writing

Rachel Toor writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education in favor of academics finding a more polished approach to their prose: "Becoming a stylish writer".

In an essay called "Professional Boredom," William Cronon, president of the American Historical Association, warned that, when taken to an extreme, the values and practices of good history—rigorous, complex, and nuanced argumentation; accuracy; grounding in primary research; awareness of the field—can make the discipline accessible to only a small group. He warns about writing that keeps readers out rather than inviting them in. He chides against using jargon, and gives these examples: "agency," "contingency," and "document." Quaint, right? I wish I remembered the days when I thought those words counted as academic cant. Cronon suggests that his peers tell stories, and he cautions them not to be boring.

It's not too difficult to make your writing more interesting and accessible for readers, you just need to practice. The Old Guard will resist. I myself have tried to place academic papers where the editor has told me they are written too accessibly -- "like an article from [redacted] magazine".

Good luck with that attitude!

(via Kate Clancy)

The Paris Review has a long interview with writer John McPhee ("The Art of Nonfiction No. 3, John McPhee"). I like the writer interviews they have, and it is especially useful to see nonfiction writers in this forum. McPhee has been a staff writer at the New Yorker where he has written on many topics, he has additionally written more than 30 books.

The interview goes into his work on environmental topics, including the book, Encounters with the Archdruid. He gives some very good advice about how to compose the structure of a nonfiction work. But I was most motivated to point to the interview because of this passage, where he discusses writing geology in the New Yorker:

When I proposed writing about geology to [New Yorker editor William] Shawn, he was very sober about it. Well, he said, go ahead. Go ahead. Readers will rebel. But you go ahead; you’ll figure out a way—but readers will rebel.

He was right. I’ve never had an experience like that. Readers strongly support it and strongly rebel, and seem to be split in camps.

INTERVIEWER

Why do you think that is?

MCPHEE

Two cultures. There are some people whose cast of mind admits that sort of stuff, and there are others who are just paralyzed by it at the outset, no matter how crafty the writing might be. A really nice thing that happens is when people say, I never thought I’d be interested in that subject until I read your piece. These letters come about geology too, but there are some people who just aren’t going to read it at all. Some lawyer in Boston sent me a letter—this man, this adult, had gone to the trouble to write in great big letters: stop writing about geology. And it’s on the letterhead of a law firm in Boston. I did not write back and say, One thing this country could very much use is one less lawyer. Why don’t you stop doing law?

That is, of course, why writing for the internet is wonderful. People didn't pay to read it, they don't have to seek it out, so if they find it they're likely to want it. People who subscribe to the New Yorker are not the same as those who subscribe to Scientific American. Still, I have discussed the same problem with many editors of mainstream science magazines, who get similar responses from readers. There are a lot of cranks out there, who just don't want to engage with certain topics. It's not only the "two cultures" problem -- even within the "science" culture, people are epicures about what they want to know.

McPhee's point struck me -- "no matter how crafty the writing might be." I think that's right. You can't trick people into science. No putting honey in the medicine. And if you give up the idea that you have to dumb it down, talk "friendly-like", well, then you can do some real writing.

Writer Harlan Ellison has been saying goodbye to fans, according to the Madison independent paper, Isthmus. The interview is interesting, including this part about unfinished work and posthumous publication:

"My wife has instructions that the instant I die, she has to burn all the unfinished stories. And there may be a hundred unfinished stories in this house, maybe more than that. There's three quarters of a novel. No, these things are not to be finished by other writers, no matter how good they are. It could be Paul Di Filippo, who is just about the best writer in America, as far as I'm concerned. Or God forbid, James Patterson or Judith Krantz should get a hold of The Man Who Looked for Sweetness, which is sitting up on my desk, and try to finish it, anticipating what Ellison was thinking -- no! Goddammit. If Fred Pohl wants to finish all of C.M. Kornbluth's stories, that's his business. If somebody wants to take the unfinished Edgar Allan Poe story, which has now gone into the public domain, and write an ending that is not as good as Poe would have written, let 'em do whatever they want! But not with my shit, Jack. When I'm gone, that's it. What's down on the paper, it says 'The End,' that's it. 'Cause right now I'm busy writing the end of the longest story I've ever written, which is me."

It's that time of year again, when students all over the country are facing their first writing assignment. I always encourage a bloggy style -- concise, journalistic, and thesis-driven.

Well, I don't even manage that ideal myself a lot of the time, but here's some useful writing advice from Copyblogger. First, "Do long blog posts scare away readers?". Well, they don't scare away mine, but I can always use suggestions for how to punch things up (or, like overleavened dough, down).

So I highly recommend the follow-up, "How to write with a knife". One piece of advice I like:

2. Cut the first paragraph

...Try cutting the first paragraph or two from your post and see what happens. You may find a much more powerful opening.

That technique would work wonders for more than half the student papers I grade. I always underline the thesis statement (or at least the best facsimile of one I can find) and an awful lot of the time, it's there at the beginning or end of the second paragraph.

There are six more recommendations at the link, and I can see my students in every one of them. (Not to mention myself).