Category: Mechanics

To write clearly, almost always use right-branching sentences. Use left-branching sentences only when you command total control of language.

To understand this concept, think of the image of a tree. The trunk represents the main aftion of the sentence. The branches represent descriptions needed to provide essential details for the reader to understand the point.

Here’s a classic right-branching sentence:

Willie Mays was the best player of his generation: a consistent hitter, a menacing power threat, and a daring baserunner, with a sure glove and a cannon for an arm.

In this passage, we know the subject and verb before we get the details. We could not get lost because the author states the point clearly in the first six words. What follows is an elaboration of those six words.

Let’s see how we might express the same idea as a left-branching sentence:

As a consistent hitter, a menacing power threat, and a daring baserunner, with a sure glove and a cannon for an arm, Willie Mays was the best player of his generation.

Here, we get the details before we discover the subject and verb. We have to wade through details before we get to the main point. In a short sentence like this, we can get away with an occasional left-branching sentence. But we risk losing the reader if we write a long sentence, with dozens and dozens of words, before we get to the subject and verb.

Still, done well, the left-branching sentence can be  work of art. It creates drama and intrigue by listing all kinds of details before getting to the subject and verb. Done well, the left-branching creates suspense. The reader eager anticipates the point at the end.

The best example of a left-branching sentence comes from Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” King was in jail for his part in the Birmingham Campaign of 1963, one of the most consequential moments of the civil rights movement. He smuggled this classic essay out of jail on scraps of paper. His assistant Wyatt Tee Walker typed it up. In this passage, King answers the question of his liberal friends and conservative critics, who forever counseled patience in the battle for basic fairness and dignity:

But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading “white” and “colored”; when your first name becomes “nigger,” your middle name becomes “boy” (however old you are) and your last name becomes “John,” and your wife and mother are never given the respected title “Mrs.”; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of “nobodiness”–then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.

In this 316-word masterpiece, King opens with ten vivid images of the indignities of racism and segregation. Each one is like a scene in a movie. Each one invites empathy. each one leads, inexorably, to King’s explanation of “why we find it difficult to wait.”

In the May 24 New York Times, Maureen Dowd uses a left-branching sentence to gasp at Donald Trump’s endless capacity to distract the American public from crises spiraling out of control:

On Thursday, as China played King Kong with Hong Kong; as unemployment rose to 38.6 million; as broken dams unleashed a flood in Central Michigan; as the president continued to stubbornly and recklessly claim he was taking hydroxychloroquine, causing sales to soar; as the news sunk in that if the U.S. had acted even a week sooner on social distancing that 36,000 people might still be alive; as Senate Republicans finally cemented themselves to Trump and his crazy schemes; as Trump stuck to his threat of withholding federal funds to Michigan and Nevada if those states enabled voters to vote; as a partisan know-nothing was put in charge of all our intelligence; as Trump pulled out of another major arms control pact; as Mike Pompeo basked in getting Trump to fire another inspector general (this one looking into a backdoor deal to sell arms to Saudi Arabia and brazen grifting by the Pompeos), the cliffhanger president made sure the focus was on just one little thing: Would he or wouldn’t he wear a mask as he toured the Ford plant in Ypsilanti?

In this 182-word wonder, Maureen Dowd offers a series of vivid images of world crises as Donald Trump revels in his reality-show theatrics. The power of this sentence comes from the litany of horrors followed by an empty man’s obsession with attention.

To make these sentences work, King and Dowd use signaling devices. For King it’s the word “when”; for Dowd it’s the word “as.” The repetition of these words, at the beginning of each example, signals yet another horror. These words tell the reader: Hang in there, you need to hear what follows before we get to the ultimate point. With the end of this repetition, the reader will be ready for the kicker–the point of the whole sentence.

For inexpert writers, a long left-branching sentence is a danger zone. You should mark it off with yellow police tape and then break it down into manageable pieces. But in the hands of a master, an occasional left-branching sentence creates a series of vivid scenes, suspense, a swelling of emotions, and then–boom!–a powerful point.

Appendix

From King’s ‘Letter From a Birmingham Jail’

From Dowd’s ‘Covid Dreams, Trump Nightmares’

Harry and Mary were still working at the Justice’s apartment when I arrived. Harry asked to see my calling card.

“My what?”

“Why, your calling card, of course. And if it doesn’t look just right, you’ve got to have a new one printed.”

I laughed and said, “I don’t have any calling card. I never did have one. Where I used to live we just didn’t seem to need calling cards, and when I got to Harvard I never bothered to have one made up..”

“Lord Almighty!” gasped Harry. How do you think you’re going to get along in Washington without a calling card? Where do you come from, boy?”

–The Forgotten Memoir of John Knox

When a young man named John Knox traveled to Washington and went to the chambers of  Supreme Court Justice James McReynolds, he might as well have been invisible. He didn’t bring a calling card.

In those bygone days, newcomers carried cards to introduce themselves. A calling card symbolized professionalism and stature. Without a card–preferably, an engraved card–the job seeker was considered gauche and inadequate.

These days, we use cover letters in place of calling cards. Cover letters introduce the job-seeker to the employer, with the hope of beginning a conversation about employment.

Most cover letters are bad. Bland and unfocused, they say too much that employers don’t care about–and too little that employers actually want to see.
A great cover letter offers direct, tangible proof that the job seeker can help the employer do something important, with a minimum of fuss and the potential for something great.

1. The Power of a Cover Letter

Almost always, the cover letter provides the first encounter between employer and job seeker. In lieu of a real, face-to-face introduction, the cover letter gives you the chance to say who you are and why you can help.

Unfortunately, most cover letters disqualify the job seeker. Bad cover letters show that the candidate lacks the professionalism, rapport, relatability, or skills to do the job. And so they go straight to the reject pile.

If the candidate is qualified, a good cover letter will prompt the hirer to look more closely at the resume–and to invite the candidate in for an interview.

The best cover letter reveals something–not everything, but something–about your essence as a person and as a professional.

The cover letter offers an opportunity to step outside the details of your career and education and accomplishments and speak–intimately, one on one–to the potential employer. You can begin to forge a human relationship with the hirer, to indicate the specific ways in which you might her life better.

What do I mean by “essence”?

The essence of something is its most distinctive qualities. After you have cleared away all the details, the timelines and projects, and all the distractions, the essence is what remains. When you see someone’s essence, you say: Ah yes, I get this person. I understand this person’s critical values and attributes.

You can find a person’s essence in a story, an experience, a project, or a relationship.

If you’re seeking a job, you want to show your essence in a way that makes the recipient visualize you on their team.

2. Do Research Before You Write a Word

Hate to tell you, but you have lots of work to do before you even think about what you should write.

Before you present yourself, you need to educate yourself about the jobs in your field and how they align with your own background. And you need to find language that shows the obvious connections between your profile and their job.

Create an inventory of skills, accomplishments, and values

Take a piece of paper and create three columns–one for skills, a second for accomplishments, and a third for values.

If you have a good resume, this should be easy. But don’t get lazy and reply on the resume. Create a completely new document using these categories.

Write down everything you can say about yourself for each category. Get everything down. Even if you’re iffy on a skill or accomplishment, write it down. You can cut it later.

Then translate these listings into something specific, something tangible and visual.

We have a tendency–especially in academe and the professions–to use abstractions. That’s fine; buzzwords offer a great shorthand for interacting with colleagues. But when you reach out to a potential employer, you want to help them to see you.

Let me repeat that for emphasis: When you reach out to a potential employer, you want to help them to see you. Our brains come alive when we can visualize something. If I say “social justice,” it doesn’t mean much; but if I say “run community meetings” and “conduct surveys to gather community input” or “serve on a grassroots committee on water runoff,” the reader can picture me doing these activities.

So rephrase every abstraction on your three lists. Show what that abstraction means with phrases that show you doing something. Don’t say “data specialist”; say, “At Place X, at Time X, I used Tool X or Process X to examine Trend X or Problem X.” All those X’s refer to specific things. They are visual. They allow the reader to see you in action.

Research job sites

Don’t just randomly search for jobs and then respond. Instead, do a complete search of all the possible jobs that you would like to win.

Start by going to the online sites. If you have a good presence on LinkedIn, try thyat. Also go to Indeed.com and Grassdoor.com.

Enter all the words that describe your skills and interests.If you’re a city planner, type words like planning, planner, geography, GIS, environment, housing, city, urban, parks, streetscape, urban village, transportation, transit, TOD, streetscape, neighborhood, and grassroots, to name a few.

Use only the terms that speak to your skills, experience, and values. You don’t want to apply for a job that would make you miserable. Don’t search “grassroots planner” if you hate community meetings; don’t search “GIS” or “quantitative” if you hate spending hours crunching data at your desk.

Save the job listings that might be interesting. The best approach, in my experience, is to bookmark the posts in a special folder called “Job Search.” (If you don’t know how, click here.)

When you have identified jobs that sound intriguing, look for the keywords in the ads. Write them down.

Compare attributes–and identify The One Thing

Now finding the right jobs is a simple matter of comparing your attributes with the job postings’ key words. Decide which jobs you might want to get. Take a job’s key words and figure out how you might want to pitch yourself.

Here’s where it gets tricky. If you’re applying for a professional job–even an entry-level job, after college or grad school–you probably have lots of interests and abilities. That’s great. But when you seek a job, you cannot list all those attributes in a cover letter. A cover letter has to be short.

Your cover letter should give the recipient a clear vision of the superpower you bring to the job. A Russian parable goes: “When you try to catch two rabbits, you don’t catch either.” If you use a cover letter to list all your attributes, you will fail to convey your essence–what makes you distinctive and special.

So identify the ONE Thing that you want the reader to see when considering your application. (For more on “The One Thing,” see this recent post.)

Do Not Just Restate the Resume

When you apply for a job, you almost always provide both a cover letter and resume. The cover letter offers a way to make a quick hello–and to distinguish yourself from the hundreds or even thousands of other candidates.

Many candidates are tempted to offer a complete summary of their careers. They list jobs, responsibilities, projects, and results. They often quote people praising them. Often–way too often–they use bullet lists to show the range of experiences and skills.

Some people use the cover letter to review the resume. That’s a mistake–usually a fatal mistake. Hirers can read your resume. If you have created a good, well-formatted resume, they can get a sense of your career, skills, and aspirations in a matter of seconds.

Don’t do that. That’s what a resume is for.

3. A Minimalist Approach?

The best advice you’ll ever get about writing comes from Polonius, a character in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

Polonius, the father of Laertes and Ophelia, says: “Since brevity is the soul of wit / And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.”

Good idea. Keep it simple. Keep it short. But how?

David Silverman of the Harvard Business Review says the best cover letter he ever got went like this:

Dear David:

I am writing in response to the opening for xxxx, which I believe may report to you.

I can offer you seven years of experience managing communications for top-tier xxxx firms, excellent project-management skills, and a great eye for detail, all of which should make me an ideal candidate for this opening.

I have attached my résumé for your review and would welcome the chance to speak with you sometime.

Best regards,

Xxxx Xxxx

That’s fine for a position that requires a simple list of attributes. It’s like advertising something by offering a simple recitation of attributes and benefits. That’s fine for many products–basic food and clothing, taxi fares, movies in a theater, meals in a diner, and so on. When you’re selling commodities–that is, goods and services that lots of people offer–this approach works just fine.

Maybe They Want To Know More

But maybe–just maybe–you are a unique person with just the right experience, skill set, and personality for the job. If that’s the case, you probably want to reveal more about who you are.

These days, most hirers want to understand your character. They want a sense of what you would be like working in their organization. The absolute requirement is that you can do the job–that you have the necessary skills and experience.

But they also want to know: Will you be bright and creative? Will you be an engaging and challenging colleague? Will you be creative? Will you identify solutions that others miss? Will you lead and follow well, depending on the circumstances?

They want to see you. They want to visualize what you will be like in the office, in meetings, working in teams, representing the organization outside the office. They want a sense of how you handle problems. Therefore, let me suggest another brief but more intimate strategy for writing a cover letter.

A More Revealing Cover Letter

You can write a cover letter that fits on one page and grabs the hirer. It’s a simple formula. Let’s get right to it.

Opening salutation

If you are writing to a specific person, say “Dear Mr. Gates” or “Dear Ms. Jones,” or “Dear Dr. Zhivago.” Don’t use first names. Show you respect them, first and foremost, as professionals.

If you don’t have a specific name, use a general title, like this: “Hiring Manager.” Since this is a business letter, use a colon rather than a comma.

Whatever you do, don’t say “Hi” or “Hey.”

Introduction

Referencing the resume, indicate how you could help the employer. Focus on the hirer’s needs. Indicate something about your spirit as well.

Do one–just one–of the following:

• Reveal one aspect of your biography: Say something about your background–something unique about your story that might matter to the hirer

Growing up in Silicon Valley, building computers and participating in coding competitions, I have always looked forward to a career in tech. At the same time, my family has always been active in environmental causes. So when I saw your position for a GIS expert or a major parks project, I knew I found my ideal job.

• Reveal one aspect of your values or approach: Hint at how your values and commitments have driven you to achieve.

To manage teams, I take a three-part approach: (1) Engage the professional on my staff. (2) Set big goals with intermediate goals that advance our cause every day (3) Provide regular feedback. This approach fits the job for project manager at Acme Consulting.

• Reveal one aspect of your results: Show how you have achieved something great, somewhere. Hint at how you can produce this kind of accomplishment to your new job.

Since taking over as interim marketing director, Acme Widgets Inc. has increased its B2B sales by 35 percent and its B2C sales by 20 percent. Now I would like to bring my skills and experiences in web marketing to your firm’s growing marketing department.

