{"id":4766,"date":"2017-04-21T09:05:54","date_gmt":"2017-04-21T13:05:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/?p=4766"},"modified":"2017-04-12T10:37:33","modified_gmt":"2017-04-12T14:37:33","slug":"yin-and-yang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/yin-and-yang\/","title":{"rendered":"Yin And Yang"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Good prose is often described as “efficient.” Eliminating extra words helps the reader by letting the author get out of the way.<\/p>\n

Conversely, “designed by engineers” is, at best, a backhanded compliment.<\/p>\n

Your text has many jobs to do, but it can all be summed up in terms of form and function. Functionally, text must convey a semantic payload. That is, meaning with a little m. On the flipside, the form of the message is your style. It’s the flavor that makes your work uniquely yours. Both are important: have something worth saying, and then say it well.<\/p>\n

Where to draw the line between spare and terse is subjective. It’s also genre-dependent, and at the mercy of fashion There is no one right answer. Writing clean isn’t about brinksmanship, skimming the event horizon of a flat voice. It’s about\u00a0not burying the message under ten feet of fluff. (Or substituting prolix phraseology for actual content.)<\/p>\n

Blurry lines become a bigger concern when you write with a partner. What if one of you suggests taking out “some extra words,” referring to a passage that’s essential to the other’s identity as a human being? Not that it’s been that extreme, but this issue is relevant in the writing cave lately. Jen is nearly three-quarters of the way through an editing pass on Book Three of the Divided Man series, and it’s a manuscript that hasn’t been workshopped as much as the other two. Translation: there’s a lot of cutting to do. Kent is, for the most part, on board with those cuts. Really, 99+% of them are things he agrees with, even when the overabundant descriptors being excised are things he lovingly placed there to begin with. When it comes to that sub-one-percent, though, he takes a stand.<\/p>\n

Your writing partner can help you rein in your verbosity, or provide the missing\u00a0sizzle for the steak. You can do the same for her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good prose is often described as “efficient.” Eliminating extra words helps the reader by letting the author get out of the way. Conversely, “designed by engineers” is, at best, a backhanded compliment. Your text has many jobs to do, but it can all be summed up in terms of form and function. Functionally, text must […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[325],"tags":[327],"class_list":["post-4766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-voice-2","tag-divided-man-series"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4766"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4771,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4766\/revisions\/4771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}