Fundamentals of Good Writing

When COVID-19 hit a year ago, I was in the middle of my Creativity in Marketing class and I had to cancel all my remaining in-class assignments. I replaced them with short story writing, and to help students with the writing process I created a document that summarized some of the best writing advice I'd encountered over the years. The students found it useful so I thought I'd share it with the greater public. Most of the advice applies regardless of genre. Advanced writers may find much of this familiar or too elementary, but there might be some helpful reminders. I have split the advice into three categories: syntax and composition, style, and the virtues of revising. The last one is the most important.

Syntax and Composition

Nouns and verbs build sentences.

The bones of a sentence are just a noun and a verb, so put the right nouns and verbs in the right slots and the other words fall into place around them. –Joe Moran

Take any noun, put it with any verb, and you have a sentence. It never fails. Rocks explode. Jane transmits. Mountains float. These are all perfect sentences. Many such thoughts make little rational sense, but even the stranger ones (Plums deify!) have a kind of poetic weight that’s nice. The simplicity of noun-verb construction is useful — at the very least it can provide a safety net for your writing. — Stephen King

Brush up on grammar. No need to make this too complicated: William Strunk & E.B. Whyte’s classic little book remains your best guide for learning the dos and don’ts of syntax. It’s old, hence it is easy to find a copyright-free version online. Return to it often; you’ll always find some rule or principle that you realize you’ve been violating.

Nouns make your sentences stand tall. Agonize over noun choices. Always opt for the simple and short over the lengthy and verbose. The linguist Sam Hayakawa wrote that all nouns exist as if on a ladder: the higher you climb, the more abstract the nouns get. On the bottom rung, you have concrete words like chair, egg, fork. The middle rung is for specific-general words like breakfast, scraps, firewood. They are concrete but you cannot count them or split them into smaller units. The top rung is the most abstract: depression, recession, infection. Joe Moran recommends that you make your sentences move up and down the noun ladder:

"No single noun fully describes anything. The more concrete a noun, the more people agree on its meaning. But being concrete limits a noun’s use, too, by tethering it tight to one sense. […] Writing stuck on one rung of the ladder of abstraction is too monotone. […] Keep shinning up and down the ladder, though, and the reader gets the gist in different ways. She grasps big ideas through concrete things, and concrete things through big ideas. The tangible ignites the elusive and both of them shine brighter."

Verbs keep your story moving. Verbs move the text forward and make it dynamic. Selecting verbs deserves similar care as nouns. Verbs vary between transitive and intransitive verbs and Virginia Tufte encourages us think of them as different levels of heat that the writer can dial either up or down like a thermostat. Transitive verbs act on objects and have the most heat. He punched his bother. Intransitive words do not act on objects and have less heat. I yawned. A text shouldn’t be moving forward so fast as to feel hurried. Too many transitive verbs will do that.

Ration “to be.” Most writers overuse “to be.” They write “Jack is walking” rather than “Jack walks.” Experienced writers often start the revision process by searching for every “is” and “are” and replacing them with verbs better suited for the occasion. Think of “to be” as a finite resource — you want to save it for profound declarations. Or as Joe Moran tells it:

"To be works best for crisp observations and assertions that make us see things afresh. Check all the times you use is and was in your writing and see if they are just linking things weakly or actually saying something worth saying. A to be sentence can be mind-altering. This is the way the world is, it says: hadn’t you noticed?

Beware the passive voice. The assignment was not completed by the student; the student completed the assignment. Assign responsibility. Tell the reader who is doing what.

Connect your sentences. A sentence should connect to the previous one, and lead to the next one. If your text is hard to follow, it is probably because you are violating this principle. Disconnected sentences simply feel wrong. The Amazon is burning. See?

Vary your sentence lengths. Short sentences are the writer’s primary tool. They are firm and confident. They are easier to digest. They give the reader frequent resting stops at every comma. Yet a writer should bust a longer sentence every now and then, either for dramatic effect, to resist the buildup of monotony in style, or just for the sheer fun and creativity of it. Like so.

