Good stuff, Erik. You are right about the benefit of reading your own work like a reader. It's so hard to do, though, because, as a writer reading your own work, you tend to read, not what is on the page, but what you intended to put on the page. The words on the page just trigger your memory of your original (vague yet perfect!) intention, so you read it and think, perfect. It can be extremely hard to actually read what is there, in the way an objective reader will.
I wrote about this problem, in a brief guide to editing one's own writing, a few years ago. It was apparently the most-read article the magazine ran that year (and people still thank me for it all the time), so I guess it works. I'll link, in case it's useful to your readers. (Probably safe to assume that anyone who has just read your advice on writing all the way to the end, plus the comments, is interested in this stuff.)
Absolutely agree - it's as if each sentence has an additional mental context (William James called this "the fringe" of consciousness) that only the author has. It is very difficult to get rid of that, and read the text as text.
Yeah, nicely put. It's a huge problem, especially with writers starting out. I've really thought about this problem a lot, because I've occasionally taught creative writing, and it becomes so obvious that some people are utterly unable to read what they have put on the page. They just can't see the actual page, only their intention; only the inside of their own head. They have no idea what they have actually written, or how it will land with a stranger. Which means they don't know how to make it better. So that essay was my attempt to really think the problem through, and give them the tools to allow them to self-edit...
Oh, if any of your readers prefer their writing advice as audio, there's a nice podcast where Sally Rooney (who wrote Conversations With Friends) and Emily Pine (author of the terrific Notes to Self) discuss the essay for 45 minutes, and add their own thoughts.
Apologies for taking over your comments section, Erik! I'm not normally so forward with links etc, but it's just that I wrote that piece to help writers who were suffering in exactly the way your piece addresses – who couldn't work out how to improve – and it seems effective, so I feel (I hope) your readers won't mind. And perhaps some might benefit.
I think there's one caveat to "let it sit:" the Substack comment. Putting off a Substack comment means it will probably get few views. But that caveat doesn't include failure to edit. That's why I absolutely hate the iOS Substack app. For all its improvements, you still can't edit even a typo, and the space allowed for the comment doesn't let you look easily at the full comment for purposes of review.
I tend to be of the "let's be Proust" side of the brevity vs. complexity divide. That is in part because I like READING complex prose. Too simple is too easily boring. That was the problem of those book series I used to buy back in the back of beyond--Time Life multiple volume surveys of something or other. Actually reading them, rather than buying them, turned out to be--well-- a chore because the prose all trotted along at the same pace.
But one can over-Proust. The key for me is variety. Listen to the rhythms of the peace, the beat of them. This isn't the same as adding poetic flourishes, though it is certainly needed in writing actual poetry. I love colons, semicolons, parentheses, dashes, ellipses... But intersperse with short sentences. Even (lord save us from Mrs. Spencer in the 10th grade) sentence fragments. The idea is to be flexible, above all. I agree that their/there/they're is simply carelessness. But rules we learned about things like fragments or ending sentences with a preposition or starting sentences with "forbidden" words--those all must fall as long as we are in control and choosing the deviations for a particular effect.
The best way ultimately is to read a lot and pay attention to what you do or don't find effective. Then mirror that, not mimic but mirror.
I agree with you that "But all bad writers are alike, in that missing subtleties immediately scream “amateur.” One of the worst subtleties missed is the ability to make distinctions. My dedication to that probably explains my penchant for parentheses, appositives, and the Proustian side of me.
Writing can quickly become overwrought very easily (speaking from personal experience), so I've found that restraint and dialing back emotion make not only for better writing, but also more effective writing. For instance, I've always found writing that doesn't use italics to emphasize its clever points to be way funnier than writing that does. Italics are like the literary equivalent of mugging for the camera.
Great advice. Here are a couple more things that I find helpful (probably better suited to some writing styles than others):
1. Sometimes, I'll get stuck because I can't find a good way of explaining the reasoning behind my idea. Or I'll be trying to insert an illustrative example, and every example I can think of is flawed. These are both tells that *my thesis is incorrect* and needs to be revisited. It's always tempting to just plow forward, use an imperfect example and gloss over the fact that it doesn't really support my argument, etc. but that never leads to a result I can feel proud of; better to bite the bullet and come up with a new thesis that actually matches the state of the world.
