Notes: On Writing Well （I~II）

Finished in May, 2019.

Part I and Part II are some fundamental principles and methods on writing that should be bear in mind.

1-Principles

2-Methods

3-Forms

4-Attitudes

Part 1. Principles

Transaction

Simplicity

The secret of good writing is to strip every sentence to its cleanest components.

Clutter

Fighting clutter is like fighting weeds - the writer is always slightly behind.

Clutter is the laborious phrase that has pushed out the short words that means the same thing.

Clutter is the ponderous euphemism that turns a slum into a depressed socioeconomic area, garbage collectors into waste-disposal personnel.

Clutter is political correctness gone amok.

Clutter is the official language used by corporations to hide their mistakes.

Look for the clutter in your writing and prune it ruthlessly.

Style

The point is that you have to strip your writing down before you can build it back up.

Writers are obviously at their most natural when they write in the first person.

Even when "I" isn't permitted, it's still possible to convey a sense of I-ness.

Style is tied to psyche, and writing has deep psychological roots.

Sell yourself, and your subject will exert its own appeal. Believe in your own identity and your own opinions. Writing is an act of ego, and you might as well admit it. Use its energy to keep yourself going.

Then Audience

Editors and readers don't know what they want to read until they read it. Besides, they are always looking for something new.

In terms of craft, there's no excuse for losing readers through sloppy workmanship. But on the larger issue of whether the reader likes you, or likes what you are saying or how you are saying it, or agrees with it, or feels an affinity for your sense of humor or your vision of life, don't give it a moment's worry. You are who you are, he is who he is, and either you'll get along or you won't.

First, work hard to master the tools. Simplify, prune and strive for order. Think of the other as a creative act: the expressing of who you are.

Words

The English language is rich in strong and supple words. Take the time to root aroung and find the ones you want.

This may seem absurd: readers read with their eyes. But in fact they hear what they read far more than you realize. Therefore such matters as rhythem and alliteration are vital to every sentence.

If 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.

Usage

Good usage, to me, consists of ussing good words if they already exist - as they almost always do - to express myself clearly and simply to someone else.

Part 2. Methods

Unity

The only way to learn to write is to force yourself to produce a certain number of words on a regular basis.

All writing is ultimately a question of solving a probelm. It may be a problem of where to obtain the facts or how to recognize the material. It may be a problem of approach or attitude, tone or style. Whatever it is, it has to be confronted and solved.

One choice is unity of pronoun.

Unity is the anchor of good writing.

Unity of tense is another choice. You must choose the tense in which you are principally going to adress the reader, no matter how many glances you may take backward or forward along the way.

Another choice is unity of mood.In fact, any tone is acceptable, but don't mix two or three.

Every writing subject 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.

As for what point you want to make, every successful piece of nonfiction should leave the reader with one provocative thought that he or she didn't have before. Not two thoughts, or five - just one. So decide what single point you want to leave inside the reader's mind. It will not only give you a better idea of what route you should follow and what destination you hope to reach; it will affect your decision about tone and attitude. Some points are best made by earnestness, some by dry understatement, some by humor.

Just remember that all the unities must be fitted into the efidice you finally put together, however backwardly they may be assembled, or it will soon come tumbling down.

The Leading and the Ending

The most important sentence in every article is the first one.

Somtimes the length may depend on who you are writing for.

You should give as much thought to choosing your last sentence as you did to your first.

Bits & Pieces

Verbs.

Use active verbs unless there is no comfortable way to get around using a passive word. The difference between an active-verb style and a passive-verb style - in clarity and vigor - is the difference between life and death for a writer.

Adverbs.

Most adverbs are unnecessary.

Adjectives.

Most adjectives are also unnecessary.

Littlequalifiers.

Prune out the small words that qualify how you feel and how you think and what you saw: "a bit," "a little,""sort of,""kind of,""rather,""quiet,""very,""too,""pretty much,""in a sense," and dozens more. They dilute your style and your persuasiveness.

