8 ms·

C.S. Lewis on Writing

249 points by taylorbuley 15y ago

stcredzero 15y ago
Contrast with Heinlein on writing: "Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards."
- stesch 15y ago
  Well, Heinlein was a perv. ;-)
- tygorius 15y ago
  Actually, that's one of Heinlein's characters commenting on writing. Occasionally Heinlein would have to remind people that his characters spoke for themselves, not for him. I can't remember a case where he spoke or wrote about writing in a similar fashion to what C.S. Lewis wrote in his letter, but his 5 rules of writing[1] have been influential for many writers. Once, in an Annapolis address, he explained that the rules were simple (1. You must write. 2. You must finish what you write. ...) but only 1 in 10 would follow each step. This was how you could get from half of the adult US population wanting to be a writer to less than a thousand actually being members of the writing guild he belonged to. [1] http://www.sfwriter.com/ow05.htm http://www.sfwriter.com/ow05.htm
username3 15y ago
v. nice practical writing advice
danso 15y ago
>> In writing. Don't use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was "terrible," describe it so that we'll be terrified. Don't say it was "delightful"; make us say "delightful" when we've read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, "Please will you do my job for me." My high school journalism teacher (and I'm sure many others) phrased this as "Show, don't tell". I wish all writing/journalism classes devoted a week to this precept.
- medinism 15y ago
  Danso - agreed. this is a gem! will make me think of how I use adjectives for ever
- RyanMcGreal 15y ago
  > I wish all writing/journalism classes devoted a week to this precept. I'm quite sure they already do. The persistence of writing that tells rather than shows owes to the usual causes, i.e. a shortage of motivation, confidence, ability and/or time on the part of the writer.
- ErrantX 15y ago
  Heh, I came to say much the same thing. When I was taught this idea my writing ability improved no end. Critical advice.
- jonnathanson 15y ago
  It's funny; my fourth-grade English teacher had a sign on her wall that read "Eschew prolixity." It's a safe bet that no fourth grader, no matter how extraordinary, has come across those two words by that point in his life. So, of course, everyone in the class was puzzled by them. The phrase might as well have been some ancient, Latin dictum -- and, for all we knew, it was. Finally, one day, someone mustered the courage to ask her what the words meant. "It's a rule for good writing," she said. "When you understand what it means, you're already in danger of breaking it."
  - cafard 15y ago
    A variation, actually, on Mark Twain's "eschew surplusage". But "prolixity" does not mean using long words.
    - jonnathanson 15y ago
      I'm aware, which makes the phrase technically incorrect in its intent. But I think it's still serviceable.
GiraffeNecktie 15y ago
This is one of my favorite sites and always the first thing I read when I see there's something new in my RSS feeds. Kurt Vonnegut's letter on book burning published last week was also great http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/i-am-very-real.html http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/i-am-very-real.html
shin_lao 15y ago
One of the best books you can find on the topic has been written by Stephen King and is called "On Writing". The first part is a small auto-biography as he states that "to understand writing you must understand what happens in the life of a writer". The second part is full of clever and useful advices, including ones close to the one in this article. Even if you don't like the author, you should really read this book if you're serious about writing. http://www.amazon.com/On-Writing-Stephen-King/dp/0743455967 http://www.amazon.com/On-Writing-Stephen-King/dp/0743455967
- ctdonath 15y ago
  Great book for the aspiring writer. Most of it is filler material, but the ~16 pages of real writing advice is worth at least the cover price. One recommendation that stuck with me is to avoid words ending in "ly". I now make that effort, and the results are an improvement.
  - dvdhsu 15y ago
    > One recommendation that stuck with me is to avoid words ending in "ly". I now make that effort, and the results are an improvement. For those who are wondering at the rationale behind this: many adverbs end in -ly. "The brown fox quickly ran", "she urgently asked", "he mercilessly ate his salad", etc. Adverbs should be avoided, because, as danso notes, you must "show, not tell". When the brown fox "quickly" runs, you're telling the reader what happened. Similarly, when she "urgently" asks, you're not showing the reader what's going on. Instead, you can describe what's happening with better verbs: "the brown fox sprinted after his dinner", "she pleaded for the answer key", "he attacked the tomato in his salad". That's just one way to do it, of course. You can also describe the action in detail: "After skewering his tomato, Jessie brought it up to his mouth, where it tumbled into his esophagus".
- runevault 15y ago
  I actually read the book, and found most of the advice (besides the no duh basics like you have to keep writing no matter what) pretty unsurprising, but then I only read it last year after having read a LOT of other books on the topic as well as completed a couple novels and a lot of failed attempts. Perhaps it's good for people newer to the craft but once you get past a certain point I actually would NOT recommend going back and reading it. Though to be fair at this point the only books on the craft I buy talk about specific topics (Dialogue, description, subtext, etc).
wmdmark 15y ago
Good stuff.
eavc 15y ago
Lewis was an amazing man. A more serious scholar and thinker than most who know about him today would probably expect, a brilliant writer, and he did things like respond to all of his fan mail and give away the lion's share (pardon the pun) of his works' profits.
