August 1953 — Vol. 34, No. 8 — On Writing An Article
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Most people have an urge to write, and few
people s lives do not provide material about which to write.
Our purpose is to get the urge and the material together in
an acceptable way.
Business people are accustomed to reading and writing reports.
The essential difference between writing a report (Monthly
Letter of February 1952) and writing an essay or an article
is this: in the report one is charged with conveying information
to someone who is, in most cases, already interested, while
in an article one has first of all to catch attention, then
hold it, and then satisfy it.
There is a tendency to speak of authorship as if it were
a mystery, remote and secret, revealed only to a few gifted
or inspired people. That is an attitude of which to be suspicious.
Many delightful essays have been written by men and women
who had no gift from the muses, but had something to write
about and the energy to get down to writing it.
There are three points to be considered before you write
for publication: your purpose in writing; the reader's purpose
in reading, and the publisher's purpose in publishing. It
is not enough excuse for taking pen in hand merely that one
wishes to see one's words in print. But if what you have in
mind satisfies the three purposes - then write.
Basic Principles
Nothing is particularly difficult if you break it down into
small jobs, and this business of writing lends itself admirably
to such treatment.
Simplest slogan to remember, probably, is "have something
to write; write it; end it." Another is to be sure to use
enough details so that your reader will know what your article
is about. To make things easy for the reader, follow a natural
order in your writing from point to point, and do not leave
out any "bridges" between points. And - a sadly unused precept
this - stick to your subject.
There are three literary forms which the writer will wish
to bear in mind: intellectual, moral and aesthetic.
Under the first he will detect the possibility a situation
holds for writing about it interestingly; he will, through
collection of material and thinking about his subject, prepare
an orderly array of facts and thoughts. The moral form demands
sincerity in the writer; not honesty only, but the strong
desire to do the job so well that he conveys his vision and
conclusions to the reader in clear and convincing language.
The aesthetic form demands that he incorporate something of
beauty in his writing, beauty of language, of construction,
of illustration, and of exactness.
Skill in writing means ability to present a subject accurately
and vividly. It is here that the genius of a writer shows
itself. The soul of the craftsman cries out against the stringing
together of words and phrases to make a show without caring
about the communication of ideas.
Where does vividness come from? No essayist is worth his
salt who does not keep fresh in his mind the knowledge that
the revealing incident and the illuminating flash are far,
far better than the roll of drums in conveying ideas. Literature
touches life, and it needs to be lively; it is designed to
please or to inform, and it must be understandable; the writer
fails of his highest success who neglects the art in writing
which makes what is written inviting to readers.
Literature is composed of words, and words are symbols,
not things in themselves. They have, it is true, rhythm and
harmony when put together skilfully, but in the main their
beauty is to be found in the association of ideas in the mind
of the reader.
This is why good writers begin at the point of the reader's
interest. Some authors, full of their own thoughts, have produced
articles and books which are so little known as to be almost
confidential. They wrote their subjects for themselves and
not for readers, and insisted with dignity that those who
wished would find their way through the maze of words. As
A. P. Herbert, that skilled writer, put it: "If you want to
feed the birds you do not insist that they walk in at the
front door."
What to Write About
Life is so full of things crying out to be written about
that there should be little difficulty in selecting a topic
about which one knows something and can learn more. Anything
that a competent writer loves well enough he can make attractive
and useful to any good reader.
The theme should be something important to people, something
that affects their lives. When the happy conjunction is found
of something vital to the writer and of significance to the
reader, then writing becomes emotionally rewarding. It is
Dorothy L. Sayers who vouches for this in Gaudy Night:
"When you get the thing dead right and know it's dead right,
there's no excitement like it. But if there's any subject
in which you re content with the second—rate, then it
isn't really your subject."
There are three principal ways of getting ideas for articles
or essays: by drawing upon your own experience, by listening
to others, and by reading. Few authors believe in the miraculous
conception of ideas. The only way in which they get topic
titles is by dredging for them.
This is where observation becomes important. The writer
must do more than see things in a casual way. His every waking
hour is useful to his muse. The things that pass before his
view will be received with feeling and understanding. They
will stimulate his thoughts. A writer will feel more to the
cubic yard and take in more in every sixty seconds than do
people who pass through space and time without his urgency
to comprehend events.