Aim for a short paragraph. A short paragraph forces you to be clear and focused, since a paragraph should be about one idea, or unity. William Zinsser says the short paragraph also has an inviting appeal:

Writing is visual — it catches the eye before it has a chance to catch the brain. Short paragraphs put air around what you write and make it look inviting, whereas a long chunk of type can discourage a reader from even starting to read.

Establish the subject, verb, and object. The reader wants to know what’s going on, and the holy trinity of subject-verb-object lets them know this. The writer should not withhold these three from the reader for too long; establish them early in the sentence. Or to quote Joe Moran, “If you swiftly deliver the main news of the sentence, the subject and verb, then the rest of the sentence can unfurl itself less hurriedly.” Avoid meandering sentences like: “It was on a beautiful and sunny April morning on the coast of Normandy, a morning like just any other, but still special in its own way, when Pierre entered his boat and hosted his sails.” Pierre should be on the boat earlier in the sentence.

Master the Separators: dash, semicolon, parentheses, and comma. The safest bet is to stick to periods and commas, breaking the sentence with a comma whenever it has a natural pause, as in speech, like so. Semicolons are risky and only appropriate when a sentence directly connects to the one preceding it. Malcolm Gladwell never uses semicolons; he feels they are like a confusing no-man’s land between the comma and the period. Dashes are helpful when you want to interrupt a thought — usually in the middle of the sentence — or if you want to punctuate the end, often to add either drama or humor. Parentheses are more subtle and are usually used to add in incidental information, like whispering something important to the reader. Many humorists favor parentheses for their understated effectiveness (see below).

I could never learn to like her — except on a raft at sea with no other provisions in sight. — Mark Twain

My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three. — Vladimir Nabokov

Style

Listen to your reader, listen like your reader. John Trimble says that novice writers write for themselves, whereas established writers write with other people in mind. Good writers anticipate the reactions of their readers and seek to delight them. They edit with the audience always in their ear. They know when and how to carry to story forward as the reader expects, and when to surprise them with a sharp left turn. Howard Becker says good writers “edit by ear” and sense how a sentence sounds when said out loud, if it has a good rhythm. A good sentence sounds pleasant when said out loud; it has just the right cadence in the beginning and middle, and an ending that feels like a solid landing. Ear-editors also favor shorter words.

Train your ears, for how a sentence sounds in the head is also what it says to the heart. — Joe Moran

Go for concrete. Sentences made of concrete nouns and determinative verbs are better. Don’t write “A period of unfavorable weather set in.” Instead, try “It rained every day of the week.” George Orwell once took a passage from the Bible and, to quote Strunk & Whyte, “drained it of its blood” to illustrate the necessity of concrete expression. Below you’ll find Orwell’s version first and then the original King James version.

Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must inevitably be taken into account.

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Kill all bullshit qualifiers. Bullshit qualifiers are redundant words that hedge the writer’s claims. “It could be argued that…; Some people tend to occasionally…” You can maybe get away with them in academic writing, but nowhere else. Aim for strong prose. Be firm.

Be better than the adjective. Adjectives are the lazy man’s alternative for good description. When words fail a novice writer trying to describe the beauty of a pond, they call it a beautiful pond. The reader might even suspect the writer has never really seen what they are describing.

[Ezra Pund was]…the man who had taught me to distrust adjectives as I would later learn to distrust certain people in certain situations. — Ernest Hemingway

About adjectives: all fine prose is based on the verbs carrying the sentences. They make sentences move. Probably the finest technical poem in English is Keats’ “Eve of Saint Agnes.” A line like “The hare limped trembling through the frozen grass,” is so alive that you race through it, scarcely noticing it, yet it has colored the whole poem with its movement — the limping, trembling and freezing is going on before your own eyes. –F. Scott Fitzgerald

Adverbs must go. Adverbs are the timid cousin of adjectives. They are a crutch for writers who fear they aren’t being clear enough. “You can’t be serious!” said Billy incredulously. Use adverbs selectively, like this. If a verb needs a modifier, find a better verb.

The adverb is not your friend. — Stephen King

Don’t be very careful, be meticulous. “Very” is very overused. Removing it and changing the verb or adjective that accompanied it will usually improve the sentence. Sheila isn’t very fast; she is swift. The hole isn’t very big; it is gaping. The assignment isn’t very stupid; it is idiotic. “Much” often very much deserves the same fate as “very.”

