Pity the Poor Reader

You wouldn’t attempt painting without brushes, easels or canvases. Why, then, undertake something as challenging as writing without the proper equipment? The most important tools in a writer’s paintbox are words, sentences and paragraphs. Let’s take a look now at each one of these essential tools in a writer’s paintbox. 

Words

Think of individual words as pigments. Putting them together on a page is like mixing up colors on a palette. The richer the colors, the better the story you can paint in the reader's imagination.

Not all pigments are equal and neither are words. Some words are as wooden and unappealing to the ear as plank. I’m talking about words such as “totalizing, whereas, incenticize, conversate” and “utilize.” These are words are ugly and want to die. So let's let them go in peace. For a more complete list of deadened language, check the “Order of the Wooden Tongue” at the back of this book. It’s a list of words guaranteed to make your writing as palatable as a mouthful of sawdust.

If, however, you want people to read your work, consider the second list at the end of the book. It contains words that will make your writing as vivid as a summer sunset. These are words such as “sozzled, galumph” and “ogle.” Your writing will be only as interesting as your vocabulary.

Of all words writers prefer verbs. That's because they convey the action that keeps a story moving. But not all verbs are equal, either. Writers prefer the specific over the vague: gambol to walk; murmur to talk and slouch to sit. Any verb that paints as exact a picture as possible.

Thankfully, in their never-ending quest for interesting and descriptive words, writers have two wise and powerful guides. I know you’ve heard of them, although for most of you they’re strangers. I’m talking about the dictionary and its kissing cousin, the thesaurus.

I know, I know. In this age of the educated un-read, when people with the vocabulary of middle-schoolers can score high on the SATs, dictionaries and thesauruses can be scary, unfamiliar things. So many pages. And then there are all those words!

Here's a little exercise that I've found effective in helping to ease aspiring writers' fears of these invaluable references. First, pick up a dictionary and hold it in your outstretched hands. Does it burn or pain? If not, then, open the dictionary up. Does it snap at you or bite? Now, take a deep breath and hug the dictionary like a long lost friend. See? No harm done. What excuse, then, can you have not to embrace dictionaries and thesauruses?

Learn to use them as handily as a painter does his brush. Employing the right word at the right moment will enliven any story. Or, as Mark Twain put it, “The difference between the right word and the wrong word is like the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.”

Sentences

If words are a writer's paints, then sentences are his brushstrokes. Like calligraphy, a good sentence is not only thoughtfully conceived and well-constructed but artful, too.

In the Art of Brevity, you learned about the basic elements of a strong sentence. To recap, an  effective sentence harnesses strong words in the active voice to express one clear thought. Such sentences are simple enough so that any person with an eighth-grade reading ability can understand them.

Achieving clarity is harder than it looks. The easier a sentence is to read, the harder the writer struggled to make it clear. I suspect that some of you, as you begin to take the lessons of this book to heart, are beginning to discover this hard truth.

Clarity is the first step in writing an artful sentence, too. Art without sensibility is no art at all. Think about it. How will readers comprehend your artful play with words if they’re nonsensical? Your writing will read like Jabberwocky, Lewis Carroll’s famous children’s poem. While Jabberwocky sounds beautiful to the ear, it’s nonsense. Carroll invented most of the poem’s words. Do you think he was poking fun at writers who considered themselves artistes? I wonder….

The forms that a strong sentence can take are only limited by human ingenuity. Still, most of the best sentences share one or more of these three qualities:

• Effective emphasis
• Momentum
• Musicality

Let’s look closely at each of these qualities.

There’s a funny thing about the human mind. It tends to remember longest what it hears or reads first or last. The words that come in between are often forgotten. Science has recently confirmed this fact, which writers have known for a couple of millennia. In Homer’s time, they saved the tragic irony of a poem for the end. Today, writers try emphasize an image or idea at the beginning or end of sentences, especially after a period, which marks the end of a complete thought. They resist burying an idea in mid-sentence. Consider the difference between these two sentences, which say the same thing:

• “Most of the immigration can be blamed on Mexico’s economic problems.”
• “Poverty drives Mexican immigration.”

I’d argue that the second sentence conveys the idea better. The word “poverty” is a leaner, more descriptive and concrete way to begin a sentence than “most of the immigration.” It captures  in a word the reason for Mexican immigration. In contrast, the first sentence buries the idea in mid-sentence within a thicket of needless words. It doesn’t help that the sentence uses a weak compound verb (“can be blamed”) and vague language (“economic problems”). All that’s missing to make this sentence a real stinker is the passive voice.

