The Fundamentals of Effective Writing

Neither More Nor Less
THE FUNDAMENTALS OF EFFECTIVE WRITING
(August 30, 2006)

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master--that's all."--Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

THE FUNDAMENTALS OF EFFECTIVE WRITING

May I have a word with you?

All writing is creative writing, because all writers create something from nothing. Even technical writing requires as much creative thought as does a novel, short story or poem, because technical writing is nothing more than writing about a technical subject.

However, the task of writing--the steps involved in putting words on paper or in a computer file--can be the same, regardless of whether you are writing a technical report, magazine article, scholarly paper, news story, poem or book. If you follow these six steps, you will eliminate a lot of worry and frustration whenever you want to write anything effectively.

First, choose a subject. Decide what you are going to write about. Even if you have been assigned a topic, you can still consider the subject in depth, examining all aspects and choosing which ones you want to emphasize.

Even if you work for someone who always assigns your subjects, many opportunities exist to write about something on your own. You should always take them, because you become a better writer when you keep writing and practicing as often as possible.

Second, decide on a form. Even if the form has been determined for you, there are variations on every form, and every variation you can think of is worthy of consideration.

For example, if you are assigned to write an operating guide for a new computer and your employer has an existing set of guidelines, you can still play around with the form in terms of a better variation, perhaps just a slight rearrangement of the topics.

Third, plan your piece as best you can. Even if you are writing according to a formula, you will save time and worry if you consider carefully how you are going to do it. A schedule might help by giving you a deadline by which to finish certain topics, sections or chapters.

Even if you are given an outline you must follow, examine it carefully. Can it be improved? An outline lets you know where you are going before you start writing. If you are creating from scratch, you should think about it, plan it, and outline your piece before you start choosing words and stringing them together so they best communicate what you have in mind.

Fourth, write down the words you choose, so you won't forget them and so you can keep them in permanent form for your readers. Picture your audience and write in their language as much as possible. Use words they will understand, and explain everything they won't understand.

Fill this draft with as many details as you can. You will discover that you can delete extraneous material more easily than you can add to it, because the words that need deleting are already there staring you in the face. Although some people believe that all a writer does is think of some words, put them down in permanent form, and never look at them again, you should not consider writing in this way, especially if you want to become a better writer. Putting the words down is the easy part of writing. Now comes the hard part.

Fifth, rewrite your work and be your own, harshest critic. Put it aside for a while, so you can reread it fresh without being influenced by both the words you have written and the effort taken to write them.

As you rewrite, change some of the words. Read your draft out loud, and replace a phrase with another one that means the same thing, but sounds better. Prepare a fresh copy without the deleted material, and you will probably agree the writing is better and not even miss the deletions.

Sixth, have someone else read what you have written and ask for comments. Better yet, submit it to a trained editor. Now you want a reaction to your draft from someone not as close to it as you are.

If you are writing for publication or simply for dissemination of your information, never be afraid to show your work to someone else. After all, the whole point of writing is for someone else to read it, and an editor is merely a knowledgeable, surrogate audience.

The fundamentals of effective writing are the same for any kind of writing, together they constitute six steps that describe the task of writing and following them will make you a better, more effective writer.

END

The Art of Writing

Neither More Nor Less
THE ART OF WRITING
(August 12, 2006)

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master--that's all."--Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

THE ART OF WRITING

May I have a word with you?

To understand what art has to do with writing, forget the traditional, dictionary meanings of "art." I don't mean "skill acquired by experience, study or observation," nor "the conscious use of skill and creative imagination, especially in the production of aesthetic objects." And I certainly don't mean "the conscious production of arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty; specifically, the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium."

When I use the word "art," I mean an anthropological definition that I have yet to see improved upon: "Art is man playing at his craft." (Naturally, in this sense, "man" means the species of the human race, the totality of human beings, both male and female.)

Of course, some people might say that this definition can be improved to "Art is man or woman playing at his or her craft" or possibly "Art is a person playing at that person's craft." Although it doesn't quite have the same ring to it, perhaps the best definition of art that comes closest to the original and doesn't offend anyone who is sensitive to any possibility of sexist language is "Art is people playing at their craft."

Craft basically means "skill in planning, making or executing," "especially in handwork or the arts." Therefore, the craft of painting, for example, is being skillful at painting pictures, and being skillful is simply knowing one's tools thoroughly and knowing how to use them sufficiently well enough to produce a pleasing, satisfactory result.

The tools of painting are basically paint, brushes and the medium onto which the paint is applied. And before painters can be considered artists, before they can properly be considered to be "people playing at their craft," they must first be good craftsmen and craftswomen.

Only after painters have mastered their craft can they begin playing at it, using the components to amuse themselves and others, to try out different ways of expressing something, of depicting something, to stretch the accepted limits of their art and bring satisfaction and joy to themselves, their audience and their critics.

Then they are artists.