- wyclif 15y ago
  He gave away most of his book royalty income for several reasons: 1. He was a Christian. 2. For most of his life he was a bachelor and didn't need much to live on. 3. Magdalen College, Oxford (and later Cambridge University) provided him accomodations as well as a scholarly income from his professorship.
- blvr 15y ago
  He's also probably the greatest (or at least the most popular) Christian author in history. I see other Christian teachers living in luxury and while I don't doubt their faith in Jesus I can't sit at their feet while they're not bearing fruit themselves.
nikcub 15y ago
Point 1 is not the worst point Point 2 could be additionally descriptive Point 3 -peaked- (piqued!) my interest Point 4 was awesome Point 5 should be universally implemented ps. related: http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit
- endersshadow 15y ago
  Since we're talking about good writing here, I feel it's only just that I point out that point three piqued your interest, not peaked it. Unless your interest was at its apex at point three, but since you liked points four and five so much, I doubt that's the case. At any rate, his previous point about there being no "right" or "wrong" language is something that is absolutely true. I think that's the most important point in the letter, which is outside his list of five points.
- DaveInTucson 15y ago
  Since this is already a post about language and writing: > Point 3 peaked my interest The homonym you want here is pique[1] [1] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pique http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pique definition 3
- bmelton 15y ago
  I supposed you're being downvoted for being so terse, but I generally agree with your comment, so it got my upvote. Yes, I am aware of how tacky it is to discuss voting, or making meta-comments in general. I think that, in my opinion at least, these instructions apply VERY well to journalism, or perhaps certain types of fiction, but not fiction on the whole. One of my recently favorite authors is Elmore Leonard, who breaks most of these rules with great ferocity, and is a fantastic writer on the whole. He has his own rules on writing, but the first is: "My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it." In contrast to CS Lewis' writings, this leads to much more believable dialog, but that doesn't necessarily conform to any of Lewis' rules. Characters are seldom terse when they could instead be interesting. Characters are seldom cautious to take care that the reader can fully understand what they're saying. Characters are seldom as specific as you might like them to be. I find this to be much more natural, and feels much less "like writing" than most other authors and for that, I appreciate him immensely.
karlalopez 15y ago
CS Lewis was quite effective in his CRM. That's just awesome.
- bgilroy26 15y ago
  What do you mean "CRM"?
  - karlalopez 15y ago
    Customer relationship managing. "(...)it's no real surprise that C. S. Lewis received thousands of letters from youngsters during his career. What's admirable is that he attempted to reply to each and every one of those pieces of fan mail, and not just with a generic, impersonal line or two."
    - bgilroy26 15y ago
      That was what CRM usually means to me and I still didn't make the connection, that's a really cool thought! I really like it when we can tie modern techy/businessy practices back to how someone would do things before the jargon those practices are often built on came into usage. I think it strengthens both the long term viability of the practice and our understanding of people who lived in the past. I think your idea shows how CRM can be down-home and warm, which is a real drawback to the way it's generally approached. If relationships can be approached within a framework that makes it easier to manage them more productively without the "systemitization" swelling into the foreground, that's a win for everybody. I'm sure that's a big concern for SalesForce researchers.
ctdonath 15y ago
"5. Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite." This is why I object to most usage of cursing in writing (see recent threads on the subject). Using the most extreme language for relatively mundane situations leaves you nothing to work with when extreme language is warranted. Ex.: using the phrasing "go the f^@& home" (see thread of same name) in a mundane discussion about work hours really is pretty pathetic insofar as it wastes & deflates extreme language better used where more appropriate, such as describing the feeling of having your rib cage pried open with a car jack (been there, done that, f^@& applies). (Some of us suffer net-nannies, so pardon the veiling.)
- JDShu 15y ago
  On the one hand it makes sense, but on the other hand isn't it agreed that cursing brings a certain context or atmosphere? How would the advice here apply to, say, a Quentin Tarantino movie?
  - bdunbar 15y ago
    Most - perhaps all - of the situations a Tarantino character would find himself in _are_ extreme situations. Most of us don't find ourselves in places like that on a frequent basis. This might be true of most action movies. If you're shooting it out with a band of Euro-trash criminals in a skyscraper, a 'yipi-ki-yay-mother-f%%ker' is appropriate. Probably not so much picking up ice cream, milk and yogurt.
    - nosse 15y ago
      I really like what you just ended up calling appropriate... I'm seriously laughing here!
evincarofautumn 15y ago
#4 could be summed up as “show, don’t tell”. It’s much easier to say what you mean than to convey it in an interesting way. “Creating Short Fiction” by Damon Knight mentions this as well, and goes into great detail about the difficulties of fiction writing and how to surmount them. I thoroughly recommend it.
sampsonjs 15y ago