Embrace the metaphors and similes. A simile compares two things using like or as (“That class was like a kindergarten”). A metaphor makes the comparison without using like or as (“That class is a kindergarten”). Metaphors and similes are the best way to solve the adjective and adverb problem. Don’t write that the pond was beautiful. Write that the pond looked like it belonged on a Hallmark greeting card. (But please try to be original with your metaphors.) Well-crafted metaphors or similes are usually the bits of your story that readers will remember and quote. John Trimble encourages writers to train their creative brains to spot insertion opportunities for similes and metaphors: “Always be thinking in terms of “like.” Such-and-such is like — like what? Challenge your imagination. What is it similar to? Do this with every sentence you write. Make it part of your writing habit.”

A professor must have a theory, as a dog must have fleas. –H. L. Mencken

Describe the details and engage the senses. The best way to take the reader “there” is through good description. Describe the surroundings. What are the sounds? The smells? What is the mood of the place? How would you feel being in this place? How would this feeling inform character behavior?

It is not that every detail is given — that would be impossible, as well as to no purpose — but that all the significant details are given, and with such accuracy and vigor that readers, in imagination, can project themselves into the scene. –William Strunk & E.B. Whyte

The key to good description begins with clear seeing and ends with clear writing, the kind of writing that employs fresh images and simple vocabulary. –Stephen King

Remember to get the weather in your god damned book — weather is very important. –Ernest Hemingway

My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word to make you hear, to make you feel — it is, above all, to make you see. That — and no more, and it is everything. — Joseph Conrad

Trust the reader.

A reader needs no chaperone: signposting should be invisible and the sentences cohere through suggestive arrangement, not coercive connection. — Joe Moran

Dialogue for character. Dialogue is crucial for establishing characters and their motivations. Good dialogue gives the cast their voices. Writers often overuse dialogue as a means for conveying information about the world, to establish backstory. To paraphrase Neil Gaiman, there’s nothing worse than two characters telling each other things that they both already know. Avoid edginess for edginess’s sake and slang for slang’s sake. The reader will catch you on it. It is good to mimic natural speech, but not to a fault. Omit the kinds of words or phrases that appear in real speech, like “well,” “so,” “just,” “um,” “you know?” and “c’mon.” Also try to limit dialogue that over-elaborates character motivations. What a character wants should be revealed through their actions and choices, not what they say they want.

I have never understood, to this day, how Hemingway achieved his powerful dialogue… Hemingway offered… not dialogue overheard, but a concentrate of it, often made up of superficially insignificant elements — mere fragments of everyday phrases, which always managed to convey what was most important. — Ilya Ehrenburg

The Virtues of?Revising

Lumps of coal turn into diamonds. There's no such thing as writer's block; there are only writers who have too high standards for their early production. Experienced writers know that their early drafts are crap and they are okay with it, because that early crap is necessary raw material for the eventual brilliant stuff. Producing brilliant text on the first go only happens at later stages when you have already figured out the story, and even then it's rare. Do not just sit around waiting for inspiration; inspiration only comes to those who write. In the early going you need to write promiscuously and silence that inner critic. The critic will have their say when it's time to revise.

All good writers write [shitty first drafts]. This is how they end up with good second drafts and terrific third drafts. People tend to look at successful writers who are getting their books published and maybe even doing well financially and think that they sit down at their desks every morning feeling like a million dollars, feeling great about who they are and how much talent they have and what a great story they have to tell; that they take in a few deep breaths, push back their sleeves, roll their necks a few times to get all the cricks out, and dive in, typing fully formed passages as fast as a court reporter. But this is just the fantasy of the uninitiated. I know some very great writers, writers you love who write beautifully and have made a great deal of money, and not one of them sits down routinely feeling wildly enthusiastic and confident. Not one of them writes elegant first drafts. All right, one of them does, but we do not like her very much. — Anne Lamott

I have never thought of myself as a good writer. Anyone who wants reassurance of that should read one of my first drafts. But I’m one of the world’s great rewriters. — James A. Michener

I am an obsessive rewriter, doing one draft and then another and another, usually five. In a way, I have nothing to say, but a great deal to add. — Gore Vidal

Genius is the ability to edit. –Charlie Chaplin

Interviewer: How much rewriting do you do? Ernest Hemingway: It depends. I rewrote the ending of Farewell to Arms, the last page of it, thirty-nine times before I was satisfied. Interviewer: Was there some technical problem there? What was it that had stumped you? Ernest Hemingway: Getting the words right.