The goal here is to offer an enticing glimpse of your value as a colleague. Don’t go into detail in the intro. Just signal that you have something real–something tangible and concrete–to offer.

Avoid all abstraction. If you cannot see it, don’t write it. Don’t say you’re a problem solver; indicate a knotty problem you solved. Don’t claim to be a great bargainer; describe a bargain you struck. Don’t say you care about equity or grassroots participation; show yourself doing something to get people involved to get a fair shake. 

Be specific. Paint a picture.

Your achievements/results

Now you can go into some depth on results you have achieved. Here’s where you can get narrative.

Set the stage by stating a specific time and place. Describe the problem. Then show how you made things better. Describe the specific actions you took. Describe a barrier (a deadline, resistance, a lack of resources, whatever). Then show how it all turned out.

Try something like this:

In the summer of 2017, I coordinated a community planning process at Bronx River Park that led to the adoption of a new master plan. Working with 12 community groups, I planned cleanups, evening concerts, and fundraisers. In three months, we got on the Bronx borough president’s agenda and got media attention to the area.

Once you have given your narrative–again, with as many visuals as possible–you can connect this experience with the job you seek:

I hope to bring this hands-on organizing work to your agency’s environmental advocacy work.

That’s all. paint a picture, then make the picture relevant.

Go deeper?

This is optional. If you have shown how you achieve results, you will get the hirer’s attention. But you may want to go deeper.

If so, isolate one quality that will bring great value to the company. Provide more fine-grained detail to show yourself at work, providing value for the organization. Something like this:

This kind of grassroots work, I think, has the potential to give greater credibility to the organizations work. When people feel part of a process, they are willing to speak up at community meetings and in local media. They also get friends and neighbors involved. It’s a win-win. We get their energy and support; they get connections to friends and neighbors.

Show how that work led to a great result for the company. maybe close with a quick statement of value.

Conclusion

Restate your interest, this time with something specific about how you see yourself contributing to the company. Convey your enthusiasm. Make them what to get to know you. Be friends, without being presumptuous. Like this:

Again, I am eager to explore ways I can help your organization. I hope we have a chance to talk soon. Thanks for your consideration.

That’s all it takes. No groveling or posturing. Just a simple statement of respect and interest.

Closing salutation

Be warm but professional. “Best regards” and “Sincerely” work. Avoid the overly stiff (“Sincerely”–too boilerplate) or overly familiar (“All my best”–ugh; they don’t even know you). Keep it simple. Then type and sign your name.

Other Considerations

• Know their world

In an informal way, show that you know and appreciate the employer’s work. Say something specific about their organization, its reputation, its uniqueness, etc. Speak as a colleague. Like this:

Having followed the park planning process in Queens in recent years, I know you have been a key player in raising funds and getting local experts (like architects, environmentalists, and educators) involved in the community. Your volunteer work after Superstorm Sandy was especially impressive. So I would be honored to join your team.

Show you are one of them, with your values and insight.

• Be Confident, Not Cocky

Some applicants get hesitant because they don’t think they have enough experience. They will make try to explain why their inexperience might be overlooked. They’ll say something like: “While I have only been working on GIS for a year, I have developed a strong working knowledge…”

Don’t do that. Don’t emphasize your limitations. Instead, emphasize the abilities that you do offer. Say something like this: “In my GIS work, I have analyzed the causes behind gentrification in big cities, identified possible sites for new housing construction, and analyzed the changing ecologies of coastal areas since 1980.”

The reader of that passage now has a way of imagining how you’ll fit in. If you can do these tasks, you can also do other tasks.

• The Question of Informality

We live in the age of informality. Students wear PJs to class. Adults wear baseball hats to the office. People style their hair like anime characters and decorate their flesh with tattoos. Professionals open letters with “Hey.”

I’m not going to pass judgment on this informality. But hirers will.

A hirer generally wants to see you at your best. They want to know that having you on staff will not require getting a babysitter. They want to know you’ll get dressed like a professional, show up on time, work hard on company time, avoid childish distractions, listen intently in conversations, and think before you speak.

The cover letter offers a hint–a minor hint, but the only evidence at first–about your overall seriousness and maturity.

So speak clearly and simply. Be direct. Don’t try to be clever. Don’t use “bro” lingo. Whatever you do, don’t be a smart ass. Don’t crack jokes, as if you’re old fraternity brothers at a reunion. Don’t gossip or make cracks about people. Don’t be self-deprecating.

Be a pro. Speak with simple assurance and professionalism.

• Make mass applications?

Don’t cut and paste your prose from an application for another job. Write each cover letter fresh. If you want someone to pay you the big bucks–and give you a desk and a computer–give them the courtesy of your complete attention when writing your cover letter.

One hiring manager complained: “Nothing gets a cover letter tossed in my trash faster than seeing another publication’s name in the ‘to’ field.” Oops.

• Proofing your letter

Don’t make grammatical mistakes or misspell words. Nothing says sloppiness more than avoidable mistakes. Fairly or not, the hirer will assume you’re as careless in your job as you are with your cover letter. Even if you’re seeking a job as a firefighter or engineer or cook, the hirer gets a bad vibe with dumb writing mistakes. It’s even worse if you’re seeking a desk job that requires attention to detail–as a graphic designer, say, or a coder.

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Students often ask me to explain the “one or two tricks that I absolutely need” to write well.

If I could distill the lessons of writing into one trick, I would say: Be simple and direct. Tell the reader who does what … again and again.

But writing is obviously more complex than that. So allow me to present ten essential skills for writing mechanics.

1. Write Great Sentences, Always.

Someone once asked Ernest Hemingway what he does when he gets writer’s block. His answer: I write one true sentence. However long it takes, Hemingway said, he struggles to get just the right words to express a thought. He thinks about who or what he’s writing about—the subject. He asks himself what they’re doing—the action. And he considers who or what this action is acting upon—the object.

Here’s how Hemingway’s character explains the process in his A Moveable Feast:

I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, “Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know.” So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say. If I started to write elaborately, or like someone introducing or presenting something, I found that I could cut the scrollwork or ornament out and throw it away and start with the first true simple declarative sentence I had written.

Once you write “one true sentence,” it’s easier to write another sentence … then another … then another. Before long, you’re writing paragraphs, then pages. No more writer’s block.

So how do you write one true sentence? I just told you. Write a subject … then a verb … then an object.

Nothing else matters unless you write great sentences. If you can write great sentences, over and over, you will become a good writer. If you can’t, forget it.

Too many writing teachers fail to teach their students how to write good sentences. They get so caught up with the five-paragraph structure and “compare and contrast” and quotations that they don’t explain how to build a great sentence.

Even professional writers create vague, meandering, inexact, and boring sentences.
Focus on writing simple, sturdy sentences. You can write some elaborate sentences, too. But first, write simple and “true” sentences. Then you can do anything as a writer.

2. Use Simple Words.

In order to facilitate the cognitive process and to eradicate any potentiality of miscommunication, it is imperative that each and every writer employ solely the most efficacious and uncompounded locutions in each and every one of his or her compositions.

Got it? No? Let’s try again.

Use simple words to prevent misunderstandings.
The mortal enemy of good writing is pretension. Teachers, students, politicians, CEOs, op-ed writers all have egos. They want to sound “smart.” So they use big words to convey the vastness of their vocabularies.

But remember this: Never write to show off your vocabulary. Write to convey ideas—period.

Always look for the smallest, simplest word to convey ideas. That doesn’t mean using a steady parade of monosyllabic words. You need to find the word that bests expresses your ideas, whether they’re short or long. So use a long word if it’s the best word. But always err on the side of short words.

3. State and Develop Only One Idea Per Paragraph.

The great thing about writing is that it’s a creative process. You discover ideas as you write. Sometimes you discover ideas that you didn’t even know you had. As you consciously write about a topic, the subconscious feeds all kinds of surprising ideas.

That’s also the difficult thing about writing. Let me explain.

If the sentence is the most important unit of writing—and it is, as we see in Commandment 3—then the paragraph is the second most important unit. And the amazing creativity of writers can make for some awful paragraphs.

When you write, one idea sparks another … then another … then another.

But if you express every idea, as they occur to you, you will never develop the first idea—the one you intended to discuss in the first place. So your paragraphs become collections of undeveloped ideas.

I like to think of paragraphs as “idea buckets.” State and develop one idea in every paragraph. Put one thing in every bucket. Don’t ever develop more than one thought in a paragraph.

Every time you write, label every idea—in bold face type or
with marginal notes. Whenever you see two or more ideas in a paragraph, break up the paragraph into as many pieces.

You’ll notice that you never developed the ideas you stated. So go back, develop every idea—complete every paragraph. Then end the paragraph, and get to work on the next idea of the next paragraph.

As it says on the shampoo bottle: Rinse, repeat.

4. Break Down Complex Ideas Into Chunks.

Sometimes, you have no choice but to use complex words. The world, after all, is a complex place. You want to be simple, not simplistic.

When you describe complex ideas—the M-C-M sequence in market exchange, the controversies surrounding global warming, the sequence of actions to program software, the lighting and shutter speed of a camera, the process of fission—break them down into manageable chunks.

Every complex thing really consists of many simple things. Most readers, when guided through a sequence of simple pieces, can understand those complex wholes.

John McPhee, perhaps the greatest nonfiction writer of our time, almost never uses a word fancier than he needs. To create color and movement, he
uses ordinary words precisely. To explain a complex concept, he
also uses ordinary words. You can open any McPhee work and pick a random paragraph to see just how well ordinary words work. I did just that with The Curve of Binding Energy, his book about the dangers of nuclear proliferation.

The material that destroyed Hiroshima was uranium-235. Some
sixty kilograms of it were in the bomb. The uranium was in metallic form. Sixty kilograms, a hundred and thirty-two pounds, of uranium would be about the size of a football, for the metal is compact—almost twice as dense as lead. As a cube, sixty kilograms would be slightly less than six inches on a side. U-235 is radioactive, but not intensely so. You could hold some in your lap for a month and not suffer any effects. Like any heavy metal, it is poisonous if you eat enough of it. Its critical mass—the point at which it will start a chain reaction until a great deal of energy has been released— varies widely, depending on what surrounds it.

On and on McPhee goes, describing the most complex topics with simple little words. Occasionally he must introduce a technical idea-like U-235, or critical mass—but he always gives us a simple explanation.

Patience allows McPhee to get small words to do big jobs. He understands that the best way to explain something is not to pile on ideas like men in a rugby scrum, but to spread them out like wedding guests in a receiving line. Simple words and sentences, presented one at a time in the right sequence, make it possible to explain even the most complex ideas.

5. Avoid Sardine Writing.

By the time you sit down to write something — a memo, a description, story, an argument — you usually hold several different ideas in your head. Most of these ideas are related, in some way.

But storytelling and explaining requires separating those idea clusters, and parceling out ideas one by one. If you overwhelm the reader with too many ideas at once, the reader won’t have a chance to really see, hear, and feel what you mean.

In general, each paragraph should state and develop just one idea. To discipline yourself, label your paragraphs as you go. Pretend to write headlines for a tabloid like the New York Post or Daily News. Keep your labels short and zippy. Humor helps by getting you to boil the idea to its special meaning.

When you develop one idea at a time, your reader will be able to follow your story, explanation, or argument.

6. Develop Style By Mastering the Basics.

Years ago took a couple of teenagers to a vintage baseball game. Vintage baseball offers an antidote to the modern game. The game is slow and ordered by manners that would please Amy Vanderbilt. But it’s also brisk. Players spend no time strutting or preening. They come to play.

At that game, I met the man whose life has embraced both rebellion and nostalgia. Jim Bouton rocked organized baseball in 1970 when he published Ball Four, an expose of the outrageous and puerile exploits of big-leaguers. But as he aged, Bouton embraced the game’s traditions. Over his life, his style shifted from breaking the rules to honoring the game.

I introduced Bouton to my charges and asked: What’s the best way to develop the best pitching motion?

“Long tossing,” he said.

Long tossing is just what it sounds like—throwing the baseball over long distances, as much as 200 or 250 feet. To throw long, you can’t worry about what you look like. You have to lean back and then rock forward, slinging your arm forward like a slow-moving whip. Most people long-toss the same way, with just small variations for their size and strength. But long tossing offers nothing fancy.

After tossing from the longest distances, you move closer and closer to your partner. When you get to the standard pitching distance—60 feet, 6 inches—you are pitching with your natural style.

And so it goes with writing.

Style in writing comes only after the long tossing of building great sentences, paragraphs, and longer passages. When you do all the little things right, your style slowly emerges. You develop tendencies—toward shorter or longer sentences, greater or lesser use of commas and semicolons, formal or vernacular speech, more or less use of quotations and statistics and other forms of explaining.

As you master the basics, pay attention to the maneuvers of different stylists. When I was first writing for publication—in a small weekly newspaper on Long Island—I idolized Red Smith, a columnist for The New York Times. I also admired Hemingway and Fitzgerald, read biographies, and pushed myself to understand some philosophy. I noted the maneuvers of these writers and occasionally copied them. Which is fine.

Mostly, though, you will discover that your truest style comes from the voice you find mastering the simple tricks and maneuvers of language.

7. Pay Attention To What Does Not Belong.

Architects and sculptors think in terms of solids and voids. An architect, for example, knows that a building’s beauty and utility depends on the space where people move around as much as the structural elements. Architects regularly debate what FAR, or floor-to-area ratio, best accommodates different activities.

Likewise, good writers know that what they leave out matters as much as what they put into a piece of writing.