How about some advice from a better writer? Like "Politics and the English Lagnuage": http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm "(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent." Like saying "orthogonal" when you mean "unrelated".
azarias 15y ago
Read the 5 points again, except now imagine he is talking about writing code. A lot of it makes sense...In fact, I say Tim Peters lifted half of the Zen of Python from Lewis :)
gregorymichael 15y ago
I have too many educated friends who write by maxim "Never use a short word when a polysyllabic one will do".
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
grepherder 15y ago
>> 3. Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean "More people died" don't say "Mortality rose." Am I the only one that doesn't agree with this, at least in general? I mean, the idea behind the advice is of course sound, just a basic form of keep it simple stupid. But in this case, why? This isn't engineering, it's about communication of thoughts. And thoughts can be abstract. I find I can think more efficiently and also more rationally when using abstractions, especially ones I'm familiar with. Just like chunking in memory, there is data I have ready when you speak of mortality, instead of trying to explain to me in plain words that people die. That said, it might just be me (or people like me). I have to constantly make a conscious effort of writing and speaking less abstractly, just to not annoy people. It might have to do with the fact that English is not my native tongue, and as I don't use it in my daily life, I lack the touch for concreteness to make sense to me that easily.
- AerieC 15y ago
  Thoughts can be abstract, but when you're trying to paint a picture with words, abstractions can make your "picture" weaker. "Mortality rose" is a confusing statement. What does it mean? Did more people die, or did humanity's inherent mortality somehow increase? If you meant "more people died", then say it. You're not talking about the abstract concept of mortality, you're talking about people dying. In the time it took your reader to figure out what you meant, you may have already lost him or her. Often it's a case of writers trying to be overly clever with their wordplay. For example, you wouldn't want to say something like, "her posterior condition was greatly exaggerated," when what you meant was, "she has a big ass". Sure, the first sentence is "clever", but it's not very clear. The second sentence is right to the point; there's no mistaking the meaning, and it paints a better picture in one's mind. It's similar to active voice vs. passive voice. "Dan hit the ball," is clear and to the point. "The ball was hit by Dan," paints a weaker picture, even if it says the same thing. Why is "ball" the subject of the sentence. Are we supposed to care about this ball? Aren't we talking about Dan here? Clarity in writing is important. Readers don't like to be confused. Anything that breaks the "flow" should be avoided, unless that is your goal (e.g. to stop the reader and make them think).
adriand 15y ago
My four-year-old says "I amn't". I correct him with "I'm not" but I've long felt his usage made logical sense. But I never realized it was at some place and time an accepted usage! Amazing how the brain acquires language and independently applies its rules.
ams6110 15y ago
Nobody's mentioned The Elements of Style, a great little handbook on how to write clearly.
- andolanra 15y ago
  Because it's not all that great. It's the C Programming Language of linguistic style guides—well-respected and historically relevant, but not necessarily the best resource. For example, The Elements of Style tells you to avoid the passive voice, on the grounds that sentences like "The sandwich was eaten by me," are much more awkward than "I ate the sandwich." It gives three sentences in support of this: "There were a great number of dead leaves lying on the ground," "It was not long before she was very sorry that she had said what she had," and "The reason that he left college was that his health became impaired." None of these sentences actually contain a passive: the first is an existential sentence, the second is a simple copula, and the third uses the copula with an adjective, not a participle.[1] All of which is to say—Strunk and White did not know what a passive was. The actual advice they meant to give is something along the lines of, "Don't be vague about agency," but that is a different proscription. There are places where you should avoid the passive, and there are also places where you should employ the passive, because it is clearer than the alternative. For example, if your documentation says, "Our software product is used to [blah]", you should not change it to, "People use our software product to [blah]," because those people do not matter. By avoiding the passive, you have made your writing less clear by introducing unnecessary information. Strunk and White have a lot of advice which is merely harmless, but it is not a spectacular writing guide, except for the simplest, least elaborate kinds of writing. Truly great writing is not writing which follows those rules, but writing that knows when to follow such rules. For example, Orwell and Churchill, both quite excellent writers, use the passive significantly more than journalists of the time[2]. [1]: The passive transforms sentences of the form "{noun1} {verb} {noun2}" into "{noun2} {be} {verb}ed [by {noun1}]"; it is (or should be) clear that these sentences cannot be transformed from the latter pattern into the former. [2]: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003414.html http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003414.h...
  - bgilroy26 15y ago
grn 15y ago
His 4th point reminded me of Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Both made a great impression on me. When discussing them with my wife she observed that they didn't give you what you ought to think and feel. They just showed you and your feelings and thoughts were your own and not of the writer.

