For years, I have loved to write; the blank page is unforgiving and always there, but when I sit down and fill it up with the right words I get a sense of fulfillment I don't find in much else I do. About the only thing I haven't tried to write is poetry, because I find most poetry needlessly difficult and I have never enjoyed reading things that make me feel stupid and I have never wanted to write to make others feel inadequate.
No, I love to write screenplays and stories and novels, and the authors I loved—and still do—were Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell and Elmore Leonard and Raymond Chandler and Steinbeck and some contemporary Cormac McCarthy and strangely enough, A.A. Milne; men who have such a mastery of the language they write good books using simple words.
Of these, Hemingway is probably the most famous, but definitely the most outspoken and adamant about the need for writing to be simple and direct (Orwell comes a close second). There is a well-known story about Hemingway I love and want to share because it fits here and I think everyone who reads Hemingway should know it.
Hemingway wrote around the same time as William Faulkner. Both were literary celebrities during their day—and obviously remain giants in our day—though they wrote in opposite styles. Faulkner was verbose and flowery, Hemingway short and terse. There is a semi-joke exercise in the literary world: you write two sentences over the same subject, one as if you were Faulkner, the other as if you were Hemingway, to make yourself a more versatile writer.
You actually don't need to do the exercise to see what those two sentences would look like. Here is how both wrote about the tiredness at the end of a day:
Faulkner: "He did not still feel weak, he was merely luxuriating in that supremely gutful lassitude of convalescence in which time, hurry, doing, did not exist, the accumulating seconds and minutes and hours to which in its well state the body is slave both waking and sleeping, now reversed and time now the lip-server and mendicant to the body's pleasure instead of the body thrall to time's headlong course."
Hemingway: "Manuel drank his brandy. He felt sleepy himself. It was too hot to go out into the town. Besides there was nothing to do. He wanted to see Zurito. He would go to sleep while he waited."
For reasons I'm not exactly sure of, a publicized back-and-forth started between Hemingway and Faulkner. They met only once in their lives, of which neither man speaks much about other than in passing. Some label Faulkner as the instigator, others say Hemingway. One Ohio State professor wrote a book—a short one—about this rivalry, and he concludes both Hemingway and Faulkner were competitive, proud authors and though they never really spoke in person, they read the other's work and waged a sort of literary competition through their writing and speeches because they both wanted to be the best and recognized as the best. Who knows?
At one point in their back-and-forth, Faulkner insulted Hemingway's simple style and said:"[Hemingway] has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."
Hemingway's response was: "Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?"
It is perfect, as Hemingway can be at times.
There is another story of Hemingway where he is sitting around a table with his writing buddies and they are all drinking. His friends bet $10 each, which Hemingway promised to match if he lost, he couldn't write a story—with a complete beginning, middle and ending—in only ten words.
Hemingway wrote down six words on a napkin and won the bet.
"For sale: Baby shoes, never worn."
Faulkner would have never taken the bet, let alone win it, which is part of the reason I have read Hemingway but haven't found the courage to start Faulkner. I am in no position to lecture on writing and I won't try to—especially not to two Nobel Prize winners—but I have found saying less—as Hemingway does—allows you to say much more. When given ten words, you write six.
This all started because I was talking about my new job as an editor and writer and the point I was getting at was that I have known for some time that I loved to write and just recently, through this new work,I discovered that I love to edit, possibly more than I love to write.
All sentences are supposed to say something and unfortunately most of them don't. An editor—usually an intolerant old man, a scowl permanently etched on his face—goes through and simplifies: 'utilize' becomes 'use' because nothing is lost except four letters. In the next paragraph 'future potential' is cut down to 'potential' because there's no such thing as 'past potential'. Samuel Johnson would have been a great editor. He once famously advised writers to re-read their work and then they come across a passage "that you think is particularly fine, strike it out." He seemed to have the intolerance part.