Ernest Hemingway called this the iceberg method. Make enough information visible–above the surface of the water, metaphorically speaking–so the reader can understand, for themselves, what lies beneath the surface.

Suppose, for example, you want to describe a moment in a great sports event, like the 1969 Super Bowl or 1999 Women’s World Cup championship. You wouldn’t describe everything about the game. You wouldn’t explain the basic rules of the game. You wouldn’t need to introduce readers to superstars like Joe Namath or Brandi Chastain. Instead, you would say only enough to help readers tap into their own knowledge. You might refer to Namath’s brash prediction or Chastain’s sports bra to draw the reader into the story.

The better you know your audience, the more you can draw the readers into the story. When you know (roughly) what the reader knows about a subject, you can leave all but a few cues and reviews out of your account. When the reader gets involved in your story by drawing on her own knowledge, she will pay more attention to what you have to say.

Sometimes, in other words, less is more. You will excite your readers’ imaginations more if you don’t bore them with what they already know.

8. Edit Using the ‘Hide and Seek’ Method.

Your brain is the most powerful—and the laziest—part of your body. The subconscious part of the brain holds a vast storehouse of ideas, feelings, impulses, and automatic systems. The conscious part of the brain manages deliberate decisionmaking. But the conscious mind can only handle one or two or, at most, only three things at a time.

Therefore, when you look for problems—in anything, not just drafts of writing—one at a time. I call it “Hide and Seek.” You need to track down these errors, one by one, rather than trying to catch them all at once.

Don’t try to fix everything, sentence by sentence. Your brain will crash and burn. Instead, look for the common problems of writing, one by one.

1. Start strong: Start by checking if you start every sentence strongly, with a clear statement of who does what.

2. Finish strong: Then see if you end every sentence with a bang—some kind of point, question, or image that propels the reader to the next sentence.

3. One idea per paragraph: Then check your paragraphs. Make sure every paragraph states and develops just one idea. Label the ideas as you go. If you have more than one idea in a paragraph, take it out. Either delete it or
use it in another paragraph.

4. Action: Then make sure you use action verbs; avoid “to be” and “to have.”

5. Words: Now look at your other words. Do you use specific words, so the reader can see, hear, and feel what’s happening? Do you limit your use of adjectives and adverbs?

6. Modifiers: Look for sentences that seem to go on
forever. Here’s a trick for that: Look for prepositional
phrases, which modify nouns. I have seen sentences with
a dozen or more prepositional phrases. So what? Here’s what: Every modifier takes you a step away from the action—and adds to the length of the sentence.

7. Punctuation: Finally, get all the punctuation right. Think of punctuation as a form of traffic control. Stop with periods, pause with commas, look ahead with colons, merge with semicolons, warn of uncertain conditions with question marks and exclamation points.

Step by step, attack the problems in your piece. If you just focus on one issue at a time, your brain will veer in on mistakes like a heat-seeking missile. And you won’t get pooped before finishing the job.

9. Read Your Drafts Aloud.

You know how embarrassing it is to hear your voice on a recorder for the first time? You never know what you sound like until you get away from your own head. Hearing a recording makes your sounds — your selection of words, the ways you put them together — objective.

Every time you listen to your writing, you get outside your own tunnel vision and into the world of the reader. Ultimately, the best writers put their reader’s concerns first. As I tell my students, the writer should think of himself as the reader’s servant. The writer should do everything possible to make the reader’s job easier and more enjoyable. If you write clumsily, you put a burden on the reader.

You can set up your computer to read your text back (for PC directions, click here; for Mac instructions, click here). You can also use other online tools, including  from Natural Reader, SitePal, AT&T, and Cepstral.

10. Always Serve Your Audience.

I’ve saved the best for last.

Lots of writers write for themselves. They discuss issues, and arrange their words, for their own amusement. That’s OK, I suppose. But …

To become a real writer, serve others. Your ideas and words matter only if you connect with the audience. Don’t show off. Don’t get vague or obscure. Don’t confuse matters. Don’t go on and on. Say something worthwhile, in a way the reader will understand and appreciate.

So who is your audience? That depends, of course. But here’s how to think about it.

Your reader is someone like you—intelligent, caring, alert, open to ideas—but simply has not done the work needed to understand your topic.

Speak plainly to your readers. They are busy and distracted. They need to know what you have to tell them. But they will get frustrated and leave—or just miss your point—if you don’t deliver your ideas clearly and simply.

For more posts on writing, visit the Elements of Writing Blog. Check out the posts on Storytelling, Writing Mechanics, Analysis, and Writers on Writing.

An old TV commercial for Berlitz showed the training of a German coast guard watchman. The supervisor shows the new man all of the monitoring equipment and then leaves him alone to man the controls.

Later, a distress signal comes in: “SOS, we’re sinking! We are sinking.” The new watchman is confused. “What are you sinking about?” he asks.

Success and failure in communications often depend on a single word—even a letter or two. The way most people write today—in business, education, government, even journalism and publishing—is the result of an accidental, ad-hoc process of learning and mislearning. We need a better way. And the emerging science of reading and writing offers the path.

These days, everyone is a writer. A survey of Fortune 500 companies found that 70 percent of professionals must write on the job. And when they’re not writing, they’re reading their colleagues’ writing. My father, an engineer, could get away with not writing. So could most other professionals—developers, bureaucrats, scientists, philanthropists, business people. few people ever had to write a generation or so ago. And when they did write, they didn’t have to write much.

Old, Failed Approaches

So we’ve never had a fail-safe system for teaching and learning how to write. Writing instruction—in school, in business, and in writing seminars—takes two opposing approaches.

First, there’s scolding. Rather than showing us how to master all the discrete skills of writing, teachers shake their heads and wag their fingers and fill our drafts with red ink. So you’ll get back a draft with remarks like: Don’t you know about passive voice? This passage is awkward. Get the punctuation right. This is not a good topic sentence. Avoid run-on sentences. I need better evidence. What’s your thesis? Too often, these comments do little more than tell you what’s wrong. They don’t tell you how to make it right.

And then there’s coddling. Ever concerned about encouraging students, the coddler sets no standards at all. So you’ll hear teachers say, in one way or another: Anything you write is great, because there’s only one you! Don’t worry about punctuation or grammar or getting the words just right. Just write! You get this approach in “creative writing” and other programs designed to encourage students to explore. Nice idea. But it doesn’t work.

Neither of these approaches breaks writing down to its basic skills, and shows the learner what to do, step by step. Imagine if we learned other skills—like how to drive a car—the way we learn how to write.

Scolding: What’s wrong with you? Just drive? Don’t ask me how! Just move the car into traffic, without lurching or hitting anyone. And when you parallel-park, don’t ask me how. Just do it!

Coddling: Whatever way you want to drive is just fine! You’re special! There’s only one you! Don’t worry about those other drivers! So what if they can’t figure out what you’re doing. Just keep driving. Marvelous!

When you learn to drive, you break down every move into pieces. Then you practice—intently—until you get it right. You focus on one skill at a time, until you get it just right. You get instant feedback, not just from the instructor but also from other drivers and the car itself. If you stall, you know you did something wrong. You also learn that you need to care about others on the road. More than anything else, you learn to manage your own mind. You learn how to pay attention, how to be a “defensive driver,” how to compensate for blind spots.

Go With the Brain

We need an approach like that for learning how to write. Luckily, the burgeoning research on the brain—on cognition, attention, learning, skill-building, problem-solving—offers powerful insights for mastering the writing process.

When I’m teaching writing—to high school and college students, teachers, business people, social workers, and other writers and editors—we explore “what the brain wants.” The brain is the boss of everything we do. If you work at cross-purposes with the brain, it will not perform as well as possible. But if you give the brain what it “wants,” you’ll succeed.

Over the last generation, we have learned more about how the brain works than ever before. And so we know “what the brain wants.” And what the brain wants, you better give if you plan to connect with your audience—whether it’s your colleagues inside the organization or your clients, vendors, policymakers, industry leaders, or the buying public outside the organization.

What Does the Brain Want?

So what does the brain want—and what doesn’t the brain want? And how can that knowledge guide our development as writers?

The brain wants:

Clarity and guidance: We need to know where we are. We hate getting disoriented or lost. So you need to tell the reader what she needs to know, as quickly and as simply as possible.

Predictability, reliability, and patterns: Everyone wants a sense of where they’re going—without having to pay too much attention. If we had to process all of our sensory inputs, we’d explode. One researcher calls the brain a “prediction machine.” We need to assess not just what’s going on right now, but also what’s about to happen.

Specificity: The brain wants specific images, sounds, and ideas. The more vague we are, the more unsettled and disoriented we feel. But when we get specific information—not just the five W’s (who, what, when, where, and why), but also the one-and-only details that set them apart, we are engaged. “Mississippi” tells more than “big river”; “Aristotle” reveals more than “Greek philosopher”; “double helix” says more than “genetic structure.”

Change, action, and surprise: Our brains evolved to detect change. If we’re foraging for food, we need to notice when a predator lurks. When something surprising happens, we jolt into a heightened state of attention and readiness. Because action activates all our senses—sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste—we come alive when we see action.

Completeness, closure, and wholeness: We need to know “how it all turns out.” Nothing nags at our consciousness—and drains our energy—more than an unresolved problem. When we solve a problem or answer a question, we feel immense satisfaction. Only when we finish something do we feel we can move on.

Look closely at these desires. You might notice that they’re also the elements of stories. Humans are, in fact, a storytelling species. Nothing sets us apart from other species more than storytelling. Other species eat, drink, sleep, find shelter, reproduce, and even use tools and language. As far as we know, only humans tell stories. Stories excite and engage us; stories create order and make sense of the world. we could not live without stories. Luckily, everyone loves hearing and telling great stories. We’re wired for narrative.

The Brain Wants a Story

Now, let’s get back to writing. What does this tell us about the best way to master writing?

Simple: If you can master the skills of storytelling—and, as part of the process, give the brain what it “wants”—you can write well. And you can have fun in the process.

Storytelling has a simple structure, which Aristotle outlined in The Poetics 2,500 years ago. Aristotle called it the “narrative arc.” Every story, Aristotle taught, has three parts. In Part 1, you get to know the world of the story—the characters, where they live and work, their values and desires. In Part 2, you see the hero (and other characters) struggle to achieve his goal. Along the way, he faces greater and greater barriers. As the story progresses, the character learns more and more about how the world works and about himself. Finally, in Part 3, the hero comes to a new understanding about himself and the world. Aristotle calls this “recognition.” Once the character reaches this greater understanding, he “reverses” himself and sets out to live life in a new way. The story winds down.

You can see the narrative structure—and the five basic needs of the brain—in this graphic:

This three-part structure of storytelling reveals the basic structure of all writing. Every element of writing—the sentence, paragraph, section, chapter, article, story, analysis, and so on—takes this basic 1-2-3 structure. In a sense, everything you’ll ever write is a story. Once you master the basic structure of stories—and some simple, specific strategies for building stories—all the other challenges of writing come easily.

I have seen poor and mediocre writers become strong writers in a matter of weeks by applying this system. I have seen good writers become masters of the craft. If it sounds too good to be true, it’s not. Remember, we are all born storytellers. Storytelling is part of our DNA. Storytelling is as natural for us as eating and drinking.

When we teach people how to write with this natural system—this brain-based approach that’s already built into our brains—we will become a world of skilled writers. Why not? It’s who we are.

For more posts on writing, visit the Elements of Writing Blog. Check out the posts on Storytelling, Writing Mechanics, Analysis, and Writers on Writing.

Action

Everything begins with action. Nothing arouses the reader like action. Descriptions of action actually activate the parts of the brain associated with action. And for good reason. As the philosopher Hannah Arendt notes, action “has an inherent tendency to force open all limitations and cut across all boundaries.” We can never predict where an action might lead. When we depict it well, we command the reader’s complete attention.

Beats

Human expression requires a pulsing give-and-take. Just as people are wired to sing and dance, to love and play, we are also wired to share stories. And we love stories that show people acting and reacting. When people do things that matter, that push forward a story or argument, we cannot help but be riveted. Whether it’s a great moment of dialogue, witty banter, a complex puzzle explained well, or even a well-constructed joke, we love to watch people play ping pong with stories and ideas. In such situations, we do not want to miss a beat.

Characters

Giving stories fizz, of course, requires characters that we want to know, both in the real world and in the world of make-believe. A vibrant cast of characters reflects the human drama across the world and across history. Those characters also reflect the traits that we all find competing inside our own hearts and minds. We all have a hero within, and an anti-hero too. We all have a wise self and a foolish and impetuous one. We are rational, and we are artistic. We are creative and destructive. And when the characters in a story reflect this human complexity, we cannot help but tune in.

Details and Evidence

Details, details, details. Cognitive psychologist Dan Willingham notes, the human brain is not wired for abstraction. We need to live in the “here and now.” Once you give the reader a concrete world, you can show the abstract ideas that undergird that world.

Editing

But if the devil is in the details, strong writing requires being selective about those details. To find that mot juste, that word that tells, we need to edit, edit, edit. We need to take a sythe to our tangled prose and whack away the phragmites that choke the river’s flow. We need to make our nouns and verbs strong . . . and agreeable. We need to make sure each sentence starts strong and finishes strong. We need to craft paragraphs with purpose.

Form

And then give it all form. Some tales and theses require a straight line from A to B. Some stories start in the middle (in media res), others start at the end (like Pinter’s Betrayal), and still others in circles (like Nietzsche’s “eternal recurrence of the same”).