Nothing Comes From Nothing
There is no such thing as creation of an article out of
nothing. The writer does not inhabit a desolate world, nor
does he scribble within the confines of his own brain. All
life contributes to his work. He draws upon his experience
for descriptive power and for guidance in laying a new thought
alongside a stored thought and producing a novel idea.
Wide reading provides the writer with a treasury of facts,
thoughts, analogies and illustrations he needs. He must replenish
his mind continually, if his articles are to have sparkle,
authenticity and newness. It is impossible to write anything
pridefully if our heads are empty of material upon which our
ideas may work. What a condemnation it was when Dr. Samuel
Johnson said of a man that he had written more than he had
read!
Fortunately, there is no reason in these days for neglect
of reading. Libraries are available almost everywhere, in
towns, in caravans, and even by mail. Many of the world's
great books are published in low—priced paper—covered
form. Digests and general magazines carry authoritative articles
about persons and events.
That is for background reading. When it comes to finding
facts for a specific article, the writer must change from
wide reading to digging in a confined space. He will stake
out an area and stay within it. Shakespeare found the plot
of As You Like It in Thomas Lodge's Rosalynde and
that of The Winter's Tale in Robert Greene's Pandosto;
he found his Roman stories in Sir Thomas North's translation
of Plutarch. That represents his wide reading; then, he had
to bear down on each idea, to build around it the authentic
environment that makes a play credible.
No matter what subject a writer chooses upon which to write,
something has been written about it. Diligent enquiry at the
library, in book stores, of professional people in universities,
of the information departments in industrial associations,
of adult education and extension school people, will uncover
rich lodes of knowledge. The information sources available
to Canadians are great, but that, as Kipling said so often
about an interpolation in his Plain Tales From the Hills,
"that is another story". The discussion of sources merits
a Monthly Letter of its own.
Imagination and Inspiration
Having gathered the needed facts, then is the time to give
imagination wings, If he has imagination, there is nothing
in life too trifling to be developed into an interesting piece
of writing by a competent writer. It often happens, indeed,
that trifles grow under capable treatment, backed by adequate
knowledge, into better literature than do big events.
It is good practice for the budding writer to write something
in some degree imaginative every day. Draw upon the past and
the present thoughtfully; get inside the facts to search diligently
for something on which the imagination may exercise itself
profitably; and then write.
It is an exhilarating experience to produce an article,
a letter to a friend, a booklet, or even a single line, that
bears the brand of inspiration. It is a personal triumph that
gives pleasure to others when we use our imagination to make
little events interesting.
Starting to Write
People frequently ask a writer: "How long does it take you
to write an article?"
That is a difficult question to answer. Some persons think
only of the intensive time of special research for this particular
article and the fevered hours of writing. How wrong they are!
Preparation for composing an article which attempts to be
informative and readable started many years ago. It includes
all the experiences of the writer - school, travel, work,
church, sports, societies, social life. It includes drab days
and days full of adventure. It includes happiness and sorrow,
realization and disappointment. It includes friendships and
their loss.
The time taken in writing is an individual thing, conditioned
by the author's personality, the nature of the article, the
availability of raw material, and other factors peculiar to
environment. One thing is sure: when the starting gate rises
the wise author will ride the horse always on the dead run.
The way to start writing is to start, even at something
small or less pretentious than one would like. When an ambitious
composer asked Mozart how to write symphonies, the master
remarked: "You're rather young; why not try ballads first?"
"But you wrote symphonies when you were only ten years old,"
replied the aspiring young man. "Yes," said Mozart, "but I
didn't ask how."
When a thing is thoroughly well done it sometimes has the
air of being a miracle. There is no miracle about a piece
of successful writing: it is hard work gathering facts, hard
work recalling precedent pictures hard work fitting them into
the present setting, hard work appraising intelligently, hard
work writing carefully and brightly. Any sort of book, any
sort of article, any sort of advertisement, any sort of speech,
if it has merit, is an achievement arising out of toil and
sweat - and often tears.
