What Is A Good Writing ?
Yet, what is Christian does not automatically become good or pleasant reading. Goodness is a quality that has to be created in addition to the substance of the writing. A good material does not automatically guarantee pleasant reading, nor does pleasing writing guarantee material of any substance. They are different from each other, but in a truly good writing they should go hand in hand. Yet, to a casual reader or writer this distinction might not be as clear as it ought to be!!
To make the subject more clear, we will study the following subjects in this lesson:
1-What is a good writing
2-The language of a good writing
What Is A Good Writing !
Everyone who is interested in reading instinctively recognizes good writing. Book lovers unconsciously choose what most others also chose, and the thread that unites them is the goodness or quality of the writing.
While it is easy to recognize a good writing, it is not all that easy to define what makes a writing good. Language is a natural phenomenon, not bound by mathematical boundaries, and therefore there are many things about language that cannot be brought in the confines of a rigid or restricted definition. However, it is possible to list some qualities of good writings, and that I will do now:
I-IT CAPTURES THEIR ATTENTION: Almost all good writings capture the attention of those readers for whom they are intended. Good stories attract both children as well as adults.
Witness the popularity of the Phantom (Indrajal Comics) or Tintin, Asterix, Mandrake. Observe the popularity of Bahadur, Boban-Molly (Malayalam language), or comics produced by the Amar Chitra Katha. In book-loving families they create a stir with everyone from the grandpa to the grand child to see who gets to read it first.
In the same way, good textbooks attract everyone, while good books on philosophy, photography, cooking, hobby development, or any conceivable or inconceivable subject attract people for whom it has been written, and elicits great enthusiasm from the intended audience. This is the reason why Reader's Digest continues to be the most widely sold magazine in the world. A Digest is something that searches out and publishes good material from all over.
2-IT FASCINATES THEM: In a careless moment people might yield to thinking that only comics excite people, but they are wrong. Look seriously around and you will find that good books on ALL subjects excite and fascinate people.
While the son might be absorbed in his comic (that the dad is waiting to read next), his dad is equally excited about the 2000-page volume on theology or philosophy which has come recently from the pen of a master writer. Look around on the train when you travel next. It gives you an opportunity for studying the reading preferences and habits of a large number of persons simultaneously and in the same setting. You will notice the that philosopher is as much excited about the journal in his had as the housewife is about her film-magazine and the sports buff about his sports magazine.
Good writing not only captures people's attention, but it also fascinates them so that they are not willing to trade it with anything else. They lay down the book or magazine only when tiredness, hunger or nature's call interrupts them. Further, you will notice that they automatically resume reading as soon as they attend to the call that distracted them in the first place. Good writing must not only capture people's attention, but it must also fascinate them into continue reading till the reach the last line. It is difficult to create, but not impossible as attested by the mountain of good writings available today.
3-IT TOUCHES THEIR PAINS AND NEEDS: People read for different reasons. This includes education, information, and entertainment, but is not limited to these.
A lot of them expect additional help in their needs and problems. This is the reason why magazines on health and fitness, psychology, astrology, self-improvement, and do-it-yourself topics are bought in large quantities. People are hurting everywhere, and a good writer discovers these things and addresses their pains, problems, aspirations, and desires in his writings.
Even the richest man and the funniest comedian have some pain and problem hidden in their hearts. Neither money nor the sense of humour relieve them of their problems or aches. However, good writings can definitely help them.
A young person might have many aspirations and desires but might not have the faintest idea about how to go about fulfilling these. Others might have similar desires but might need guidance. Good writing captures their attention and offers them the appropriate solution.
Good writing tells them how to overcome their pain, how to fight with their problems, and how to reach where they want to go. It offers consolation to the mother who has lost her only son, to the wife who has been widowed and left with half a dozen children who do not yet know the difference between their left and right hands. At the same time it guides the depressed father back into a normal life, guides the young girl into the values of preserving her chastity, and motivates the young man to work harder to attain his noble and ambitious goals.
