Simplicity is hard
Of all the tips and recommendations for writing the most effective communications in English, the idea of simplicity wears the crown. Keep it simple stupid. KISS.
Yet this is also one of the hardest tasks for writers. Yes, we might revel in the indulgence of wordy Falstaffian prose, but simply written novels, reports, websites, emails and promotions carry the greatest weight and have the biggest impact.
As an exercise, you are advised to try writing a piece of text without any adverbs at all and as few adjectives as possible. Let your vivid nouns and active verbs do the work.
It was Victor Hugo, author of Les Miserables, who wrote in 1856:
“The word is the Verb, and the Verb is God.”
The simple truth was brought home to me in a novel I have recently finished called The Truth Must Dazzle Gradually by the Irish writer Helen Cullen. This is the romantic, fateful, grievous, and inspiring story of the Moone family – Irish potter father Murtagh and American actress mother Maeve – who go to live on an island off the west coast of Ireland, close to Galway and have four children.
The author tells their moving story simply, steadfastly and soulfully. There is joy and sadness, triumph and disaster, marked by simple storytelling which the master novelist Sebastian Barry described as follows … “Generates a very bright light, one that is human graceful and healing.”
Promoting the simple life
Simplicity also belongs in promotion, and I have resolved to undertake simple measures in promoting my Guru’s Guides on Winning Copy Writing and Winning Novel Writing. This will involve more networking, with some real life meetings planned for April.
The first has happened already at First Friday Petersfield, where I was pictured with my two booklets by Tina Knowles, an old photographer friend. She reported that she rode out the lockdown by carrying on working and taking photographs for greatly reduced fees. Gradually, she says, the commercial photographic work has returned and at sensible rates.
As Helen Cullen’s book proclaims: The truth must dazzle gradually.