Effective emphasis often enables the next quality of an artful sentence: Momentum. The best sentences have a sense of journey. They pull readers through a story. By emphasizing an idea at the end of a sentence, you’re giving readers a destination, a reason to journey along your words. Construct a sentence to build to that destination. The best sentences end with destinations that function as a punch line or a climax. As an example let’s revisit that wonderful sentence from the Wall Street Journal about the Mexican mogul:

“The portly Mr. Slim is a study in contradiction.”

“Contradiction” not only encapsulates the idea of the sentence but also serves as a punch line. See how the preceding words show us the contradiction that is Mr. Slim? “Contradiction” wouldn’t work as well as a punch line without this effective set up.

Our portly Mr. Slim illustrates how the journey of your sentences should be interesting and easy to follow. Otherwise readers will veer away. That means avoiding detours off topic or into dead space. Each segment of the sentence should logical build on the one that preceded it. Time needs to past in a way that readers can follow; events must unfold in proper sequence. Here’s an example from a green writer of a convoluted journey:

“A major power outage at Stony Brook on Wednesday morning at 1:20 A.M. disrupted the peaceful environment as students set off fireworks, fires, and disobeyed authority.”

The sentence begins interestingly enough but soon hits a wasteland of dead language, needless words and misplaced facts. I tip my hat to any reader who can stay consciousness while wading through “on Wednesday morning at 1:20 A.M. disrupted the peaceful environment.” Worse yet, as the sentence is written, students are setting off fireworks and starting fires as the power goes out, not afterwards, a most curious turn of events.

Writers think carefully about how to order words and facts in a way that not only makes sense but also pulls readers through a sentence. Below is an example from a pro, Jill Lepore, writing in the New Yorker. While the idea of her sentence is complex, its journey is not:

“Fiction and nonfiction are like Austin's Darcy and Wickham: One has got to all the truth, and the other all the appearance of it."

Each segment of this sentence is like the leg of a journey; each is a step toward furthering understanding. The sentence also unfolds in a consistent rhythm of construction: fiction and nonfiction; Darcy and Wickham; got all the truth, the other the appearance of it. We’re never confused as to who represents what. Darcy represents fiction and all the truth while Wickham represents the opposite.

Lepore’s sentence is also an example of the third quality of artful sentences: musicality. The words in this sentence of hers sound pleasant in the reader’s mind. Here’s another example of how musicality can elevate an ordinary sentence to the sublime. The three sentences below use the same words but the order of those words are different in each sentence. Read each one aloud and ask yourself, which one sounds the best?

• “Men's souls are tried by these times.”
• “These are the times that try men's souls.”
• “These times are trying to men's souls.”

I would argue that the middle sentence sounds the best. That’s due, in part, because it’s well crafted. The sentence is in the active voice, embodies one idea and builds to a climax. But there’s also something magical about the order of these words that rings beautifully, unforgettably in the reader’s head.

Although more than 200 years old, this sentence, I bet, sounds familiar, even if you don't know the name of the author. Now that's memorable writing. The author, by the way, was Thomas Paine, who is still considered by many scholars as our greatest essayist.

Here’s a final example of the power of making your words sound like music. When the Protestant James the VI of Scotland ascended to the English throne in 1603, his first priority was to establish his branch of Christianity for all time. He decided the key was to produce a book that all could relate to and embrace. What would make the book memorable, King James, decided, was to make its writing sound pleasing to the ear.

To that end, he established a committee to write his book and commanded its members to listen aloud to every passage. The committee did its work well, producing the King James Bible. To this day, at least in the West, it remains the single best selling book.

So, listen to the sound of your sentence. Could you easily say it aloud, does it sound nice, does it make you want to hear more? If the sound grates or you stumble on the pronunciation of a word, so will readers. An irritated reader is one who will soon forsake you and your writing.

Paragraphs

If a sentence represents one brushstroke, then a paragraph is an image composed of many strokes. There are five strokes that paint the most effective paragraphs. Let’s take a close look at each of these key strokes.

