In my bible On Writing Well, which I’ve either read or skimmed about 20 or more times (I have passages highlighted, bookmarked and dog-eared) is a chapter titled “Words.”My favorite part of the book. It gives an example of a timeless phrase–Thomas Paine’s “These are the times that try men’s souls”–that could’ve been written a number of different ways and not been as…well, timeless:
Times like these try men’s souls.
How trying it is to live in these times!
These are trying times for men’s souls.
Soulwise, these are trying times.
I love that last one lol. Author William Zinsser goes on to write:
“Paine’s phrase is like poetry and the other four are like oatmeal–which is the divine mystery of the creative process. Good writers of prose must be part poetry, always listening to what they write. E.B. White is one of my favorite stylists because I’m conscious of being with a man who cares about the cadences and sonorities of the language. I relish (in my ear) the pattern his words make as they fall into a sentence. I try to surmise how in rewriting the sentence he reassembled it to end with a phrase that will momentarily linger, or how he chose one word over another because he was after a certain emotional weight.”
Reading this the first time made me happy, as I figured I’d already had the poetry part down. Many parts of this manual are revelatory for any writer. The book is so crucial to me. I realize not every writer goes that deep into the science of words…but not every writer wants to write books…
