Showing posts with label Elements of Style. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Elements of Style. Show all posts

Monday, August 27, 2007

Writing Tip of the Week

Rereading The Elements of Style has been a rewarding experience. I don't know why I love this book so much--but it is a wonderful (and funny!) guide to style. I kept reading snippets of it out loud to Lance as we drove home from our weekend. So here's the tip of the week:
6. Do not overwrite
Rich ornate prose is hard to digest, generally unwholesome, and sometimes nauseating. If the sickly-sweet word, the overblown phrase are your natural form of expression, as is sometimes the case, you will have to compensate for it by a show of vigor, and by writing something as meritorious as the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's.
When writing with a computer, you must guard against wordiness. The click and flow of a word processor can be seductive, and you may find yourself adding a few unnecessary words or even a whole passage just to experience the pleasure of running your fingers over the keyboard and watching your words appear on the screen. It is always a good idea to reread your writing later and ruthlessly delete the excess.
I love White's description of being seduced by the keyboard. I know that I'll often add another sentence to a paragraph because I want the paragraph to look a certain way on the screen--silly, I know, but I usually edit everything viciously (because of Reminder 5).

I also learned something that I didn't realize when I took the grammar mastery test about the construction "one of those [NOUN] who"--you must use the plural form of the verb with it. I think that answers the only thing I missed.