The first stroke begins in a writer’s imagination. In constructing an effective paragraph, he tries to figure out what one idea - and only one - it will represent. Limiting a paragraph to one idea keeps it logically whole and consistent, making the paragraph easy to understand and follow. If a writer opens with the assertion that Dick differs from Jane, than the rest of the paragraph better explain why. Digressing in mid-paragraph about Dick’s obsession with Paris Hilton will only confuse readers (and surely piss off Jane).

Conveying an idea may take a word, a sentence or a whole page. What dictates the length of a paragraph, then, is the effort to make an idea understandable. The key is to stay on topic. A good paragraph is never a hair ball of tangled topics or themes. If you find yourself drifting off topic, start a new paragraph.

News writing is the exception to this rule. Paragraphs are artificially configured to fit the narrow confines of a newspaper column. It’s easier to read when broken up into small, digestible parts. In news stories, (except for the New York Times and sometimes the Wall Street Journal) paragraphs are limited to three sentences and are often shorter. That means one topic may span several paragraphs.

This old rule is finding new life on the Web. It’s a platform build for short attention spans - and digital editions of magazines and newspapers are pandering to it. At InfoWorld, a former print magazine that’s gone completely Web-based, stories are purposely written as “digestible chunks,” according to editor Eric Knorr. Knorr sounds like the print editor he once was.

The second stroke of an effective paragraph is its opening sentence. It should introduce the idea of the paragraph. This opening, what some writers call a topic sentence, needs to paint an indelible image, vividly encapsulating the paragraph’s idea. The shorter - and wittier - the sentence the better. Here’s an example from a master of economical writing, the British magazine the Economist:

“There is no exaggerating China's hunger for commodities.”

There’s no mistaking the idea of this paragraph from its opening sentence. What follows documents that strong opening line:

“There is no exaggerating China's hunger for commodities. The country accounts for about a fifth of the world's population, yet it gobbles up more than half of the world's pork, half of its cement, a third of its steel and over a quarter of its aluminium. It is spending 35 times as much on imports of soya beans and crude oil as it did in 1999, and 23 times as much importing copper—indeed, China has swallowed over four-fifths of the increase in the world's copper supply since 2000.”

Notice how every sentence documents and bolsters the idea of the opening line. Better yet, each sentence drives deeper the reader’s understanding of why China hungers for commodities. It consumes half the world’s cement, a third of its steel and so on. Not once does the writer veer off topic. Marshaling evidence to support one idea represents the third stroke of a well constructed paragraph.

This paragraph in the Economist also illustrates the fourth effective stroke: Keeping a paragraph consistent in construction, style and metaphor. The paragraph opens with a comparative measurement of China’s hunger for commodities and sticks to that construction. Never does the writer interrupt his numerical analysis with a description of a factory burning coal or Chinese diners eating pork. He saves those images for another paragraph with a different construction.

The writer also keeps this paragraph consistent in style and metaphor. He opens likening China’s need for commodities to a ravenous hunger. That metaphor is maintained throughout the paragraph, describing China as “gobbling“ up more than half the world’s pork and “swallowing” more than four-fifths of its cooper. The writer doesn’t abandon the hunger metaphor in mid-paragraph, instead likening China’s need to, say, a greedy youngster.

By the way, notice how this writer uses dramatic facts, metaphor and descriptive verbs - gobble and swallow - to enliven what could be a subject as dry as coal dust. He doesn’t list the numbers in this paragraph but uses them to tell us the story of China’s hunger for commodities.

In the best paragraphs, the final sentence is as strong as the first. It serves as a mini kicker, enticing readers to read on. These kickers take the form of one last dramatic fact, observation or memorable quote that underscores the idea of the paragraph. In the Economist example, the paragraph ends with a final dramatic fact: that China consumes most of the world’s cooper.

The best final sentences serve as teasers to the next idea of the story. Consider, for example, the opening sentence of the paragraph that follows the one above in the Economist story:

“What is more, China is getting ever hungrier.”

See how this next idea logically follows the preceding one? First the writer shows us that China is hungry; then shows us how its appetite is becoming insatiable. These two ideas are in lockstep.

A strong closing sentence represents the fifth effective stroke of a well constructed paragraph.

Let’s look at another exemplary paragraph, this time from a 2007 profile in the Wall Street Journal:

“The portly Mr. Slim is a study in contradiction. He says he likes competition in business, but blocks it at every turn. He loves talking about technology, but doesn't use a computer and prefers pen and paper. He hosts everyone from Bill Clinton to author Gabriel Garcia Marquez at his Mexico City mansion, but is provincial in many ways, doesn't travel widely, and proudly says he owns no homes outside of Mexico. In a country of football fans, he likes baseball. He roots for the sport's richest team, the New York Yankees.”

