From time to time, and again as recently as just this past week, readers of the Writing Smartly posts will ask how to go about studying the essays more systematically. This being the first post of the new year, I thought it might be a good idea to present a plan of study through some—not all—of the pieces that have accumulated in this space over the last five years.
The practice of writing is called composition for a reason: we put together (com-posit) the elements of language to make our thoughts and feelings known to ourselves and others. For that reason, the traditional approach to the study of writing (and that is the perspective I follow in the posts) has concentrated on the structure of sentences. We analyze, or loosen apart, the constructions we have composed in a draft in order to revise, or look again, at what our first attempt has created. Creation, it is imperative to remember, is almost always a messy affair, and if we forget this, we will rail at ourselves (it happens all the time) for not being the unimpeded perfectionist we and the world think we ought to be. This impatience will hobble both our work and our love of it.
To turn ourselves onto a better and more productive route, it can be helpful to step back every once in a while to consider what is actually going on when we write. To that end, you might look first at the three essays entitled There’s More to It Than Grammar Alone, Remarkable, and Why Theory? (you can easily find all the articles I mention here by typing the title in the search box at the bottom of the Writing Smartly blog page). Thinking about writing, though, is merely thinking about it, and that doesn’t get the job done in the end.
The next step might be to remember that writers read, just as musicians listen to music and painters watch the world and are forever sketching moments of it. Reading what other writers write means we’re looking for models, not only of ideas, but of sentence patterns, vocabulary, and the rhythm those two produce together. Compiling a commonplace book (a record of what you’ve read, not written) can help to stay disciplined in this ancillary work, and three posts on that subject to consult are Keeping a Commonplace Book, Reading Closely, and Writers Read.
We keep ourselves in front of models both to be aware of the impression they make on us and to understand how they have that effect, that is, to comprehend the form of their language that produces their power. Four essays which speak to this analysis of language are: The Essential Minimum, The Parts of Speech and Thought, Seeing Structure, and Some Basics. Closely allied to this skill of analysis is a knowledge of the grammar of modern English. That, you can imagine, makes up the bulk of the Writing Smartly posts, but a helpful shortlist you might consult is: Verbs and the Verb; Three Cases; Grammatical Anatomy; Who, Which, That, and What; Secret Agents; and Wrote or Has Written?
From grammar we move to the techniques of writing and revising sentences. On this topic you might study Revising by Clauses, Concrete and Abstract, The Larger Thought, Seeing Other Choices, and Acting and Being. And to both grammatical and compositional concerns, we must add a third consideration to everything we write expositorily, and that is critical thinking. On this essential topic, the articles What Exactly Do You Mean?, The Controlling Idea, and All or Nothing will get you started.
Finally, on the mechanics of punctuation, vocabulary, and usage, the following posts will introduce you to some persisting concerns writers have: Commas: To Use or Not To Use; Commas Cut; and Comma or Semicolon. Also, Wordcraft, Keeping a Vocabulary List, and Some Words Easily (and Often) Confused, as well as Everyday or Every Day, Reticent or Reluctant, and Shall or Will? And to see how it’s all put together in the hands of some masters, see the three posts Models, Joan Didion, and From One Sentence to the Next.
The posts I have listed here are only a first cut among many over the last few years. I am compiling a subject index for all of them, and will publish that when it is complete in the next month or two. In the meantime, please email me if you would like to know where to find an article about a particular question you have.
Happy New Year to all.
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Upcoming Short Course
Beginning Wednesday evening, February 5, from 6:00 to 7:00 CT, Writing Smartly will offer again its four-week online short course entitled Reading Closely to Write. Each week we will examine the structure and stylistic design of sentences from one short story (each averaging about 15 pages) written by a celebrated author.
We will analyze the grammar and composition of certain significant sentences, and consider how other designs the author could have chosen would have produced different effects. Our emphasis will be on the grammar and language of the reading so that we can begin to develop an eye and ear for discovering our own natural written voice. By considering linguistic forms closely like this, we can come to appreciate the craft of language, training ourselves to discern assumptions and question implications—all to become more thoughtful about what we read and hear.
New selections this term will be from Short Story Masterpieces, edited by Robert Penn Warren and Albert Erskine (Dell Publishing, 1982), readily available at Amazon and elsewhere. Tuition for this four-session online short course is $300, paid through Zelle (ultimo@writingsmartly.com), or by personal check (please email me for the mailing address). Upon your registration, I will reply with a confirmation and the Zoom link for the course.
I hope you can join us.
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