If your writings are good, people would be able to look back to them and say that these touched their pains and problems at the crucial point, and helped them with their aspirations and noblest desires of life.
4-IT MOTIVATES THEM INTO ACTION: Good writings motivates people into attitudes and deeds that are appropriate, expected of them, and that are good for the society. It does so by changing their habits, viewpoints, and even aspirations.
If the society is to be a good place to live in, people have to respect law and order. They have to be courteous and ready to defend the values upon which their society is built upon. They should treat heroes as great and criminals as the scum of the society. Crime, violence, and lust should be seen in correct perspective, and they should never be glorified or even condoned. Good wirings do all these by motivating people in the appropriate direction.
The actions that make a society good do not come automatically. Many people with proper conviction have to build it up. In the same way, what makes society rotten or degraded does not happen automatically. People have to do things to make it like that. People do these things, good or bad, only when they are motivated to do so. Good writings mould the habits, viewpoints, and aspirations of people in the right direction. It builds up the society by building up and motivating people.
One should not forget that man's sin nature makes it easy for evil to spread in comparison with good. Evil people find it easy to unite against the good people so as to threaten their righteous ways. However, the good people find it almost difficult to unite together to oppose evil. This means that the writer should pay all the more attention to motivate people to get involved in things that are beneficial for the society.
5-IT CREATES COMMITMENT: Nothing can be achieved in life without some sort of commitment. This is an important principle when one tries to make the society a better place. No good comes out of people or society without commitment.
The better things of life require both short term as well as long term commitment. For example, a man working in an office which has no pension scheme has to plan ahead and make something like a forty year commitment for savings if he has to provide for his family at retirement. Very few people are that foresighted.
At the same time, a person will be able to make that kind of a long term commitment only if he makes several short term commitments like forgoing some of the pleasures that are enjoyed by his short-sighted colleagues and friends. He will have to forgo some of the luxuries in which people indulge. He might even have to work a little extra before his marriage. Only this will ensure that he has something to fall back upon after he has a family, or if he faces a financial emergency, for which the long term commitment ought not be disturbed.
Life promises to offer a lot of things. All of them look fascinating. However only those things are worth working for that have a lasting value. For most people these better things do not come easy, cheap, or by a stroke of luck. One has to work for them. Good writings explain these things to the reader, and in therm they create in the readers an intelligent commitment -- towards long term as well as short term goals.
There are many who can look back into their past and testify that good writings helped them to become what they are now. Good doctors, lawyers, engineers, athletes, and professionals can testify to it. But what is more, good pastors, counsellors, writers, teachers, parents, housewives, and even good sons and daughters, who make this earth a better place to live in, can also often point to books and articles that helped them to become what they are now.
6-IT CONDEMNS EVIL, PRAISES RIGHTEOUSNESS: What is condemned by good writers imprints itself in the minds of people. At the same time, what good writers praise in their writings motivate people to aspire for it. Therefore good writings condemn evil, create an abhorrence against sin, praise righteousness, and create a desire towards righteousness.
Writings, specially that of popular writers or authority figures, have a great appeal for people. Readers consider their statements as authoritative truths. This means that the quality of the writing ultimately affects the quality of the way people think and act. Good writings, therefore, project the good things of life.
A good writer would like to keep people away from sins and sinning. His writings would therefore reflect this desire. Good writings do not stop with condemning evil -- which it should do -- but go further by creating in the hearts of people an abhorrence against sin. Only this is the long term solution to guide people towards righteous behaviour.
Good writers know that what they praise, people will accept as appropriate. Thus all good writings praise righteousness. But if people have to love righteousness of their own, a desire for it has to be created. Consequently, good writings skilfully create a appetite in their hearts for a life that is marked with straight forwardness and holiness.
Both sin as well as righteousness can become habits. It depends upon one's tastes and preferences. The degenerate ones would like the world to love sin, but the good writer counters the tendency through what he says. Good writings therefore not only condemn sin and exalt righteousness, but also develop attitudes that will sustain this viewpoint.