2. The advice to set a piece aside for a week (or longer) can also be useful *before* writing the first draft. I maintain a big file of nascent topic ideas. Frequently I'll come across a news item that would serve as a good example, or an argument that supports (or undermines) an idea, and I add it to the file. Eventually a topic will feel "ready" and it's time to turn the grab bag of notes into a draft; at that point, a lot of the research is already done, and then ideas have had time to percolate.
Thanks Steve, these are for sure helpful. Especially 2 - it happens multiple times a year that I have a partial draft on a topic that suddenly becomes extremely relevant or topical and that I want to address, and I’ll realize the fit and that I can adapt what I have to be about the topic. The benefits of not finishing everything!
Hey Steve, I like your second idea here. It reminds me of the concept of a commonplace book -- a location for storing all the interesting quotes and ideas you come across.
I find number one the hardest. Also not sure waiting works for everyone. Having a weekly substack has made me realize that my most popular pieces are the ones I don’t let “simmer” or wait/polish/reedit etc. My readers seem to like it raw.
Also find that about 1/2 the ones I wait on or even work on for hours and hours and have other people read/edit tend to never get released because I’m bad at returning to things or I get too excited by newer ideas.
I found myself thinking about that ending hours after reading this piece. The terrible flaming eyes of the dervish. You know, you are really highlighting something real here of the thing that makes someone write: there really is a frenzy behind that impulse.
The Kabbala says reality is made of words (in fact, I did have a mystical experience once where reality dissolved into letters): I wonder if writers have a special connection to the Creator, because of working with the same material?
Sometimes, in worrying too much if we’re being interesting, we ignore much of our personal expertise which would make our writing interesting, because we’re too used to it. We get too inured to our subject. I do this. I’m an ER doc and my husband will prompt me for stories by asking if I had any Interesting patients. I’ll say no, frequently, but then when he has me tell him about a few anyway, he’s riveted. To me, it’s old hat, but to people not steeped in “the usual maladies” on a daily basis, it’s not. So it’s also worth asking- is it disinteresting to me but maybe still interesting to my reader? Run it by a few friends so you can tell.
if you've got something worthwhile to say, don't tie yourself in knots fussing over the techniques for saying it: just write it and the reader will sort things out.
if you haven't got anything worthwhile to say and you're writing just for fame and money, an empty box is an empty box regardless of how beautifully it's wrapped.
I can use all the help I can get! I’m working it — but still haven’t pushed the publish button yet. I know this was published a year ago, but the algorithm brought it up on my feed as it was ‘liked’ by Charlotte Dunne. Maybe algorithm knows something I don’t.
That’s the point, right? Write something that doesn’t suck! Maybe something quasi-original yet relevant and appealing?
funny that you mention keroauc here. he always regretted how the editors made him change all the names in the on the road and had hopes to revise all his books with consistent names (or at least this is what he like says in Big Sur)
Interesting! Also you reminded me, I'm underselling Kerouac here, as I forgot about Big Sur. The Dharma Bums is still probably read now too, although I don't think I ever read it. And there are like ten Kerouac titles I've just never heard of at all, and never ran into anyone who read them either.
yeah i really liked dharma bums and that was the first I'd read by him , satori in paris is pretty fun too but def less refined. only other one I've read is pic and that one is not very good LOL hut ive heard good things about desolation angels and pretty much nothing about any of the other ones on his wikipedia bibliography I just looked up
Assuming readers already know the conclusion is something I often notice when I return to my writing a few weeks or months later to edit. What do you think about enthymematic arguments and writing, though? I’d add that readers like to piece things together.
Agreed, that's pretty common. If what you mean by enthymematic arguments is that a premise is left unstated, I think that can work in certain circumstances, but it's better for a more literary style. Like speculation about a character's behavior, like the reader knowing something they don't, is great in a novel - but it is not so great in an essay (although it certainly does happen, and isn't the worst thing in the world, since it's often entertaining).
Yes, that's what I was thinking, too. I was curious how some people pull it off with essay writing. In essay writing, I think letting the audience come to a conclusion based on the information can work—unless it's an academic essay that concludes and lists the limitations, of course.
That ending is too good.
I’ve definitely been guilty of overwriting. Far too often than I care to think about. 🙈
Good stuff, Erik. You are right about the benefit of reading your own work like a reader. It's so hard to do, though, because, as a writer reading your own work, you tend to read, not what is on the page, but what you intended to put on the page. The words on the page just trigger your memory of your original (vague yet perfect!) intention, so you read it and think, perfect. It can be extremely hard to actually read what is there, in the way an objective reader will.
