Simplicity in Writing

Simplicity

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

Every word that serves no function, every long word that could be a short word, every adverb that carries the same meaning that's already in the verb, every passive construction that leaves the reader unsure of who is doing what - these are the thousand and one adulterants that weaken the strength of a sentence.

'Simplify, Simplify.' Thoreau said it, we are so often reminded.

How can the rest of us achieve such enviable freedom from clutter?

The answer is to clear our heads of clutter. Clear thinking becomes clear writing; one can't exist without the other.

It's impossible for a muddy thinker to write good English. A reader is someone with an attention span of about 30 seconds - a person assailed by many forces competing for attention.

It won't do to say that the reader is too dumb or too lazy to keep pace with the train of thought. If the reader is lost, it's usually because the writer hasn't been careful enough.

Carelessness can take any number of forms:

• a sentence is so excessively cluttered that the reader, hacking through the verbiage, simply doesn't know what it means.

• perhaps a sentence has been so shoddily constructed that the reader could read it in several ways

• perhaps the writer has switched pronouns in mid-sentence, or has switched tenses, so the reader loses track of who is talking or when the action took place.

• a missing link between sentence A and sentence B, which seems rationally obvious to the author only

• used a word incorrectly

Writers must therefore constantly ask: what am I trying to say? (often they don't know)

Then they must look at what they have written and ask: have I said it?

Is it clear to someone encountering the subject for the first time? If it's not, some fuzz has worked its way into the machinery.

The clear writer is someone clearheaded enough to see this stuff for what it is: fuzz.

Thinking clearly is a conscious act that writers must force on themselves, as if they were working on any other project that requires logic: making a shopping list or doing an algebra problem.

Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair.

If you find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard.

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Reference:

• On Writing Well : William Zinsser