I am reading a book on Kurt Vonnegut, a great American storyteller, and teacher. Known for his satirical style of writing, he was one of the most popular writers of the 1960s.
His career spanned over 50 years, in which he published fourteen novels, three short story collections, five plays, and five works of nonfiction, with further collections being published after his death.
In spite of his scathing satire and willingness to scoff at received wisdom, he was an exceptional and generous teacher. His students at the University of Iowa Writer’s Workshop gained a great deal of wisdom from him as a writer, teacher, and human being.
In 1980, he wrote an article “How to Write with Style” which was published in the Times. In that article, he made seven suggestions on the literary style.
- Find a subject to care about
- Do not rumble
- Keep it simple
- Have the guts to cut
- Sound like yourself
- Say what you mean to say
- Pity the readers
Although all the suggestions are gold, the last one caught my attention. We writers are so focused on ourselves that we forget the readers.
He wrote:
Readers have to identify thousands of little marks on paper and make sense of them immediately. They have to read, an art so difficult that most people don’t really master it even after having studied it all through grade school and high-school — twelve long years.
Kurt called reading an “art.” You are not born with it. You must learn how to do it, and as with any art, you can keep gaining skills and pleasure in it for the rest of your life.
Those “marks on paper” i.e. words are symbols. They require deciphering. If they are not easy and clear, the readers give up. Rahter than encouraging them to read, we turn them off. They give up. We lose the opportunity to get our message across.
Our audience requires us to be sympathetic and patient teachers, ever willing to simplify and clarify.
From next week I am starting a new column in the online magazine The Innovation from. A column for writer on how to write from readers’ point of view. And it is titled… you guessed it Pity The Reader.
I have been writing on Medium, an online publishing platform. Launched in August 2012, it is the place to be for writers and bloggers because it has an audience of 100 million. I have published about 47 articles there and steadily building a readership. It is very satisfying to know that your work is going to such a vast amount of people and is not going waste.
This week I wrote one article on the blog The Four Cs of Writing, and two on Medium – Why is it easy to tell personal stories but so hard to write them and Failing To Build A Habit To Write Every Day? Try A System Instead. Have a read.
It is wet and windy today in Canberra and I am going to take a leave and from you. I will write again next Friday.
Until then take care.
Photo by Marcos Gabarda on Unsplash