> the ideas leap into your head and you barely notice the words that got them there.
Ah, the good old wrong idea that somehow language is a tool that can clone ideas from one brain to another. It doesn't work like that.
Write Simply
171–180 of 354 posts
Re: Write Simply
#172Anyone else raising an eyebrow at a guy like PG with a non-SSL site?
Re: Write Simply
#173I think this article ends up giving excellent examples for why you shouldn't just "write simply". There is basically no argumentation happening here and most statements are just thrown out as truths. Yes, it might be quick and easy to read through, but it's not very good writing. Examples: > Plus it's more considerate to write simply. When you write in a fancy way to impress people, you're making them do extra work j…
> "Most authors write in a "fancy" way to invoke a feeling in the reader. They don't add random words to "seem cool"." I'd bet money this is mostly wrong, and most authors are writing in a fancy way to seem fancy. That's part of the reason their writing is often bad. There are exceptions, but I'd argue that failure is the general case. > "I don't understand a thing of this." Clarity of thought without purple prose fl…
Actually, poetry frowns on purple prose too. Hence the “prose” part.
But you can’t call adjectives and similes and metaphors all purple prose.
Re: Write Simply
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the essay is clearly about _non-fiction_ writing. It's arguing about how best to communicate ideas (he uses the term 'ideas' several times). Sure, fiction can be trying to communicate things, and sometimes even ideas, but to me it's pretty obvious that the essay isn't trying to give advice for fiction writing in general.
It's pretty obvious to me too. That's not the point. The essay makes a generic statement about the superiority of a particular, although loosely defined, writing style. People debate the edge cases of that statement, showing its limits, and pointing to counter examples. The result is that the content of the essay is reduced to a very banal statement of the type: "All other things being equal, prefer writing something…
The other person (at the top of this sub-thread) did say "Both of these points considered, I disagree entirely with the premise. There can be value to dense, even perhaps enigmatic writing. I would say that the greatest works of English literature tend towards that direction (James Joyce, Thomas Pynchon, David Foster Wallace)." I would not consider these edge cases, because I don't think literature is relevant to the essay and its purposes.
Re: Write Simply
#175PG is making some assumptions about who will read and benefit from this essay, and secondarily, who will read and benefit from the writings of his readers. The assumptions aren't wrong, they're just not explicit. Because he is not stating them overtly, he's getting criticized for not writing like Nabokov or the grand vizier of an emperor. Most of us will never be Nabokov, or the emperor's vizier. But we will write th…
Also, we should give authors the benefit of the doubt. If an opinion is not broadly applicable then we shouldn't jump to conclusions and assume that was the authors intent.
> If an opinion is not broadly applicable then we shouldn't jump to conclusions and assume that was the authors intent.
Graham states in this essay that his goal is: "ideas leap into your head and you barely notice the words that got them there".
Given that this is the goal of his writing style, it's not at all surprising that his readers often jump to ("incorrect") conclusions barely noticing what got them there.
Most of the comments critiquing this essay can be boiled down to an obvious but important observation: simplicity requires either eliding necessary nuance or hiding complexity. The goal is usually the latter, but hiding complexity in this way requires a shared context.
Take a running program and strip it from its context (state). Then, drop the program into a new context. The meaning of the program can change drastically. Hell, it might not even type check anymore. The program text is the same but the meaning is different, and all that changed was the context. The only way to avoid this is to muddle up the program text with assertions on the context that ensure this "drop into new context" operation can't change the meaning of the program too much.
So too with writing. Specifying context decreases the amount of shared context required to avoid miscommunication, but also results in less simple writing.
Re: Write Simply
#176I think this article ends up giving excellent examples for why you shouldn't just "write simply". There is basically no argumentation happening here and most statements are just thrown out as truths. Yes, it might be quick and easy to read through, but it's not very good writing. Examples: > Plus it's more considerate to write simply. When you write in a fancy way to impress people, you're making them do extra work j…
Wow I’m amazed that you don’t have the same interpretation to me here.
Perhaps the first difference between us is I immediately assumed PG is talking about transmitting ideas (argumentation or proposition), ie writing essays and not writing fiction.
What I assume he means about “writing not being pure ideas”, he means there’s an overhead in transmitting ideas via writing. This is analogous to using programming languages to capture ideas, hence anything but simplicity offends because it is analogous to (in)elegance in code.
I think this essay is excellent but it seems I was more attuned to his message, or at least it met my expectations.
Re: Write Simply
#177This could have been an email.
Re: Write Simply
#178So confused why anyone would assume PG is talking about writing fiction or poetry. It’s an essay by an essayist on writing essays.
Re: Write Simply
#179[deleted]
Re: Write Simply
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "Most authors write in a "fancy" way to invoke a feeling in the reader. They don't add random words to "seem cool"." I'd bet money this is mostly wrong, and most authors are writing in a fancy way to seem fancy. That's part of the reason their writing is often bad. There are exceptions, but I'd argue that failure is the general case. > "I don't understand a thing of this." Clarity of thought without purple prose fl…
Actually, poetry frowns on purple prose too. Hence the “prose” part. But you can’t call adjectives and similes and metaphors all purple prose.
Sure - and there's some subjectivity to 'write simply'.
The idea is good though, bias towards clarity and be aware of how complex your writing is. Don't use big words to try and seem smart or fancy because they obscure meaning - there are rare exceptions to this, but they should be intentional and rare.