Grammar

Whatever form our stories tell, we need to mind our manners, which means, in writing, good grammar. Do verbs agree with verbs? Do the verbs say what you need them to say? Do you direct traffic adequately, with punctuation? Grammar gives writing a strong foundation. It’s like the street grid in a town: It helps us to get around without tripping over ourselves.

Hanging

Once we have created that predictable terrain, we can tease and play with readers with the cliffhanger. “The job of the artist,” Francis Bacon said, “is to always deepen the mystery.” You will always keep the reader’s attention if you make them ache for more information. Be like Hansel and Gretel, dropping breadcrumbs along their path. Make sure the reader always wants to continue, by sprinkling the group with unanswered questions and surprising answers.

Into the World of the Story

But where? When we go into the world of the story, we have the frame and canvas for everything that happens. Every story needs “a small, knowable place,” which helps to define the characters and dilemmas, without distracting the reader. In that setting, the characters can laugh and cry, scheme and fight, deny and learn, and grow.

Jazz Riffs

And, of course, play. Jazz riffs provide the playful tempo to writing. Words are internal music. Let loose the saxes and trumpets and drums of your language. Look loose, but know, always, that every moment of apparent spontaneous expression requires total mastery of the instrument.

Kinesthetic, Visual, Auditory

And what play is possible without the senses? The best writers help us to understand how everything feels (kinesthetic), looks (visual) and sounds (auditory).

Leads

Remember in media res, starting in the middle? Now I’m in the middle, talking about how to start. Maybe I should have started the alphabet with L. Oh, well. Anyway, you only get one chance to make a lasting impression. Your lead should grab the reader and never let go. In your opening lines, you want to intrigue, puzzle, stun, question, set up the reader.

Metaphors and Similes

Sometimes the best way to show what is, is to say that what isn’t actually is. Metaphors tell the reader that one thing is another: “All the world’s a stage” (Shakespeare). Similes, comparisons using like and as, offer a more modest approach: “Elderly American ladies leaning on their canes listed toward me like towers of Pisa” (Nabakov, Lolita). Explain one thing by referring to something else. As Dan Willingham says, learning is really just a process of remembering in a new way.

Narrative

But of course, such images are like nutrition-free bon-bons without a point. To give it a point, you need to begin one place and end another. Narrative takes the characters through a journey, which produces challenge and change. Do you take your reader anywhere?

Order and Numbers

But the best stories come in the right order. Start strong, finish strong. And use numbers to convey meaning. One isolates the character or idea. Two sets up a partnership or opposition (or a tense partnership, or friendly competition). Three offers dynamism: Every corner of the triangle shifts with the nudging of another corner. Four or more? It’s just a grocery list—which is good for, well, buying groceries.

Paragraphs

Think of paragraphs as rooms in a house. One purpose for each. Receive guests in the parlor. Cook in the kitchen. Eat in the dining room. Watch TV in the den. Work in the study. Sleep in the bedroom And so on. Give each paragraph a singular purpose. Keep it simple.

Questions

Each paragraph—and every piece of writing, as a whole—needs to raise a question. “Then what happened?” works for many stories. “Break it down” works for arguments.

Research and Reporting

How do you know? Inquiring minds want to know. To know anything, you must first search. Use books and articles, links and clips, interviews and questionnaires, experiments and observations. Pull the needles from those haystacks and build your own structure.

Sentences

Maybe we should have started here. After all Action—A, above—tells who does what to whom. And that’s the ideal core of every sentence: Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) or Subject-Verb-Predicate (SVP). As Papa Hemingway said, write “one true sentence”—a strong, taut, clear statement of what happens. If you do that, you will have the cornerstone of your edifice. Then you can put more and more stones, and build something strong and beautiful.

Thesis

What’s it all about? The Thesis wants to tell you. It’s all very simple: X → Y. Something causes something else. Or: Something plus something causes something else. All he world can be unlocked with causal statements.

Unexpected

Surprise! Without surprise, life is not an adventure, just an endless loop of a tape. If someone picks up your writing, you owe them a surprise. Tell them something they don’t know. Give readers something new to take home. Make every piece like a trip to a great department store. Give them something they would never find on their own.

Verbs

Just do it! A simple slogan for athletic shoes makes an important point. Life lies in action, in doing, in getting onto the field and stretching and straining to the limit. Make sure you show just how active life can be. Even when explaining indolence—like a day in the life of Oblomov—use action verbs.

Words

Treat every word like a gem. Look it over. See it’s different colors, the sharpness of its edges, its beauty in different lights, its character in different settings. And when you got to the Word Shop, just as when you go to the jewelry store, be picky. Buy just the right ones. And put them in the right place in your sentences. Unlike gems, words are free. That’s all the more reason to choose with discrimination.

eXplaining

Remember this: First one thing, then another. Avoid the temptation, when your brain holds all the answers like an old memory chest, to show everything you have at once. Let your stories and explanations unfold . . . like this: u n f o l d. First one thing, then another.

Yo-Yoing

Imagine Beethoven’s Fifth with only the pounding notes, or just the sweet ones. It would be monotonous, and draining. We need to shift back and forth, from one mood to another, from one kind of expression to another. Describe, then explain. Go from scene to summary. Show the reader the scene up close, then zoom out. Show a moment of anger, then love; fear, then relief; tension, then release; brain-straining, then simplicity.

Zip It Up

All good things must come to an end. The ending is the destination—the realization or dashing of the characters’ dreams. To end—to zip it up—you need to tell the reader the story’s over, leave an impression, and maybe even drop one last surprise.

To understand a subject, we need to understand not just how to do things well, but also how to fix what’s wrong. And so, by popular demand, I have gathered a dozen examples of flawed sentences and paragraphs.

Each passage presents a unique challenge to the writer and editor. Usually, you can fix these passages by breaking them down, shortening the sentences, emphasizing the subject and verb, and clearing out the digressions. 

(1) Make Sure to Say Who Did What

One of the more thoughtful essayists today is David Brooks of The New York Times, who covers politics, technology, brain research, economics, and social issues with a deft touch. But here he stumbles:

Hotels, sneakers, iced tea and even ice cream is now marketed to people on the basis of psychographic profiles and the result is a profusion of unusual products and distinctive experiences.

What’s wrong? Two things. First, he fails to get his first subjects and verb to agree (“Hotels, sneakers, iced tea and even ice cream” is plural), creating a small (but important) moment of confusion. Second, he fails to develop two separate thoughts before connecting them.

To fix this minor kludge, break the sentence into two. To connect the thoughts, use a simple transition (“as a result”). In each sentence, make sure to say exactly who does what. Like this:

Markets now use psychological profiles to hawk hotels, sneakers, iced tea, and even ice cream. With more information about what consumers want, corporate America offers a profusion of unusual products and distinctive experiences.

Brooks has legions of fans (like me) because he does such a good job explaining abstract, cutting-edge research to nonspecialists. But in this passage, he let himself wander. Take your time, David; even when you want to connect ideas from different worlds, just state one thought at a time.

(2) Keep Subjects and Verbs Close Together

To make a point clear, be sure to connect the subject with the verb. When you deal with two distinct points in time, be sure you know what’s doing what and when. Consider this confusing passage from an article about a former baseball player named Ryan Freel who committed suicide:

His family said that Freel was suffering from CTE on Sunday at a private mass, The Florida Times-Union’s Justin Barney reported.

This passage makes it seem like Freel was suffering from CTE at the mass. In fact, the mass under discussion was his funeral.

To avoid confusion, put actors, actions, places, and times together. One actor was Freel; other actors were members of his family. Talk about each in turn, like this:

Freel suffered from CTE, family members said at a private mass on Sunday.

Notice that I deleted the attribution. I think you could include the attribution in a later sentence, as you explain the issue in more detail. My goal here is to avoid veering off in different directions.

 (3) Watch Out for Meandering Passages

Lots of writers lose the reader right away. Rather than telling the reader what’s happening, they meander along. Take this sentence from Sports Illustrated’s website:

Even last Thursday, when Yankees manager Joe Girardi’s strategy of sacrificing an AL East title—in order to set up a first-round matchup with the Twins—his club’s traditional whipping boys—instead of with Cliff Lee and the Rangers was close to paying dividends (New York then had a 2-0 series lead on Minnesota), Girardi refused to admit that this had ever been his strategy at all.

The writer uses 47 words to get to his point: Joe Girardi denied blowing the division. The meandering gets in the way of the point of the sentence. Meandering also creates confusion. The phrase “instead of with Cliff Lee and the Rangers was close to paying dividends” takes the reader in two separate directions. Punctuation would help. But what would help more is starting and finishing strongly. Like this:

Manager Joe Girardi still denies that the Yankees purposely lost the AL East title. When the Tampa Bay Rays won the title, the Yankees got a first-round matchup with the Minnesota Twins. The Yankees såwept the Twins in three previous playoff series. By losing the division, the Yankees avoided the Texas Rangers and their ace, Cliff Lee.

The new version cuts twelve words and gives the reader four simple sentences.

The revised passage also offers more information—that the Rays won the title and the Twins lost their last three series to the Yankees. Rambling has a way of making writers forget to tell the readers facts like that. Short, declarative sentences demand clear information.

(4) Avoid the Long and Winding Road

Sports writer Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News has a tendency to write long and meandering sentences, as if he’s arguing in a bar and dare not pause lest someone else enter the conversation.

In this 2012 passage, Lupica explores the misfit between the Boston Red Sox and their manager, Bobby Valentine. Amid rumors that the Red Sox plan to fire Valentine, Sox President Larry Lucchino offers a lukewarm endorsement of the manager. Lucchino does not embrace Valentine; he only says that his job is safe for the final month and a half of the season. Then Lupica says:

That is exactly where we are with the Red Sox and with Valentine, who will eventually take the fall for everything that has gone wrong since the Red Sox were still ahead of the Yankees a year ago, right before they played the absolute worst September ever played by a team that had nearly gotten to 40 games over .500 before that. …

This stream-of-consciousness sentences meanders over time:

The present: That is exactly where we are with the Red Sox and with Valentine

The future: who will eventually take the fall for everything that has gone wrong

The past: since the Red Sox were still ahead of the Yankees a year ago

More detail on the past: right before they played the absolute worst September ever played by a team

Modification of that detail: that had nearly gotten to 40 games over .500 before that.

How do we revise this 62-word monstrosity? Break it up! Take a look at this sentence-by-sentence revision:

So it goes with the Red Sox and Valentine’s uneasy relationship. Eventually, Valentine will take the fall for everything that has gone wrong with the team. He’ll suffer not just for his team’s failures, but also for team’s funk since September 2012. After going almost 40 games over .500—and leading the Yankees in the standings—the Red Sox played historically badly to blow their playoff hopes.

 Lupica might not like my rewrite. He and his imitators at the Daily News love the breathless string of ideas. Maybe they think it sounds like an old-timey coach rambling on about the good old days. But clarity and accuracy should be the primary goals of all writing.

(5) Don’t Use So Much Color It Gets Muddy

Since most readers get their daily news online, as it happens, writers for magazines need to give readers behind-the-scenes glimpses of the news makers. In this passage, Newsweek describes an event involving the company that built the website for the Affordable Care Act, popularly know as Obamacare. The company, CGI Federal, gathered his workers to celebrate landing the contract for the job:

Most attendees stayed in the resort’s Chateau Lafayette hotel, a replica of the Ritz-Carlton in Paris, and at a formal dinner under the elaborate chandelier in the ballroom, George D. Schindler, the president of CGI Federal, spoke of the company’s big profits that year and its bright future.

This sentence describes two different facts: (1) where people stayed and (2) what the company’s president said. The reporter is trying to make a connection between the company’s luxury accommodations and its hubris. But the facts about the luxury, a celebration, and the company president’s remarks.

To make the point better, the author could have broken the sentence in two and offered a more direct connection between the luxury and overconfidence. Like this:

CGI workers stayed in the resort’s Chateau Lafayette hotel, a replica of the Ritz-Carlton in Paris. To celebrate the Obamacare contract, they gathered for a formal dinner under the elaborate chandelier in the ballroom. George D. Schindler, the president of CGI Federal, spoke of the company’s big profits that year and its bright future.

Even readers who followed the rocky rollout of Obamacare don’t know much about CGI Federal. If you want to peek behind the curtains at CGI’s culture, you need to take one glimpse at a time.

(6) Block that Metaphor!

No one covers sports better than Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post. But even the great Boswell falters. Here, he mixes four metaphors. Most football fans won’t care. But he sounds like a hack here, and he’s not. Take a look:

Yes, it’s happened again. Now it’s the Shanahan era, once trumpeted, now down in flames, that takes its place in the line — for bitterness, for ugly endings and for the endless blame game that always accompanies Snyder’s flops — with the departures of Norv Turner, Marty Schottenheimer, Steve Spurrier and Jim Zorn.

Let’s review the metaphors:

• once trumpeted

• down in flames

• takes its place in the line

• endless blame game

• Snyder’s flops

Let’s just say Boswell had a bad day. And let’s add that the Post’s desk editor failed to save Boz from his flaws. Now, let’s fix his cliché prose:

Yes, it’s happened again. The Shanahan era, once a cause for hope, has failed. Shanahan has become part of the Redskin’s sorry recent history — marked by bitterness, ugly endings, and blame. That’s how it works with Snyder’s failure — with the previous departures of Norv Turner, Marty Schottenheimer, Steve Spurrier, Jim Zorn, and, soon enough, with Shanahan

To be sure, most of Boswell’s readers would follow his logic easily. But the best writers not only speak to knowledgeable readers, but to people with a casual interest in the subject.