Punctuation

The Period.There is not much to be said about the periods except that most writers don't reach it soon enough. The quikest way out is to break the long sentence into two short sentences, or even three. If you want to write a long sentence, be a genius. Or at least make sure that the sentence is under control from the beginning to the end, in syntax and punctuation, so that the reader knows where he is at every step of the winding trail.

The Exclamation Point. Don't use it unless you must acheive a certain effect. Humor is best achieve by understatement, and there is nothing subtle about an exlamation point.

The Semicolon. The semicolon brings the reader, if not to a halt, at least to a pause. So use it with discretion, remembering that it will slow to a Victorian pace the early-21st-century momentum you are striving for, and rely instead on period and dash.

The Dash. THe dash is used in two ways. One is to amplify or justify in the second part of the sentence a thought you stated in the first part. The other use involves two dashes, which set apart the parenthetical sentence within a longer sentence. An explanatory detail that might otherwise have required a seperate sentence is neatly dispatched along the way.

The Colon. THe colon has began to look more antique than the semicolon, and many ways of its functions have been taken over by the dash. But still it serves well for its pure role of bringing your sentence to a brief halt before you plunge into, say, an itemnized list.

Mood Changes.

Learn to alert the readers as soon as possible to any change in mood from the previous sentence. At least a dozen words will do this job for you:"but,""yet,""however,""nevertheless,""still,""instead,""thus,""therefore,""meanwhile,""now,""later,""today,""subsequently" and several more.

Contractions.

Your style will be warmer and turer to your personality if you use contractions like "I'll" and"won't" and “can't” when they fit comfortably into what you're writing. I only suggest avoiding one form - "I'd,""he'd,""we'd,"etc.- because "I'd" can mean both "I had" and "I would," and readers can get well into a sentence before learning which meaning it is. Also, don't invent contractions like “could've.” They cheapen your style. Stick with the ones you can find in the dictionary.

That and Which.

Alway use "that" unless it makes your meaning ambiguous. In most situations, "that" is what you would naturally say and therefore what you should write.

If your sentence needs a comma to achieve its precise meaning, it probably needs "which."

(A) "Take the shoes that are in the closet." Thsi means: take the shoes that are in the closet, not the ones under the bed.

(B)"Take the shoes, which are in the closet." Only one pair of the shoes is under discussion; the "which" usage tells you where they are. Note that the comma is necessary in B, but not in A.

A high proportion of "which" usages narrowly describe, or indentify, or locate, or explain, or otherwise qualigy the phrase that preceded the comma.

Concept Nouns.

Nouns that express a concept are commonly used in bad writing instead of verbs that tell what somebody did.

Creeping Nounism

This is a new American disease that strings two or three nouns together where one noun - or, better yet, one verb - will do.

Overstatement.

Don't overstate. Life has more than enough truly horrible funny situations. Let the humor sneak up so we hardly hear it coming.

A writer's credibility is fragile. Don't inflate an incident to make it more outlandish than it acutally was.

Forget the competition and go at your own pace. Your only contest is with yourself.

Your subconcious mind does more writing than your think.

Suprisingly often a difficult problem in a sentence can be solved by simply getting rid of it.

Keep your paragraph short.

Sexism

Don't use constructions that suggest that only men can be settlers or farmers or cops or firefighters.

When a certain occupation has both a masculine and a feminine form, look for a generic substitute.

One solution is to turn them into plural. But this is good only in small doses.

Another common solution is to use "or". To turn every "he" into a "he or she, " and every "his" into a

"his or her, "would clog the language.

"We" is a handy replacement for "he.""Our" and "the" can often replace "his."

One other pronoun that helped me in my repairs was " you."

Rewriting

Rewriting is the essence of writing well: its where the game is won or lost. The point is that clear writing is the result of a lot of tinkering.

Most rewriting consists of reshaping and tightening and refining the raw material you wrote on your first try. Much of it consists of making sure you've given the reader a narrative flow he can follow with no trouble from beginning to end.

Trust your material.

Try not to use words like "suprisingly," "predictably" and "of course," which put a value on a fact before the reader encounters the fact. Trust your material.

No subject is too specialized or to quirky if you make an honest connection with it when you write about it.

Every writer should read The Elements of Style once a year.