5 pieces of writing advice that are really great, let me tell you what.
Get some words, make them good.
You’re reading I love words and you! If you enjoy the piece, please consider liking and sharing the post on the Substack site! Thank you for your time!
Hello there, dear friends, local cowards, and misunderstood criminals. We return again to Jade’s Little Bastards, a series of shorter, bastardized points from my years of teaching writing.
This letter has existed for nearly half the lifespan of one of our nation’s greatest heroes, the dog who played Air Bud. We’re talking years of technical writing tips, philosophies, and tidbits buried in the spam folders of my acquaintances and uncles. To save folks the trouble of excavation, here are five musings to improve our writing. If you enjoy these, consider checking out Jade’s Little Bastards 1 and Jade’s Little Bastards 2.
1. Seek the original print
All artists draw from the works that inspire them. It’s a natural part of the process. But like that yellow graphite copy paper from your elementary school principal’s office, each copy tends to degrade in quality. Imagine: Writer A puts their interpretation of a real conversation into one of their stories. Writer B is inspired by that dialogue and imitates it. Then you, Writer C, continue the process, and suddenly we’re leagues away from any authentic observation of the world. This is an interpretation of an interpretation of an interpretation. Homage is great, but you can't make stylized work solely by imitating stylized work. You need to imbue your original observations of the natural world into your writing. Listen to the way people talk. Listen to the way you talk. Pay attention to what you find noteworthy. Don’t worry about what writing is supposed to look like, and instead seek your interpretation of the world around you.
Read the original letter.
2. Follow the fun.
Games journalist Mark Brown once did a breakdown of the development of the indie game Ape Out. Designer Gabe Cuzillo set out to make a stealth game where you’d use push-and-grab mechanics to move along the walls. As development continued, he added the ability to grab and throw guards. This proved to be by far the most fun aspect of the game. Despite the time already invested, he pivoted and designed everything else around the throwing mechanic. He removed the stealth element and replaced the original protagonist with a giant gorilla. The result was a unique and charming experience that barely resembled the initial concept. When I edited college students, I saw many writers discover that what they actually cared about was far different than the initial pitch they presented for their story. While focus and follow-through are great skills, it is also important not to get too locked into what we think we are writing. Often, the emerging soul of a story will present itself if we’re willing to see it.
Read the original letter.
3. Cut big, then small.
You want to spruce up your tree outside? Here’s a bad way to do that. Go out with your tiny clippers, spend hours pruning each individual leaf, and then decide that you don’t want that whole branch and hack it off. When editing, don’t spend hours cleaning up a paragraph that you aren’t sure will make the final cut. This is the idea of cutting big, then small, and one of the reasons people push for ugly first drafts. Get the ideas down, then hack away with the big axe, then refine. As writer Roy Peter Clark says, “If your goal is to achieve precision and concision, begin by pruning the big limbs. You can shake out the dead leaves later.”
Read the original letter.
4. Drop the “-ly,” you desperate loser
Often, too many modifiers are a sign of an unconfident writer. Check this shit out. Here’s an excerpt from David Sedaris’ essay Now We Are Five. The story is about the passing of one of the six Sedaris siblings. In this scene, Sedaris finds his father alone in a bedroom at the family beach house, looking through a box of photos that the now deceased sister had torn up.
“Just awful,” my father whispered. “A person’s life reduced to one lousy box.”
I put my hand on his shoulder. “Actually, there are two of them.”
He corrected himself. “Two lousy boxes.”
Bam, boom. It is a great scene. Bittersweet in a way that captures the somber but snarky tone of Sedaris’s writing style. Now let’s take a look at a version where we add adverbs and other modifiers.
“Just awful,” my father whispered sadly. “A person’s life reduced to one lousy box.”
I snarkily put my hand on his shoulder. “Actually, there are two of them.”
With a resigned sigh, he corrected himself. “Two lousy boxes.”
You see this shit? It’s worse. Especially in the context of the rest of the work, all those added words didn’t communicate anything that wasn’t already implied by the actions and dialogue. Adverbs (cheerfully, sadly, totally, etc.) and other modifiers that don’t change the meaning and only intensify (very, quite, rather) often do not add extra value to our sentences.
5. Show your characters in a variety of contexts and statuses.
In improv comedy, status refers to the power dynamic between characters. In one context, a character might hold all the cards (high status), in another, they’ll be generally disrespected (low status). Characters come to life when we’re forced to hold multiple truths about them simultaneously. Imagine an introductory scene where a stately prince walks through town, adored by the people. That’s the main data point we have to interpret his character—we’ve seen the archetype before and get the idea the story wants to communicate. But later we see that amongst the royal court, he’s a total loser who everyone picks on. Now we have to hold both truths in tandem, and the range we understand that character, and the society he lives in, must broaden. Guide readers through the assumptions they'll make and strategically reveal disparate truths to form complex characters.
Read the original letter.
That’s all for this week. Thank you all for the support. If you enjoyed it please pass it along to someone you think may find it useful! All the best, and happy birthday to my lady love Dr. Jade (yes, we share a first name).
Read/Listen to more stories:
I especially like the last drawing above #5