Nothing in Excess: The Science of Good Writing

This is gonna start off as a science lesson move into a language arts lesson, and finish with a magic trick. Just be kwiet and listen, lol...

It's funny... I was doing this exercise the other day and I noticed that I left a deep imprint on the carpet with my hands; I had placed the fullness of my weight on my hands, that's what caused it. But then I asked myself, "If my weight is what caused it, why don't my footprints go that deep?"

The answer is simple: surface area.

It's really not hard to understand at all: if you hit a balloon with a smooth rock, it bounces; you hit a balloon with a needle point, it pops. Needle tips have a much smaller surface area. Did you ever stop to wonder why bullets come with pointy tips? Think about if they had flat tips instead: they'd make brunt impacts, probably shatter some bone, and get stuck in the victim, doing more extensive, but less vital damage. But angled tips have a smaller surface area, so they pierce in entry and do twice the damage by piercing out the other side. Less extensive damage, but more lethal.

(That was a rather surprisingly graphic example, huh? I think about fighting all day, whaddaya expect...)

Even in sociology (which is also totally unrelated to this topic) we discussed a thing called "bureaucratic bloat". It's when an institution has many, many positions, and most of those positions are unnecessary and could actually be consolidated, but instead slow down the process of things by having so many hands that orders must pass through.

In the West, we have this tendency to think bigger is better: the more we do, the more we say, the more we put into something, the better it seems. And in a few instances this is correct; in most, it's not. In sports, it's good to have muscle; have too much physique in a sport like track, and your body size will impede your speed. Sugar tastes great on almost anything; add too much sugar to your apple pie, and you devalue the apples and the crust.

I have a point in saying all this...

As I was sitting here at my workdesk, it dawned on me that good writing works in much the same way as reducing surface area--- a stick of dynamite being more effective than a keg of gunpowder, get it? For example: for a while (and still, every now and then) I contended with some of the greatest writers I've ever known in battle rapping. The best of the crew gave me some advice once. To paraphrase, he said, "Get to your punch as quickly as possible; the longer you drag it out, the less strongly it impacts."

I realized instantly that his statement was a parallel to what I was taught by my Enlglish teacher in 11th grade: "A good writer never writes anything without a reason". It was also along the same lines of one man's summation of poetry that I've subscribed to: "Good poetry is saying as much as you can in as few words as possible." Just as a smaller surface area is preferred in the making of bullets, blades, and other such things meant to penetrate, to be a penetrative writer one must learn to write "lean" material and reduce the excess.

I've seen quite a few examples of excess in pretty much every level of writing. I frequently use excess in these blog entries, but that's because I'm only conveying my raw thoughts as they come and, in doing so, adding a more "human" element. In college, I see a different type of excess in many of the "scholarly" journals I'm forced to read. When "astute" men go out of their way to use massive vocabulary to convey simple concepts, that's excess. They're not trying to inform the readers as much as they are trying to erect monuments to their egos.

It reminds me of something I see young MCs do. In battle rapping, there's an element called complexity. Most kids take complexity to mean, "put as many multiple-syllabled words into the verse as possible". What they don't realize is that complexity is in the idea, not the word choice. If your idea is worth anything, you don't need big words to make it sound like more than what it is. This goes for rap as well as journal articles.

But this actually leads me to another point. There's another excess that comes when writers use faulty word choice. When your diction is good, your sentences grow shorter, because you learn to say more with less. When your diction is bad, you spend more words trying to say what could easily have been said... aw screw it, I'm low on patience today. Let's go with examples:

The majestic phoenix beneath the morning glory held the audience captive.
-short, succinct, to the point, full of imagery

The large-winged, gracefully gliding mythical bird in the radiant sun left the audience mesmorized with awe and captivation.
-same imagery, but a chore to read. Great piece, if the reader doesn't lose interest

Good diction, bad diction. Same concept, different effect.

If you can learn to reduce the surface area of your writing, the result will be a greater impact in what you write. You will know that your readers are drawn to your ideas and not to a false image of "astuteness" that wordiness creates. And as you get to your points quicker, your readers will take more away from what you write, as they won't be rushing to just get through with a tedious read.

Before I go, are you ready for that magic trick? Re-read this entry, starting right after the "I have a point in saying all this" part. When you're done, tell me if you get the same message, but in much fewer words...



Voila: EXCESS! B-J