Does Your Writing Communicate Your Ideas Effectively?
I don’t claim to have any particular talent for it, but I certainly do a bunch of writing, and therefore I try to maintain constant alertness for tips that could offer improvement. Here’s a brief passage from the Writers Almanac that describes an incident that meant a great deal to noted short-story author Grace Paley:
She loved to hear the different tongues, and especially loved listening to all the gossip, but when she first started writing poetry, she wrote in a formal, stilted British style because she thought that’s what poems were supposed to sound like. Then, in college, she met W.H. Auden and he agreed to read her work. She later recalled: “We went through a few (of my) poems, and he kept asking me, ‘Do you really talk like that?’ And that was the great thing I learned from Auden: you’d better talk your own language.”
This is probably the one concept on writing that means anything to me. In fact, I try to impart Auden’s advice to my children when I help them with their school papers, which I paraphrase: just use your voice. When they come up with some wordy, academic, hard-to-follow sentence to explain Wounded Knee or the reproductive cycle of sharks, I ask: If you and I were sitting down at dinner right now and you were trying to explain this to me, is that what you would say? The “voice” that you use to explain what you have in your mind is fine–just the way it is. In fact, it’s better than “fine,” it’s perfect.
Hi Craig,
This is really nice. Thanks for posting this 🙂
I have been kind of falling into this by more and more using my phone’s ability to speak into the microphone and dictate my text or email. It works great and has that added benefit of coming across more like regular speech- because it is!
The article does make a good point. However, when writing, one can take considerable time to make the wording as clear as possible by re-reading and editing. When speaking, one cannot do that. Surely it makes sense to take the additional time available when writing to make the result as clear and easy to understand as possible.
Most English teachers assert that they favor writing as clearly as simply as possible. As it turns out, they do not strictly use that criterion for grading papers. There was a test done to see how English teachers actually do their grading. An essay was written in two different styles without changing the content. For example, in the simple version, a sentence read, “I prefer life in the country”. In the other version, a sentence read, “My preference is for life in the country”. The first version of the sentence is shorter and more direct, yet the content is identical. The version of the essay which was throughout written in the manner of the first example was generally graded lower than the version that was written in the manner of the second example. Thus, English teachers do not always grade according to their recommended writing style.
A writer is often considered more intellectual and thoughtful if he uses many long complex sentences and obscure words. Writers figure that out and often write accordingly, especially text book writers. It would seem that since writing is presumably intended to convey information, it would be done with that in mind but without carrying simplicity so far as to insult the intelligence of the reader, but we know that often it is not.
You make a good point here. There ARE some people who can speak as eloquently as they can write, but they are very few in number. Most of us common folk have to put something down that is more-or-less the way we would speak, and them fiddle with it like hell if we want it to become our best writing. My point (Auden’s actually) is that we shouldn’t mess with the essential “voice.”
Well said.
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I find writing and speaking to be two very different forms of communication. When speaking I can adjust the tone or the volume of my voice, or add in facial expressions and body language to communicate emotions..
When writing…..I have only words to convey passion so it becomes more important to choose the right ones.
I totally agree with using your own voice in writing. I am continually trying to simply a subject matter in words and context everyone can understand. The other aspect of the written word that is difficult to convey is the tone and inflection of the writing. E-mails especially can take on many different meanings by the reader depending upon the directness. In this day and age people get paid big money to extract meaning from a word or phrase and exploit it for their own purposes.
So sad, but so true. I try to use my voice in emails, but I’m careful never to write anything I wouldn’t want the entire world to see.
I’m sure most people get this now, but in the 1990s when email was first used, I saw some career-ending goofs, I can tell you that.
It is great to have guidelines such as these. But any rule needs the matching situation. For someone who is trying to find “their voice” this may be perfect advice. But isn’t it also true that any story teller wants to unfold their vision in an interesting and possibly many voices. I wouldn’t use the same “voice” to write a grant as I would directions to primary school kids, a fictional story or an explanation of how something works.
An actor can portray many characters and a good writer will similarly find many voices. And so another “rule” to keep in mind is writing for your audience. But even here it is perhaps too easy to mistake “for your audience” with simply “dumbing down” the writing.
You’re absolutely right; is doesn’t work for creating fictional characters, where each one needs his OWN voice. And there are arena in nonfiction in which it doesn’t word either, e.g., textbooks.