Three Simple Rules To Clear Writing

UPDATED 8/26/22

My parochial school writing education placed an emphasis on understanding grammar at a depth unheard of today. I had to do this thing called diagramming. The mere mention of diagramming might fill some of you with dread and loathing. But not me. I loved diagramming. The longer and more complex the sentence, the better. I loved doing a sentence diagram on the classroom blackboard that covered the whole darn board, top to bottom. Left to right. What bliss. Something like this:

Somewhere along the way, I also became a dandy writer. Not a brilliant writer, mind you, but a solid, competent technician of the process.

Way back, somewhere in my English education, I was taught three simple rules for constructing an essay, report, or any form of nonfiction writing. Three rules so simple and elementary-sounding I should be embarrassed to share them. But I’m not, because I still use these rules today in my own writing and I apply them when I’m editing a piece of nonfiction. These rules (for the organization and presentation of material) will change your life. Are you curious? Get ready. Here they are:

1. Simple to complex

2. Known to unknown

3. General to specific

I bet you’re disappointed, aren’t you? You thought it would be something profound borrowed from the Buddha or Lao Tzu or Ben Franklin or Buddy Holly. No.

UPDATE: Since first writing this in 2019, I have found a funny twist to the above statement. Ben Franklin did, in fact, say something that totally reinforces the point of this article. I read it in a book about writing with clarity but I believe it is from Franklin's autobiography:

If he would inform, he must advance regularly from things know to things unknown, distinctly without confusion, and the lower he begins the better. It is a common fault in writers to allow their readers too much knowledge: They begin with that which should be the middle, and skipping backwards and forwards, ‘tis impossible for any one but he who is perfect in the subject before to understand their work, and such a one has no occasion to read it.

These three rules of composition are so deeply embedded in my brain, I have no memory of when or from whom I learned them. At some point further on in my education, a fourth, more sophisticated rule was added:

4. Concrete to abstract

Well, now here I am in the 21st Century and with the help of the internet, I Googled the first three rules. To my surprise I found them discussed as “maxims of teaching.” Simple to complex and known to unknown are still popular, but general to specific seems to have given way to particular to general, which, frankly, makes no sense to me.

A teacher should always proceed from particular to general statements, I read. General facts, principles and ideas are difficult to understand and hence the teacher should always first present particular things and then lead to general things.

This sounds an awful lot like known to unknown to me. Or maybe my version of the rules is too ingrained for me to be objective. In any event, I was pleasantly surprised to see these rules still in use, regardless of the exact wording.

The purpose of these well-worn rules is to create a piece of writing that builds your material by starting on familiar ground and slowly slipping in new, more complex ideas. The rules, properly applied, will prevent repetition and redundancy, a frequent criticism of a younger generation of writers.

If you structure your writing following the first three rules, you will find it difficult to be repetitive. You must make a point as clearly and concisely as possible and, with that done, move on to the next point or to a higher level of detail. To present material simply, your words and sentences should be as simple as is appropriate to your intended audience. To lay out your points clearly, use short, precise sentences.

The point of anything you write is to communicate. If your writing fails to communicate your desired message or fails to engage your intended audience, you’ve missed the mark. As a career technical writer of computer instruction manuals, the rule of thumb was, better to talk beneath the readers and get the point across than talk over their heads and fail to inform them. In short, better to shoot too low than too high.

Sometimes writers feel a need to show off in their writing. They end up sounding slick and Ivy League-ish. Feel free to do that if you are more interested in pumping up your ego than communicating with your readers. The fact is—and maybe it’s a sad fact—the reading grade level that is considered most desirable for the general public is Grade 8. But you can communicate more than you might think at an eighth-grade level. The reading grade level of this article is 7.7.

A Work of Fiction is Not a Fill-in-the-blank Game

Hemingway's Iceberg Theory

I studied journalism and advertising in college. These areas of mass communications, as my major was called, might sound unrelated, even contradictory. One is purely about the facts, and the other, well, not so much. But they do have one criterion in common—brevity.

