When I sit down to write, the meadow is still sunk in darkness, and above it, satellites pass by, one after the other. My thoughts are flighty and shapeless; they morph as I approach them. But when I type, it is as if I pin my thoughts to the table. I can examine them. They feel porous to the touch and crumble. But among the fragments, I discover... See more
The trick to writing well is to...
- take long sentences and make them short
- take confusing ideas and make them clear
- take unrelated concepts and make them related
...without losing the main idea in the process.
If you really want to understand a topic, don’t read about it, write about it. The act of explaining something helps connect the dots and commit them to memory far better than the passive act of reading.
When used properly, metaphors enhance speech. But correctly dosing the metaphorical spice in the dish of language is no easy task. They ‘must not be far-fetched, or they will be difficult to grasp, nor obvious, or they will have no effect’, as Aristotle already noted nearly 2,500 years ago.