Revision is one of the exquisite pleasures of writing. — Bernard Malamud

Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short. — Henry David Thoreau

I have already made this paper too long, for which I must crave pardon, not having now time to make it shorter. — Benjamin Franklin

Simplify, simplify, simplify! — Henry David Thoreau

Surely one “Simplify!” would have been enough? — John Rosling, replying to Thoreau

Verbal economy in a sentence is a virtue but an overprized one: words are precious but they need to be spent. — Joe Moran

Gain distance. Whenever you return to a piece of writing after a break, read the whole thing from start to finish and edit as you go. If your text has already reached a respectable length, just read the latest chapters or sections. Whenever your text reaches a draft stage, meaning that it’s now a full text, with a beginning, middle, and ending, it is necessary — repeat, necessary — that you not look at it for at least a few days. When you return to the text, you’ll have “fresh eyes” to revise with.

Find the real beginning. Experienced writers bring their readers into the story in media res rather than a lengthy and tedious mise en scène (“Once upon a time…”). Yet even experienced writers struggle to decide exactly when the reader should be brought in. Margaret Atwood and Joyce Carol Oates recommend that you experiment deleting the first few paragraphs or even pages to see if the story could start from there, at some key moment of action that reveals character better than any preamble could. The ideal beginning often hides quite late in the text. (Don't forget to edit the new beginning, though. Unilateral cuts are not advised.)

Play with paragraphs. Experiment with your paragraphs, both their order and structures during revision. Break paragraphs into two or combine two (or more) into one. Move sentences from one paragraph to the next. As Joe Moran says: “You can change the whole tone of a sentence by moving it from the end of a paragraph to the start of a new one, and vice versa.” Like sentences, paragraphs should, as a rule, lead from one to the next. But sometimes, especially in short stories, violating this principle can improve the story. Joyce Carol Oates likes to experiment with paragraph composition, especially during the revision process. She shuffles paragraphs around to make the text feel like you were listening to a person recount how the events unfolded, going back and forth between backstory and current events. As she describes this: “Nobody has a chronological memory — all our memories are ripples in the pan.”

Grow the Iceberg. Ernest Hemingway described his style of writing through his “iceberg theory.” He encouraged omission of key details, especially during the revision process, and letting the reader’s imagination to do most of the work. An overt style can indeed be insulting to the reader. For example, rather than explicitly telling the reader that such and such character was feeling miserable, you would describe their unwillingness to engage with others, or their face being expressionless. Hemingway described his theory in Death in the Afternoon:

“If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing. A writer who appreciates the seriousness of writing so little that he is anxious to make people see he is formally educated, cultured or well-bred is merely a popinjay.”

R. Andrew Wilson distilled the iceberg theory into four commandments:?

1. Write about what you know, but don’t write all that you know

2. Grace comes from understatement

3. Create feelings from the fewest details needed

4. Forget the flamboyant

References:

Atwood, Margaret (2019) Masterclass Series

Becker, Howard S. (2008). Writing for social scientists: How to start and finish your thesis, book, or article. University of Chicago Press.

Gaiman, Neil (2019) Masterclass Series

King, Stephen (2002). On writing. Simon and Schuster.

Moran, Joe (2018) First You Write a Sentence: The Elements of Reading, Writing?… and Life.

Oates, Joyce Carol (2019) Masterclass Series

Phillips, Larry W. (Ed.). (2002). Ernest Hemingway on writing. Simon and Schuster.

Trimble, John R. (2000). Writing with style: Conversations on the art of writing. Prentice-Hall?

Wilson, R. A. (2009). Write Like Hemingway: Writing Lessons You Can Learn from the Master. Simon and Schuster.

Zinsser, William (2006). On writing well: The classic guide to writing nonfiction. New York, NY.