In the study of the journalistic style, it is about the facts, ma’am, just the facts: the who, what, when, where, why, and how of a piece. Period.

In advertising, particularly print advertising, getting right to the heart of the matter is crucial too. Good print advertising is a handful of meticulously selected words meant to create an immediate need that will result in a sale.

Where am I going with this, you might ask?

I respect simplicity, but I have grown distressed by a pervasive misunderstanding and misuse of a style of writing known as the iceberg theory.

The Iceberg Theory

Attributed to Ernest Hemingway, the iceberg theory states that a writer should not write into a fictional story everything he or she knows about a character, setting, and even plot, but should say just enough so that an astute reader can discern, on his or her own, the truth of what isn’t said.

Hemingway was a journalist-turned-fiction writer and he remained all about minimalism of wording.

In Support of Minimalism

The iceberg theory has been discussed and argued ad nauseum for decades and I don’t intend to address the pros and cons. Besides, I’m torn. I was a technical writer, specializing in user-friendly computer software instruction manuals. I was a minimalist with my documentation. My rule: write just what the end-user needs to know to operate the software; nothing more, nothing less. And I did it well.

When I edit now, I strike out lengthy descriptions that go into too much detail, strings of adjectival synonyms (he was strong, muscular, well-built, and physically fit), and unnecessary words and phrases like rather (rather strong), quite (quite strong), somewhat (somewhat strong), very (very strong), so (so strong), so very (so very strong), double use of very (very, very strong), and double use of so (so, so strong). I could continue, but you get the idea. So, yes, I’m a minimalist of sorts, myself.

Hemingway's Theory, Misunderstood

But notice I did not say I grow distressed by use of the iceberg theory. No, I grow distressed by misuse of the iceberg theory. I see and hear newbie or mediocre writers justify their mediocre writing by applying this theory incorrectly. Let me clarify what Hemingway said and what he meant, for never has such a simple statement been so grossly misapplied.

This is the entire quote is the core of Hemingway's theory:

If a writer of a prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of the iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. The writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.

--Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon

I have highlighted the final sentence of this quote for a reason. Many misguided writers think that Hemingway’s iceberg theory says to leave out details and descriptions and let the readers use their imaginations to fill in those details themselves.

Nonsense! This is not the iceberg theory and it is not what Hemingway meant.

Hemingway is saying that a writer must know his subject so thoroughly that he can omit details and can do so with a skill that allows an astute, attentive reader to intuit them on his or her own. That is the meaning of the iceberg theory.

Readers Should Reach Similar Conclusions

To write as Hemingway wrote in the short story A Clean, Well-Lighted Place takes artisanship that few writers can pull off. He alludes to the thoughts, emotions, and motivations behind the characters’ behaviors. In this way, the reader is able to infer much about the lives of each of the three main characters. But—and here’s the crux—readers will come to the same or similar conclusions about the characters and their behaviors. Why? Because those details are there for the attentive reader to discern.

That, my friends, takes talent. Anyone who says that the iceberg theory means that a writer should omit vital story elements (such as physical characteristics and setting descriptions) and leave those details up to the reader’s imagination either misunderstands the iceberg theory or is too lazy or untalented to write substantive prose.

As Hemingway said, “The writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing.”

The iceberg theory does not mean you should write prose like it’s a game of Mad Libs.

In addition to working as a nonfiction and creative nonfiction editor and writing coach, I am co-author, with Dr. Terri Lyon, of the book Make a Difference with Mental Health Activism: No activism degree required—use your unique skills to change the world. Visit my website page Make a Difference and Dr. Lyon’s activism website Life At The Intersection to learn more about Make a Difference, including how to place bulk orders.