Therefore good writings never even indirectly exalt sin, nor question things inherently or spiritually good. Their writers know that previous souls might be destroyed if they stoop down to doing this either actively or even through negligence. Their writings therefore reflect what they want people to do. They generate a revulsion against sin and a passion for righteousness.
In summary, all good writing praises good things and motivates people to prefer that which is good. This analysis applies not only to writings by Christians, but also to writings produced by non Christians.
Good writing is that writing which captures people's attention, fascinates them, touches upon their pains as well as their aspirations. It motivates them into certain actions by changing their attitudes, viewpoints, and goals. It creates short term as well as long term commitment to the better things of life. What is more, it condemns sin, creates an abhorrence gains unrighteousness, praises righteousness, and creates a desire towards a life that is marked by honesty, and transparency.
The Language Of A Good Writing !!
The discussion upon language brings me first to a misunderstanding that many people have and that must be cleared before anything meaningful can be said. Most beginning writers and the weak of intellect seem to think that only an artificial, pompous, laboured, and jargon-loaded language shows their capability. This is a fallacy. Even the stupidest writer having access to a good Thesaurus can produces volumes in that kind of a language, but it takes a genius to produce material in language that is simple, inviting, fascinating, yet crisp and accurate.
Simplicity of language is not the product of a deficient mind. On the contrary, one's power to express in a simple and lucid language increases in proportion to the mastery that one has on the subject under discussion and also the language used for it. On the other hand, the complexity, ambiguity, and showiness of one's language is directly proportional to one's superficial grasp of the subject being discussed, and also the crudeness with which one still handles the tool of expression that language is.
Look around and you will find both articles as well as decent sized books that expound subjects as simple as hobby development and as complex as Quantum Chromo-Dynamics in equally popular manner. You will find exciting books on mathematically and logically oriented subject like philosophy, classical music, and computer programming.
What distinguishes the writers of these exciting and pleasurable reading is their mastery of the subject discussed as well as the ease with which they are able to express themselves upon the subject. Even the most unschooled person among the target audience can say "Hey, even a person like ME can understand what this author is saying!". That is a great writing !!
The language of an accomplished scholar, authority, and writer is not marked with difficult or obscure words, but with language that is simple, lucid, fascinating, yet crisp and accurate. It becomes technical only if the intended audience needs it, and even there it does not get difficult for the sake of technicality. Let me tell you a few things about such language:
I-IT IS SIMPLE BUT NOT CHILDISH: When an expert writes or speaks, he is able to put the subject in such terms that even the non expert is able to appreciate the presentation. If such an expert happens to be a good writer also, his writing becomes very special. He is able to write in language that is simple yet not childish.
The language of a properly conceived and executed writing is so simple for the target audience that is sheet excitement to read it. At the same time it does not bore the reader by giving the appearance of childishness.
The simplicity that we are talking about in this lesson is not the product of a mind feeble and incapable of handling mature language, but the work of a trained person who is able to excite with his communication people who do not have his level of grasp of the subject discussed. Such simplicity does not come by keeping one's linguistic capabilities at the level that one had achieved in kindergarten. Nor does it come by imitating childish speech or writing. Rather, it comes by careful planing and deliberate working and reworking of the manuscript.
The language of a good writing and its great writer is simple enough to excite, yet not childish to be boring. It is the result of mental growth, not of mental handicap. It does not proceed from the pen of an unschooled person, but from the mind of a thoroughly disciplined wordsmith.
2-IT IS DYNAMIC AND CAPTIVATING: Simplicity is not the name of an endless stream of babyish words, phrases, or sentences. Rather, it is presentation in words and in style that are no more complex than what the target audience can appreciate. At the same time this language is not monotonous in any way. Just as variety is the secret of serving food, selection of language and style is the secret of presenting the material in simple language.
