It’s All in How You Say It, Not What You Say

Clarity is all important to a writer. You must make sure that what you say is clear to your readers because, even in this age of technology, they can’t always contact you easily and ask a question about what you wrote.

All writers come out of the educational system which emphasized that more complex words showed a higher level of intelligence. After all, as a professional writer, shouldn’t your vocabulary be better than that of your readers? The answer is an emphatic no.

It’s not about how many words you know but how many common words you can use to express yourself.  Complex or $25 words—they used to be $20 but inflation has caught up to them—are words beyond the average reader’s vocabulary for which they can’t get the meaning from the context. So the first rule of clarity is to stay away from #25 words. But there’s another side to clarity.

Readers are constantly bombarded with  deceiving wording in the weekly supermarket brochures where they purchase their groceries. Sometimes, it’s the fine print—they must buy four of something selling for 4 for $10 to get the discounted price. Another ploy is that an item is only for sale at that price on a particular day of the week. But the latest has been the lack of clarity in the ads in the weekly circular. Often shoppers don’t know what to expect until they get to checkout and end up paying a higher price because they didn’t understand the ad in the first place.

Dunkin Donuts recently offered their customers on their rewards program, “Dunkin Perks,” 50 bonus points if they spent $4 using their Dunkin Donuts debit card. What they failed to mention was that customers had to spend $4 before taxes. Now that seems like a simple omission, but many customers probably got caught spending only $3.99, plus tax which brought them over $4. While they thought they would get the extra points, the company denied them their bonus points for one penny. Here, clarity was the key. And unhappy customers equals bad press more so today than previously.

Sure, what you say is important, but how you say it to your readers is just as important, if not more so. Don’t expect your readers to make a leap. What you perceive as clear to you may not be to them. This could be a leap in time, a leap in place, or a leap in understanding. How many times have you said something to someone, who is obviously hurt by your comment, only to quickly add, “I didn’t mean that.” If you didn’t mean what you said, then you should have said it another way. The same applies to writing. But it’s even more critical here because you can’t say, “I didn’t mean that” to a reader you don’t know and can’t see.

Writing in the Fast Lane

Speeding up your writing doesn’t mean you should write faster but instead quicken the pace. Your readers will thank you for it.

Your writing most likely has a slower pace—the speed at which a reader reads it—than it probably should. This is the result of what you learned in school. Traditionally, most academics believe that the longer you make your sentences, the more intelligent you seem. That’s why the majority of textbooks are such slow reads.

Ernest Hemingway learned this same writing style when he was in school, but when he began to write professionally, he realized that it slowed down his writing. Throughout his career Hemingway experimented with style and, like any professional writer, constantly learned new techniques. This style persisted in most of his writing and changed the way many writers work today.

At the core of Hemingway’s style were short sentences. And while he’s known for simplified, direct prose, most writers don’t know that he worked hard for these effects and that he had a reason for using them—clarity. When he wrote for newspapers, clarity was his objective. Even today, newspapers continue to use a clear, direct style. USA Today took this style to a new level by producing tight, clear text that could be read in a much shorter time, most often with a person’s morning coffee.

Hemingway wrote sentences that were straightforward and clear so that his readers could understand the points he made even if they were skimming quickly through his articles. You, too, can achieve a similar clarity by writing shorter, more direct sentences. This is especially helpful to keep in mind when rewriting your work. Don’t hesitate to break up long complex thoughts into bite-size morsels for added readability. But clarity wasn’t the only reason for Hemingway’s brevity.

Another reason too use shorter sentences is for dramatic effect.  In “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” when the lead character is nearing death because of a gangrenous leg, Hemingway writes: “All right. Now he would not care for death. One thing he had always dreaded was the pain.” Here the short sentences have a cumulative effect, pounding home the idea that the hero is nearing death. Try to achieve a similar effect in your writing by stringing together a series of short sentences when you want to stress a point or add dramatic punch to your prose.

Still another use for short sentences is to add variety and music to your writing. Hemingway often mixed longer and shorter sentences for a more rhythmic effect. In The Old Man and the Sea, he told his readers the thoughts of the old fisherman: “Then he was sorry for the great fish that had nothing to eat and his determination to kill him never relaxed in his sorrow for him. How many people will he feed? he thought.” The first sentence contains two conflicting thoughts: the old man’s sorrow for the fish and, in contrast with this, his continued determination to kill it. The next sentence suggests the old man’s motivation for fishing, namely to get food. The change in sentence length lends a musical quality to the writing and adds pleasing variety.

So how else did Hemingway speed up his sentences? First, he chose shorter words  and second, he often omitted commas.

Although Hemingway used commas in his writing, he often achieved his greatest technical innovations by omitting them in compound sentences. A compound sentence contains two or more independent clauses. The clauses are usually joined by a comma and a coordinating conjunction, such as and, but, or, nor, for, so, or yet. By far the most common coordinating conjunction is and.

An example from The Sun Also Rises. The narrator is hoping to see the bulls run at Pamplona, Spain. Joining a crowd of spectators he rushes ahead with them to the bullring. At this point Hemingway speeds up the pace: “I heard the rocket and I knew I could not get into the ring in time to see the bulls come in, so I shoved through the crowd to the fence.” The absence of a comma before the word and increases the tempo, conveying some of the feeling of being in the crowd.

But omitting commas can sometimes make sentences confusing, so you don’t want to overuse this technique. But when you come to a section of your story where the action needs to move at a quicker pace, you may wish to try Hemingway’s trick of speeding up your sentences. Follow these tips and you’ll be writing in the fast lane.

It’s Not What You Say But How You Say It

Clarity is very important to a writer. I have to make sure that what I say is clear to my readers because, even in this age of technology, they can’t contact me easily and ask a question about what I wrote. In a previous post I spoke about $20 words–those words that are beyond the average reader’s vocabulary and which they can’t get the meaning from the context. But there’s another side to clarity.

Since the economic downturn and last year’s fluctuating gasoline prices, I’ve noticed a marked increase in deceiving wording in the weekly brochures of the supermarket where I buy my groceries. Sometimes, it’s the fine print–I must buy four of something selling for 4 for $10 to get the discounted price. Another ploy is that an item is only for sale at that price on a particular day of the week. But the latest has been the lack of clarity in the ads in the weekly circular. Many times I’m not sure what to expect until I get to checkout.  And often I end up paying a higher price because I didn’t understand the ad in the first place.

Sure, what you say is important, but how you say it to your readers is just as important, if not more so. Don’t expect your readers to make a leap. What you perceive as clear to you may not be to them. This could be leap in time, a leap in place, or a leap in understanding. How many times have you said something to someone, who is obviously hurt by your comment, only to quickly add, “I didn’t mean that.” If you didn’t mean what you said, then you should have said it another way. The same applies to writing. But it’s even more critical here because you can’t say, “I didn’t mean that” to a reader you don’t know and can’t see.