249 points by taylorbuley 15y ago

Contrast with Heinlein on writing: "Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards."

stesch 15y ago
Well, Heinlein was a perv. ;-)
tygorius 15y ago
Actually, that's one of Heinlein's characters commenting on writing. Occasionally Heinlein would have to remind people that his characters spoke for themselves, not for him. I can't remember a case where he spoke or wrote about writing in a similar fashion to what C.S. Lewis wrote in his letter, but his 5 rules of writing[1] have been influential for many writers. Once, in an Annapolis address, he explained that the rules were simple (1. You must write. 2. You must finish what you write. ...) but only 1 in 10 would follow each step. This was how you could get from half of the adult US population wanting to be a writer to less than a thousand actually being members of the writing guild he belonged to. [1] http://www.sfwriter.com/ow05.htm http://www.sfwriter.com/ow05.htm

username3 15y ago

v. nice practical writing advice

danso 15y ago

>> In writing. Don't use adjectives which merely tell us how you want us to feel about the thing you are describing. I mean, instead of telling us a thing was "terrible," describe it so that we'll be terrified. Don't say it was "delightful"; make us say "delightful" when we've read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers, "Please will you do my job for me." My high school journalism teacher (and I'm sure many others) phrased this as "Show, don't tell". I wish all writing/journalism classes devoted a week to this precept.

medinism 15y ago
Danso - agreed. this is a gem! will make me think of how I use adjectives for ever
RyanMcGreal 15y ago
> I wish all writing/journalism classes devoted a week to this precept. I'm quite sure they already do. The persistence of writing that tells rather than shows owes to the usual causes, i.e. a shortage of motivation, confidence, ability and/or time on the part of the writer.
ErrantX 15y ago
Heh, I came to say much the same thing. When I was taught this idea my writing ability improved no end. Critical advice.
jonnathanson 15y ago
It's funny; my fourth-grade English teacher had a sign on her wall that read "Eschew prolixity." It's a safe bet that no fourth grader, no matter how extraordinary, has come across those two words by that point in his life. So, of course, everyone in the class was puzzled by them. The phrase might as well have been some ancient, Latin dictum -- and, for all we knew, it was. Finally, one day, someone mustered the courage to ask her what the words meant. "It's a rule for good writing," she said. "When you understand what it means, you're already in danger of breaking it."
- cafard 15y ago
  A variation, actually, on Mark Twain's "eschew surplusage". But "prolixity" does not mean using long words.
  - jonnathanson 15y ago
    I'm aware, which makes the phrase technically incorrect in its intent. But I think it's still serviceable.

