Words Fail Me

by Patricia T. O'Conner

  Flexibility is a skill every writer should develop. If the human mind weren't flexible, we'd still be living in caves.

  Faith, Hope, and Clarity

  I'll always take a plain sentence that's clear over a pretty one that's unintelligible. When your writing is hard to understand, it's just so much slush, no matter how many beautiful images and nice rhythms it has. Readers won't like what they can't understand. They may understand it and still not like it, certainly. But that's a chance you have to take.

  The best writing is the clearest; we sense its meaning immediately. The subject—particle physics, perhaps—may be over our heads, but the writing should never be. Albert Einstein was able to convey difficult scientific ideas simply and elegantly."I think that a particle must have a separate reality independent of the measurements," he wrote. "That is, an electron has spin, location and so forth even when it is not being measured. I like to think that the moon is there even if I am not looking at it."

  No subject is so complicated that it can't be explained clearly and simply. Of course, simplicity is deceptive. Turning out flashy, dense, complicated prose is a breeze; putting things down in simple terms that anyone can understand takes brainwork. Still, you don't have to be an Einstein to write well. When you reach the inevitable impasse, try another approach. Every time you do this, consider it a step forward, not back.

  Take Five

  Some people don't know when to stop. But resting is part of the job. Like Bertie Wooster's beloved oolong, it restores the tissues. A rest can take many forms, from a simple mental pause to a walk around the room to calling it a day. For those of you who haven't already figured this one out, here's when to give yourself a break.

  • When you're indecisive. If you find yourself staring at the computer screen for ten or fifteen minutes, going back and forth between two trifling choices until neither seems better or worse than the other, stop. You've lost your perspective.

  Maybe you're writing a whodunit and can't decide whether the detective is "stunning" or "gorgeous." Quit futzing around. Take a breather, go back and make a choice, then move on to more important things.

  • When you start seeing double. If the page or the computer screen begins to blur even though you've just gotten new glasses, call a time-out. Not many writers do their best when they're tired.

  • When you can't concentrate. If you're unable to tune out the hum of traffic or ignore the neon sign across the street, a brief rest might be in order. Be honest, though, and make sure you genuinely can't concentrate even if you try. There's a thin line between truly lacking concentration and simply looking for excuses not to write.

  • When your brain is fried. My brain gives out after about four hours of writing. If I try to go on, I become incoherent. Some people can write from dawn to dusk, some for only an hour or two; everyone has a limit. When you've reached yours, quit for the day.

  • When you're feeling lousy. If you can't think of anything but your aching head, your stuffy sinuses, or your 103-degree fever, maybe you should be in bed.

  • When your writing stinks. If your work is going badly and everything you do only makes it worse, stop for a while. You may need to end your writing session early. Next time, take a fresh look, try a new approach.

  When you quit, however, don't immediately start doing something you enjoy, like taking a nap or dashing to the fridge for some Ben & Jerry's. Instead, do some unpleasant task, like paying bills. Don't reward behavior that you shouldn't encourage.

  I find that when my work stalls, things look much better the next day. Time and distance can work wonders.

  Talking of Michelangelo

  If you think that your prose is deathless, that what you're writing is the literary equivalent of the Sistine Chapel, scrape yourself off the ceiling. It may be as good as you think, but chances are it's not quite that fabulous and you need to come down off your high.

  The buzz you get when you're really on is one of the great rewards of writing, yet it feels very much like the buzz you get when you're deceiving yourself. By all means enjoy your dizzy euphoria. Just remember to take another look after your head clears. Try to see your work as a reader would, coming to it cold, and don't be crushed if it's less dazzling the second time around. Self-intoxication is dangerous only if you fail to sober up.

  Signs of Progress

  Remember Sisyphus, the Greek character who was condemned to roll a stone uphill, only to have it roll down again? He ought to be the patron saint of writers. Any writing project, even a small one, seems a Sisyphean task if you feel you're going nowhere—a common feeling among writers.

  Sometimes, though, you'll think you're going nowhere when in fact you've almost arrived. That's because progress seldom announces itself. It comes in increments, without orchestral accompaniment, so don't think you're toiling in vain because you don't hear a flourish of trumpets every time you write. When you learn to recognize signs of progress, you won't feel you're running in place. Here are some signs to look for. Don't expect to see them all. Even one can keep you going.

  • You've met your quota. If you've set a quota—a number of words or pages you hope to produce each time you write—you have a built-in progress meter. If you don't have a quota, and if you work on a computer, do a word count at the end of each session. I do this every time I write, if only to watch the numbers change. When the count grows, that's progress. When the count shrinks, that can be progress, too—if I've cut out something dumb.

  • You've done your time. Even if you haven't written very much at a sitting, at least you've started on time, finished on time, and done some thinking in between. Keeping to a schedule is definitely progress.

  • Your writing holds up. If it still looks good to you the next day, it probably is.

  • You can't wait to get back to work. Now you're getting somewhere.

  • You can't stop. Let's not kid ourselves. No one feels like this every day.

