Making them up as I go (2)

1. Tell the truth.
2. Entice, or fail.
3. To emphasize, summarize.
4. If it ain't short, it don't work.
5. Be clear.


And so I don't forget:
Don't explain. Just tell a story.
Don't argue. Just say things that make sense.
Expect people to be bored by the writing, and shorten it.
Make the wording easy to take.

Remove Loose Ends -- the interesting one-liners that go nowhere.

Sunday, September 28, 2014

It's all right for words to mean what they say

Eudora Welty:
It's all right, I want to say to the students who write to me, for things to be what they appear to be, for words to mean what they say. It's all right too for words and appearances to mean more than one thing — ambiguity is a fact of life. But it is not all right, not in good faith, for things not to mean what they say.
From Michael Leddy's Against “deep reading” at Orange Crate Art.

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