(7) Stop Meandering

This Boston Globe article explores a familiar topic—conflict of interest among state officials. In this case, the head of the state’s gambling commission failed to disclose that one of his friends had a stake in a project that he was responsible for managing. But this sentence, while short, manages to wander off the subject:

After Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn toured the former industrial site in Everett where he was thinking of building a casino in November 2012, state gambling commission chairman Stephen Crosby didn’t mention that one of the land owners was his former business partner.

Because this sentence meanders, it makes a key fact unclear. What happened in November 2012? Was that when Steve Wynn visited? Or was it the time to build a casino?

Fixing this little mess is simple. Just separate the separate thoughts into separate sentences. Like this:

Las Vegas casino mogul Steve Wynn toured the former industrial site in Everett, where he was considering building a casino, in November 2012. But Steve Crosby, the state gambling commission chairman Stephen Crosby, failed to mention that one of his friends owned a key parcel of land at the site.

Separating these thoughts not only makes the passage clearer; it also makes it fairer. The passage describes two events—the casino mogul’s visit and the gambling regulator’s relationships. Together, they suggest something fishy is going on. But separating these ideas gives readers the room to make their own conclusions.

(8) Don’t Be Too Pushy

We write to persuade. Even when we just want to describe something, matter-of-factly, we aim to get someone else to believe something we believe. Problems arise when we push our opinions so hard that we confuse what we’re saying.

For an example, consider Peggy Noonan, a conservative opinion writer for The Wall Street Journal. Noonan, who write speeches for President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, seems to have three passions: loving Reagan, loving Pope John Paul II, and not loving Barack Obama. In her almost-weekly pieces against President Obama, she piles insult upon insult, as if you say: Have I told you that I really, really dislike this guy and people who like him?

Take a look at this 51-word sentence from May 2013:

The president, detached and defeatist when he isn’t in your face and triumphalist, let David Remnick, in the New Yorker interview people keep going back to as the second term’s Rosetta stone, know that he himself does not expect any major legislation, with the possible exception of immigration, to get done.

In one swing, she bashes Obama for being detached, defeatist, in your face, triumphalist. For extra measure she slights New Yorker editor David Remnick for his interview with Obama, as well as “people” who found the interview revealing. That’s six raps on Obama and his sympathizers. Finally, she gets to her point: Obama has a limited legislative agenda for the rest of his second term.

Noonan, of course, gets paid to express her opinions. My purpose here is not to disagree—personally, I have mixed feelings about the president—but to help her write better sentences.

So let’s fix her mess by breaking it into more digestible pieces:

When the president does not attack Republicans and celebrate himself, he retreats to a detached and defeatist posture. Obama told David Remnick of the New Yorker—in an interview that liberals consider the second term’s Rosetta Stone—he has low expectations for the rest of his term. With the possible exception of immigration, Obama sees little hope for action on any major issue.

I kept all of Noonan’s insults, even sharpening the swipe at people who liked the New Yorker interview.

I cut the average sentence length from 51 to 21 words but increased the length of the whole passage by 12 words. As a general rule, of course, shorter is better than longer. But the primary goal of all writing is readability. To make all of Noonan’s points clearly, we need to use more words.

(9) Avoid Corporate-Speak

Writers in large organizations—like government and corporations—tend to avoid direct speech. Why? Here are four reasons:

(1) People in organizations want to avoid saying anything that might offend their constituents.

(2) They tend to speak an “insider’s language” that is abstract and unfamiliar to outsiders.

(3) To make sure they make their point, they often repeat themselves.

(4) They try to pack too much information into a sentence or paragraph.

All four tendencies are visible in this paragraph, taken from the website of a major financial rating service:

Altogether, a total of 950 natural catastrophes were recorded last year, nine-tenths of which were weather-related events like storms and floods. This total makes 2010 the year with the second-highest number of natural catastrophes since 1980, markedly exceeding the annual average for the last ten years (785 events per year). The overall losses amounted to around US$ 130bn, of which approximately US$ 37bn was insured. This puts 2010 among the six most loss-intensive years for the insurance industry since 1980. The level of overall losses was slightly above the high average of the past ten years.

How to fix this monstrosity? Start by identifying the major ideas in the passage. I see two—recent disasters and their costs and the new “norm” of disastrous weather events. So I broke the paragraph into two, then trimmed the details and repetition that turns off readers. Here’s my rewrite:

Natural disasters made 2010 one of the six worst years for losses since 1980. Some 950 natural disasters caused financial losses of $130 billion, of which only $37 billion was insured.

Risk from environmental catastrophe has become the norm. The world experienced an average of 785 catastrophic events in the first decade of the 2000s.

This rewrite cuts the passage from 96 to 55 words and the average sentence length from 24 to 13.75 words. More important, it eliminates needless hedges and emphatics and focuses on hard facts.

(10) Avoid Too Many Modifiers

Now we shift our attention to academic writing. Scholars have earned a reputation for tedious, vague, and abstract writing. Look at this passage, from an academic journal article about the civil rights movement:

After the Second World War, the general drift of American public opinion toward a more liberal racial attitude that had begun during the New Deal became accentuated as a result of the revolution against Western Imperialism in Asia and Africa that engendered a new respect for the nonwhite peoples of the world, and as a result of the subsequent competition for the support of the uncommitted nations connected with the Cold War.

Get it? I didn’t, at least the first few times I read it. Only by hunting for the subject and verb—and then breaking it down into shorter pieces—did I fully comprehend what the writer was trying to say.

So why does this passage go awry? In a seventy-two-word sentence, the author uses sixteen prepositions—after, of, toward, during, as, of, against, in, that, for, of, as, of, for, of, and with. So many prepositions demand too much from the reader. It’s disorienting, like asking a driver to turn sixteen times to travel a short distance.

What do prepositions do? They create modifiers—details that offer new information about nouns and verbs. But do we need so many modifiers? I don’t think so.

To rewrite that passage, I removed all but a handful of prepositional phrases. Then I broke the passage into digestible pieces. Look at this new version:

After World War II, Americans adopted more liberal attitudes about race. The New Deal began this process. Revolutions against imperial powers in Asia and Africa created new respect for the nonwhite populations. The Cold War also prompted the U.S. to consider how racial strife damaged America’s image in the Cold War.

The new version breaks one monster sentence into three ordinary sentences. It uses fifty-one words, twenty-two fewer. And it uses only five prepositions—about, against, in, for, and in—instead of sixteen.

For more posts on writing, visit the Elements of Writing Blog. Check out the posts on Storytelling, Writing Mechanics, Analysis, and Writers on Writing.

Writing is hard, often painful, work. After a long research slog, First you have to do research, sometimes taking hours to track down or check a fact. Most of what you gather, you cannot use. If you are not spending hours on the cramped and dark stacks of the library, you sit zombie-like in front of a glowing screen. Only on rare occasions do you get to conduct first-hand research, with travel, interviews, and observation.

Then comes the painful process of actually writing, putting down one word after another. And then, once you have a draft, the really hard work begins—rewriting, revising, getting critiques from others. And as soon as you turn an essay in, you realize all the mistakes and omissions you made.

As the legendary sportswriter Red Smith once said: “Writing is easy. You just open a vein and bleed.”

Well, that is one way of looking it. But while writing requires a lot of hard work, it is also one of the most exciting of all pursuits. Writing offers an opportunity to wrestle with important topics, express your most passionate thoughts, and even nourish your ego. Writing is a process of discovery. Even when you think you know what you want to write, you always discover something new.

Here are some simple rules to follow to become a better writer. Master them all, and there’s no basic writing you cannot do.

1. Relax.

Anxiety paralyzes the brain. Writing, playing with ideas and seeing what works, should be fun and creative. When you get stuck, don’t dig a deeper ditch. Try something else. Brainstorm (See No. 2).

Imagine real-life situations, involving specific people, scenes, and action (see No. 3). Think about dilemmas people might want to solve. Or pick a passage from a reading and try to see how it fits into the larger scheme of things. If it helps, imagine exaggerated, even comical or nonsensical, situations.

2. Brainstorm. 

Especially at the beginning of the writing process, but also throughout the process, you need to explore every possible idea and piece of evidence possible. Think of every situation and concept that could have a bearing on your subject. Do not sort ideas until you have allowed them first to flow unobstructed.

Try to brainstorm ideas onto one sheet of paper. If you need a big sheet of paper, that’s fine. But you need to see everything in one place. Once you have brainstormed, you need to separate concepts from illustrations or facts. Then you need to consider what the most important or surprising ideas or relationships might be. Ask yourself the kind of questions that would interest you if you were a reader or audience.

3. Visualize.

Try to visualize real-world situations, and then understand the cause/effect relationship arising from that situation.

Close your eyes and imagine a scene from a movie. Visualize characters struggling over something important. Think about the tensions between the characters—and also those within each character.

In order to get to important concepts, we need to imagine the real-world implications of those concepts. The battles over issues like abortion, divorce, torture, immigration, medical care, labor relations, and countless other issues matter not because of some abstract ideas. They matter because they affect real people. To understand abstract ideals, you need to understand the human conflicts behind them.

Once we can visualize real-world situations, we can begin to see patterns that explain human behavior.

4. Keep things simple.

The best way to present complex ideas is to break them down, simply. Always look for a simpler argument and a simpler way of expressing that argument.

Look for the simple subject-verb-object statement in every sentence. Whenever possible, express things in the simple S-V-O form: “Derek Jeter booted the ground ball” or “President Bush criticized antiwar activists.” Of course, you will need more complex constructions too. But always make sure you know who’s doing what.

Consider the basic elements of a sentence here:

SUBJECT (Noun, pronoun, sometimes modified by adjectives) –> VERB (sometimes with an adverb) –> OBJECT (noun, pronoun, sometimes modified)

“Derek Jeter booted the ball.” “She lost her keys.” “The President blamed Congress.” “The chef fired the cook and dish washer.” “The rowdy fans three paper cups at the controversial outfielder.”

Or think of is this way:

SUBJECT (a noun, however simple or complex–what the sentence is all about) –> PREDICATE (tells something about the subject, usually starting with a verb)

“The book gave me a lot to think about.” “The president has a lot of unfinished business.”

And then add those pieces that give writing greater depth and clarity:

Helping words — prepositions (at, to, under, below, above, behind, before, etc.), articles (the, and, a/an, these, that), conjunctions (and, or, but).

Word clusters — Verbal phrases (prepositional [”The statue on the table“], verbal [”To eat is essential”], gerundal [”Swimming is fun”], participial [”Exhausted from a day of swimming, Leila watched a movie”], infinitive [”To make a good first impression creates new opportunities”]) and clauses (independent [”Isabel ate lunch in the cafeteria before classes”], dependent [”When Isabel ate lunch in the cafeteria before classes, …”])

That’s pretty much everything you will ever find in a good sentence. Keep it simple, and you will never lose your way.

5. Be a constant gardener.

Look for ways to express your ideas more simply. Look for common errors of grammar and spelling. Harry Shaw once wrote: “There is no such thing as good writing. There is only good rewriting.” To present ideas clearly, we need to clear out the clutter—needless words, repetitive sentences, clichéd statements, unrevealing quotations. We need to make sure the writing’s architecture reveals itself as clearly as the foundation and shell at a construction site. And we need to make sure to use simplest sentence structure—usually the S-V-O structure.

Here are the most common problems of grammar and style:
• Wordiness, repetition, overstatements, and statements of the obvious
• Sentence fragments and run-on sentences
• Problems with proper names and second-reference pronouns
• Double negatives
• Hanging participles
• Wordy introductory fluff (“It is interesting to note…,” “From the dawn of time…”).
• Tense and voice confusions
• Subject-verb agreements
• Commas, colons, and semicolons

Here are the most common problems of word usage:
• Affect and effect
• It’s and its
• It/its and they/their
• There and there and they’re
• That, which, and who
• Lie and lay
• To, too, and two
• Like and as
• Who and whom, whose and who’s
• Medium and media
• Less and fewer

One trick for cutting clutter is to read drafts backward. Read the last section first, then the next-to-last section, all the way to the opening section. Backward editing offers two benefits. First, it helps you avoid getting swept away by your own prose. Second, it helps you to envision the structure of your writing.

Also, search for instances of “to be” and “to have.” Those constructions usually obscure rather than clarify matters.

6. Do not get argumentative.

You want to make your argument so compelling that even skeptics are eager to embrace and further your argument. If you are doing your job, people with other perspectives will see the merits of your case. You do not need to put down others’ arguments to make your own.

Eagerly anticipate and present opposing arguments, not just to counter them, but also to engage as broad a readership as possible.

No matter how right you are, someone somewhere holds a different perspective with some validity. If you appreciate a different perspective, you will sharpen your own thinking.

7. Discuss issues with other people and read aloud.

To be a good writer, you also need to be a good speaker. Speaking is just writing on air, at least in some ways. The better you speak, the better you can write.

Writing is often understood as a solitary business. And, to be sure, we need to get away from the noise of everyday life to think through difficult problems and apply ourselves to writing. But you cannot flip the “social” switch all the time. You need to connect writing with other people. Writing is, after all, communication.

In our modern age, we have radically separated important and related ways of thinking—writing and speaking, words and images, right and left sides of the brain, thinking and action. But if we want to do anything well, we need to work on all these skills.

Speaking about issues gives you greater mental flexibility and confidence. Anyone can speak well, which gives you greater confidence. Speaking forces you to give your thoughts some kind of order. Speaking extemporaneously also taps into the deep reservoirs of knowledge that usually gets stuck below the surface of your consciousness.

Reading drafts of writing aloud helps you imagine how readers will take in your words. Will they stumble? Will they get confused? Will they get lost? Will they understand your point? Will they visualize your ideas?