  • You're not afraid to show your writing. If you have the confidence to ask for someone else's opinion, you've made progress.

  • You can take criticism without collapsing. Well, you asked for it, didn't you? Besides, if criticism helps you get your project back on track, that's progress. (If only I could follow my own advice!)

  The Payoff

  When you read something you love, something so beautiful and right and true that it leaves you breathless with admiration, you probably think, "Words come easy to her," or "His writing is effortless." That's what writers want you to think. But the effortless feel of good writing takes effort to achieve. As Samuel Johnson put it, "What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure."

  Don't think that what's hard for you comes naturally to others. Everyone has to work at writing well. But there's a payoff—two payoffs, actually.

  First, the techniques for writing well aren't hard to learn. And they work! You'll find them in the chapters ahead, the fundamentals and then the fine points.

  Second, effort really does make a difference. If you work at your writing, even a little, you'll see results. You may not use every bit of advice in this book, but any improvement at all is worth the trouble. Remove only one word of jargon, sharpen only one fuzzy idea, goose only one sentence with a livelier verb, and your writing will be that much better.

  PART 2

  The Fundamental Things Apply

  6. Pompous Circumstances

  HOLD THE BALONEY

  This has happened to me, and I'm sure it's happened to you. You're listening to people talk, at a board meeting or a seminar or a discussion group or even at some la-di-da cocktail party, and everyone is being soooo impressive. The pretentious language gets deeper and deeper, until you're up to your knees in big words and bureaucratic/academic/ corporate gobbledygook.

  Just as you're thinking you'd rather be somewhere else, a voice of reason pipes up with a simple question or comment that cuts through the baloney:

  "Yes, but does it work?"

 
; Or: "By 'eggplant' you mean purple."

  Or: "In other words, we're fired."

  Refreshing, isn't it?

  If this were a better world, everyone would write and speak simply and clearly all the time. Unfortunately, we're not always comfortable with the audience or the subject. When we're insecure—perhaps we don't know enough, we don't trust our understanding, or we're trying to impress—we resort to pretentious language. We tart up our writing with authoritative-sounding twaddle: inflated words, jargon, the phrase of the moment. The way to sound authoritative is to know your subject (there I go again), not to camouflage your weaknesses with big words. It takes a knowledgeable writer to use simple language, to "eschew surplusage," as Mark Twain said.

  Allow me, therefore, to suggest that hereafter you utilize the optimum downsizing in terminology. Translation: Use plain words. If you're a commodities trader and it's raining, say it's raining. Don't say that corn futures are up because predictions of increased precipitation have in the present instance proved accurate. If you're a teacher and little Jeremy can't add, tell his mom that he has trouble with arithmetic, not that his computational skills do not meet his age-expectancy level. Keep your words few and simple.

  I'm not saying it's never appropriate to use heaps of big words, even extra-extra-large ones. But when simple English will do as well, why dress up an idea in ribbons and bows? They only obscure the message. If your object is to communicate, don't let anything come between you and the reader.

  Sometimes it takes courage to drop our pretensions, to choose use instead of utilize, rain instead of precipitation, arithmetic instead of computational skills. An idea expressed in simple English has to stand on its own, naked and unadorned, while ostentatious words sound impressive even when they mean nothing.

  Not all pompous writers are showing off or covering up their ignorance. Some are just timid, imagining that their ideas are flimsy or flawed or silly, even when they aren't. If you've done your homework, you shouldn't have to disguise your ideas with showy language. Be brave. Write plainly.

  The truth about big, ostentatious words is that they don't work as well as simple ones. Here's why:

  • Pretentious words are mushy, because they're often more general and less specific than simple, concrete ones. Precipitation could mean snow or sleet as well as rain. Computational skills could mean addition or subtraction or the ability to use an abacus.

  • Big words are less efficient than small ones. Why use a shotgun when a flyswatter will do?

  • Bureaucratese is easier to misinterpret. Look at the problems diplomats and politicians have understanding one another. (Everyone who uses the word parameter, for example, seems to mean something different.)

  • Show-off words have a patronizing air, as if the writer were talking down to the reader. "My vocabulary is bigger than yours," the stuffed shirt might as well be saying. "I'm an insider and you're not."

  All right, I wasn't born yesterday. I can hear the protests mounting, especially from the corridors of business and academia: "Are you nuts? If I use simple language, I'll sound like a blockhead. In my field, you have to use lots of jargon. Everyone does it."

  True. At times we have to play the game, to use language that's stuffier than we'd like. Until we can make the rules ourselves, we play along. A marketing specialist might have to write: "Demographic data as well as experience with selective focus groups indicate that initial product response will be more favorable than the performance-based patterns demonstrated by recidivist consumers." The boss doesn't want the simple truth: "They'll buy it until they learn it doesn't work."

  So what do you do? If you can't always cut the baloney and write in plain English, just do it whenever you can. Choose the simple, concrete word over the mushy, complicated one every chance you get. Believe me, ninety-nine readers out of a hundred are reasonable people who would rather be informed than impressed. They're grateful for clear, straightforward writing, and they'll remember it longer. Tell them what they need to know and let them get on with their lives.