GiraffeNecktie 15y ago

This is one of my favorite sites and always the first thing I read when I see there's something new in my RSS feeds. Kurt Vonnegut's letter on book burning published last week was also great http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/i-am-very-real.html http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/03/i-am-very-real.html

shin_lao 15y ago

One of the best books you can find on the topic has been written by Stephen King and is called "On Writing". The first part is a small auto-biography as he states that "to understand writing you must understand what happens in the life of a writer". The second part is full of clever and useful advices, including ones close to the one in this article. Even if you don't like the author, you should really read this book if you're serious about writing. http://www.amazon.com/On-Writing-Stephen-King/dp/0743455967 http://www.amazon.com/On-Writing-Stephen-King/dp/0743455967

ctdonath 15y ago
Great book for the aspiring writer. Most of it is filler material, but the ~16 pages of real writing advice is worth at least the cover price. One recommendation that stuck with me is to avoid words ending in "ly". I now make that effort, and the results are an improvement.
- dvdhsu 15y ago
  > One recommendation that stuck with me is to avoid words ending in "ly". I now make that effort, and the results are an improvement. For those who are wondering at the rationale behind this: many adverbs end in -ly. "The brown fox quickly ran", "she urgently asked", "he mercilessly ate his salad", etc. Adverbs should be avoided, because, as danso notes, you must "show, not tell". When the brown fox "quickly" runs, you're telling the reader what happened. Similarly, when she "urgently" asks, you're not showing the reader what's going on. Instead, you can describe what's happening with better verbs: "the brown fox sprinted after his dinner", "she pleaded for the answer key", "he attacked the tomato in his salad". That's just one way to do it, of course. You can also describe the action in detail: "After skewering his tomato, Jessie brought it up to his mouth, where it tumbled into his esophagus".
runevault 15y ago
I actually read the book, and found most of the advice (besides the no duh basics like you have to keep writing no matter what) pretty unsurprising, but then I only read it last year after having read a LOT of other books on the topic as well as completed a couple novels and a lot of failed attempts. Perhaps it's good for people newer to the craft but once you get past a certain point I actually would NOT recommend going back and reading it. Though to be fair at this point the only books on the craft I buy talk about specific topics (Dialogue, description, subtext, etc).

wmdmark 15y ago

Good stuff.

eavc 15y ago

Lewis was an amazing man. A more serious scholar and thinker than most who know about him today would probably expect, a brilliant writer, and he did things like respond to all of his fan mail and give away the lion's share (pardon the pun) of his works' profits.

wyclif 15y ago
He gave away most of his book royalty income for several reasons: 1. He was a Christian. 2. For most of his life he was a bachelor and didn't need much to live on. 3. Magdalen College, Oxford (and later Cambridge University) provided him accomodations as well as a scholarly income from his professorship.
blvr 15y ago
He's also probably the greatest (or at least the most popular) Christian author in history. I see other Christian teachers living in luxury and while I don't doubt their faith in Jesus I can't sit at their feet while they're not bearing fruit themselves.

