On Writing

I've had time to reflect. 

People who have read my blog tell me that I'm a good writer. I disagree but I'm glad at some people don't feel the need to claw their eyes out. As I look at some of the older posts in this blog, a lot of them are quite terrible. I don't mean to brag but I'm never satisfied with what I write, to be honest. Still, I'm trying to improve despite the lack of activity in this blog. 

What makes a good writer? There's no easy answer. I'm sure people long ago were well-read and had high standards. Nowadays, it's considered an impressive feat if you can manage to crank out simple, coherent sentences, if Twitter is any indication. I don't pretend to be some genius but in my humble opinion, to be a good writer is to simply avoid being a bad one. Correct spelling and grammar go a long way, especially in this country where English is not the first language. Subject-verb agreement, proper tense, etc. The basics, really. Getting the fundamentals right (most of the time) is important. 

The only problem is writing something interesting.

Brevity is wit. I believe that the most important rule of good writing is to keep things short, brief, and concise. As I look at the stuff I've written in this blog, I find that a lot of the bad crap is due to me feeling the need to "add stuff in". There's this weird mentality in a lot of people, and I say that because I see this pattern often, of feeling the Freudian need to make paragraphs "bigger". 

People feel the need to pad out their paragraphs so they add useless sentences. I'm guilty of this and it takes conscious effort to avoid this bad habit. I think it has to do with aesthetics, thin paragraphs look so naked, like the point being made is not adequately clothed with supporting arguments. There's also the need to "get the money's worth", for a lack of better way to put it. It's like a doctor feeling the need to prescribe medicine for a minor passing ailment, if only to make the patient feel like the trip was worth it (they do it too in their own way).

When I was in college, my professors told the class that the ideal written piece is like a pair of briefs: it should cover only the important bits and leave room for the imagination. Of course, when I proceeded to do just that, I was told that I needed to "expound" more. No help there.

I believe this rule applies to all writing, whether creative or professional. God knows that a lot of professionally written papers need to be trimmed. Legal documents and pleadings are just full of vestigial words and phrases, and redundant redundancies heaped upon redundancies. There's so much redundancy in legalese: "null and void", "cease and desist", "alter or change", "depose and say", "due and payable", "lewd and lascivious", "liens and encumbrances", etc. These doublets are charmingly archaic but damn if they aren't tiresome. It is a practice among lawyers and law firms to charge their clients for the pleadings filed on a per page basis. Could such an inane policy be the source of my torment? 

Here's an example from a tortuous compromise agreement cooked up by some lawyers in one case:

"19. THE INVALIDITY OR INEFFICACY OF SOME TERMS AND CONDITIONS SHALL NOT AFFECT THE OTHERS - The parties hereto commit and undertake to fulfill and comply with the terms and conditions herein contained in all good faith and with the intention of carrying out the main objective of the instant Compromise Agreement of putting an end to the instant litigation. If, for whatever reason, any term or condition herein cannot be implemented or otherwise enforced whether voluntarily or through the compulsory processes of the Honorable Court, the parties hereby agree to treat and regard as valid and effective such other terms and conditions as my not be affected by such invalidity or in efficacy of such other terms and conditions."

What a headache. The first sentence has nothing to do with the title and doesn't even need to be said. If the compromise agreement were made by sensible people, it should read something like this:

"19. SEPARABILITY CLAUSE - If any provision of this Compromise Agreement shall be invalid, illegal, or unenforceable, the validity, legality, and enforceability of the remaining provisions shall not in any way be affected or impaired thereby."

Hmm, but it looks too thin, doesn't it?