Choice Words

I haven't written a conclusive report for my Ozark DNF over at the LPTR site, though I have a whole bunch of stuff started. I have something like three different approaches to the report, but none of them are coming out complete. Its just sort of a disjointed collection of thoughts, feelings, and more importantly effort to get the thing written. Its probably not going to get completed, even though I have some strong feelings about what happened. More on that later. Lets talk about writing. When you make an effort to write, it shows. Its painful for the writer and the reader.

Mark Twain once said that good writing isn't what you write, its what you leave out. I am paraphrasing here. I can't find the exact quote.

The thing is this: when you try to hard and write something, you start adding all kinds of grandiose ideas, making allusions, trying to sound important. Instead of just .. well, using plain english and your own voice. It comes out so much cleaner. However, this doesn't mean you shouldn't put some effort into it. It takes practice.

Another Twain Quote:

To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself...Anybody can have ideas--the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.

This doesn't mean writing short, choppy sentences. I think I have posted here before on my favorite sentence of all time, from the Declaration Of Independence: We hold these truths to be self-evident".

That. is a round sentence. Round, meaning no end, meaning very full, meaning curving back on itself in its completeness. Round, meaning no sharp edges and no big words. Plain, easy to understand, and elegant all at the same time.

Choice words. Here's to plain english, which when written well, is as full and round as it should be.