I have a terrible confession to make

[typefitter]

The problem, by the way, is often the writer's need to "appear" smart. So they'll use big words and complex constructions in the hopes of seeming like intellectuals. Instead everybody just hates them.

 

[Slacker]

The problem, by the way, is often the writer's need to "appear" smart. So they'll use big words and complex constructions in the hopes of seeming like intellectuals. Instead everybody just hates them.

And Latin, for thus and such!

 

[Dick Whitman]

The problem, by the way, is often the writer's need to "appear" smart. So they'll use big words and complex constructions in the hopes of seeming like intellectuals. Instead everybody just hates them.

My kid has a problem. He blurts out in clash all the time. He won't stop doing it.

We've asked him why he does it, and the answer is always the same:

"Otherwise people won't know I'm smart."

This is the adult version.

I accepted two things a long time ago:

1. There is one Michael Chabon.

2. I am not Michael Chabon.

 

[Buck]

There are certain writers who are expert at making sure readers never trip. Bill Bryson comes to mind. He can take pretty complicated material and present it in such a way that you just go with it. Clarity isn't as heralded as it should be.

Good writing is a three-legged stool:
Simplicity, clarity, brevity

 

[swingline]

Yeah, but one of those legs is always just a little bit shorter than the other two, and you're left searching for that Nutrasweet pack to put under it.

 

[doctorquant]

This approach is a big reason why my legal briefs are typically light years ahead of my competition's. (Also, because I'm honest and don't misrepresent cases and law, but I digress.)

I really take pains to walk judges through the point I'm making - I'm one of the few people I know who will include, for example, tables and charts to visually show why cases are distinct.

Sorry for the threadjack, but "speed bumps" are a huge issue in this kind of writing. I read so many paragraphs where I think, "What the fork did they just try to say?" And I'm familiar with the case, not a judge coming upon it as one of 30 briefs he or she will read today.

Anyway, no speed bumps. Amen.

A colleague of mine, in my first year here, was having a helluva time getting a paper accepted at this top-flight journal. He'd do the revisions the reviewers had requested, but they kept wanting more. It was pretty clear, from the comments the journal's editor was making, that my colleague was in very real danger of having this paper rejected, and he really, really, really couldn't afford that. He had an interim tenure review coming up, and if this paper didn't make it there was a good chance he'd be shown the door.

He asked me to look over everything, and I agreed. Came the documents from the last go-around, and it appeared to me that one was missing. "Where's your 'Response to Reviewers' document?"
"What's that?"
"You know, where you take each reviewer's comment and write out exactly how you addressed it."
"Oh, I haven't been doing that. Should I?"
"How many times have they come back asking for changes?"

Looooooong pause.

"I'll do that right away."

 

[BTExpress]

I thought "Speed Bumps 101, Speed Bumps 201 and Speed Bumps 301" were required courses at every law school.

 

[Azrael]

Agree with everything said so far.

Just to offer the predictable counter-argument, not everyone has to write like EB White.

There have been plenty of great stylists in nonfiction, from Rebecca West to Hunter Thompson. Tom Wolfe is the opposite of EB White.

Take any footnoted nonfiction piece by DFW - nothing but speed bumps.

In fiction and in poetry, whole categories of achievement rest on ecstatic misdirection and bigly vocabulary.

What all successful writing has in common is that it succeeds.

 

[Songbird]

What all successful writing has in common is that it succeeds.

With all due respect, Az, what the fork does this mean?

 

[Azrael]

With all due respect, Az, what the fork does this mean?

That you can do anything, as long as you can make it work.

 

[Songbird]

That you can do anything, as long as you can make it work.

Word.

 

[Hermes]

You're all better writers than me, but I read way beyond my writing ability and well above what my hillbilly intelligence might suggest, so I'll chime in. It's simplistic to say great writing has to be simple and brief. The degree of difficulty is just so much greater that I'm not about to try it any other way. I do want the people who can pull it off to keep pulling it off, even if it's no longer fashionable or lucrative.