The language of a good writing is simple, yet is shows great variety. Instead of being monotonous and boring, it tends to be dynamic and captivating. It might be a little difficult for you to visualize what I mean by language that is simple yet which is dynamic and captivating. The best thing to do is to read first hand the writing of writers who show this quality.
C. S. Lewis is a good example of dynamic and captivating English. His writings are contemporary and recent enough to be still available without much difficulty. In fact MacMillan still publishes and distributes his Narnia Chronicles, a collection of novels for children (relished even by adults). His Problem Of Pain and Screwtape Letters are also still easily available. Study the way in which he has used language. It is simple, yet dynamic and captivating.
If you can get hold of Rudyard Kipling's poem titled `IF' you will have the same experience. If it is too difficult for you to get any of these, then study a few issues of Reader's Digest. Go to the Drama In Real Life section. Notice the simple vocabulary they use. Yet the words unfold such drama, such excitement, and such a sense of urgency that a sensitive reader feels he is present at the scene itself. The effect is not produced by using words larger than life but by a carefully written story that is simple enough to excite my ten year old son, yet is so dynamic and captivating that I compete with my son to get my hands upon the magazine.
No writer can ever write like another, and nor is it necessary. However, everyone can develop a language and style that is both captivating as well as dynamic -- like the language used by successful writers. Reading and observing the language of others, writing, and rewriting is the answer.
3-IT IS ACCURATE BUT NOT TOO TECHNICAL: Many writers feel that if they simplify the presentation, accuracy will have to be sacrificed. This need not be so. Capable writers have found it possible to explain even the most technical and involved subjects in vocabulary and language that seems quite simple for the task.
I wonder if you have ever seen the popular science books published in the former USSR and sold world over for propaganda. These books powerfully illustrate my point. You will find in this collection, books on physics, philosophy, as well as genetics which have been explained in such a manner that a tenth standard student would exclaim with surprise that he is able to enjoy the subject.
In fact, there is no subject which they ever left untouched in their popular science serieses. What is interesting is that they found a way of writing on even a technical subject like English Grammar in such a way that everyone in our University faculty was excited about this book. Yet the book was so simple that my son who studied in the third standard at that time used to sit with it for hours together.
Writing in a simple manner does not mean that the writer has to compromise with accuracy. Using technical language is not the only way to express the subject unambiguously. Some of the most widely read science, technology, philosophy, and humanities journals are distinguished by the simple language in which they express themselves accurately.
Different level of readers require different levels of accuracy and precision in the material they read. The housewife needs only to be told to use a "pinch" of salt, while the chemist needs to know it sometimes in micrograms. The writing should therefore be no more technical than the need of the intended audience.
Good writing is accurate, but not too technical for the target audience. The reader should be able to exclaim that he/she is able to get a good grasp of the subject and yet the technical person should not be able to say that it communicates error. Plenty of such writings are available around, and studying them will shape the WriterCraft of anyone who is interested to make an impact in his field.
4-IT USES THE MOST ACCESSIBLE VOCABULARY AND EXPRESSION: When both simplicity as well as accuracy are stressed, most beginning writers become exasperated. They feel that the demands are in direct conflict with each other. While it might be true on a rare occasion, it is definitely true for the everyday writings of most writers.
It is possible for a skilled writer to communicate accurately using a vocabulary that does not force the reader to run to the dictionary on every other sentence. This is not to imply that good writings be restricted strictly to the vocabulary used in TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR or HUMPTY DUMPTY SAT ON A WALL. But it does require that it be restricted to a vocabulary that is expected of the audience for which the writings are intended.
Many successful writers are known to restrict themselves to using only the most common words. Lists of such words are available in many books as well as from many language institutes. Some dictionaries also follow this practice -- they give all their explanations using the most frequently used words. Of course this might again raise the question of accuracy in your mind. Accuracy along with simplicity is achieved by using proper synonyms.
