THE LITTLE RED WRITING BOOK
“To
write well, express yourself like the common people,
but
think like a wise man”
—Aristotle.
The Little Red Writing Book
is about what you have to do to hear
just the right words at just the right time to speak them in just the right rhythm.
A
sentence is just like a walk
“What
the morning tells me is that a sentence is just like a walk—like this one in
particular. A good sentence is a gravel path through a forest. It’s a track,
not a road; it’s a trail, not a footpath. You want it to feel finished, but not
mass-produced. You don’t want it to be anonymous. You want it to have a bit of
personality, preferably its own, which will resemble yours. You want it to have
topography, to rise and fall. And you want it to take a sensible, and
reasonably straight, path to wherever it’s meant to be going.”
Like
Bach’s music
“Ellie
grew up with Polish and English. On the second morning of a business writing
workshop she raised her hand and said this: ‘I came to this course thinking I
would learn how to use words like “facilitate” and “maximisation.” What I have
learned is to have the courage to avoid words like that.’
At
the break she said to me, ‘Bach is what you’re talking about here, not?’ All
that simple and beautiful intelligence, she meant.
Ellie
may be, for all I know, the only student I’ve ever had who got hold of my
meaning so clearly.
Bach’s
music, for me, is brilliant but not showy; spare but not slight. Its simplicity
is deceptive but not false, for the music is complex but never opaque. It is
mathematics and art in equal measure. Bach is a perfect metaphor, thanks Ellie,
for writing well.”
Keep
your eye on your verbs
“Collect
verbs. Husband them. Breed them. Fledge them lovingly. Keep the best and make
them ready and, when the time comes, set them to work. You’re going to need at
least one per sentence, so start your collection today. Don’t let the thesaurus
suggest them. Go out and find your own. Then they’ll sound like yours.
Listen
for verbs on the radio and in the conversations on the bus. Steal them, adopt
them—they’re yours.”
Clarity
is next to godliness
“’Be
clear,’ commands EB White.
Clarity
has two dimensions:
1. What is it that I mean? That is
sometimes the hardest part. Too much writing I see is either an unsuccessful
search for what it is one meant to say, or it is an attempt to avoid saying it
at all.
2.
How can I say it clearly?
*****
.Jacket Copy. LATimes
gives a private series of extemporaneous lectures, analyzing the four essential elements of fiction.