I wrote about this problem, in a brief guide to editing one's own writing, a few years ago. It was apparently the most-read article the magazine ran that year (and people still thank me for it all the time), so I guess it works. I'll link, in case it's useful to your readers. (Probably safe to assume that anyone who has just read your advice on writing all the way to the end, plus the comments, is interested in this stuff.)
https://stingingfly.org/2017/10/24/edit-lousy-writing/
Good luck, everybody.
Absolutely agree - it's as if each sentence has an additional mental context (William James called this "the fringe" of consciousness) that only the author has. It is very difficult to get rid of that, and read the text as text.
Yeah, nicely put. It's a huge problem, especially with writers starting out. I've really thought about this problem a lot, because I've occasionally taught creative writing, and it becomes so obvious that some people are utterly unable to read what they have put on the page. They just can't see the actual page, only their intention; only the inside of their own head. They have no idea what they have actually written, or how it will land with a stranger. Which means they don't know how to make it better. So that essay was my attempt to really think the problem through, and give them the tools to allow them to self-edit...
Oh, if any of your readers prefer their writing advice as audio, there's a nice podcast where Sally Rooney (who wrote Conversations With Friends) and Emily Pine (author of the terrific Notes to Self) discuss the essay for 45 minutes, and add their own thoughts.
https://stingingfly.org/podcast/emilie-pine-reads-julian-gough/
Apologies for taking over your comments section, Erik! I'm not normally so forward with links etc, but it's just that I wrote that piece to help writers who were suffering in exactly the way your piece addresses – who couldn't work out how to improve – and it seems effective, so I feel (I hope) your readers won't mind. And perhaps some might benefit.
(Emilie Pine, not Emily, god damn it. And in a post on editing. Oy. Anyway, great book, Notes to Self.)
I think there's one caveat to "let it sit:" the Substack comment. Putting off a Substack comment means it will probably get few views. But that caveat doesn't include failure to edit. That's why I absolutely hate the iOS Substack app. For all its improvements, you still can't edit even a typo, and the space allowed for the comment doesn't let you look easily at the full comment for purposes of review.
I tend to be of the "let's be Proust" side of the brevity vs. complexity divide. That is in part because I like READING complex prose. Too simple is too easily boring. That was the problem of those book series I used to buy back in the back of beyond--Time Life multiple volume surveys of something or other. Actually reading them, rather than buying them, turned out to be--well-- a chore because the prose all trotted along at the same pace.
But one can over-Proust. The key for me is variety. Listen to the rhythms of the peace, the beat of them. This isn't the same as adding poetic flourishes, though it is certainly needed in writing actual poetry. I love colons, semicolons, parentheses, dashes, ellipses... But intersperse with short sentences. Even (lord save us from Mrs. Spencer in the 10th grade) sentence fragments. The idea is to be flexible, above all. I agree that their/there/they're is simply carelessness. But rules we learned about things like fragments or ending sentences with a preposition or starting sentences with "forbidden" words--those all must fall as long as we are in control and choosing the deviations for a particular effect.
The best way ultimately is to read a lot and pay attention to what you do or don't find effective. Then mirror that, not mimic but mirror.
I agree with you that "But all bad writers are alike, in that missing subtleties immediately scream “amateur.” One of the worst subtleties missed is the ability to make distinctions. My dedication to that probably explains my penchant for parentheses, appositives, and the Proustian side of me.
Writing can quickly become overwrought very easily (speaking from personal experience), so I've found that restraint and dialing back emotion make not only for better writing, but also more effective writing. For instance, I've always found writing that doesn't use italics to emphasize its clever points to be way funnier than writing that does. Italics are like the literary equivalent of mugging for the camera.
Great advice. Here are a couple more things that I find helpful (probably better suited to some writing styles than others):
1. Sometimes, I'll get stuck because I can't find a good way of explaining the reasoning behind my idea. Or I'll be trying to insert an illustrative example, and every example I can think of is flawed. These are both tells that *my thesis is incorrect* and needs to be revisited. It's always tempting to just plow forward, use an imperfect example and gloss over the fact that it doesn't really support my argument, etc. but that never leads to a result I can feel proud of; better to bite the bullet and come up with a new thesis that actually matches the state of the world.