nikcub 15y ago

Point 1 is not the worst point Point 2 could be additionally descriptive Point 3 -peaked- (piqued!) my interest Point 4 was awesome Point 5 should be universally implemented ps. related: http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit

endersshadow 15y ago
Since we're talking about good writing here, I feel it's only just that I point out that point three piqued your interest, not peaked it. Unless your interest was at its apex at point three, but since you liked points four and five so much, I doubt that's the case. At any rate, his previous point about there being no "right" or "wrong" language is something that is absolutely true. I think that's the most important point in the letter, which is outside his list of five points.
DaveInTucson 15y ago
Since this is already a post about language and writing: > Point 3 peaked my interest The homonym you want here is pique[1] [1] http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pique http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pique definition 3
bmelton 15y ago
I supposed you're being downvoted for being so terse, but I generally agree with your comment, so it got my upvote. Yes, I am aware of how tacky it is to discuss voting, or making meta-comments in general. I think that, in my opinion at least, these instructions apply VERY well to journalism, or perhaps certain types of fiction, but not fiction on the whole. One of my recently favorite authors is Elmore Leonard, who breaks most of these rules with great ferocity, and is a fantastic writer on the whole. He has his own rules on writing, but the first is: "My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it." In contrast to CS Lewis' writings, this leads to much more believable dialog, but that doesn't necessarily conform to any of Lewis' rules. Characters are seldom terse when they could instead be interesting. Characters are seldom cautious to take care that the reader can fully understand what they're saying. Characters are seldom as specific as you might like them to be. I find this to be much more natural, and feels much less "like writing" than most other authors and for that, I appreciate him immensely.

karlalopez 15y ago

CS Lewis was quite effective in his CRM. That's just awesome.

bgilroy26 15y ago
What do you mean "CRM"?
- karlalopez 15y ago
  Customer relationship managing. "(...)it's no real surprise that C. S. Lewis received thousands of letters from youngsters during his career. What's admirable is that he attempted to reply to each and every one of those pieces of fan mail, and not just with a generic, impersonal line or two."
  - bgilroy26 15y ago
    That was what CRM usually means to me and I still didn't make the connection, that's a really cool thought! I really like it when we can tie modern techy/businessy practices back to how someone would do things before the jargon those practices are often built on came into usage. I think it strengthens both the long term viability of the practice and our understanding of people who lived in the past. I think your idea shows how CRM can be down-home and warm, which is a real drawback to the way it's generally approached. If relationships can be approached within a framework that makes it easier to manage them more productively without the "systemitization" swelling into the foreground, that's a win for everybody. I'm sure that's a big concern for SalesForce researchers.

ctdonath 15y ago

"5. Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite." This is why I object to most usage of cursing in writing (see recent threads on the subject). Using the most extreme language for relatively mundane situations leaves you nothing to work with when extreme language is warranted. Ex.: using the phrasing "go the f^@& home" (see thread of same name) in a mundane discussion about work hours really is pretty pathetic insofar as it wastes & deflates extreme language better used where more appropriate, such as describing the feeling of having your rib cage pried open with a car jack (been there, done that, f^@& applies). (Some of us suffer net-nannies, so pardon the veiling.)

JDShu 15y ago
On the one hand it makes sense, but on the other hand isn't it agreed that cursing brings a certain context or atmosphere? How would the advice here apply to, say, a Quentin Tarantino movie?
- bdunbar 15y ago
  Most - perhaps all - of the situations a Tarantino character would find himself in _are_ extreme situations. Most of us don't find ourselves in places like that on a frequent basis. This might be true of most action movies. If you're shooting it out with a band of Euro-trash criminals in a skyscraper, a 'yipi-ki-yay-mother-f%%ker' is appropriate. Probably not so much picking up ice cream, milk and yogurt.
  - nosse 15y ago
    I really like what you just ended up calling appropriate... I'm seriously laughing here!

evincarofautumn 15y ago

#4 could be summed up as “show, don’t tell”. It’s much easier to say what you mean than to convey it in an interesting way. “Creating Short Fiction” by Damon Knight mentions this as well, and goes into great detail about the difficulties of fiction writing and how to surmount them. I thoroughly recommend it.

sampsonjs 15y ago

How about some advice from a better writer? Like "Politics and the English Lagnuage": http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm "(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent." Like saying "orthogonal" when you mean "unrelated".

azarias 15y ago

Read the 5 points again, except now imagine he is talking about writing code. A lot of it makes sense...In fact, I say Tim Peters lifted half of the Zen of Python from Lewis :)

gregorymichael 15y ago

I have too many educated friends who write by maxim "Never use a short word when a polysyllabic one will do".