  Simplicity takes practice, oddly enough, because pretentiousness is contagious. We tend to absorb the words we hear around us, and many professions have become industries for cranking out flatulent language. A sociologist used to psychobabble (gender reassignment, for instance) will find it hard to write plainly (sex change). But simplicity is worth the effort, so here are some of the pretensions you should learn to recognize and avoid.

  • Mushy words. Stay away from vague or evasive language, especially euphemisms such as technical adjustment instead of market drop, gaming instead of gambling, collateral damage instead of civilian casualties, pre-owned instead of used. Vague expressions like these blur meaning in hopes of making distasteful ideas more palatable.

  • Windbaggery. Don't inflate your writing with bureaucratic hot air. A windbag uses a puffed-up phrase like ongoing highway maintenance program when he means roadwork. He says recreation specialist when he means gym teacher.

  • Artificial sweeteners. Avoid officialese that hides or sweetens an unpleasant reality. It may be good public relations to say fatalities instead of deaths, or terminated instead of fired, but it's wishy-washy English. And let's not forget plausible deniability, from the days before spin control.

  • Cool words. If you expect your writing to outlast yesterday's mashed potatoes, try not to use the fashionable word, the cool expression that's on everybody's lips. Like last year's hemlines, they get old fast. Trendy expressions ("Get out of my face"; "Quit busting my chops") don't wear well, but plain language ("Go away"; "Don't bother me") has staying power. Be warned that hip terms are contagious. They sneak up on you. Before you know it, you're using them, too. That's not cool.

  • Affectations. Steer clear of foreign, technical, or scientific terms if you don't need them. Unless it's appropriate to do otherwise, use simple English. Instead of comme il faut, try proper; instead of potable, try drinkable; instead of Rana catesbeiana, try bullfrog. Between us—not entre nous—plain English is better.

  • Empty words. Beware of meaningless phrases that cover up a naked fact—the Emperor has no clothes. That is, the writer just doesn't know. Often the unintelligible hides behind the unpronounceable. A puzzled art history major might write: "Within the parameters of his creative dynamic, the artist has achieved a plangent chiaroscuro that is as inchoate as it is palpable, suffusing the observer with mystery." That sounds more self-assured than "Beats me." Unless you're hiding the fact that you don't know what's going on, write plainly.

  • Stretch limos. Don't use words that are longer than they have to be. Shorter is usually better. Some writers(among them lawyers, doctors, and scientists) may need long words to be precise. But others (academics, politicians) often seem to use them just to make an impression. A scholar recently had this to say about Freud's writing habits: "Drafts embody the second stage of the dynamic that characterizes the genesis of Freud's texts." In other words, "The second thing he did was make a draft." Unless your audience absolutely demands big words, have the courage not to use them.

  Not long ago, Alan D. Sokal, a physics professor at New York University, showed that even the most absurd statements will be swallowed whole if they're concealed in obscure and pretentious language. He wrote an article, published as serious scholarship by an academic journal, in which he said: "It has thus become increasingly apparent that physical 'reality,' no less than social 'reality,' is at bottom a social and linguistic construct; that scientific 'knowledge,' far from being objective, reflects and encodes the dominant ideologies and power relations of the culture that produced it; that the truth claims of science are inherently theory-laden and self-referential; and consequently, that the discourse of the scientific community, for all its undeniable value, cannot assert a privileged epidemiological status with respect to counter-hegemonic narratives emanating from dissident or marginalized communities."

  Pretty impressive! But what did he mean? Simply that there's no real world. We made
it up. Yet no one realized this preposterous article was a gag until Sokal himself fessed up.

  The most essential gift for a good writer, Hemingway wrote, is a built-in, shock-proof baloney detector. (No, he didn't use the word "baloney.") So develop a detector of your own and keep it in good working order. Know wind-baggery and artificial sweeteners and all the rest when you see them. Then write without them.

  7. The Life of the Party

  VERBS THAT ZING

  Here's to the verb! It works harder than any other part of the sentence. The verb is the word that gets things done. Without a verb, there's nothing happening and you don't really need a sentence at all. So when you go shopping for a verb, don't be cheap. Splurge.

  Because verbs are such dynamos, writers often take them for granted, concentrating their creativity on the nouns, adverbs, and adjectives. This is a big mistake. Find an interesting verb and the rest of the sentence will practically take care of itself. Controlled studies have shown conclusively that a creative verb generates twice the energy of a noun of equal weight and density, and three times that of an adjective or adverb. Trust me. I've got the figures here somewhere.

  Learn to spot provocative verbs. Newspapers are a good source. A friend of mine is a particularly colorful writer, and I often wondered how she came up with such sparklers. One day she told me. "I read the sports pages and collect interesting verbs like 'pummel' and 'clobber' that I religiously copy into a little notebook." She reconsiders every verb she's written, then replaces the dull ones.