For more posts on writing, visit the Elements of Writing Blog. Check out the posts on Storytelling, Writing Mechanics, Analysis, and Writers on Writing.

Some wisdom from Russell Banks, the author of novels and the recent travel/memoir Voyager:

Asked at a recent book signing how his writing process has evolved over the years, Banks took the Zen stance.

When I was in my 20s and even 30s and even 40s, but most especially in those earlier years, I really had no idea what I was doing and that frightened me and intimidated me. Yet I kept going. It wasn’t until much later, in my 50s and 60s and now 70s, that I began to realize that that’s the whole idea–not knowing what you’re doing. And as I’ve gotten older it’s gotten more and more difficult  not to know what I’m doing. And so I have to find ways to induce that condition where I really don’t know what the hell I’m doing. It came so natural to me when I was young. It’s something that I’ve become increasingly aware of. I can see myself coming and going and I have to find ways to trap myself into that state of mind [of unknowing].

Only by becoming unknowing, Banks said, can we really create something new. When you know anything–even technique–your sense of curiosity and wonder may atrophy. You can lose your attachment with the moment. You can lose your ability to see and feel and think with openness.

The “will to knowledge,” Nietzsche taught, is one of the great diseases of modernity. Living in the age of science and psychology and rationality, we moderns somehow believe that we have to have all the answers. We get anxious when we don’t have the answers. Too often, we force answers on ourselves and others, rather than dwelling in a more aware state of unknowing and curiosity.

When we know something–or think we know something–we hold fast to that knowledge. We cling to it.

What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with being confident in our knowledge? Nothing really, as long as we’re loose with that confidence.

Attachment, the Buddha taught, is suffering. When we get attached to relationships, things, ideas, resentments, dreams, stories, rationalizations, myths, that’s when the suffering begins. And of course suffering narrows our minds.

That’s what Banks was talking about, I think. To create something, we need to have a sense of openness and curiosity, a sense of striving. Mastery is worthwhile. It’s great to have a toolbox and to know how to use the tools. But somehow, as Banks says, we have to find ways of being unknowing and unattached as well.

For more posts on writing, visit the Elements of Writing Blog. Check out the posts on Storytelling, Writing Mechanics, Analysis, and Writers on Writing.

Every new system for transmitting text leads to innovations in formatting and style.

We forget sometimes, but Gutenberg’s press helped to invent the clever little unit of writing called the paragraph. Before the printing press, most text continued without interruption, page after page. Which was OK at the time, since monks and scholars had few distractions and plenty of time to focus. No chirping iPhones or noisy neighbors for them.

The Internet has introduced three major innovations in style — the space between paragraphs, the hyperlink, and now the in-text footnote. Each innovation makes reading easier for the attention-challenged citizen of the 21st century. Let’s look at them in turn.

Double-spacing between paragraphs: For centuries, paragraphs have been marked off with an indentation. If you want to start a new stream of thought, you indent by three to five spaces. You could just hit the space bar three to five times. For you could set the tab key to move in as many spaces with just one whack of a key. Computers allow us to set the indentation for a whole manuscript at the top of the file.

But people using the Internet tend to be more rushed. Reading on a computer screen causes some eye strain, to say nothing of the hunched-over feeling while reading on a laptop of desktop machine. Internet readers are constantly tempted to click away from the text, not only by hyperlinks and ads and embedded video, but also by the cacaphony that is modern life.

Double spacing between paragraphs creates enough white space for the reader to find her place after getting pulled away for a moment. White space is also visually pleasing.

People in business and government had already started to double-space between paragraphs before the Internet. They understood that their text was often bland and clunky and that the reader was usually distracted. So they printed reports and memos with the white space between grafs.

White space has a tendency to reinforce the telegraphic pace of writing. Sure, we often write long paragraphs with white space. But seeing paragraphs as separated units reinforces our tendency to skim rather than dive in for a deep read.

Hyperlinks: Before the Internet, of course, the very idea of hyperlinks was just a fantasy. Who could have imagined being about to jump from what you’re reading to a completely different document or video in an instant? Maybe Alvin Toffler and a few other futurists, but the idea never occurred to me until it started happening. And, in fact, the early web used few hyperlinks. Now they’re everywhere.

Hyperlinking was actually first imagined by Vannever Bush, way back in 1945. Writing in The Atlantic, he mused: “Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready-made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified.” But it took computers and the World Wide Web to make hyperlinks part of everyday literary reality.

Hyperlinking, like most innovations, can produce either positive or negative effects. On the one hand, it’s nice to get instant answers to questions as you move through a text. When did Bobby Thompson hit that home run? How long was Shackleton marooned in Antarctica? Who discovered the dendrite? It’s also nice to get instant definitions for words, as today’s ereaders provide as a matter of course.

On the other hand, these hyperlinks can make us distracted. Sometimes, the best way to explore a new subject is to make sense of ideas through context. When we click off to another text, we lose the sense of immersion. That’s a huge loss. Not only do we lose the ability to plunge into a great text, but we also lose the ability to figure things out for ourselves. All meaning, as Wittgenstein taught us, is contingent. We lose that sense of context when we move away from a text, again and again.

The in-text footnote: If you read Joe Posnanski, the entertaining writer for Sports Illustrated, you know what I’m talking about. JoePo — not to be confused with JoePa, about whom JoePo is writing a biography — regularly skips off the subject for historic or philosophical asides. Sometimes you want to read these asides, and sometimes you don’t. The effect, as I imagine JoePo hopes, is a conversational style.

Conversation is a funny thing. Sometimes you want to follow every stray thought your partner pursues; sometimes, you wish he’d just get to the point. This is an example of the in-text footnote.

Of course, Posnanski could hyperlink to an aside. But then you’d get pulled away from the main text. You could also use a sidebar. But then the aside would not feel like part of the story. So JoePo uses the in-text footnote. I like it, especially for more informal writing. I also think it would work great for “serious” news, on topics ranging from Iraq to Newt.

These innovations democratize writing and reading. They make it easier for ordinary folk — as opposed to use serious, professional writers — to express themselves. I support anything that democratizes such an important activity. But it’s easy to get sloppy. Using white space between paragraphs, for example, doesn’t do anything to improve the quality of the paragraph. It just creates a visible moment to pause. And hyperlinks and in-text footnotes can create needless distractions.

Let’s give Aristotle, who lived two and a half millennia ago, the final word on this 21st-century conundrum. Do everything in moderation, he said. Avoid the extremes. Fit the practice to the challenge at hand.

For more posts on writing, visit the Elements of Writing Blog. Check out the posts on Storytelling, Writing Mechanics, Analysis, and Writers on Writing.

What is style? And how do you get it?

Ask anyone about style, and they’ll nominate their own icons of pizzazz. Oldtimers talk about Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, John Kennedy, Louis Armstrong, and Grace Kelly. Contemporaries name Meryl Streep, Michael Jordan, Scarlett Johansson, and Denzel Washington. Writers talk about the styles of Ernest Hemingway, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, William Faulkner, Isak Dennison, John Updike, Toni Morrison, Joyce Carol Oates, and Laura Hillenbrand.

And so on. Style here concerns rhythm and tempo, glitter and surprise, shine and ease.

Style taps our desire for mastery, creativity, and originality. We want to stand apart from the ordinary, to be better than the rest. Even when we best the rest, we want some distinctive marker that we can call our own. Lacking that, we want to identify with someone or something else with great style.

But what is style? How do you define it? The dictionary offers a useful start: “a manner of doing something … a distinctive appearance, typically determined by the principles according to which something is designed.” Fine, but we follow all kinds of “manners of doing things”; we do not call all of them “stylish.” So consider this definition:

Style is a distinctive way of doing things, seemingly without effort. Style begins with a mastery of basic principles and then advances to some original and delightful form of expression.

As a writer, what does that mean? Let’s explore two varieties of style.

Classic Stylists

Classic style treats writing as a conversation. The writer wants to show the reader things, as if leading a tour of a subject. Rather than entertaining the reader with verbal pyrotechnics, the classical stylist wants to make the subject of writing the focus of attention. The classic stylist seeks to make writing simple, clear, logical, and delightful—and wants to make it look easy. Anything else is a distraction.

The classic stylist treats the reader as an equal. The reader knows the subject better, but the reader is equally intelligent. The two converse, on the page, as friends. Neither is superior. The writer just happens to be leading the conversation.

The classic stylists of our time run from Ernest Hemingway to John McPhee to Laura Hillenbrand. Kay Redfield Jamison, the author of a memoir of suicide called Night Falls Fast, is another. See how she engages readers in this simple passage about the complexities of the brain:

Everywhere in the snarl of tissue that is the brain, chemicals whip down fibers, tear across cell divides, and continue pell-mell on their Gordian rounds. One hundred billion individual nerve cells—each reaching out in turn to as many as 200,000 others—diverse, reverberate and converge into a webwork of staggering complexity. This three-pound thicket of gray, with its thousands of distinct cell types and estimated 100 trillion synapses, somehow pulls out order from chaos, lays down the shivery tracks of memory, gives rise to desire or terror, arranges for sleep, propels movement, imagines a symphony, or shapes a plan to annihilate itself.

Jamison takes the brain’s unfathomable billions of operations and makes them simple to comprehend. Rather than lording her superior knowledge over us, she explains how we, too, can learn what she has learned.

The Stylistics

If classical style means simplicity, clarity, and equality, its opposite means complexity, opacity, and superiority. For want of a better umbrella term for this approach, let’s call its adherents the stylistics.

Stylistics, reveling in wordplay and razzle-dazzle and discovery, go beyond mere description. They flaunt their knowledge and command of language; they challenge and unsettle and wow the reader. Stylistics make words get up and strut, dance, tease, trick, and otherwise play with the reader. Stylistics use language to express—to embody, imitate, and dramatize—the infinite oddities of life. As for the writer and reader having some sort of equality? Nonsense! Writers spend ungodly blocks of time mastering their subjects and their medium. Why should ignorant readers get treated as equals? Their job is to revel in the stylistics’ verbal pyrotechnics.

The ranks of stylistics include James Joyce, Henry Roth, Robert Penn Warren, Hunter S. Thompson, and David Foster Wallace. Take a look at this passage from David Foster Wallace’s novel Infinite Jest:

We all have our little solipsistic delusions, ghastly intuitions of utter singularity: that we are the only one in the house who ever fills the ice-cube tray, who unloads the clean dishwasher, who occasionally pees in the shower, whose eyelid twitches on first dates; that only we take casualness terribly seriously; that only we fashion supplication into courtesy; that only we hear the whiny pathos in a dog’s yawn, the timeless sigh in the opening of the hermetically-sealed jar, the splattered laugh in the frying egg, the minor-D lament in the vacuum’s scream; that only we feel the panic at sunset the rookie kindergartner feels at his mother’s retreat. That only we love the only-we. That only we need the only-we. Solipsism binds us together, J.D. knows. That we feel lonely in a crowd; stop not to dwell on what’s brought the crowd into being. That we are, always, faces in a crowd.

Like many stylistics, Wallace often meanders, juxtaposes seemingly unrelated ideas, pokes us from our expectations in order to reveal something fresh.

The Vast Middle Ground

Most writers work in the vast region between the classical and stylistic approaches. We try to lay down tracks that keep our ideas clear and true. Still, sometimes, we jazz it up—creating unexpected detours, pointing out odd details, even imitating the sounds and sights along the way … and not always caring so much about the destination.

Always, though, we need to know how to lay down those tracks. We need to master the core skills of writing before we can dazzle.  That way, when we take a detour or ogle the sights, we do not crash or leave the readers behind.

How To Develop Your Own Style

Years ago, I met one of the seminal figures in modern baseball–Jim Bouton, who rocked the sport in 1970 when he published Ball Four, an expose of the outrageous and puerile exploits of big-leaguers. But as he aged, Bouton embraced the game’s traditions. Over his life, his style shifted from breaking the rules to honoring the game.

I introduced Bouton to my charges. They wanted to know: What’s the best way to develop the best pitching motion?

“Long-tossing,” he said.

Long-tossing is just what it sounds like—throwing the baseball over long distances, as much as 200 or 250 feet. To throw long, you can’t worry about what you look like. You have to lean back and then rock forward, slinging your arm forward like a slow-moving whip. Most people long-toss the same way, with just small variations for their size and strength. But long-tossing offers nothing fancy.

After tossing from the longest distances, you move closer and closer to your partner. When you get to the standard pitching distance—60 feet, 6 inches—you are pitching with your natural style.

And so it goes with writing.

Style in writing comes only after years of long-tossing. Without being too conscious of style, you learn to write great sentences, paragraphs, and longer passages. You don’t worry about whether you want to be like Hemingway or Faulkner, Wolfe of Woolf, Didion or Capote. You just create clear, lean sentences and paragraphs and passages. When you do all the little things right, your style slowly emerges. You develop tendencies—toward shorter or longer sentences, greater or lesser use of commas and semicolons, formal or vernacular speech, more or less use of quotations and statistics and other forms of explaining.

Everyone does it that way. Read early Faulkner. You see hints of his later serpentine sentences, but mostly he offers simple, clear, basic writing. Only when he mastered these basics–only when he completed his training with literary long-tossing–did he develop his own distinctive styling.

As you master the basics, pay attention to the maneuvers of different stylists. When I was first writing for publication—in a small weekly newspaper on Long Island—I idolized Red Smith, a columnist for The New York Times. I also admired Hemingway and Fitzgerald, read biographies, and pushed myself to understand some philosophy. I noted the maneuvers of these writers and occasionally copied them. Which is fine.

