On the importance of Clarity
Writing is communication.
Maybe that seems simplistic or obvious, but you'd be surprised how often writers forget this basic fact. Good writers too, some who are considered giants of their time.
I recently read Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace and that was a man who had forgotten (at least in that novel) that writing was communication.
The book is such a jumbled mess of ideas and transgressions and asides and stream-of-consciousness and technical jargon that it becomes almost incomprehensible; it certainly becomes tedious to read, just like this sentence.
Now I'm not against the modernistic literary movement in any way. Experimental novels can be great fun, and as a writer, it can be a joy to toy with such new ideas to tell a story.
But, one thing that a writer must always keep in mind is that writing is communication, and the hallmark of effective communication is clarity.
My biggest gripe with Wallace's novel isn't that it is experimental (Kurt Vonnegut was a genius of experimental fiction and Breakfast of Champions is one of the greatest books ever written) my biggest problem is that it is so often inscrutable simply for inscrutability's sake. That's not an effective way to communicate.
There are pretty much no rules to writing a book and every person comes at it at a slightly different angle. Though it is important to remember that if you do not have a firm grasp of the rules of composition then you will never be sure if you're doing good or ill when you break those rules.
All of us write because it fulfills us, because it makes us happy. Most of us also write to tell the world how we feel about a certain issue or group of issues. What literary critics and academics call themes. We're all different, but in my experience I am first writing for myself (to make myself happy and to try and understand what I believe) but also for the potential reader (to entertain them and show them my point of view).
Clarity is essential to this second part of the equation. If all you're writing for is yourself then why not write your story down, put it in a trunk and come back to it whenever you want to read it? In that case you can be as cryptic as you'd like. You could write in code if you pleased.
I suspect that most of you, like me, write for an audience as well as for yourself, and if that's the case than it's important to be clear in your writing. Now, I'm not suggesting that you dumb down the language so even the thickest person could understand you. Nor am I suggesting that there isn't room for ambiguity in your plot. What I am suggesting is that you give your reader a fair shake at understanding what you mean and what you believe.
Take a murder mystery for example. During the book you're trying to guess who the real killer is, but when the end comes we discover that the killer was a character only talked about once in almost no detail and never actually seen in the book until the reveal. Did you have a fair shot at figuring that out? It seems like a bit of a cheat doesn't it?
In the same way if you don't give your readers a line that can be followed--and yes it can be a well covered line--then you are cheating your readers out of a valuable part of the reading experience.
Whenever I edit one of my books I also take one pass to examine each sentence and make sure that I'm being as clear as possible. Unless, of course, I'm being a bit coy to hide a piece of information that won't be revealed until later. And even in that instance I never completely cover my tracks. A perceptive reader could pick up on it in the first read through and certainly will see the train of logic on the second.
Even abstract painters or avant garde film makers give you enough to go on so that you can see the point of their art if you look from just the right angle.
Clarity is important, it's how you are understood. The greats understood that: Hemingway, Steinbeck, Updyke, Faulkner.
Some of them were wildly experimental and deliciously metaphorical but they all brought clarity to their writing. We should all strive to be like that.
Maybe that seems simplistic or obvious, but you'd be surprised how often writers forget this basic fact. Good writers too, some who are considered giants of their time.
I recently read Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace and that was a man who had forgotten (at least in that novel) that writing was communication.
The book is such a jumbled mess of ideas and transgressions and asides and stream-of-consciousness and technical jargon that it becomes almost incomprehensible; it certainly becomes tedious to read, just like this sentence.
Now I'm not against the modernistic literary movement in any way. Experimental novels can be great fun, and as a writer, it can be a joy to toy with such new ideas to tell a story.
But, one thing that a writer must always keep in mind is that writing is communication, and the hallmark of effective communication is clarity.
My biggest gripe with Wallace's novel isn't that it is experimental (Kurt Vonnegut was a genius of experimental fiction and Breakfast of Champions is one of the greatest books ever written) my biggest problem is that it is so often inscrutable simply for inscrutability's sake. That's not an effective way to communicate.
There are pretty much no rules to writing a book and every person comes at it at a slightly different angle. Though it is important to remember that if you do not have a firm grasp of the rules of composition then you will never be sure if you're doing good or ill when you break those rules.
All of us write because it fulfills us, because it makes us happy. Most of us also write to tell the world how we feel about a certain issue or group of issues. What literary critics and academics call themes. We're all different, but in my experience I am first writing for myself (to make myself happy and to try and understand what I believe) but also for the potential reader (to entertain them and show them my point of view).
Clarity is essential to this second part of the equation. If all you're writing for is yourself then why not write your story down, put it in a trunk and come back to it whenever you want to read it? In that case you can be as cryptic as you'd like. You could write in code if you pleased.
I suspect that most of you, like me, write for an audience as well as for yourself, and if that's the case than it's important to be clear in your writing. Now, I'm not suggesting that you dumb down the language so even the thickest person could understand you. Nor am I suggesting that there isn't room for ambiguity in your plot. What I am suggesting is that you give your reader a fair shake at understanding what you mean and what you believe.
Take a murder mystery for example. During the book you're trying to guess who the real killer is, but when the end comes we discover that the killer was a character only talked about once in almost no detail and never actually seen in the book until the reveal. Did you have a fair shot at figuring that out? It seems like a bit of a cheat doesn't it?
In the same way if you don't give your readers a line that can be followed--and yes it can be a well covered line--then you are cheating your readers out of a valuable part of the reading experience.
Whenever I edit one of my books I also take one pass to examine each sentence and make sure that I'm being as clear as possible. Unless, of course, I'm being a bit coy to hide a piece of information that won't be revealed until later. And even in that instance I never completely cover my tracks. A perceptive reader could pick up on it in the first read through and certainly will see the train of logic on the second.
Even abstract painters or avant garde film makers give you enough to go on so that you can see the point of their art if you look from just the right angle.
Clarity is important, it's how you are understood. The greats understood that: Hemingway, Steinbeck, Updyke, Faulkner.
Some of them were wildly experimental and deliciously metaphorical but they all brought clarity to their writing. We should all strive to be like that.
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