Universal Rule

Book Reviews

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Writing well -- Comment()
Dosh Dosh refers to Paul McHenry Roberts's essay How to Say Nothing in Five Hundred Words, listing nine points about good writing. Some of the points were trivial, but these are profound:

Avoid the obvious content
Take the less usual side
Slip out of abstraction
Call a fool a fool

There are also nice instructions on how to improve the writing. Of course, in real life writing is done often in a hurry (although it shouldn't be), and thus there is a limited time for making improvements. But practise makes - if not perfect - at least better.