Chicago Manual of Style, AP Stylebook, and More: A Primer

Whether it's called a style book, style guide, manual, or handbook, the purpose of such books is to provide a set of standards for the writing, formatting and design of documents. Any style guide lays out best practices in usage, language composition, typography, visual composition, and more. Here are the Big 5 of writing style books:

The Chicago Manual of Style (shortened to CMOS)

The Associated Press Stylebook (AP)

The Modern Language Association Handbook (MLA)

The American Psychological Association Manual (APA)

A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations by Kate Turabian, commonly referred to as Turabian (based on CMOS)

The style guide you should use depends on the kind of writing you do and the intended audience. Please do not blame me, as I had nothing to do with these decisions. But these are the recommended style guides for different types of writing:

• Fiction and (most) nonfiction: CMOS

• Journalism and website content: AP

• Academic writing, primarily literature and humanities: MLA

• Social sciences (including psychology, sociology, education, and politics) and often engineering and some forms of business writing: APA

• Research papers, theses, and dissertations: Turabian (The title gave it away, didn’t it?)

Chicago Manual of Style Reigns Supreme

The CMOS and the AP are the two most commonly used writing style guides in the United States. But the CMOS is, by far, the most-used style guide of them all, the standard for fiction and nonfiction book publishing, excluding academic works. Adding more clout to the CMOS’s share of the style guide market, Turabian, for students and researchers, is based on Chicago style. I know this because it says so right on the cover.

As an editor, I own the most current editions of each of these style guides in paperback format, except the CMOS. If you’ve ever seen it, it’s a monster. As of this writing, the current edition is the 17th and it weighs in at 3.7 lbs. (1146 pages). Since I’ve been known to edit and write in all kinds of places, from restaurants to coffee houses to my car, I subscribe to the Chicago Manual of Style Online version and it is worth it.

Do Writers Need Style Guides?

You might be thinking, “Yeah, but I’m a writer, not an editor like you. These darn style guides are for you to use, not me.” And I’m fine with that, because the more editing I have to do to clean up your work and bring it up to acceptable writing standards, the more money I get to charge you. That’s harsh, but true. There’s no shame in actually wanting to be the best writer you can possibly be! Learning the rules of good grammar, punctuation, capitalization, spelling, and so on is better for your career in every way.

When I do an editing job, I tell my client which style guide I intend to use based on my perception of the genre of the piece. I include the style guide by name in my contract.

If you are familiar with the major stylistic differences of the top two or three guides, there won’t be any surprises in my edits. (Well, maybe one or two.) Here are a few differences that might surprise you:

The em Dash

The use of em dashes: AP style places a space before and after each em; Chicago does not.

AP: Streaming services — like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu — are watched daily by most people.

Chicago: Streaming services—like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu—are watched daily by most people.

Titles

AP puts titles of works like books and movies in quotations marks, Chicago uses italics.

AP: “A Wrinkle in Time”

Chicago: A Wrinkle in Time

The Infamous Oxford Comma

There are scores of stylistic differences between the AP and the CMOS style guides, but this, for me, is the biggie: the Oxford comma. The Oxford (or serial) comma is the term that refers to a comma that separates the penultimate (next to last) item in a list of 3 or more items from the final item introduced by and or or. AP style does not use the Oxford comma, Chicago style does. I can only shake my head in wonder.

AP: She ate ham, sweet potatoes and corn.

Chicago: She ate ham, sweet potatoes, and corn.

This example doesn’t present a problem. But wait….

Janine sat in the lobby with her husband, a lawyer and a photographer.

Janine sat in the lobby with her husband, a lawyer, and a photographer.

The use of the Oxford comma in the second sentence changes the meaning. Is Janine in the lobby with her husband who is a lawyer and photographer? It could be interpreted that way if we’re using AP style. Or is she in the lobby with her husband and two other people who are a lawyer and a photographer, respectively? There are three people with Janine if we’re using the CMOS.

I love the Oxford comma. I have always felt that it eliminates any confusion as to the exact way to read and interpret a list of items. If I am your editor and the appropriate style guide for your work is the Chicago Manual of Style, I will be adding in those Oxford commas till the cows come home!

To learn more about Chicago Manual of Style, click here.

To learn more about AP Stylebook, click here.

To learn more about MLA Handbook, click here.

To learn more about APA Manual, click here.

To learn more about Turabian, click here.