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

grepherder 15y ago

>> 3. Never use abstract nouns when concrete ones will do. If you mean "More people died" don't say "Mortality rose." Am I the only one that doesn't agree with this, at least in general? I mean, the idea behind the advice is of course sound, just a basic form of keep it simple stupid. But in this case, why? This isn't engineering, it's about communication of thoughts. And thoughts can be abstract. I find I can think more efficiently and also more rationally when using abstractions, especially ones I'm familiar with. Just like chunking in memory, there is data I have ready when you speak of mortality, instead of trying to explain to me in plain words that people die. That said, it might just be me (or people like me). I have to constantly make a conscious effort of writing and speaking less abstractly, just to not annoy people. It might have to do with the fact that English is not my native tongue, and as I don't use it in my daily life, I lack the touch for concreteness to make sense to me that easily.

AerieC 15y ago
Thoughts can be abstract, but when you're trying to paint a picture with words, abstractions can make your "picture" weaker. "Mortality rose" is a confusing statement. What does it mean? Did more people die, or did humanity's inherent mortality somehow increase? If you meant "more people died", then say it. You're not talking about the abstract concept of mortality, you're talking about people dying. In the time it took your reader to figure out what you meant, you may have already lost him or her. Often it's a case of writers trying to be overly clever with their wordplay. For example, you wouldn't want to say something like, "her posterior condition was greatly exaggerated," when what you meant was, "she has a big ass". Sure, the first sentence is "clever", but it's not very clear. The second sentence is right to the point; there's no mistaking the meaning, and it paints a better picture in one's mind. It's similar to active voice vs. passive voice. "Dan hit the ball," is clear and to the point. "The ball was hit by Dan," paints a weaker picture, even if it says the same thing. Why is "ball" the subject of the sentence. Are we supposed to care about this ball? Aren't we talking about Dan here? Clarity in writing is important. Readers don't like to be confused. Anything that breaks the "flow" should be avoided, unless that is your goal (e.g. to stop the reader and make them think).

adriand 15y ago

My four-year-old says "I amn't". I correct him with "I'm not" but I've long felt his usage made logical sense. But I never realized it was at some place and time an accepted usage! Amazing how the brain acquires language and independently applies its rules.

ams6110 15y ago

Nobody's mentioned The Elements of Style, a great little handbook on how to write clearly.

andolanra 15y ago
Because it's not all that great. It's the C Programming Language of linguistic style guides—well-respected and historically relevant, but not necessarily the best resource. For example, The Elements of Style tells you to avoid the passive voice, on the grounds that sentences like "The sandwich was eaten by me," are much more awkward than "I ate the sandwich." It gives three sentences in support of this: "There were a great number of dead leaves lying on the ground," "It was not long before she was very sorry that she had said what she had," and "The reason that he left college was that his health became impaired." None of these sentences actually contain a passive: the first is an existential sentence, the second is a simple copula, and the third uses the copula with an adjective, not a participle.[1] All of which is to say—Strunk and White did not know what a passive was. The actual advice they meant to give is something along the lines of, "Don't be vague about agency," but that is a different proscription. There are places where you should avoid the passive, and there are also places where you should employ the passive, because it is clearer than the alternative. For example, if your documentation says, "Our software product is used to [blah]", you should not change it to, "People use our software product to [blah]," because those people do not matter. By avoiding the passive, you have made your writing less clear by introducing unnecessary information. Strunk and White have a lot of advice which is merely harmless, but it is not a spectacular writing guide, except for the simplest, least elaborate kinds of writing. Truly great writing is not writing which follows those rules, but writing that knows when to follow such rules. For example, Orwell and Churchill, both quite excellent writers, use the passive significantly more than journalists of the time[2]. [1]: The passive transforms sentences of the form "{noun1} {verb} {noun2}" into "{noun2} {be} {verb}ed [by {noun1}]"; it is (or should be) clear that these sentences cannot be transformed from the latter pattern into the former. [2]: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003414.html http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003414.h...
- bgilroy26 15y ago

grn 15y ago

His 4th point reminded me of Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Both made a great impression on me. When discussing them with my wife she observed that they didn't give you what you ought to think and feel. They just showed you and your feelings and thoughts were your own and not of the writer.