A little orderliness can be pressed into service to ease
the toil. Having gathered the evidence, we may arrange it
in order. We may group and marshal and classify the elements
of this chaos of notes we see before us. Even when a writer
writes an article about writing articles, he has to organize
his facts and thoughts.
How to Write
The labour of composition begins when you have put these
separate threads of fact and thought into a loom, to weave
them into a continuous whole.
Writing takes more care than talking. He who writes carelessly
confesses thereby that he does not attach much importance
to his own thoughts.
Literature is a human document. It cannot be rigid, like
a dictionary, but neither can it be casual, as in talking.
Brevity is a golden rule, but a special kind of brevity.
The reader, it may be supposed, has not done as much swotting
on the subject as you have done. His mind is not full of it.
It will not do, then, for you to hop, skip and jump with no
bridges between the leaps. The reader will not be able to
follow what is to the learned writer a perfectly clear pattern
of landing places.
Brevity, in the sense of telegraphic shortness, has no place
in article writing, but brevity, meaning pungency, has an
important part to play. No situation must be left to drag
out its melancholy course in longwinded language. To use many
words to communicate few thoughts is the unmistakable sign
of mediocrity, while to gather much thought into few words
understandably - that stamps the good writer. It is sheer
laziness, said Churchill, not compressing thought into a reasonable
space.
Language
Language can be made to express in living words every conception
of the human mind. It is the writer's aim to put into type
vivid descriptions and well—drawn word pictures of things
he sees and hears and imagines, so realistically that an exact
reproduction is formed in the reader's mind.
This ambition calls for the use of dynamic words, words
which are graphic, active, and pleasant. It pays scant attention
to rules and regulations, spurning the bogus bogey of the
split infinitive and suchlike, and it concentrates upon making
moving—pictures, not still—life. It takes colour
where it can find it, as Angelico used the white of the lily,
the rose of the dawn, the blue of the sky and the gold of
the stars, in his painting.
The colours must be blended. There must be cohesion and
continuity. The writer, seized by an idea, will keep right
on writing. He will not go back at the second paragraph two
or three times before writing the third. So long as original
writing is under way and going well, he will keep the copy
flowing. Then, the article completed, he will pause, hand
over the reins to his intelligence, and start polishing and
amending.
Vivid writing, which should be the aim of every article
writer, is attained through the use of well—drawn word
pictures. It will be found that the words which last longest
in memory, and the thoughts which die latest, are those which
because of their liveliness and their fittingness are not
content to die. Words can become alive, and walk up and down
in the hearts of readers long after the occasion for writing
them has passed.
Colour can be overdone, of course: it must be fitting to
the subject, to the writer and to the audience. The true artist
in words is restrained. He does not make a habit of using
circus—poster yellow and red in his reproductions of
scenes, and he does not use war club words when pinsized ones
will do. Colour depends upon perfect fitness. It can be as
delicate as the inner tint of a lilac blossom.
It may seem strange to some to suggest the reading of poetry
as an aid in writing prose. Coleridge described prose as "words
in their best order" and poetry as "the best words in their
best order." That, surely, is something to be attempted by
the writer of articles.
A poem has rhythm, images, and completeness. It is sensitive
to the tiny oscillations of molecules and to the rise and
fall of nations and to the birth and death of stars. To reveal
the inner forces of these things, the words in poetry must
not only give a name to an object but must give a true image
of it.
Herein lies the great service of poetry to the prose writer:
it makes him acquainted with synonyms and the gradations of
meanings and the subtleties of exact expression. The writer
who reads poetry will approach nearer the finding of right
words than the man who despises poetry as something soft and
effeminate. Very few poets have succeeded in being so poetical
as Isaiah, Sir Thomas Browne and Ruskin have been in prose.
Simplicity
The writer is thrice blessed who can present ideas so that
they are apprehended with the least possible mental effort.
Affectation in writing belongs to extreme youth. Every mature
author seeks to express his thoughts as purely, clearly, definitely
and shortly as possible, and his simplicity is a badge not
only of truth but of genius.
Obscurity causes much misunderstanding. It may, by some,
be taken to indicate profundity of thought, but many readers
have learned not to blame their own lack of understanding
for the writer's clumsiness in expression.