Mostly, though, you will discover that your truest style comes from the voice you find mastering the simple tricks and maneuvers of language.

Don’t Go Too Far

In a review of Bruce Boyer’s True Style, a guide to looking spiffy without overdoing it, Henrik Bering notes:

The renaissance author Baldasar Castiglione, who in the “Book of the Courtier” (1528) introduced the concept of sprezzatura, advising his reader “to steer away from affectation at all costs, as if it were a dangerous reef, and to preach in all things a certain nonchalance [sprezzatura] which conceals all artistry and makes whatever one says or does seem uncontrived and effortless.”

But the word sprezzatura conveys more than mere thoughtless spontaneity, notes Mr. Boyer: it is “a matter of reaching for perfection, while cultivating the impression of never having given it thought.” By holding back, it “implies greatness unseen, . . . a strength held in reserve.” Thus the general mistake of the nouveaux riches is that they tend to put it all on display. The impulse, Mr. Boyer suggests, is akin to the owners of the French formal garden that was designed, in the supposed words of the playwright George S. Kaufman,“to show what God could have done if He’d have had money.”

That idea is close to the classic ideal of writing style. Show some pizzazz–use words cleverly, plant a surprise, add a dash of color–so long as you don’t distract the reader in the process.

The Appearance of Effortlessness

True style looks effortless. In sports, you think of style with players like Joe DiMaggio and Derek Jeter, Magic Johnson and Tom Brady, Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods. In movies, think of Paul Newman and Meryl Streep, or even Gene Hackman. In music consider Miles Davis and Frank Sinatra.

Trying to look stylish is like putting on too much cologne or makeup, Again, Bering:

The problem with the dandy, a figure whom Max Beerbohm defined as “a painter whose canvas was himself,” is that not everybody possesses Brummell’s restraint: One can easily end up looking like an overdressed Easter egg or a rare and extremely poisonous tropical flower. “Your clothes should not in themselves be more memorable than you are,” notes Mr. Boyer. “Individuality should be in evidence quietly.” This is what marks the difference between the gentleman and the poseur. Mr. Boyer’s own preference is for a slightly faded elegance, “the mildly rumpled” rather than “the new and shiny.”

True writing style can be found in diverse figures–Papa Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald, Raymond Carver and John Updike, Joan Didion and Laura Hillenbrand.  Read ’em, imitate ’em, and develop your own style without pretense.

The brain loves simple, clear tasks. When you only search for one problem at a time, you stay sharp. You spot problems better and don’t run out of energy.

Therefore, follow this simple approach to editing: Start big, working your way to smaller issues, one challenge at a time. Let’s see how to do it.

Start by blocking sections. Most writing—even pieces as short as a two-page memo or a newspaper op-ed article—consists of a number of chunks. Each chunk presents distinct ideas.

Put a label on each major section. It’s easier to manage a handful of well-marked sections, each with well-marked parts, than a piece with 75 unmarked parts.

For each section, express a clear “umbrella” concept. Everything in that section should fall under the umbrella concept. If any ideas veer off topic, cut it or move it.

Make sure your whole piece starts and end strongly. Make sure all its sections do as well. Consider writing the first and last paragraphs before anything else. If you know the beginnings and endings of your journeys, the pieces in the middle sort themselves out easily.

Label ideas in paragraphs. Every paragraph should take the reader on a simple journey, starting and finishing strongly. Make every paragraph a mini-journey, following Aristotle’s narrative arc. Make sure you can explain this mini-journey with a simple tabloid headline. Make sure just glancing at your paragraph labels reminds you, instantly, about what journey it takes the reader. (More on this point in a moment.)

Check sentences for the Golden Rule. Make sure every sentence takes a journey, starting and finishing strongly.

Find the modifiers that make sentences run on and on. Sometimes it seems that crafting a simple sentence is the toughest chore of writing. As our minds whir with ideas, we get tempted to veer off track. Then we fail to make simple points.

Often, we get off track with prepositional phrases. Prepositions, remember, express relationships between things. The most common prepositions—of, to, in, for, on, with, out, from, by, and out—are among the 37 most commonly used words in the English language.

Prepositional phrases offer details about the subject. Notice how the prepositions work:

• Franklin Roosevelt was the son of a wealthy family from Hyde Park.

• Jimmy Carter came from a town in southern Georgia.

• I once lived in a house by the side of the Mississippi River.

These prepositional phrases provide useful information. But when you put too many of these ideas into a sentence, you lose sight of the main action—who’s doing what to whom. The reader struggles to keep up with the twists and turns.

Let’s look at an example from an academic history journal:

After the Second World War, the general drift of American public opinion toward a more liberal racial attitude that had begun during the New Deal became accentuated as a result of the revolution against Western Imperialism in Asia and Africa that engendered a new respect for the nonwhite peoples of the world, and as a result of the subsequent competition for the support of the uncommitted nations connected with the Cold War.

In this 72-word sentence, the author uses 16 prepositions—after, of, toward, during, as, of, against, in, that, for, of, as, of, for, of, and with. Each one adds a new thought, but pulls the passage off course. It’s overwhelming, like asking a driver to turn 16 times to travel a short distance. To rewrite that passage, I broke it up. Look at this new version:

After World War II, Americans adopted more liberal attitudes about race. The New Deal began this process. Revolutions against imperial powers in Asia and Africa created new respect for the nonwhite populations. The Cold War also prompted the U.S. to consider how racial strife damaged America’s image.

The revision breaks one monster sentence into three ordinary sentences. It uses 47 words, 25 fewer than the original. And it uses only five prepositions—about, against, in, for, and in—instead of 16. That’s fewer than two prepositions per sentence—a more manageable number of twists and turns for the reader.

Root out repetition and needless words. Most drafts contain meandering, repetitious, and clumsy phrasing.

Too often, writers repeat ideas by using just slightly different words for the same thing. Politicians say they will care for “each and every” voter. Business executives tell us that “first and foremost,” we have to cut costs. Advertisements offer a “free gift” for opening a bank account. We also hear people talk about future plans, end results, armed gunmen, unconfirmed rumors, living survivors, past history, actual experience, advanced planning, and natural instincts. Each of those expressions repeats a simple idea. So cut ’em!

Eliminate hedges and emphatics. Too often, when we want to emphasize a point, we use vague language.

A hedge limits or qualifies statements. By expressing conditions or exceptions, the hedge tells the reader, in effect, “I’m not completely sure what I’m going to tell you.” Hedges include words like almost, virtually, perhaps, maybe, and somewhat. Such words pretend to modify a point, but give the reader little real information. Writers use them to avoid taking a clear, distinct stand.

An emphatic shows strength of conviction but lacks adequate evidence or certainty. Emphatics assert something without showing it. As everyone knows is a classic emphatic. So are of course, naturally, understandably, usually, almost always, interestingly, and surprisingly. Consider this passage from a portrait of Andrew Carnegie:

The Carnegies were poor—very poor—but not quite destitute. Their home was a hovel, but not quite a hellhole. Allegheny, Pittsburgh, and the environs were ugly and just plain awful. But there were worse places in the world then, and there are now.

The passage tells us little. The author wants to emphasize points with locutions like very poor and just plain awful; he backs off his points when he refers to a hovel, but not quite a hellhole. The author would do better note the food the Carnegies ate, the clothes they wore, the size and furnishings of their home, and whether they had heat and water. Details, not emphatics and hedges, offer a clear picture.

Address details, one by one. Now address all the other problems: spelling and punctuation, noun-verb and non-pronoun agreements, adjectives and adverbs, dangling modifiers, passive verbs and imprecise nouns.

As you move from big to small problems, you’ll see something amazing. By fixing the big problems, many smaller problems disappear. Why? When we structure a piece poorly—with the wrong chapters or sections, arranged poorly—we lose clarity about the smaller points. Because we’re fuzzy on the big stuff, we’re fuzzy on the little stuff.

If you get the big pieces right, the smaller pieces take care of themselves.

Read to Others

Until modern times, most people experienced great literature—or even news reports—by listening to others read. This oral tradition, in fact, produced the greatest works of literature. Storytellers would recount, from memory, great myths, histories, comedies and tragedies, philosophical works, and religious works. The constant retelling polished these works over the centuries. Audiences acted like focus groups. When a phrase worked with audiences, it stayed; when it didn’t, it got cut.

The best way to edit is to read drafts to other people. If a passage sounds unclear or clunky, we see it in the restlessness or confusion of our audiences. Unfortunately, most writers these days labor in isolation. We read our drafts, silently. And so we lose the opportunity for feedback.

Read Aloud

Reading aloud helps you find clumsy or ungrammatical passages. Any time the reader stumbles over a phrase or repeat ideas, you know something’s wrong. It’s like putting on glasses and noticing the blemishes on someone’s face. Something easy to overlook becomes all too visible.

When the words flow easily, we know that we have done our job. So read everything aloud. Or transmit drafts to your Kindle and listen to a synthesized voice read it back. Ask yourself: Does one idea lead to the next? Can you follow the story or argument? Does the piece stay on track? Also pay attention to the technical issues, like typos and clumsy, wordy, or vague passages.

Pick up a great book—a classic—right now. Read something by Truman Capote or John McPhee or F. Scott Fitzgerald. Find the poetry of Wordsworth or Shakespeare or T.S. Eliot or e.e. cummings. Or find a well-edited magazine, like The New Yorker or The Atlantic. Read a passage aloud. Notice how the words glide.

Power Editing

Reading aloud has its own problems. It takes an awful lot of time. If you’re editing a book or a long article, it’s impossible to read without getting tired or distracted. After a while, you lose your focus. You’re just mouthing the words, without really paying attention to word choice, syntax, and so on. At some point, you start reading silently — which defeats the whole purpose. Soon, you’re moving as slowly as Heinz ketchup coming out of a bottle.

That’s what has happened with my new manuscript. I sit down to read it aloud, I get five or ten pages into it, and I drift off. Or the phone rings or email pings.

Frustrated, I asked myself when I got to work this morning: How can I do this faster and better? The answer: Do it faster and you’ll do it better. In other words, read the manuscript as fast as possible. Race through the text, as if you’re hopped up on caffeine or you’re double-parked. Let’s call it power editing.

Reading a text fast actually reveals the clunky passages better than reading at a normal pace. You can read good writing fast, but flawed writing causes you to mess up. So you not only get through a text faster, but spot problems better. Every pothole on the road shakes you up. So you mark the problematic passage or edit it on the spot. And then you continue.

You take the brain out of its comfort zone. When you read fast, you have to activate your whole brain. You have to concentrate. Your whole body gets into it.

P.S. This is exhausting. Maybe you can only do 2,000 to 5,000 words at a time. Most people, of course, don’t have to edit much more than that. If you’re editing a book or long report, you might have to do it in spurts. But you’ll get better results, faster, than with the slow Heinz-ketchup approach.

Sdrawkcab krow

To combat familiarity, read backwards. Read the last paragraph first, then the penultimate paragraph, then the ultra-penultimate paragraph, and so on. You will be surprised at how easily you can spot—and kill—bad and repetitive writing.

By reading backwards, you also see the piece’s outline clearly. Does paragraph 17 follow paragraph 16 logically? Does paragraph 7 develop the ideas of paragraph 6?

Athletes work backwards all the time. They imagine the result they want—say, a tennis ball landing in the corner of the court, just beyond the reach of the opponent—and then think backwards to imagine the sequence of events leading to that result. After imagining the ball landing in the ideal spot, a tennis player can imagine the ball flying across the net … then hitting the ball … then bringing the racket back to hit the ball … then getting into position, planting feet … then seeing the opponent hit the ball over the net … and so on.

Think of writing that way. Think of how you want to complete a passage, and then what came before, and then what came before that, and so on.

For more posts on writing, visit the Elements of Writing Blog. Check out the posts on Storytelling, Writing Mechanics, Analysis, and Writers on Writing.

On this date in 1863, Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address, the greatest oration in American history.

In 262 words, Lincoln gave fresh meaning to the Civil War and redefined America. He honored the nation’s founders and the soldiers who fought on both sides of the Civil War. He looked forward to the day when the war would end and America could return to its true mission: expanding liberty and equality for a growing nation.

The Gettysburg Address has become a model of rhetoric for its brevity, generosity, and vision of redemption. Lincoln understood that rhetoric must speak to both mind and heart. He understood that you need to say as much as necessary, but no more. He also understood that moments of ceremony and commemoration deserve more elevated prose than, say, a memo.

Back in the 1950s, a journalist named Oliver Jensen used the address to poke fun at President Dwight Eisenhower’s more prosaic manner of speaking.

To honor Lincoln, we present his speech in its entirety, along with the Powell spoof and a simple, just-the-facts version that we’re glad Lincoln did not give.

Lincoln’s Version

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate…we cannot consecrate…we cannot hallow…this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us…that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion; that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

The Eisenhower Spoof

I haven’t checked these figures but 87 years ago, I think it was, a number of individuals organized a governmental set-up here in this country, I believe it covered certain Eastern areas, with this idea they were following up based on a sort of national independence arrangement and the program that every individual is just as good as every other individual. Well, now, of course, we are dealing with this big difference of opinion, civil disturbance you might say, although I don’t like to appear to take sides or name any individuals, and the point is naturally to check up, by actual experience in the field, to see whether any governmental set-up with a basis like the one I was mentioning has any validity and find out whether that dedication by those early individuals will pay off in lasting values and things of that kind. . . . But if you look at the over-all picture of this, we can’t pay any tribute – we can’t sanctify this area, you might say – we can’t hallow according to whatever individual creeds or faiths or sort of religious outlooks are involved like I said about this particular area. It was those individuals themselves, including the enlisted men, very brave individuals, who have given the religious character to the area. The way I see it, the rest of the world will not remember any statements issued here but it will never forget how these men put their shoulders to the wheel and carried this idea down the fairway. Now frankly, our job, the living individuals’ job here is to pick up the burden and sink the putt they made these big efforts here for. It is our job to get on with the assignment – and from these deceased fine individuals to take extra inspiration, you could call it, for the same theories about the set-up for which they made such a big contribution. We have to make up our minds right here and now, as I see it, that they didn’t put out all that blood, perspiration and – well – that they didn’t just make a dry run here, and that all of us here, under God, that is, the God of our choice, shall beef up this idea about freedom and liberty and those kind of arrangements, and that government of all individuals, by all individuals and for the individuals, shall not pass out of the world-picture.

