Words, words, words. That's what we're made of. Herewith some of my thoughts on what we're doing with them.

Controversy rages: to be, or not to be, terse?

From Mark Twain's dictum, 'Eschew surplusage', comes an entire school of writing extolling the virtues of the short, pithy exchange:

'You do love me?'

'I really love you. I'm crazy about you. Come on please.'

'Feel our hearts beating.'

'I don't care about our hearts. I want you. I'm just mad about you.'

'You really love me?'

'Don't keep on saying that...'   – Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

We might legitimately feel that a little of this goes a long way. See how long you can stand A Farewell to Arms. Be honest, now: don't let somebody tell you that you have to like it just because it's 'literature'.

'Who is this Hemingway person at all?'

'A guy that keeps saying the same thing over and over until you begin to believe it must be good.'   – Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, p. 143

We recognise the power of the short, unadorned utterance:

The Virginian's pistol came out, and his hand lay on the table, holding it unaimed. And with a voice as gentle as ever, the voice that sounded almost like a caress, but drawling a very little more than usual, so that there was almost a space between each word, he issued his orders to the man Trampas: "When you call me that, SMILE."   – Owen Wister, The Virginian

That's pithy. That's effective. But it takes a whole chapter of set-up to pull it off. Owen Wister's seminal 1902 cowboy novel features a city-slicker narrator who fills in where the laconic cow-persons leave off. That gives the author room to manoeuvre.

It is absolutely true that our writing has more power when we 'eschew surplusage': that is, when we avoid qualifying every statement we make. Always go back and take out as many 'so's' and 'ands', etc, as possible. Go for the punch. But do we need to make all our characters sound like John Wayne? Depends on what we want to say.

'Under the impression,' said Mr. Micawber, 'that your peregrinations in this metropolis have not as yet been extensive, and that you might have some difficulty in penetrating the arcana of the Modern Babylon in the direction of the City Road, – in short,' said Mr. Micawber, in another burst of confidence, 'that you might lose yourself – I shall be happy to call this evening, and install you in the knowledge of the nearest way.'   – Charles Dickens, David Copperfield

What Dickens wanted to say was that Mr Micawber never met a circumlocution he didn't like. (We love him.)

So what have we learned?

• Pithy is good.
• Pithy can be powerful.
• Pithy can also be tedious.
• There are more things in heaven and earth than can be expressed in words of two syllables.
• Use pithiness sparingly.

Not every novel needs to end like this:

'Mother of God!' he said, 'is this the end of Rico¹?'   – WR Burnett, Little Caesar

But it ain't bad.

Writing Right with Dmitri Archive

Dmitri Gheorgheni

10.09.12 Front Page

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