Again, this passage opens with a short vivid sentence that captures the idea of the paragraph. It then marshals the evidence to show us how Slim is contradictory. The irony is reflected in the construction of the sentences: Slim likes competition but continually tries to block it; he loves computers but never uses them. The paragraph ends with the big fact that Slim favors the patrician Yankees over the plebeian soccer teams of his home country.

Strong paragraphs make for strong writing. If thematically consistent, paragraphs serve as the building blocks of a well constructed story. A skilled writer organizes these blocks so that each idea builds on the one that preceded it. Understanding deepens with each new paragraph, creating a sense of momentum that pulls readers through a story. Such construction eliminates the ping-ponging among ideas and images that confuses and irritates readers.

Think of a well constructed story as an Egyptian pyramid. Its stone bricks were fitted together so snugly that mortar was unnecessary. So, too, it is with a well built story, with paragraphs as its stone bricks, each representing a clear and consistent image or idea. If each idea builds logically atop another, there's no need for a writer's mortar - transition words such as “but, and, furthermore, thus, nonetheless” and “moreover.” The fewer the transition words, the less bloated a story, the quicker its pacing and the easier it is to follow.

Consider the two paragraphs cited as examples above. Neither of them opens with an “and, but” or a “moreover.” Model your own paragraphs after either of these two examples and your writing will be as well constructed as the Sphinx.

“With” is not a verb

Let me close with a word about grammar.

While it’s true that this book is no grammar guide, that’s not to say grammar is unimportant to writers. Grammar is to writing what math is to physics. Math represents a commonly accepted set of rules in logic that govern communication in science. Without these rules no scientist could convey his ideas in a way that his colleagues could understand. Ditto with writers. They need the commonly accepted rules of grammar that govern how words are spelled, ordered and punctuated. Without them, no reader can understand what you’ve written.

Trust me on this; I speak from experience. As a freshman in college, my grammar was atrocious. I was among that elite group of students who thought “with” was a verb - and it showed. My classmates scratched their heads in befuddlement whenever I read my stories.

Shame drove me to learn what I’d tuned out in high school. I read a half dozen grammar guides, some of which I own and use to this day. Still, I’m no master grammarian. But I do know what I don’t know - and that’s what counts. I’ll never remember the difference between “who” and “whom,” “like” and “as if,” “me and I,” but I do know to look up their usage and not guess. That’s one of the traits that distinguishes a writer from someone who just puts words down on paper.

Sadly, this is a lesson many aspiring writers have yet to learn. Every semester, I watch bright young people with big ideas struggle to be understood. It’s often a losing battle. Their weak grasp of grammar and syntax renders incoherent much of what they say or write.

At times, I feel as if these students have reverted to practices of Elizabethan England 400 years ago, when few rules governed either the spoken or written word. Back then there could be a half dozen different spellings of a word, not to mention different pronunciations and meanings of it, too. The same held true in the United States until 1828, when Noah Webster wrote our first dictionary. Its successor lives on to this day. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.

As you can see, grammar is a relatively new phenomenon in the West. It arose out of need, not - as some suspect - as a way to torment young people. Think of grammar as the scaffolding that holds up our common language, imposing order on chaos.

Grammar aids in more than clarity. If used effectively, it can turn your words into music. That’s because punctuation adds meter to writing. Periods, commas, semicolons and colons set the tempo. When you pause - and for how long - decides whether your words sound in the reader’s mind like a waltz or a march. String together a series of short sentences and you’ve set your words to a staccato beat. Let your sentences flow, dependent clauses building on one another like gathering streams, and you’re writing in legato. Skilled writers wield punctuation as Mozart did musical notation.

While critical, the rules of grammar aren't sacrosanct. Language is not cast in stone. It’s alive, evolving in response to an ever changing world. Today’s profanity is tomorrow’s respectable language. In Shakespeare’s time, for example, the word “nothing” was slang for “vagina.” Throughout his plays, male characters are continually exhorting one another to spend more time doing “nothing.” It was a double entendre that left Elizabethan audiences sniggering in wicked delight.

Shakespeare’s double entendre is an example of writers at their best. They consider the rules of grammar made to be broken. But writers never break these rules by accident or out of ignorance. They do it only for effect.

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