Misconceptions about a Good Piece of Writing

While reading some critical articles and crtiques in which expert writers hurl accusations at one another, I came across this engaging comment that Ernest Hemingway made to William Faulkner in which the former says, " Poor Faulkner: Do you really think big emotions come from big words? You think I don't know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But, there are older and simpler and better words and those are the ones I use". This very tirade has appealed to me during all these days and has ultimately inspired me to write on such a topic.

During their attempts at writing, some novice writers might have wondered what really makes a piece of writing good and interesting. I a novice writer myself have deliberated a lot about it and before long I discovered that it is not what most writers think and expect. Some unfortunately go on to say that it is that piece in which you try to stuff and accumulate the fanciest phrases and expressions so that every time they come with an article, an ignorant reader would very much appreciate it. This latter's appreciation might be accounted for the belief that whatever is difficult is always good writing.

On the contrary, a text full of simple words of course leads to an effective transmission of its writer's ideas. I am not saying so so that writers should desist from using very inflated language. One can write with very difficult language and at the same time his or her language sounds very good. In this respect, greater effort in the language used is required on the part of the reader. That is, a reader should fully master any langauge so as to appreciate any work written in it.

As far as my writing experience is concerned, I always try hard to opt for simple structures and everyday vocabulary items, whereas on other occasions I feel compelled to use very complex structures with pompous words only in one case. It is when I believe that I have become rather linguistically secure and confident without worrying to fall into my pet aversion, the use of words in an inappropriate manner.

Other novice writers I know have to have recourse to a dictionary before attempting any piece. As soon as they come up with a piece full of very good English, they think it is theirs when in fact it is not purely theirs. Here, they are not completely putting their written competence into practice as it should be. They rather embelish their already average English. Using any reference while sitting down to write is always approved of. But, for me, a real and competent writer is the one who admits that writing is so a difficult a job and should therefore be patient to write something of his own soon after doing some readings in the target language.

George Orwell whose works I have been reading since I earned my Baccalaureate is my epitome here. He all the time admits that writing without frills is what he had strived for during his literary days, and when he had produced some books like Animal Farm and 1984, he said that they were lifeless books and deemed them all as failures.

In his essay, "Why I Write", he explains the rationale behind this claim about these two novels and other works. He without being aware of it said that he was tricked into writing meaningless sentences and adding decorative adjectives to nouns when they are not needed at all. This latter blunder is what some novice poets too commit. I have read some of their poems and found that they are replete with incoherent sentences, phrases and some abstract nouns which they themeselves can not define if they are asked to, let alone tell you the deep meaning of the poem composed.

Logically speaking, reading voraciously in Dickens, Orwell, Flaubert, Hemingway, etc. is what will unconsciously and sooner or later make our piece of writing a good one.