Chapter 8—Writing to Be Read

Many of Orwell’s thoughts about clear writing showed up in this chapter.

When I read that a study had found that novels had become easier read while just the opposite had happened to newspapers and magazines, I wasn’t surprised. If I just think of my summer: I read the last 3 volumes of Harry Potter, altogether 2000 pages, while at the same time I could hardly get myself to sit down and read through a couple NYT articles. Harry Potter was easier to read and also more enjoyable. But I guess, any topic can be enjoyable, even stock market news and stuff, if it’s written in a good way.

Just as Orwell noted in his essay that good writing should include many images, the book also highlights that a story should include all kinds of sensory experiences. An article should take the reader right to the scene of the story.

I guess this should be the same with numbers and sizes. I actually like numbers because I was a nerd in high school, so oddly enough I love finding out comparisons to give dimensions to numbers that otherwise mean almost nothing.

I think I have problems with being coherent. First of all, when I’m using inverted pyramid style, I always feel that it’s more of a list in the order of importance. For example, when covering a speech, I try to figure out what the important things are, and when I finally have them, it turns out that they are not connected at all. But at the same time I want all the information to be in my article. What do I do?

And finally being specific: when writing a story, it’s so much easier to use abstractions than to write detailed information on everything. Even 1000 words would not be enough to describe just the circumstances of a meeting.