Wirting with style essay

Often ignored is the style used in writing. Becoming a “stylish” writer might seem to be a daunting task. It requires able punctuation, good grammar, a good subject, and most importantly an attractive style. Kurt Vonnegut’s How to Write with Style takes this daunting task and simplifies it for us. The most important of these, in my opinion, is the need for simplicity and short sentences to be effective in written communication. This essay will discuss Vonnegut’s paper and his recommendations. It will also use references from literature to support the thesis that simplicity in writing is a good strategy to have.

Early on in the piece, Vonnegut shows how we can know a lot about an author from his work. “These revelations tell us as readers what sort of person it is with whom we are spending time”. We can consider someone’s writing a portal to his brain and if he is an able author, to his soul. Thus, the writing which willingly reveals his inner self is to be well presented “as a mark of respect for your readers”. In addition, it is not only enough to stop at good grammar and punctuation but you have to use an interesting topic with interesting arguments. It is for this reason that Vonnegut insists on finding a subject you care about. Your writing style depends on it. However, it is important to be careful with the topic you choose since not every subject you care about will interest readers. Writing about your childhood hamster will need a lot of effort to make it interesting.

Vonnegut also makes the point of “sounding like yourself”. If your writing is too different, it might lose style and sound dull. When you stay true to your personality, your honesty adds texture to your piece and will please the reader. The phrase “be yourself” applies to your writing as well. In addition, Vonnegut recommends us to cut out extra information. If it doesn’t relate to your story, cut it out. “If a sentence, no matter how excellent, does not illuminate your subject in some new and useful way, scratch it out.” Also, the author must be direct in what he wants to say. Reading and understanding a text is not easy. It requires both the reader and author to be, excuse the pun, “on the same page”. He also says to “pity the readers”. Similarly, it encourages considering the difficult task readers have. Write simply and clearly, however, make it captivating. While the difficulty of our writing has limits, we have an infinite number of things to write about.

In his paper, Vonnegut makes it clear that writing with style is not as hard as expected. He provides useful advice, but the most important one is to “keep it simple”. This advice can be easily underrated but when such great authors as Shakespeare and George Orwell have used this it is hard to ignore. As Vonnegut notes, Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” is so basic that it is elegant. It is easily read and understood by the reader but is so deep in its meaning. “Simplicity of language is not only reputable, but perhaps even sacred”. While Vonnegut stops here in his comment, there are other things the writer must bear in mind when “keeping it simple”.

George Orwell, in his Politics and the English Language, shows how lack of simplicity can not only make it hard for readers to physically read your text, it can make it impossible to understand. Even professors and reputable authors are subject to such mistakes. Orwell gives the following example from Professor Lancelot Hogben: “Above all, we cannot play ducks and drakes with a native battery of idioms which prescribes egregious collocations of vocables as the Basic put up with for tolerate, or put at a loss for bewilder.” The difficulty of understanding this passage is the perfect advertisement for simple writing. Not only is it a pain to read but it is impossible to understand.

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