ERRORS TO BE AVOIDED.
The faculty for writing varies in various persons. Some write easily, some laboriously; words flow from some pens without effort, others produce them slowly; composition seems to come naturally to a few, and a few never can learn it, toil after it as they may. But whatever the natural power, of this be certain, that good writing cannot be accomplished without study and painstaking practice. Facility is far from being a proof of excellence. Many of the finest works in our language were written slowly and painfully; the words changed again and again, and the structure of the sentences carefully cast and recast.
There is a fatal facility that runs “in one weak, washy, everlasting flood,” that is more hopeless than any slowness or slovenliness. If you find your pen galloping over the paper, take it as a warning of a fault to be shunned; stay your hand, pause, reflect, read what you have written; see what are the thoughts you have set down, and resolutely try to condense them. There is no more wearisome process than to write the same thing over again; nevertheless it is a most efficient teaching. Your endeavor should be to say the same things, but to say them in a different form; to condense your thoughts, and express them in fewer words.
Compare this second effort with the first, and you will at once measure your improvement. You cannot now do better than repeat this lesson twice; rewrite, still bearing steadily in mind your object, which is, to say what you desire to utter in words the most apt and in the briefest form consistent with intelligibility and grace. Having done this, take your last copy and strike out pitilessly every superfluous word, substitute a vigorous or expressive word for a weak one, sacrifice the adjectives without remorse, and, when this work is done, rewrite the whole, as amended.
And, if you would see what you have gained by this laborious but effective process, compare the completed essay with the first draft of it, and you will recognize the superiority of careful composition over facile scribbling. You will be fortunate if you thus acquire a mastery of condensation, and can succeed in putting the reins upon that fatal facility of words, before it has grown into an unconquerable habit.
Simplicity is the charm of writing, as of speech; therefore, cultivate it with care. It is not the natural manner of expression, or, at least, there grows with great rapidity in all of us a tendency to an ornamental style of talking and writing. As soon as the child emerges from the imperfect phraseology of his first letters to papa, he sets himself earnestly to the task of trying to disguise what he has to say in some other words than such as plainly express his meaning and nothing more. To him it seems an object of ambition—a feat to be proud of—to go by the most indirect paths, instead of the straight way, and it is a triumph to give the person he addresses the task of interpreting his language, to find the true meaning lying under the apparent meaning.
Come Right to the Point.
Circumlocution is not the invention of refinement and civilization, but the vice of the uncultivated; it prevails the most with the young in years and in minds that never attain maturity. It is a characteristic of the savage. You cannot too much school yourself to avoid this tendency, if it has not already seized you, as is most probable, or to banish it, if infected by it.
If you have any doubt of your condition in this respect, your better course will be to consult some judicious friend, conscious of the evil and competent to criticism. Submit to him some of your compositions, asking him to tell you candidly what are their faults, and especially what are the circumlocutions in them, and how the same thought might have been better, because more simply and plainly, expressed. Having studied his corrections, rewrite the article, striving to avoid those faults.
Submit this again to your friendly censor, and, if many faults are found still to linger, apply yourself to the labor of repetition once more. Repeat this process with new writings, until you produce them in a shape that requires few blottings, and, having thus learned what to shun, you may venture on self-reliance.
But, even when parted from your friendly critic, you should continue to be your own critic, revising every sentence, with resolute purpose to strike out all superfluous words and to substitute an expressive word for every fine word. You will hesitate to blot many a pet phrase, of whose invention you felt proud at the moment of its birth; but, if it is circumlocution, pass the pen through it ruthlessly, and by degrees you will train yourself to the crowning victory of art—simplicity.
When you are writing on any subject, address yourself to it directly. Come to the point as speedily as possible, and do not walk round about it, as if you were reluctant to grapple with it. There is so much to be read nowadays that it is the duty of all who write to condense their thoughts and words. This cannot always be done in speaking, where slow minds must follow your faster lips, but it is always practicable in writing, where the reader may move slowly, or repeat what he has not understood on the first passing of the eye over the words.
Arranging Your Words.
In constructing your sentences, marshal your words in the order of thought—that is the natural, and therefore the most intelligible shape for language to assume. In conversation we do this instinctively, but in writing the rule is almost always set at defiance. The man who would tell you a story in a plain, straightforward way would not write it without falling into utter confusion and placing almost every word precisely where it ought not to be. In learning to write, let this be your next care.
Probably it will demand much toil at first in rewriting for the sake of redistributing your words; acquired habit of long standing will unconsciously mould your sentences to the accustomed shape; but persevere and you will certainly succeed at last, and your words will express your thoughts precisely as you think them, and as you desire that they should be impressed upon the minds of those to whom they are addressed.
So with the sentences. Let each be complete in itself, embodying one proposition. Shun that tangled skein in which some writers involve themselves, to the perplexity of their readers and their own manifest bewilderment. When you find a sentence falling into such a maze, halt and retrace your steps. Cancel what you have done, and reflect what you design to say. Set clearly before your mind the ideas that you had begun to mingle; disentangle them, range them in orderly array, and express them in distinct sentences, where each will stand separate, but in its right relationship to all the rest.
This exercise will improve, not only your skill in the art of writing, but also in the art of thinking, for those involved sentences are almost always the result of confused thoughts; the resolve to write clearly will compel you to think clearly, and you will be surprised to discover how often thoughts, which had appeared to you definite in contemplation, are found, when you come to set them upon paper, to be most incomplete and shadowy. Knowing the fault, you can then put your wits to work and furnish the remedy.
