What's new
Fantasy Football - Footballguys Forums

Welcome to Our Forums. Once you've registered and logged in, you're primed to talk football, among other topics, with the sharpest and most experienced fantasy players on the internet.

Writing Well - Discuss (1 Viewer)

Mister CIA

Mister CIA

Footballguy
Well

Whatcha got?   My best skill is hitting the backspace key (you guys would not believe the #### I've nearly dropped on this forum!).  All tangents are on the table - style (especially emphasis and punctuation), sentence structure and symmetry, professional email correspondence, economy of words, vocabulary, message board posts and other social media posting, pronoun agreement, knowing your audience, etc. ... or as I like to say, Bob Loblaw.   

Hope to gain a lot here.  I dream of writing two excellent back-to-back paragraphs.

P.S. - I'm getting pretty darn good at double-spacing between sentences.

P.P.S - Spare me the Oxford comma debates; it belongs, unless there's an overriding compulsion. 

WTF comes after P.P.S?  P.P.P.S??!

 
-think about what you are trying to accomplish with whatever you are writing

-white space and bullet points

-figure out how to orient your target at the beginning

-re-arrange what you have written after the fact.  sequencing and flow can play a key role in causing understanding.

-assume your target has no time and little context.  frame what you want or what you want the recipient to know from the jump.

i guess i did not ask what kind of writing you are asking about, but these things have helped me in my business career and also in things that i do personally.  my wife is a technical writer and after we started dating, i came to appreciate her e-mail style and realize that it was much better than...other people that i have known.

i also have found that as i have become busier and SOOO important, people who can set things up for me like the above are really helpful and valuable.  unfortunately, i have encountered very few people like this.  i think that one of the things that helped my career advancement was thinking about what people above me wanted, doing the thinking for them, coming to a conclusion, and concisely presenting it.  almost all the time, i could get whatever i wanted by doing this, because people just don't have the ####### time or capacity to wade through a bunch of nonsense to get to your point.  this would actually be the number one thing that i would tell to anyone starting a career.

 
Stompin' Tom Connors said:
Clarity should always trump style.

Stunk and White's ELEMENTS OF STYLE still is a great guidepost for the tenets of writing.
Click to expand...
Yes, it is. I still use it for punctuation issues. It's down the hall, even if I don't understand it all. E.B. White was a gifted man taught by a gifted teacher.    

 
Strunk and White is great.

I recently read George Saunders’ A Swim in the Pond in the Rain (link). It is an adaptation of his course on Russian short stories at Syracuse. It includes some of the short stories that would be included on the syllabus, and then pulls them apart and discusses what makes them great like he would with his class.
 
Last edited:
Don Quixote said:
Strunk and White is great.

I recently read George Saunders’ A Swim in the Pond in the Rain (link). It is an adaptation of his course on Russian short stories at Syracuse. It includes some of the short stories that would be included on the syllabus, and then pulls them apart and discusses what makes them great like he would with his class.
Click to expand...

Looks great. I read Tenth of December and really liked his short stories. I still can remember reading them, and that was about ten years ago. Wow, does time fly. There was one short story about a soon-to-be forcibly abducted teenage ballerina and her teenage neighbor that just was. . .astonishing in its craft.
 
rockaction said:
Don Quixote said:
Strunk and White is great.

I recently read George Saunders’ A Swim in the Pond in the Rain (link). It is an adaptation of his course on Russian short stories at Syracuse. It includes some of the short stories that would be included on the syllabus, and then pulls them apart and discusses what makes them great like he would with his class.
Click to expand...

Looks great. I read Tenth of December and really liked his short stories. I still can remember reading them, and that was about ten years ago. Wow, does time fly. There was one short story about a soon-to-be forcibly abducted teenage ballerina and her teenage neighbor that just was. . .astonishing in its craft.
Click to expand...

I enjoyed Tenth of December as well (and, yep, that particular one was excellent). Lincoln in the Bardo was great too (novel rather short story). Unconventional style, but I thought it worked well; also love historical fiction and Lincoln-related stuff in general.

Saunders just came out with a new short story collection that I’ve got on my want to read list too.
 
Mister CIA said:
All tangents are on the table - style (especially emphasis and punctuation), sentence structure and symmetry, professional email correspondence, economy of words, vocabulary, message board posts and other social media posting, pronoun agreement, knowing your audience, etc. ... or as I like to say, Bob Loblaw.
Click to expand...
I apologize for such a long letter - I didn’t have time to write a short one.

~ Mark Twain (possibly)

This is one I always try to keep in mind (and struggle with). Spend the time to be concise.
 
Concision is good. So is directness. For whatever reason, I've the misfortune of working with a number of people who insist on writing eliptically. Just say what you're trying to say.
 
Long Ball Larry said:
-think about what you are trying to accomplish with whatever you are writing

-white space and bullet points

-figure out how to orient your target at the beginning

-re-arrange what you have written after the fact. sequencing and flow can play a key role in causing understanding.

-assume your target has no time and little context. frame what you want or what you want the recipient to know from the jump.

i guess i did not ask what kind of writing you are asking about, but these things have helped me in my business career and also in things that i do personally. my wife is a technical writer and after we started dating, i came to appreciate her e-mail style and realize that it was much better than...other people that i have known.

i also have found that as i have become busier and SOOO important, people who can set things up for me like the above are really helpful and valuable. unfortunately, i have encountered very few people like this. i think that one of the things that helped my career advancement was thinking about what people above me wanted, doing the thinking for them, coming to a conclusion, and concisely presenting it. almost all the time, i could get whatever i wanted by doing this, because people just don't have the ####### time or capacity to wade through a bunch of nonsense to get to your point. this would actually be the number one thing that i would tell to anyone starting a career.
Click to expand...
Grammarly, the free version, has helped me improve a few common patterns in my writing. My roommate, from Peru, bought the full version, but she still asks me to review assignments and I find flow, content, and logic things to correct. Eventually, there'll be more AI in grammarly and I won't be needed any more.

>>re-arrange what you have written after the fact. sequencing and flow can play a key role in causing understanding.<<
I've found this improves my writing for papers, grants, and long persuasive emails.
 
Joe Bryant said:
IvanKaramazov said:
Concision is good. So is directness. For whatever reason, I've the misfortune of working with a number of people who insist on writing eliptically. Just say what you're trying to say.
Click to expand...

Would you guess that's an academia thing?
Click to expand...
Somewhat, but it's also a passive-aggressive thing. For example, somebody proposes X, and we want to draft a memo arguing against X. I've met people who will try to "sandwich" every counter-argument between two pieces of pro-X acknowledgements, and you end up with a memo that doesn't even take an obvious position. If you want to point out problems with X, just lay out some bullet points and explanation in clear English. You can be direct without being harsh, insulting, or unprofessional.

A related point is getting rid of unnecessary adjectives. "Direct and dry" generally comes across fairly well, whereas "direct and flowery" feels more emotion-laden and shrill.
 
I think one thing that some writers haven't caught up with is how much more time crunched readers are these days.

It used to be nice when people got to the point.

Not it's imperative. People simply don't have the time to waste when there are so many other options vying for their attention.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 2 (members: 0, guests: 2)
Top