Starting with What Matters, Part 8: Ernest Hemingway

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. 

With these 26 words, the first sentence of the 1952 Pulitzer Prize-winning short novel The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway plainly summarizes old man Santiago's lonely present (who fished alone) and unsuccessful recent past (he had gone eighty-four days now). Some fishermen might actually enjoy fishing alone, taking such an activity as a sign of success. But Hemingway quickly intensifies Santiago's misfortunes and loneliness in the next two sentences by mentioning how a boy, whose parents forbade him from fishing with the old man, pitied him, helping him onshore at dusk to carry his fishing gear whenever he could. The last sentence of the paragraph, describing not Santiago but the sail of his skiff, epitomizes his failure:

The sail was patched with flour sacks and, furled, it looked like the flag of permanent defeat.

The word the preceding flag in this sentence is especially striking. If Hemingway had used a, he would have generalized Santiago's malaise, but the makes clear that only one flag of such futility can possibly exist. 

Such simple words, rendered powerfully by the imagery they convey, are what made The Old Man and the Sea a great but sad adventure story when I read it at age 14, and a tale of a man's existential defiance in the face of certain defeat when I reread it as a college student at age 21. Recalling this passage, I urge writing students to use plain language because the subject matter they need to deliver is complex enough.

Starting with What Matters, Part 7: Robert Penn Warren

Why do we read fiction? The answer is simple. We read it because we like it. And we like it because fiction, as an image of life, stimulates and gratifies our interest in life. — Robert Penn Warren, "Why Do We Read Fiction?" The Saturday Evening Post, October 20, 1962

By the time Mr. Warren wrote this fascinating essay, he had already won two of his three Pulitzer Prizes, one for fiction (in 1947 for All the King's Men) and one for poetry (in 1958 for Promises: Poems 1954-1956). He had already co-authored with Cleanth Brooks Understanding Poetry (1939), Understanding Fiction (1943), and Fundamentals of Good Writing: A Handbook of Modern Rhetoric (1950), textbooks used throughout American universities. Most editors of nationally published magazines would not grant writers the license to write the first three sentences of an article with 5, 4, and 7 simple words. But those writers are not Robert Penn Warren. Then his fourth sentence, at 18 words, more than doubles the length of the paragraph with more sophisticated verbs (stimulates and gratifies) and complex ideas (image of life and interest in life). 

Warren might have justified using such plain language by saying that the article ruminates about children's fascination with literature and that he had a younger audience in mind. I prefer to think that he chose to open with such an uncluttered style because, with his reputation as an author and English professor, he could.  His transparent approach here is a good reminder to all of us who need to write at work or for publication. Get to the point; keep it simple.

Starting with What Matters, Part 6: Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein is renowned for his scientific genius, but he does not get enough credit for his rhetorical power. In an article on education in The New York Times (October 5, 1952), he wrote:

It is not enough to teach man a specialty. Through it he may become a kind of useful machine but not a harmoniously developed personality. It is essential that the student acquire an understanding of and a lively feeling for values. He must acquire a vivid sense of the beautiful and the morally good.

With plain language and brief yet fluent sentences, Einstein argues gracefully against the culture of efficiency that advocates for a vocational schooling, a system which merely prepares people for a technical skill, one which may become obsolete, rendering the preparatory education useless.

Expressing ideas directly with simple words and short sentences equates to a powerful style.

Starting with What Matters, Part 5: Helen Keller

In "The Simplest Way to Be Happy," a 1933 article appearing in Home, Helen Keller wrote:

My theme is that happiness is not the work of magic. Happiness is the final and perfect fruit of obedience to the laws of life.

In that 25-word, 2-sentence opening to her descriptive essay Keller uses three hallmarks of getting to the point: simple language (magic, fruit, life), repetition (happiness twice), and contrast (is not and is). Such is the stuff of an engaging style.

Starting with What Matters, Part 4: David Carr

Think about the emotional climate of America in early December 2001, around the time when the January 2002 issue of The Atlantic hit the newsstands. That issue included David Carr's article, "The Futility of 'Homeland Defense,'" which began with these words:

Get over thinking that America can be made safe. Defending a country as big and commercially robust as the United States raises profound, and probably insurmountable, issues of scale.  

Americans were anxious about preventing another 9/11, yet Carr was there to boldly remind us that the USA must defend 3.8 million square miles in which 300 million people live, 350 million non-citizens visit annually, 700 million pieces of mail and 2 billion tons of cargo arrive daily from overseas (remember Anthrax?), 86 stadiums seat over 60,000 people, and 50 of the tallest 100 buildings in the world are situated. 

With a straightforward, colloquial style, the writer starts his essay by getting to the point like few other authors do. The times called for such delusion-shattering prose, and Carr delivered it with a finesse that garnered him the admiration of fellow journalists and readers who will long remember him.  

13th Anniversary of WORDS ON THE LINE

On January 5, 2005, I began WORDS ON THE LINE with limited expectations: perhaps post a writing tip here, a wise quote there, and a useful book review somewhere in between. I had been managing my full-time consulting business for nearly 9 years, so the blog was an attempt to keep me engaged as a writer, editor, trainer, and coach.

After 13 years and 770 posts, with at least 1 post in every week, WORDS ON THE LINE has provided key insights into writing at work, school, and home. Numerous rhetorical strategies, formatting devices, diction suggestions, and grammar tips appear here to make your writing more purposeful, powerful, organized, clear, concise, and correct. The many mini book reviews offer guidance for continued professional development. 

Regardless of your communication level, you will surely find useful content in this blog. Just scroll through the topics list down the right side of your screen to get what you're looking for. Also, feel free to reach me at Phil@PhilVassallo.com if you need writing  help. Thanks for reading.

Starting with What Matters, Part 3: Joan Didion

Two paragraphs into Joan Didion's essay, "Self-respect: Its Source, Its Power," which appeared in the August 1961 issue of Vogue and in her 1968 essay collection Slouching Towards Bethlehem, comes this 85-word sentence: 

I lost the conviction that lights would always turn green for me, the pleasant certainty that those rather passive virtues which had won me approval as a child automatically guaranteed me not only Phi Beta Kappa keys but happiness, honor, and the love of a good man (preferably a cross between Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca and one of the Murchisons in a proxy fight); lost a certain touching faith in the totem power of good manners, clean hair, and proven competence on the Stanford-Binet scale. 

With wit, edginess, and aplomb, Didion crafts a young woman's sudden, unwelcome arrival at the rite of passage from precocious youth to pragmatic adult by:

• dropping and after the first comma to set a running rhythm
• referencing a half-dozen symbols of popular culture (Phi Betta Kappan, Bogart, Casablanca, Murchisons, proxy fight, Stanford-Binet scale)
• inserting an unexpected semicolon, departing from standard usage for surprise
• breaking parallel structure twice for impact (happiness and honor joined with love of a good man; good manners and clean hair, with the longer phrase proven competence on the Stanford-Binet scale
• transitioning from abstract nouns (happiness, love, honor) denoting romantic youth to sharper adjectives (good, clean, proven) to usher in the rash realities of womanhood.

In doing so, Didion charmingly creates an urge in her readers to know how such a setback sets the stage for defining self-respect. This is the kind of purposeful writing that makes critics admire her finesse with language.