A Vanilla Version

Eight-seven years ago, rebels declared the start of a new nation. The mission: foster liberty and equality. A civil war now threatens that nation (and others like it). We’re here to honor the dead, which is appropriate. But are we good enough? No! The fighters already did it. Nobody will remember what we say; everyone will remember what they did. Now we have to win the war, so it wasn’t just a big waste. Let’s hope the nation can get a fresh start creating a more democratic system.

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A Facebook friend posted an image of Marc-Andre Cliche, who plays center for the Colorado Avalanche of the National Hockey League.

My friend quipped: “You know he gives 110 percent.”

Ah, sports cliches. As we settle into the baseball’s World Series, we are surrounded by cliches. Hundreds of reporters have descend on Kansas City and San Francisco to report every movement and utterance of the event. Consider this quick sampler of quotes after Game 3 of the Fall Classic:

“This is the way our games have gone all year,” Yost said, adding: “It’s not me doing it. It’s the guys that we put out there that are doing it.”

“Whatever he does, we go with it,” Cain said of his team’s manager. “We just try to go out and get it done.” (The New York Times)

“We’ve got to keep grinding. It’s going to be a tough series,” said Royals center fielder Jarrod Dyson. (ESPN)

“Our bullpen’s been lights out. We’ve got 100 percent confidence in them guys getting their job done,” Dyson said. (ESPN)

“It was a hard-fought game on both sides, like everybody probably anticipated,” Hudson said. “We just came up a little short. They just did the little things they needed to beat us.” (ESPN)

“It’s the reason why they’re here,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. “You get late in the ballgame and you’re going to face those guys, you have your work cut out . . . I don’t know if there’s a better bullpen.” (Boston Globe)

“Everybody is still confident,” Hudson said. “We have a lot of guys that have been on this stage before and understand what it takes to win. We’ll come out tomorrow and give it our best shot, try to even this thing up.” (New York Daily News)

“We trust the core. We trust the process,” Giants right fielder Hunter Pence said. “Vogelsong’s an outstanding big-game pitcher. [We’re] looking forward to going out there and playing behind him.” (New York Post)

“We’ve got to relax. We’ve got to play our game. We’ve got to execute pitches, we’ve got to play defense, we’ve got to get timely hitting. That’s how we’ve won. That’s what got us here.” (USA Today)

None of this means anything. It’s a waste of everyone’s time–that of the players, managers, coaches, and writers and editors, as well as the readers.

What to do?

Try this: Only use quotations when they add value to the story–when they offer an insight or authority that you cannot otherwise find. Rather than just scribbling the usual post-game comments, keep asking questions until you get something worthwhile. Maybe interview other players or coaches. Or just do without quotes. Maybe go a little deeper on the game description–with, say, a description of a major play or situation. Observe more intently. See what the reader doesn’t have the eyes or time to see.

Before you go . . .
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One quality, above all, separates writing from speaking. Speakers can see how people respond to their words. Writers can’t, so they tend to repeat themselves and use all kinds of weasel words to emphasize their points—in the hope that the anonymous reader gets the point.

What’s a weasel word? A word that attempts to emphasize a point but ultimately lacks conviction. When so say something is “really big” (emphatic), you are trying to emphasize magnitude–but you don’t really give the reader much information. Or when you say describe something as “for the most part” (hedge), you are giving yourself wiggle room. When you call someone “strong” (adjective) or say someone walked n”briskly” (adverb), you also leave matters vague. And when you use long, fat, clunky phrases like “ascertain” or “enumerate” (bureaucratese), you may think you sound impressive but you’re really showing how indirect you are. (Kind of like when a politician says “frankly,” you know he’s about to speak less than frankly.)

Let’s look at these weasel words. In this post, we’ll focus on emphatics and hedges. Other posts will explore adjectives and adverbs and bureaucratese.

Emphatics and hedges

Writers use emphatics to say they really, really think something but cannot offer much evidence. Hedges serve the opposite purpose—to argue a point, but hold back in case the proposition proves wrong. Beware of these weasel words:

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Clip and save this post. Any time you write something, use this as a checklist. If you meet these criteria, your piece will read well.

(1) Attack prepositional phrases

Too often, writers get lost in the stream of consciousness. One thing reminds them of another, then another, then … Make sure that of, with, by, under, over, etc., don’t just give you and excuse to go on and on. If you have a number of thoughts, use two or more sentences. Too many prepositional phrases can get you–and your reader–lost.

The profusion of prepositions was the major problem for Judith Butler, the last winner of the Bad Writing Award. It was also a problem in an analysis of the civil rights movement, which we explored in a previous post (see Passage 2).

(2) Avoid making nouns into verbs and verbs into nouns

One of the delights of language is its flexibility. I once heard Don Imus’s radio sidekick tell his boss that he would “effort” a task. He meant: try to do it. I kind of like it. It’s sprightly and, in context, makes fun of officious bureaucratese.

But too often nouning and verbing separates the words from their original meanings. Sometimes, it requires more words. One example: Government “spokespeople” and other officials often talk about “making an announcement,” as in: “The president made an announcement about new unemployment numbers.” Why not just say “The president announced new unemployment numbers”?

Whenever possible, use a single verb instead of a cluster of words.

(3) Root out the repetitions

We repeat ourselves for two primary reasons. First, as is the case with strings of prepositional phrases, we often repeat ourselves because our minds wander down a long stream of consciousness.

Second, because we cannot see our audience, we often repeat ourselves to satisfy ourselves we have made the point. When we speak directly to someone, we can see whether they follow us by their responses and body language. If I explain a math concept to a child doing homework, I know right away if she gets the concept. Not so with writing. Our audience is invisible. So, to clinch a point, we repeat it.

No need. If you explain something adequately, the reader usually will understand. If it’s a difficult concept, the reader can double-back to make sure she gets the concept. Repetitive writing can make things worse by altering the meaning enough to confuse the reader.

(4) Make sure you “start strong, finish strong”

Possibly my favorite rule. It’s simple, open with a strong statement, something that captures the reader’s imagination. Usually, that means a clear and vivid noun and verb. Stuff all the details, including attributions, in the middle. And then close with a memorable idea or image.

To reinforce this approach, I require my students to use a landscape format for their documents. Then I require them to write only one sentence per line. Two happy consequences occur. First, they can run their finger down both sides of the page to see if they start and finish strong. Second, they see sentences as the primary unit of writing. Often, the writing becomes both simpler and more poetic. (More on that in a later post.)

If you start and finish strong with everything you write–sentences, paragraphs, sections, essays, and books–you will almost never lose the reader.

(5) Flip the subjects of confusing sentences

Ultimately, writing works best when it gets the subject right. But often, we are thinking of several actors in the same sentence. And so we can fall into the trap of losing the real focus of the action.

Consider this sentence: “Administration sources said joint congressional committees would need to reconcile competing versions of the bill before President Obama decides whether to sign it.” What’s the subject? Administration sources? Joint congressional committees? President Obama? I think it’s President Obama. He’s challenging the committees to come up with the best bill.

(6) Cut adjectives and adverbs

You cannot write without adjectives and adverbs, of course. Well, you can write without adverbs, as Gabriel Garcia Marquez has shown in his recent work. Too often, adjectives and adverbs only wave at meaning. Better to state exactly what you mean, with specific actions and ideas.

Let’s get specific. If I say that Richard Nixon was a corrupt politician, what does that mean? Was he accepting cash bribes? Using his office to support political allies and punish opponents? Engaging in unlawful policies–like, for example, bombing countries without congressional approval? Withholding evidence from legal authorities? Using government agencies to attack political enemies?

Each of these kinds of offenses carries different ideas about corruption. Some people would argue that using office to reward friends is not necessarily corrupt (see, for example, Charles Peters’s argument for bringing back the spoils system). Others would argue that bombing countries without congressional approval is necessary under the president’s duties as commander in chief.

Here’s a simple rule of thumb: Use adjectives only when their meaning is unmistakable and when you follow up with clear examples of what you mean, so the reader can make her own judgments.

(7) Go after emphatics and hedges

Often we use emphatics like “very” and “really” and hedges like “sort of” and “probably” because we want to push the reader toward a conclusion but we don’t have enough evidence. Avoid that tendency. If you cannot provide specifics, maybe the emphatic or hedge says something false.

Quick quiz: What’s the emphatic I used in the previous paragraph? Often! What do I mean by that? Can I prove it? Or should I find a different way to say that emphatics and hedges pose a danger to clear writing?

(8) Simplify words

Simple rule: Always use the simplest word . . . except when a technical term makes your point more precisely.

Consider the words “facilitation” and “prioritization.” As far as I can tell, facilitation means “help” or “coach” or “assist.” Why would you want to use a gross word like facilitation when help can do all the work in one-fifth the time, with no confusion to the reader? Honestly, I don’t know.

I made this point in a seminar for small business people that included people who do training. One complained that facilitation holds a specific, technical meaning for people in his business. Facilitators, he said, get training in specific skills and processes. As an example, he mentioned facilitators for mediation professes. OK, if you want, use facilitator for such people. But really, don’t teachers and doctors and lawyers and accountants get specific training too? Would you can a lawyer a legal process facilitator? Any why not call that mediation facilitator a mediator?

(9) Make a stronger lead

Barry Gordy, the head of Motown Records, once said that he would not buy a record unless it captured the listener in three seconds. Writers have a little more time to capture the reader, but not much. In this distracted world, you need to show the reader right away why she should bother going beyond the first paragraph.

Amazingly, many opening passages do not clearly state the Five W’s–who, what, when, where, and why. You owe your reader a thorough preview of coming attractions. Teasing is fine in some forms of writing, like fiction. But even teases should offer enough information to orient the reader.

(10) Put the paragraphs in single-idea buckets

Make sure that every paragraph states and develops just one idea. If you try to develop two or three or more ideas, you will stray far off the subject. You will confuse yourself–and your readers–about what’s happening.

Just as you would not put football helmets and pads in your living room, make sure each paragraph keeps only what’s appropriate to do its job. Avoid going off on tangents that confuse both reader and writer.

One caveat: In narrative pieces, you sometimes use dialogue. The words of each speaker, typically, end with paragraph breaks. So, for example, you’d use six paragraph breaks for the following dialogue:

“Roy,” Bayard Rustin told Roy Wilkins, “someone has to announce that W.E.B. DuBois has died.”

“Not me,” Wilkins said.

“You should do it. He was the head of the NAACP, and that’s your organization.”

“I’m going to say anything about that damned Communist.”

“Then we’ll get Mr. Randolph to do it.”

“I’ll do it. Nobody’s speaking for my organization.”

I call the sum of these dialogues “paraclusters.” And so my one-idea-per-paragraph rule applies here to paraclusters.

That’s it. Ten rules that can transform any piece of writing. Learn ’em, use ’em, make ’em automatic. You’ll be glad you did.

Before you go . . .
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An excerpt from the recently updated edition of The Elements of Writing:

Carpentry, said Jack McClintock, a writer who chronicled the construction of his own home in Florida, “is largely a matter if getting the sequences right. If you perform Job C before Job A, you end up … wasting time and materials, getting annoyed, and making mistakes. Oldtimers call it the fool tax.”

Writing is like construction. Like a carpenter—or musician or sculptor or other creator—you create something by gathering raw materials and giving them a shape. You make sure the pieces all fit together. You determine where one piece of the structure ends and another begins.

And when you get something wrong—or get it right, but in the wrong order—you pay a fool tax.

So what’s the right sequence? And how do you design and build a piece to do the work you need it to do?

Start with the mantra of The Writing Code: All writing is a journey. Before all else, know where you want to start and finish. Know your destination and how to you plan to get there. When you know the beginning and end, you can create the best path—a straight line or a path with side trips or twists and turns. As long as you know the journey—where you want to start and end—you will always be able to get back on the track.

Some authors want to take a direct trip from one point to another. Others want to raise tension along the way, with hidden and meandering paths. Others want to give the reader a series of recurring experiences. What shape you choose depends on how direct—or how much of a tease—you want to be with the reader.

As you write, offer the reader signposts along the way. When we drive in the Interstate, we look for signs that show us our progress: “Thank You for Visiting Massachusetts” … “Welcome to Connecticut” … “Hartford: 40 Miles” … “New York 68 Miles” … and so on. To make transitions, readers sometimes need those direct statements.

Most readers, though, they just need to see where they are. So just make sure that all your steps—all your paragraphs—follow a logical sequence. So you don’t have to pay the fool tax.

Before you go . . .
     • Like this content? For more posts on writing, visit the Elements of Writing Blog. Check out the posts on Storytelling, Writing Mechanics, Analysis, and Writers on Writing.
     • For a monthly newsletter, chock full of hacks, interviews, and writing opportunities, sign up here.
     • To transform writing in your organization, with in-person or online seminars, email us here for a free consultation.