I’ve come across advice similar to this (David Perell for instance) and something that comes to mind is—What if Proust followed this advice? Or William James. Erik Davis. Or hell even Haruki Marukami. They’re a whole bunch of authors whose writing I love that go pretty hard against—”Streamline your message. Be as clear, simple, and easy to understand as you possibly can.”
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the general thrust of this post and clear writing is usually great and something to aspire to. I also like the quote on non-fiction as fiction. I think the main problem I have with any ‘rules’ on how to write is that to me, the best authors break the language.
There’s something of a pepperoni airplane effect here. Everyone wants to think they’re Proust. I analogize it to the Picasso thing—you need to “learn the rules” before you can usefully take the training wheels off and start “breaking” them. Scare quotes intentional.
I disagree re: Murakami (haven’t read the others). I find him to be communicating extremely clearly. The actual book is full of specific examples of things that we think of as artful and indirect but that are actually bending the full force of themselves into conveying a very bright and specific concept.
I’ve come across advice similar to this (David Perell for instance) and something that comes to mind is—What if Proust followed this advice? Or William James. Erik Davis. Or hell even Haruki Marukami. They’re a whole bunch of authors whose writing I love that go pretty hard against—”Streamline your message. Be as clear, simple, and easy to understand as you possibly can.”
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the general thrust of this post and clear writing is usually great and something to aspire to. I also like the quote on non-fiction as fiction. I think the main problem I have with any ‘rules’ on how to write is that to me, the best authors break the language.
There’s something of a pepperoni airplane effect here. Everyone wants to think they’re Proust. I analogize it to the Picasso thing—you need to “learn the rules” before you can usefully take the training wheels off and start “breaking” them. Scare quotes intentional.
I disagree re: Murakami (haven’t read the others). I find him to be communicating extremely clearly. The actual book is full of specific examples of things that we think of as artful and indirect but that are actually bending the full force of themselves into conveying a very bright and specific concept.