Over the years, many readers of my English-usage column in The Manila Times had asked me for advice
on how to write more convincingly and readably in English. To have offered them
a simple, straightforward formula for that would have been foolhardy on my
part, of course, but on two separate occasions, I suggested two basic techniques
that I thought might help improve their exercise of the writing craft: using the
fireside-chat technique to make their English simpler and more
audience-oriented, and doing ruthless self-editing and rewriting to polish
their written work. I wrote about these techniques in two essays, the first
later forming part of my book English
Plain and Simple (2003) and the second, part of my book Give Your English the Winning Edge
(2009). I am now posting the essays in tandem below. (April 16, 2013)
The Fireside-Chat Technique
One major reason why even highly intelligent, well-educated
people find it difficult to write is that they have not learned to get into the
proper frame of mind for it. They stare at the blank paper or the blank
computer screen with dread, wracking their brains to find that voice that can
make their writing sparkle and become more persuasive, more convincing, perhaps
more impressive. But more often than not, even the first line of what they want
to say eludes them. This is because they cannot even form a clear mental
picture of who they are writing to. The same people who can effortlessly carry
on lively, brilliant conversations with their associates or deliver
spellbinding speeches to huge audiences suddenly develop imaginary stage fright
when writing, browbeaten into inaction by a faceless audience in their minds.
There is actually a very simple, straightforward technique
to combat this mental paralysis. Just imagine an audience of one—only one.
Forget about all the others who may have an interest in what you have to say;
you will have time to bring them into the picture much, much later. Just focus
on this audience of one—your boss, your staff, a critic, a lover, in fact
anyone in particular—and imagine that he or she is right in front of you beside
a nicely burning fireplace. For a reason that I will tell you later, make sure
that it is a fireplace and not a living room sofa or dining table. Once this
becomes clear in your mind, state your case gently, carefully answering every
possible objection from your audience of one, clarifying when necessary but
never arguing. When you are through, simply stop, then quietly ask your
audience of one what he or she thinks. That’s all. No verbal pyrotechnics or
literary flourishes. Just plain and simple talk.
You will be surprised by what the fireside-chat approach can
do to your English writing, no matter what form it takes—memo, letter, essay,
speech, or feature article. It will be virtually impossible for you to use
legalese, gobbledygook, or wordy phrases. You will know it in your bones how
ridiculous it is to use them. Just imagine how a sensible, intelligent person
facing you will react to gobbledygook like this: “Sir, urban life in the
context of the worsening population problem and traffic situation has taken its
toll on me and my family. This realization has compelled me to make a major
decision that I realize may affect the operations of the division whose
management you have so kindly entrusted to me. Much to my regret, however, I am
taking this occasion to inform you that my family and I have reached a decision
to move...”
This is often the way memos on such sensitive subjects are
written, but if you spoke this way during a fireside chat, your listener
obviously will conclude that you have gone out of your mind. He may just decide
to fire you ahead of your resignation, or shove you into the fireplace to put
you back to your senses. Now you know why we need that fireplace there: it is
not only for intimacy but for a quick reality check as well.
More likely, of course, when your thoughts are suitably
tempered by the fireside ambiance, you will get rid of your legalese,
gobbledygook, and wordy phrases and speak in plain and simple English, probably
in this manner: “Sir, city life has become very difficult for me and my family.
We can no longer bear the congestion and the traffic. I like my job and I am
grateful to you for making me a division manager, but my family and I have
decided to move...” Isn’t this the tenor of thought that you have been looking
for all along? Imagining a fireside chat with an audience of one will not only
make it possible but inevitable! This authentic human voice is really the only
sensible way to talk about things that really matter to people. It is, believe
me, also the most sensible and effective way to write to anyone other than
yourself.
The fireside-chat technique actually uses the same formula
that works so well in public speaking. You know the routine. Speak to only one
person in the audience at any one time. Fix that person in the eye and imagine
that you are speaking only to her and no one else, and once you have made your
point, do the same to another person in the audience, and so on. Addressing all
of the audience at the same time will require you to shift your eyes like crazy
and focus on no one, making you look ridiculous.
So next time, when you find it difficult to write, simply
use the fireside-chat technique. It may not make you a great writer, but it
surely will make you a much better communicator than you are right now.
From
the book English Plain and Simple: No-Nonsense Ways to Learn
Today’s Global Language by Jose A. Carillo © 2003 by the Manila Times
Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.
Editing Oneself
Like most people, it took me a long time to discover that
what matters more in writing is not so much what we want to say but what the
readers want to know. This, I think, is the biggest single reason why most of
the writing we see around us is stiff, obtuse, and uncommunicative. Many
writers forget or don’t even think about who their readers or listeners are.
They do a secret monologue to themselves.
No wonder then that so many articles for academic journals
just end up talking to the paper they are written on, and why many of the
speeches we hear are so obtuse they might as well be delivered before an empty
hall. Most of the writing that comes my way to be edited, in fact, shows very
little evidence of honest-to-goodness effort to connect to the reader or
listener. The research is often competent, but the prose almost always suffers
from the dead weight of piled-up, undigested, and impersonally expressed
information.
Take this lead sentence of a draft speech that I edited
sometime ago: “Aldous Huxley wrote brilliantly about hallucinogens and their
effect on creativity.” Of course, only someone who has read several books about
Huxley, about hallucinogens, and about creativity can legitimately make such an
audacious thesis—and the writer in this case obviously had not done so. What I
did then was to recast the passage so the author could more modestly say it in
the first-person singular and make the proper attributions: “A few days ago, I
came across this brilliant but disturbing idea by Aldous Huxley, who wrote
about hallucinogens and their effect on creativity. Let me share it with you
and comment about it as I go along …” By doing so, I saved the writer from the
embarrassment of making a tall claim totally outside his level of expertise.
This is actually a simple paradox: you become authoritative
only when you write or speak as yourself. You can comfortably talk only about
the things you really know, and only after you have declared the limits of your
knowledge. Readers and audiences have a sixth sense for claimed authority
that’s not really there, no matter if you have an MA or PhD tacked to your
name. I therefore suggest you try this approach if you already have a draft of
anything that’s bothering you for its dryness and stiffness, or for not being
entirely original. See how this personal approach can perk up your prose and
make it sound more interesting.
One final thought about self-editing: no draft is ever
sacrosanct and final. There’s always a better way to say what you have written.
With today’s word processors, it’s so much easier now to clarify prose that
would otherwise mystify or confuse, or to support abstract concepts with
telling details and picture words. You can easily transpose whole sentences and
paragraphs, even turn your draft totally upside down until it captures
precisely what you have in your mind. The mechanical constraints against total
rewrites are gone.
And just when everything seems to be already in place, go
over your draft once more. Knock off any word, phrase, sentence, or paragraph
that doesn’t contribute to the idea or mood you want to convey. Stop only when
you have whittled down your manuscript until it’s in danger of collapsing if
you attempted to excise another word. In time, you will discover what many
successful writers already know but rarely publicly admit: that good writing is
really the art of rewriting, the art of doing brutal surgery on one’s own
thoughts.
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