novelty + Correctness + Strength
• Its OK to use "I think" to classify the certainty of your ideas. It also makes you sound less pretentious.
• Use writing as a tool to think
• Loose then tight. Write the first draft fast trying out many ideas; then rewrite carefully
• Make something you want. The reader is not completely unlike you
• To get novelty, write about things you've thought a lot. Anything that surprises you.
  • If you don't learn anything from an essay don't publish it
• To start writing, lexas the importance. The number of people who care about what you write.
• Write something so narrow you might be an expert in it
• Another constraint to relax. You don't need to publish everything