Like painting, photography is another means of visual depiction of objects. However, photography is more "technical" than painting is, because it requires the knowledge and mastery of a mechanical device, as well as a more scientific analysis of the subject matter in terms of its distance from the device and the amount of light falling on it.

Interestingly enough, the word "technical" comes from the Latin technicus, which in turn came from the Greek tekhnikos, meaning "pertaining to art or skill."

And photographers can also be artists when they have enough knowledge about the craft of photography to be able to play at it, such as knowing which films can be "pushed" (overdeveloped to compensate for an underdeveloped exposure) in order to achieve an effect that couldn't be achieved under normal conditions, how to frame their objects and how to use selective focus all for the purpose of producing a pleasing, satisfactory result.

Finally, writing is a craft, and it can also be an art, just like painting and photography. The tools of the craft are paper and pen, typewriters and nowadays computers. However, the most important tool for writers is their language, and one of the basic facts about language is that no one word ever means exactly the same thing to two different people.

If using language well is a craft, then good writing is an art, to be practiced diligently, until the craft of choosing, arranging, substituting and rearranging words is honed into the fine art of good communication of ideas. After writers have mastered their craft of being able to use their language well, then they can begin playing at it in order to achieve their pleasing and satisfactory results.

Some fiction and poetry are like abstract painting. The audience absorbs and becomes aware of a mood that the artist wants. Slowly, they understand what the writer wanted them to understand, or else they are changed and have a new understanding of something they didn't have before.

Journalism is like realistic painting, because the audience recognizes what they are seeing and know immediately what the writer wants them to know.

Technical writing is like photography, in which the writers show a realistic picture to the audience.

And all writing can be art, if you just work and play at it.

END

Society's Scapegoat

The Boomer Files
SOCIETY'S SCAPEGOAT
August 5, 2006

I'll tell you something.

Once upon a time there was a young man and woman who met, fell passionately in love and left the safety and security of their parents' houses to travel west and build a home and new life of their own.

They discovered a relatively untouched land of pristine beauty and after a minor diversion and disagreement with the previous residents, they managed to acquire a small, but comfortable residence and set up housekeeping.

However, the young man was called home to settle a major dispute where his parents lived, and he did so reluctantly. Although his parents had lived in their home all their lives, one of their neighbors had suddenly built a fence on his parents' property, which they started using as their own for barbecue parties.

The young man went home, discussed the matter with his parents, tried to reason with the obnoxious neighbors and finally settled the matter by getting into a fistfight with the neighbors' son, who had been the one with the idea in the first place and who had built the illegal fence and the barbecue, as well.

The young man won the fight, although both combatants sustained bloody and broken noses, and the neighbors agreed to remove the fence and destroy the barbecue pit. He then thanked himself for a good deed well done, said goodbye to his parents and the neighbors and returned to his own home and his loving wife.

Because she had been anxious about his safety, the young man's wife welcomed him back home with open arms and not much clothing. Nine months later, she delivered a beautiful, healthy, bouncing baby boy.

The young couple lavished all their love on their baby boy, who was larger than other babies, and as some parents do with their firstborn, they spoiled him rotten. Anything he wanted within his parents' budget and many times outside their budget, he could have.

Because he was larger than other children his age, as the baby boy grew up and went through school, he usually got his way with his peers, as well. You might say that he lived a privileged life. You might say that he was blessed with good luck. You might say that he was a victim of his circumstances.

A few years later, the young couple had another child, a beautiful, healthy, bouncing baby girl. Although they loved her with all their sincerity, the baby girl could never receive the intensity of the love they had given their baby boy, simply because she was second on the scene.

The baby girl, too, grew up and went to school, but because she wasn't as large as her brother had been at her age, she wasn't able to get her way as much as he had. She resented this, especially since she was continually being reminded of the baby boy's accomplishments at her age by her parents, because her teachers still remembered the baby boy's achievements in school and compared hers with his and because everywhere she went she saw evidence that the baby boy had been there first, done that first.

Now, older people began to resent the baby boy for all the privileges they saw he received when he was growing up, privileges they had not received from their own parents. And because of all the attention the baby boy received and all the focus on him both inside and outside their family, the baby girl also resented him. She and her playmates would make cruel, unjustified jokes about him, and because the baby girl felt she had no identity apart from the baby boy, she started calling herself X.

The baby boy, who had long since ceased being a baby, was confused by all this hostility toward him. Although he had been privileged growing up, he lashed out during his adolescence. He thought that his parents were stupid, old-fashioned and "square," as he put it.

When he was a teenager, he was called a juvenile delinquent. When he rebelled even more in fashion, speech and indulgences, he called himself a hippie, because he believed that only he was hip in a world so square.

When the baby boy became a man, he resented still being called a baby. He resented being blamed for his parents' mistakes. And he resented being blamed by his sister, Girl X, for every failure, every shortcoming and every mistake she made.

In other words, Baby Boy was tired of being Society's Scapegoat.

END