The Art Of Writing

With all of the writing that I have done here, at last I have gotten to an article about writing itself.

Writing is an art, rather than an exact science, meaning that there is plenty of room for individual expression. Technology has made writing far easier, but that also means that it has made it easier for other writers so that there is more competition for the attention of the reader.

In my opinion, the best way to learn to write is simply to read. I have never taken any kind of special class in writing, other than the usual courses in school, but have been an avid reader since I began reading about the Apollo Space Program at age eight. Writing is something that has to actually be done to be learned. Just do your best, and than keep on looking for ways to improve it. That is what writing is all about, rewriting so that it gets better every time.

A skilled writer can convey fine shades of meaning by selective use of words. I have become pretty good at covering myself when I am not completely certain about something, using terms and phrases such as "at least", "at most" and, "essentially the same thing". This gives me a little bit of leeway so that if two quantities turn out to be close, but not exactly the same, I never wrote that they were precisely the same but were "essentially the same" so that I am correct whether the two turn out to be either exactly equal or just close to equal.

When writing, you should have an idea who your audience is. Are you writing for children, for engineers, or for the general public? My audience is the general public that is well-informed, seeking to learn more and wanting to read facts and points of view that they will not find anywhere else. Everything that I write here is either something completely new, or at least a new way of looking at things, and that educated readers can verify with their own reasoning. If I was just presenting scientific and other facts that were already known, readers would not need me but could just read articles on sites such as Wikipedia.

One assumption that I make about readers is that you are pressed for time. I do not write time-consuming flowery prose, but get right to the point of the article.

The most important part of writing is, of course, the content. No matter how well one can write, what really matters is what the writer is writing about. The writing is nothing more than the vehicle that delivers the content.

There are several organizational tools that are used in writing. The most basic of these are sentences, commas and, paragraphs. In longer writing, these tools can also include headings, sub-headings and, chapters.

I prefer long sentences, sub-divided by commas, in short paragraphs of usually 3-4 sentences. Each paragraph should be a new idea, structured in such a way that it makes the writing more digestible as the reader grasps one paragraph at a time. If conveying the meaning in an article can be compared to walking up a flight of steps, then each step is a paragraph. I find that, if a topic is complex, it helps to make paragraphs longer so that the jump from one major idea to another is more clear because the major ideas are each kept in one paragraph.

There are a few general rules with regard to sentences, such as do not begin a sentence with "and". But even this is not a strict rule, and I break it occasionally if it makes the writing easier to understand. This is where reading comes in, someone who reads quite a bit can tell if a sentence "sounds right".

Use of commas is the trickiest of the basic rules, but one with a lot of potential to make really good writing. I am a heavy comma-user. When a sentence contains the word "and", it often means that there are two segments of information within that sentence and that is what commas are for. A comma separates segments of information, but is more permeable than a period (full-stop in Britain). A period ends a sentence, while a comma sub-divides it. It is not really good writing to have a lot of short sentences, it is better to have fewer sentences and to sub-divide them with commas.

Another use of commas is to facilitate an insertion into a sentence. Consider the following: "I stopped at the store, which had just opened, on my way to work". The portion "which had just opened" is a segment of information about the store which is separate from the meaning of the rest of the sentence. This is why it is separated by commas, one on each side of it. Making full use of commas is a step toward really good writing, one rule that must be remembered is to never have "commas within commas".

There must not be too many commas in writing. There may be a case where there are two points in a sentence that are close together, and where commas could possible be applicable. An example is: "I went to visit my brother and then to the store, but not with my brother". The portion about going to the store could possibly be separated by a comma, but this would be too close to the second comma. While commas are a powerful tool in writing, too many of them just make a mess and so it must be decided where a comma should best go, and not to put one in the other place.

Parenthesis fill the same role as commas, but are more divisive. Parenthesis are rarely used in non-technical writing, and usually only where one or two words must be inserted into a sentence. An example is where a person may be known by more than one name, so that one is given and the other follows in parenthesis.

One essential of good writing is the handling of the most important point or points of the article. I often put the most important sentence of the article, the one around which the entire article revolves, in a paragraph of it's own to emphasize it's importance. Also, the most important points should be repeated rather than stated just once.

Get the writing off to a good start. Do not just plunge into complex or technical information without a brief introduction, using a paragraph of maybe one or two sentences.

Suppose that you are writing an article that involves electrical charges. It is not necessary to write "electrical charges" every time, you can just write "charges". But still, not all readers may be familiar with the subject matter and it is best to periodically remind the reader that the charges are "electrical charges".

Some people believe that the best writing is that which can express the same idea in the least number of words. I do not completely agree with this because some repetition of the most important ideas is necessary to best convey the information in the article. But one way to trim writing is to eliminate unnecessary duplication of meaning. For example "a prosperous, well-to-do town" is such a duplication because "prosperous" and "well-to-do" mean the same thing.

Good writing makes use of different words that mean the same thing so that the same word is not used over and over again. The most common example is probably "but" and "however". This is where you can use a thesaurus, which lists words with the same meaning. But there are exceptions to this, in a complex article you can use the same word again and again if it helps to emphasize that certain points are related. Remember that, as always, writing is an art rather than an exact science.

A good writer is, of course, a good speller. I used to have some difficulty with words that have i and e together, in remembering whether the i or the e comes first. In my early writing efforts, I recall that if I was unsure whether a word should be capitalized I would rearrange the sentence so that it began with the word so then I knew that it would be capitalized (Those were the days before spell check technology).

Proper names are always capitalized. What is the difference between North America and north Africa? North America is the official name of a continent and is capitalized. But north Africa is only a general description of a region and is not the official name of a country or continent and so the "north" is not capitalized.

Another rule to remember is the "only one s rule". Consider "the trees grow" and "the forest grows". Both are similar in meaning, but if we use a plural, trees, then we do not put an s on "grows". Also, as you can see, quotation marks are a useful tool in creating expressive writing.

Be wary of excessive use of abbreviations. They can be used, but if the use is often then periodically remind the reader what it stands for. This is one of those occasions when it is necessary to remember that the reader may not be as familiar with the general subject matter as the writer.

My writing process in developing the postings on these blogs is to first look into a possible article in my mind in order to see if it is worth writing a posting about. One great thing about writing is that there is no such thing as wasted time, I can be stuck in traffic or standing in line and still be working on my writing. Then, if it is, I begin writing down on paper anything that I can think of that will be a part of the posting.

The next step is to organize what I have written down into a logical sequence. Unless the article is long, I do this by simply reviewing it and placing a number in front of each piece of material that I have written down and this is the order in which it will be written. If it may be some time before the article will be written, I save this organization until near the time when I am ready to write it because the organization process will then serve as a review prior to writing.

If quite a bit of material is involved, so that the article will be long, it is best to begin sub-dividing the material into logical sections or chapters as soon as is practical. This makes organization much easier.

I am a pre-planner when it comes to writing. By the time I get to the computer, most of the work is done. But this is not the only way to write. Some writers just start writing, and organize it as they go along.

The written word is far more reliable than the spoken word. The reason that I decided to start writing is that I once explained verbally to someone a scenario that I had developed about the fulfillment of the prophecies in the Bible of the last days of the world, and that person then told someone else. But when it was repeated back to me what I had supposedly said, it only very vaguely resembled the original scenario. I decided then that it was much better to write things down.