Many people have this illusion that synonyms are meant only for scholars of English Literature and that these will only make the writings more difficult to understand. This is a mistaken view. Looking into any decent Thesaurus (a dictionary of synonyms) will show that almost every world has several very simple, pictorial, and yet sufficiently satisfactory and accurate synonyms. Using a good Thesaurus will ensure that the writer has plenty of words at his disposal that help him to express himself accurately yet in a language that is accessible to the reader. What's more, it will help him to avoid unnecessary repetition of the same word over and over again.
Good writers consider the vocabulary capacity of their intended audiences. Then they restrict themselves to a vocabulary that is most accessible to them, yet which does not compromise with accuracy.
5-IT AVOIDS SLANG, CHEAP AND PROFANE EXPRESSION: What is slang is easily understood by the generation that coined it. However, an accessible vocabulary does not imply that one should go down to this level.
Expressions that are slang to the level of vulgar, expressions that are cheap and profane manifest the way in which depraved minds think. This kind of a thinking is not appropriate for any mature and God-fearing person, let alone for a writer or reader who enjoys a personal relationship with God.
Expressions that are slang, cheap, and profane do harm in several ways. First they devaluate the esteem in which the readers hold the writer. Second, they cheapen and reduce the sanctity of the subject discussed. And finally, they reduced abhorrence to sin and vulgarity.
Researches have repeatedly revealed that when people are exposed to the profane for some time, their shock and revulsion to these expressions and subjects decrease. They become less sensitive to the evil tone and even feel free to use it themselves. This is the reason why you notice people belonging to certain groups using slang and vulgar expressions freely and frequently without any shame or guilt. They have been made insensitive to sin and evil by repeated exposure. A good writer understands this and keeps his writings free of such a vocabulary.
This might raise the question of how to portray sin and abomination in one's writings, specially when one is trying to produce fiction that depicts the fallen lifestyle of sin-loving people. Interestingly, one does not have to stoop down to the level of people being depicted to give a good picture of those people to the readers. There are hundreds of literary ways in which one can create a word picture of sinful people and their unrighteousness without needing to use their profane language.
Just as a medical professor does not have to become ill to show his readers what illness means, the resourceful writer does not have to stoop down to profanity or vulgarity to depict evil. Nor does he have to resort to a cheap vocabulary to communicate in a simple manner with people. The writings of an accomplished writer use language that is most accessible to people, yet he never stoops down to using slang and profane expression.
6-IT USES THE RIGHT PROPORTION OF IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS: Just as flowers give a special beauty to gardens, idiomatic expressions, figurative language, the right use of metaphor, anecdotes and catchy expressions impart a special beauty to language.
Idiom, to be effective, should be natural, appropriate for the occasion, and never served in excess. Just as excess of monotonous prose makes reading a bore, excess of idioms makes the writing revolting to read.
For the idiom to flow naturally out of your pen, you should make it a habit to read writers who are at ease with using this kind of language. Not everyone is an expert at it, nor will reading a dictionary of idioms will make you one. This is not to discourage you from buying such a dictionary. Not at all ! If at all possible, every writer should buy at least one dictionary that deals only with idioms. This is to sharpen your grasp upon idiomatic expressions, but this in itself is only the first step. The second one is to read, and the third one is to integrate idiomatic expressions into your speech and writing.
Using non literal language without ambiguity of meaning, and using it effectively, is an art seen in the works of accomplished writers. Language devoid of it is as attractive as a fully shaven lion, and language loaded with it is as repulsive as a swarm of flies. The right proportion of idiomatic expressions makes language lively and captivating, exactly as a properly trimmed bed of flowers makes it a delight to the eyes.
SUMMARY
A good language should properly integrate the right subject with attractive presentation. It should motivate the readers towards the right goals in life, while at the same time it warns them against indulgence in things that are improper.
Only commitment to the correct cause and dedication to communicate the message captivatingly will make your writings good. Nothing less than that ought to be acceptable to a Christian writer.
Original article contributed by Dr. Johnson C. Philip. Revised by:
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