Speaking of Writing…

Thomas Sowell is a great writer. He’s not great because he turns such a powerful phrase or uses such colorful imagery. He is a great writer because he makes complex subjects understandable. He makes the dull-ified air of economics seem terribly interesting and completely accessible. He succeeds in the most important task for any writer: make sure your readers understand what you are saying.

Recently I stumbled upon an old paper from Sowell entitled “Some Thoughts about Writing.” I recomend it to anyone remotely interested in writing and publishing. Here’s a taste:

On Writing Well
People who want to be complimentary sometimes tell me that I have a “gift” for writing. But it is hard for me to regard as a gift something that I worked at for more than a decade—unsuccessfully—before finally breaking into print. Nor was this a case of unrecognized talent. It was a case of quickly recognized incompetence.

On When to Write
Instead of trying to be someone that you are not, be the best at what you are. My own writing practices are the direct opposite of that followed by these prolific and renowned writers. I write only when I have something to say. The big disadvantage of this is that it can mean a lot of down time. There are manuscripts of mine that sat around gathering dust for years without a word being added to them. How then have I managed to write more than 20 books within the Biblical threescore and ten years?

On Agents
What can an agent do that a writer cannot do? First of all, an agent can get a manuscript read by a senior editor at a publishing house, rather than by some lowly reader who is assigned the thankless job of looking for a needle in a haystack among the tons of manuscripts that come in “over the transom” from would-be writers that nobody ever heard of. But why will a senior editor take a manuscript from an agent more seriously? Because the agent pre-screens manuscripts and sends only the ones that will justify the editor’s continuing to take the agent seriously. For those manuscripts that fall below this level, the agent can offer advice to the writer, ranging from a few changes here and there to a suggestion that taking up carpentry might offer a better way of making a living.

On Academic Writing
Too many academics write as if plain English is beneath their dignity and some seem to regard logic as an unconstitutional infringement of their freedom of speech. Others love to document the obvious and arbitrarily assume what is crucial. A typical work of this genre might read something like this:

As surely as the world is round (Columbus, 1492), and as surely as what goes up must come down (Newton, 1687), when Ronald Reagan was elected President (Cronkite, 1980) and then re-elected (Rather, 1984), it signaled a change in the political climate (Brinkley, 1980–88). Since then, we have seen exploitation (Marx, 1867) and sexism (Steinem, 1981) on the rise.

But no attempt to parody academic writing can match an actual sample from a scholarly journal:

“Transnationalization further fragmented the industrial sector. If the dominant position of immigrant enterprises is held to have reduced the political impact of an expanding industrial entrepreneurate, the arrival of multinational corporations possibly neutralized the consolidation of sectoral homogeneity anticipated in the demise of the artisanate.”

You can’t make that up. If academic writings were difficult because of the deep thoughts involved, that might be understandable, even if frustrating. Seldom is that the case, however. Jaw-breaking words often cover up very sloppy thinking.

On Copy-Editors (they are not all like this)
Where Shakespeare wrote, “To be or not to be, that is the question,” a copy-editor would substitute: “The issue is one of existence versus non-existence.” Where Lincoln said, “Fourscore and seven years ago,” a copy-editor would change that to: “It has been 87 years since . . .” Where the Bible said, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” a copy-editor would run a blue pencil through the first three words as redundant.

Pedestrian uniformity and shriveled brevity are the holy grail of copy-editors, the bureaucrats of the publishing industry. Like other bureaucrats, copy-editors tend to have a dedication to rules and a tin ear for anything beyond the rules. Seldom is there even the pretense that their editorial tinkerings are going to make the writing easier for the reader to follow, more graceful, more enjoyable, or more memorable…

I do not arbitrarily dismiss copy-editors’ suggestions. I usually consider them and find them to be stupid beyond belief. That is hardly surprising. In fact, what is surprising is that anyone would authorize people who are not writers, and who do not know the subject matter, to over-ride people who are writers and who do know the subject matter. Add to this the fact that a book may be written and rewritten over a period of years, while the copy-editor has at most only a few weeks in which to second-guess all the stylistic decisions that were made by the author after far more deliberation.

On Non-Reviewing Reviews
The non-reviewing review seems to be considered chic these days. The first four or five paragraphs don’t even mention the book that is the ostensible reason for the review. Instead, the reviewer puts the whole subject “in context” with lofty generalities and pre-emptive assertions. Then the book’s title puts in a cameo appearance, followed by an analysis of what the author was “really” trying to do and the reviewer’s comments on its appropriateness, originality, and consonance with his own ideological predispositions.

All this is often just a prelude to a long editorial by the reviewer on the subject raised by the book—or even on a tangential topic suggested by it. Sometimes it takes some shrewd reading between the lines to figure out whether the reviewer thought the book was good, bad, or indifferent. Sometimes even a shrewd reading draws a blank. One of the reasons some people cannot get to the point is that there is no point to get to. In non-reviewing reviews, the only point often seems to be a display of the reviewer’s sense of superiority.

On Writing Reviews
Over the years, I have come to find writing book reviews even more distasteful than reading them. Part of this is my own fault, for being one of those old-fashioned holdouts who still believes that you should actually read the book before reviewing it.

Sometimes I am only into the first 20 pages of a 500-page book when it becomes painfully clear that this one is a real dog. The rest of the ordeal is like crossing the Sahara Desert—except that often there are no oases. True, the reviewer gets to slaughter the author in print at the end of it all, but this merely appeases the desire for revenge, which only real blood would satisfy.

As you can see, this is a spirited little paper. Very worth your while. And very written, naturally. Read the whole thing.