There is a lot of nonsense talked about style. The style
of great authors has been their way of saying what they had
to say simply, clearly, concisely and gracefully. Style is
the living body of the writer's thought, and not a costume
that he puts on and takes off.
When a man starts talking about rules, in whatsoever art,
you may know him for a second—rate man, according to
John Ruskin. If he talks about them much, and makes them his
god, he is third—rate, or not an artist at al1. But if
one insists that there must be rules of some sort about style,
here are five laws under which all the conditions of style
may be grouped: Economy, Simplicity, Sequence, Climax, Variety.
Sir Arthur Quiller—Couch sums up the principles of
style neatly in his book On the Art of Reading: The
strength of good prose resides not so much in the swing and
balance of the single sentence as in the marshalling of argument,
the orderly procession of paragraphs, the disposition of parts
so that each finds its telling, its proper place; the adjustment
of the means to the end; the strategy which brings its full
force into action at the calculated moment and drives the
conclusion home.
Craftsmanship
A few hints may be given about ways in which the author
may attain clearness in what he writes.
Sentences should be short. From the example given in some
books of a sentence 213 words long written in the 19th century,
we have come today to prefer sentences that average no more
than 25 words, and Rudolf Flesch, author of several excellent
books about writing, advocates an average of 17 words. The
way to shorten sentences is to look for the joints in their
construction and break them there into smaller pieces.
The craftsman in words uses them to convey ideas, and that
is the only use words are. The reader is not interested in
what a word means to the author, but what it means to him.
There are words to fit every requirement of the writer,
and he is unfair to his reader and to his own reputation if
he is satisfied with "nearly" the right word. Words have an
aura, and a rose by any other name would not be exactly what
we think a rose is.
The particular writer will seek the word which is so exactly
fitting that it will seem an echo to the sense of what he
seeks to convey. When appealing to a fighting instinct his
words will stamp their feet; in hunting they will swish with
secrecy, or speed and thrill as the game is run to earth;
in fearing they will throb and shiver; in teaching they will
vibrate with authority.
Look at nature. How fitting are the words which describe
the rustling of trees, the rushing of waters, the chirping
of birds, the growling of beasts, and the whistling, humming,
crying, groaning, scolding, laughing and chattering of human
beings. From these sounds, in some way, after centuries of
experiment, art produces a Beethoven's Seventh Symphony
and a Shakespeare s Hamlet. The new writer falls
heir to all of that, and there is no excuse for his using
bleached—out, blunted, commonplace words and forms.
Descriptive Writing
Much writing consists of describing events and things. A
letter home from vacation, an account of a new business project,
the report of a staff function: these are almost wholly descriptive.
Greatest success in description comes through simplicity
in telling about scenes and persons and events so that the
reader seems actually to participate in or to know them. Description
should not be static, but active and moving.
Observed facts are needed as the basis of graphic writing,
and dearth of facts cannot be hidden by all the fine language
in the world's dictionaries. The person who does not work
at observing, recording, analysing and thinking - the person,
in short, who is lazy about his writing - will write descriptions
that are drab or blatant, but never engrossing or attractive.
One example of the power of good description may be given.
It is from Browning's poem Meeting at Night. Browning
wrote: "The gray sea and the long black land; and the yellow
half—moon, large and low." Think of what is lost in pictorial
power if "long black land" is changed to "the shore stretching
in darkness for miles on each side."
Keep Trying - and Learning
A world is passing by, and those with an urge to write are
trying to put a bit of it on paper. Every article, every book,
cannot be a masterpiece, but honest journey—man writing
can accomplish much in practical business affairs, in affording
aesthetic enjoyment to both writer and reader, and, perhaps,
in making the world a trifle better.
Experienced writers as well as novices frequently come to
grief. Those who have been writing for years have planted
many memorial flowers at spots where a great idea fell by
the wayside, where some outside force compelled them to abandon
a brilliant endeavour, where an inner lack drove them from
a promising prospect. Writers learn to rise above these tragedies
without minimizing them.
For those who persevere to the point where they attain some
measure of acceptance of their work by readers, and some degree
of satisfaction in their own minds: for them, writing is a
medium of achievement and of adequate self—expression,
a giver of tranquillity, and a means of furthering their most
devout desires.
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