Some changes are judgment calls, but most people agree 'remuneration" should be changed to 'pay' because they both say the same thing, except one is more widely understood and direct while the other sounds impressive and scholarly. It is an interesting lens to look through; what could be cut or simplified without any loss? And if it could be simplified, if it could be cut and not missed, then why hasn't it been cut, why hasn't it been simplified?
I started with no real experience in editing other than re-reading what I'd written and making some changes, though your own work is always the toughest to change, no matter what Samuel Johnson advises.
Now, I'm reading everything I can because it seems an obvious way to get better. Hemingway is a good place to start because he is an editor's dream. He shows what you really need, proves nouns and verbs are enough most of the time. His work as a journalist is fantastic.
There are more technical books, like Elements of Style, which is the closest thing most editors and writers have to a bible. Style guides from various publications tell you which words should be avoided (guesstimate being a popular one), and other words should be hyphenated (wartime is one word, as is trademark, but well-being is hyphenated and some day is two words).
There is no substitute for time, though I am trying. Dad has been wonderful, too. He is an artist at this; sometimes I'll send him something I've spent hours simplifying and he'll send it back fifteen minutes later and it is much simpler, much better. I have print-outs of these—my draft, Dad's draft—and sometimes I'll look at the differences and wonder how the hell I didn't write it like Dad did because it sounds so easy and simple when you read it.
It is not feeding the poor, but it is nice to do work where you improve something.
Consider this sentence: "Mistakes were made and we are currently exploring a number of various solutions to remedy the situation."
It sounds ridiculous, right? The sentence should say: "We made mistakes, and are now working towards a solution." Direct is best.
Bad language is everywhere. Look at a few paragraphs from a front page ESPN article some months ago:
"It has been an arduous path the NFL and its players have traveled these past four months. It has been at times ugly, unnerving, nasty and unsettling. Labor disputes always are, and this one has been no exception.
Both sides took hits and neither will walk away unscathed now that they have finally agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement.
That the NFL Players Association had to decertify, that the owners had to lock out the players, that there had to be a halt to league business was just silly when everyone was making money hand over fist.
The league was healthy, not broken. This dispute was about greed, plain and simple. It was not about putting the best product on the field or playing for the love of the game. It was about money, and how much everyone got.
Of course, the answer is that the players and the owners will continue to print money. The television contracts will only get larger. The fan interest will only grow. The stadiums will continue to be packed (most of them), and the merchandise will continue to fly off the shelves.
The NFL is a $9.3 billion business today. Who knows what it will be in 2020, but it will not be less. It will be more, potentially much more. So there had to be a way the two sides could come to an agreement. There had to be football in 2011. And ultimately, now, there will be.
As we prepare to finally discuss football, free agency, trades and training camps, it is worth a look at the winners and losers of the past four months."
Arduous and unscathed are words you find in a thesaurus; let them stay there. Adverbs like "ultimately" and "finally" should be cut because they add nothing but length. So should expressions like "plain and simple" and "print money" and "hand over fist"—they mean nothing. "That" is almost never needed, yet is used six times by my count.
These phrases should be cut:
—"...and how much everyone got,"
—"...and this has been no exception,"
—"Of course,..."
In Modern American Usage, Wilson Follett explains journalese, which the author of the ESPN article is painfully guilty of: "In general, journalese is the tone of contrived excitement. When the facts by themselves do not make the reader's pulse beat faster, the journalist thinks it is his duty to apply the spur and whip of breathless phrases."
I am young and have not been editing for long, so I still love the attention to detail, the arrogance of approaching the work of somebody else and making it better by cutting out the fat. I still enjoy the difficulty of making things simple, of looking at ESPN and seeing which articles need editing.
Maybe one day I'll pick up a Hemingway novel again and be good enough to find a word or two to cut or simplify, because no matter what my job title is or what I'm, getting paid, I'll think I could have even helped Hemingway write a little better.
Maybe one day I'll pick up a Hemingway novel again and be good enough to find a word or two to cut or simplify, because no matter what my job title is or what I'm, getting paid, I'll think I could have even helped Hemingway write a little better.
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