by Kurt Vonnegut Newspaper reporters and technical writers are trained to reveal almost nothing about themselves in their writings. This makes them freaks in the world of writers, since almost all of the other ink-stained wretches in that world reveal a lot about themselves to readers. We call these revelations, accidental and intentional, elements of style.
These revelations tell us as readers what sort of person it is with whom we are spending time. Does the writer sound ignorant or informed, stupid or bright, crooked or honest, humorless or playful-- ? And on and on.
Why should you examine your writing style with the idea of improving it? Do so as a mark of respect for your readers, whatever you're writing. If you scribble your thoughts any which way, your readers will surely feel that you care nothing about them. They will mark you down as an egomaniac or a chowderhead --- or, worse, they will stop reading you.
The most damning revelation you can make about yourself is that you do not know what is interesting and what is not. Don't you yourself like or dislike writers mainly for what they choose to show you or make you think about? Did you ever admire an emptyheaded writer for his or her mastery of the language? No.
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In Sum:
1. Find a subject you care about
2. Do not ramble, though
3. Keep it simple
4. Have guts to cut
5. Sound like yourself
6. Say what you mean
7. Pity the readers
4 comments:
I don't think this article applies to the contributors writing on this blog, since most of the things I write here take me less than 10 minute of thought. It's a blog for god's sake.
BUT I have thought about writing more on my own, for my pleasure, and for the pleasure of people who might read it, AND I would like it to be good and have style. I do respect Kurt Vonnegut has a human and writer, so I found this article interesting. Hopefully you will too.
Kurt is awesome.
The last they published by Kurt was published by his son after Kurt died. His son tells some stories in the open pages about his father, one important being that he simply couldn't be an employee. The story goes that he was hired as a writer for Sports Illustrated in the 1950's. His very first assignment on his very first day was to write about a horse who went crazy and jumped over the fence during a race. He stared at the typewriter all day and finally typed one sentence and left. The sentence was "A horse jumped over a fucking fence". He was self-employed again.
I will miss Mr. Vonnegut.
now don't go blaming "blog" for his reputation . . .
have you seen his "8 Rules for Writing Short Story?" i think its on his wikipedia page.
he had such a charming way of understanding things, everything really, always managed to point it all straight to The Big One.
I love the horse jumped over a fucking fence story...ahhh, I wish pop stars were viewed the same way.
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