How to Write Short by Roy Peter Clark: top writing lessons from orators and advertisers
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\nAbout the\xa0author
\nBy some accounts, Roy Peter Clark is America\u2019s writing coach, devoted to creating a nation of writers. A PhD in medieval literature, he is widely considered the most influential writing teacher in the rough-and-tumble world of newspaper journalism. With a deep background in traditional media, Clark has illuminated the discussion of writing on the internet. He has gained fame by teaching writing to children and has nurtured Pulitzer Prize-winning authors. He is a teacher who writes and a writer who teaches.
\nFor more than three decades, Clark has taught writing at the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists in St. Petersburg, Florida, considered among the most prominent such teaching institutions in the world.\xa0
\nClark has authored or edited nineteen books about writing, reading, language, and journalism. Humorist Dave Barry has said of him: \u201cRoy Peter Clark knows more about writing than anybody I know who is not currently dead.\u201d He plays keyboard in a rock band. He lives with his family in St. Petersburg, Florida, where he has become famously fond of pelicans.
\nSource: https://roypeterclark.com/#about
\nAbout the\xa0book
\nWith writers of the digital age in mind, this book looks back on the enduring power of short writing from the beginning of written texts. Looking at both the craft and purposes of short writing\u200a\u2014\u200athe how and the why\u200a\u2014\u200aI offer hundreds of examples of the best short writing, from sonnets, proverbs, aphorisms, marginalia, and song lyrics to blog posts, text messages, and tweets.
\nSource: https://roypeterclark.com/books2/#row2
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\nBig idea #1\u200a\u2014\u200aWrite\xa0short
\nIf you want to write long, begin with writing short.\n
There\u2019s a whole section at the start of the book about how writing short is not necessarily a means to an end in itself. It can actually be a means to other types of writing. It includes a quote from The Notebook author, Umberto Eco that says \u201cit\u2019s everyday writing that inspires the most committed works, not the other way round\u201d.
\nSo even if you have ambitions to write a tome, or really long particular type of text, that doesn\u2019t mean that the lessons from this particular type of short writing are irrelevant to you. In fact, a lot of the time it\u2019s that type of writing that will lead to longer, more committed work.
\nIn the book, Roy talks a lot about keeping a daybook dedicated to short writing and collecting examples of great short writing. Finding clever writing on the back of your shampoo or cereal.
\nHe encourages us to practice writing interesting sentences, to play with haiku, play with Tweets, and find little phrases that punctuate a short sentence.\xa0
\nThe book is full of these types of practical activities and prompts that you can pick and choose from next time you\u2019re writing an article, social media post, email, or a speech. The lessons in this book that are applicable to all sorts of writing, and not just writing that is going to stay as writing, but writing that is going to become speech or another type of communication.
\nMost of these activities are things that you wouldn\u2019t necessarily think of doing by yourself, but are the things that are going to stretch your brain to think a little bit cleverly, and more laterally about your writing and the message you\u2019re trying to get across.
\nBig idea #2\u200a\u2014\u200aSubtract, subtract, subtract.
\nRoy talks about applying a rule of 75%, or trying to deliver your work in three quarters of the expected length.\xa0
\nHe asks you to think about how you feel when someone speaks for just 10 minutes, rather than 20 minutes. You are probably incredibly grateful, particularly if you\u2019re sat in an uncomfortable conference room in an uncomfortable chair. So he invites you to give that gift to your audience too.\xa0
\nYou can surprise, and delight, with brevity.
\nThe book itself is a beautiful example of writing short. The chapters are short and it feels like the words in there are all so intentional.\xa0
\nBy surprising and delighting with brevity, you can make every word feel like it\u2019s meant to be there. There\u2019s no flabbiness to it.
\nRoy talks about the difference between two types of writers;
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- The putter-inners; put everything in and revise and take things out. They\u2019ll start with 500 words and they\u2019re edited back to 300. \n
- The taker-outers; take it all out as they\u2019re writing and then add back when they think that things need a little bit extra. They might write 200 words, but take it up to 300 words. \n
There should be an editing process, and in the editing process shouldn\u2019t happen simultaneous to the writing process.
\nSubtraction is not a case of relentless slash and burn, but we do need to consider what doesn\u2019t serve the purpose of the statement, and what needs more space to stand out a little bit more.
\nProfessor William Strunk, Jr. is evangelical about \u2018omitting needless words\u2019. But we need to be conscious of \u2018at what cost\u2019. There comes a point where we take so much out, that we\u2019ve lost a little bit of meaning or impact. Or as E B White said, \u2018will leave you with nothing more to say, but time to fill\u2019.
\nThere is a fine balance, and there\u2019s no exact rule, but what it should do is encourage you to pause, stop, and think about where does that line of \u2018too much / not enough\u2019 sits with your copy that you are writing.
\nBig idea #3\u200a\u2014\u200aThink like a poet and an advertiser
\nPoetry comes up regularly in the book, and offers a structure for playing with short writing. The patterns of three, the rhyming couplets and specific forms like the limerick or the haiku force an efficient use of words.
\nSimilar to poetry, advertisers have mastered the art of the punchiness. Advertisers have been forced into this by minimal space, which comes at a premium and needing to appeal to the simpler parts of our brains, they reduce things into the three word slogan or the tagline.
\nI\u2019m lovin\u2019 it
\nThe real thing
\nBreakfast of champions
\nYou can use this by thinking about your own structure, looking at where you can add a compelling, short, first sentence and then follow it up with a similarly short and second sentence as an invitation to keep on reading.
\nThis is another element of the book that I really enjoyed, looking at all these different types of writing. Roy shares examples from the greater orators in history, the ones who have written speeches which have gone down in history the ones where key statements, made up of carefully chosen words, are repeated for generations. Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill. But then at the other end of the spectrum, you\u2019ve got junky types of advertising slogans. Both memorable, and both using the same concepts, patterns and lessons.
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