Several short sentences on writing – Verlyn Klinkenborg 2012

This is a very interesting book that eliminates the fear of writing. Klinkenborg writes elegantly simple and urges the reader not to focus on meaning, style and structure but helps her on writing sentence by sentence. And all his tips will make you write better brief. Even just reading his style, will do so.

„One by one, each sentence takes the stage.

It says the yery thing it comes into existence to say.

Then it leaves the stage.

It doesn’t help the next one up or the previous one down,

It doesn’t wave to ist friends in the audience

Or pause to be acknowledged or applauded.“ (Klinkenborg, 2012, p.3).

„Many people assume there’s a correlation between the reader’s experience while reading and the writer’s experiencve while writing – her state of mind, her ease or difficulty in putting words together.

There isn’t.“ (Klinkenborg, 2012, p.8).

„Why short sentences? (...)they carry you back to a prose you can control. (...) Short sentences make it easier to examine the properties oft he sentence. (...) They help eliminate transitions. They make ambiguity less likely and easier to detect.“ (Klinkenborg, 2012, p.9).

„The obsession with transition negates a basic truth about writing,

A magical truth.

You can get anywhere from anywhere,

Always almost instantly.“ (Klinkenborg, 2012, p.26).

„The idea of a writer’s block, in ist ordinary sense,

Exists largely becaus oft he notion that wirting could flow.“ (Klinkenborg, 2012, p.69).

„Pursue clarity instead.

In the pursuit of clarity, style reveals itself.“ (Klinkenborg, 2012, p.85).

„We assume that thought shapes the sentence.

But thought and sentence are always a collaboration.“ (Klinkenborg, 2012, p.92).

„Try this:

No outline.

Research, reading, noticing, interviewing, traveling, paying attention, note taking – all the work you do to understand the subject, whatever it is, whatever kind of piece you’re writing.

Reread your notes, and take notes on them.

And again.

Take notes on your thoughts.

Most of all, take notes on what interests you.

Be certain you’ve makred out what interests you.

Don’t make an outline from your notes.“ (Klinkenborg, 2012, p.97).

„Sit back from the keyboard.

Sit back, and continue to think.

That’s where the work gets done.“ (Klinkenborg, 2012, p.105).

„The assumption that logic persuades the reader

Instead of the clarity of what you’re saying.

There’s little actual logic in good writing.“ (Klinkenborg, 2012, p.117).

„Writing doesn’t prove anything,

And it only rarely persuades.

It does something much better.

It attests.

It witnesses.

It shares your interest in what you’ve noticed.“ (Klinkenborg, 2012, p.117).

„And the scattering of rethorical tics – overused, nearly meaningless words and phrases.

In fact.

Indeed.

On the one hand.

On the other hand.

Therefore.

Moreover.

However.

In one respect.

Of course.

Whereas.

Thus.“ (Klinkenborg, 2012, p.118).

„These words take the reader’s head between their hands and force her to look where they want her to.

Imagine how obnoxious that is,

That persistent effort to predetermine and overgovern the reader’s response.“ (Klinkenborg, 2012, p.119).

„The false belief (...) That persuasion is just a „thus“ away.“ (Klinkenborg, 2012, p.119).

„If it doesn’t interest you, how could it possibly interest anyone else?“ (Klinkenborg, 2012, p.135).

„How else to explain our love of even difficult writers?

Their agility evokes our agility.

We move at their speed, elliptically, obliquely,

However they move.“ (Klinkenborg, 2012, p.141).