2. The advice to set a piece aside for a week (or longer) can also be useful *before* writing the first draft. I maintain a big file of nascent topic ideas. Frequently I'll come across a news item that would serve as a good example, or an argument that supports (or undermines) an idea, and I add it to the file. Eventually a topic will feel "ready" and it's time to turn the grab bag of notes into a draft; at that point, a lot of the research is already done, and then ideas have had time to percolate.
Thanks Steve, these are for sure helpful. Especially 2 - it happens multiple times a year that I have a partial draft on a topic that suddenly becomes extremely relevant or topical and that I want to address, and I’ll realize the fit and that I can adapt what I have to be about the topic. The benefits of not finishing everything!
Hey Steve, I like your second idea here. It reminds me of the concept of a commonplace book -- a location for storing all the interesting quotes and ideas you come across.
Thank you for all this great advice!
I find number one the hardest. Also not sure waiting works for everyone. Having a weekly substack has made me realize that my most popular pieces are the ones I don’t let “simmer” or wait/polish/reedit etc. My readers seem to like it raw.
Also find that about 1/2 the ones I wait on or even work on for hours and hours and have other people read/edit tend to never get released because I’m bad at returning to things or I get too excited by newer ideas.
I found myself thinking about that ending hours after reading this piece. The terrible flaming eyes of the dervish. You know, you are really highlighting something real here of the thing that makes someone write: there really is a frenzy behind that impulse.
The Kabbala says reality is made of words (in fact, I did have a mystical experience once where reality dissolved into letters): I wonder if writers have a special connection to the Creator, because of working with the same material?
Dark and stormy eyes
Those terrible dark and stormy eyes!
Sometimes, in worrying too much if we’re being interesting, we ignore much of our personal expertise which would make our writing interesting, because we’re too used to it. We get too inured to our subject. I do this. I’m an ER doc and my husband will prompt me for stories by asking if I had any Interesting patients. I’ll say no, frequently, but then when he has me tell him about a few anyway, he’s riveted. To me, it’s old hat, but to people not steeped in “the usual maladies” on a daily basis, it’s not. So it’s also worth asking- is it disinteresting to me but maybe still interesting to my reader? Run it by a few friends so you can tell.
Enjoyed your post. I write more about what I mention above in: https://open.substack.com/pub/bessstillman/p/on-writing-or-not?r=16l8ek&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
if you've got something worthwhile to say, don't tie yourself in knots fussing over the techniques for saying it: just write it and the reader will sort things out.
if you haven't got anything worthwhile to say and you're writing just for fame and money, an empty box is an empty box regardless of how beautifully it's wrapped.
Ha ha. Nice (and very flamboyant) ending!
I can use all the help I can get! I’m working it — but still haven’t pushed the publish button yet. I know this was published a year ago, but the algorithm brought it up on my feed as it was ‘liked’ by Charlotte Dunne. Maybe algorithm knows something I don’t.
That’s the point, right? Write something that doesn’t suck! Maybe something quasi-original yet relevant and appealing?
Thanks for liking. lol. I have more to say after thoroughly reading your article!
Solid advice for 99% of situations - but in National Novel Writing Month, word vomit is the name of the game!
funny that you mention keroauc here. he always regretted how the editors made him change all the names in the on the road and had hopes to revise all his books with consistent names (or at least this is what he like says in Big Sur)
Interesting! Also you reminded me, I'm underselling Kerouac here, as I forgot about Big Sur. The Dharma Bums is still probably read now too, although I don't think I ever read it. And there are like ten Kerouac titles I've just never heard of at all, and never ran into anyone who read them either.
yeah i really liked dharma bums and that was the first I'd read by him , satori in paris is pretty fun too but def less refined. only other one I've read is pic and that one is not very good LOL hut ive heard good things about desolation angels and pretty much nothing about any of the other ones on his wikipedia bibliography I just looked up
Assuming readers already know the conclusion is something I often notice when I return to my writing a few weeks or months later to edit. What do you think about enthymematic arguments and writing, though? I’d add that readers like to piece things together.
Agreed, that's pretty common. If what you mean by enthymematic arguments is that a premise is left unstated, I think that can work in certain circumstances, but it's better for a more literary style. Like speculation about a character's behavior, like the reader knowing something they don't, is great in a novel - but it is not so great in an essay (although it certainly does happen, and isn't the worst thing in the world, since it's often entertaining).
Yes, that's what I was thinking, too. I was curious how some people pull it off with essay writing. In essay writing, I think letting the audience come to a conclusion based on the information can work—unless it's an academic essay that concludes and lists the limitations, of course.
What an ending sentence! Bravo!