The Third Key: Unity
By Orna Ross
In the first draft, we accept all ideas and understandings as they emerge, no matter how vague or disconnected. Then we trim and tidy these strands into a coherent, interconnected whole.
Whether the piece runs to 500 or 500,000 words, we ensure that idea, sense, tone and style work together and are consistent throughout. Loose ends are knotted in; loose words are eliminated.
Each sentence is worked until it is marching forward purposefully, leading the reader inexorably towards an understanding of your theme (fiction) or controlling idea (nonfiction).
The Second Key: Accuracy
By Orna Ross
The Key of Accuracy turns in two different ways, depending on whether you are in the drafting phase, or in the later redrafting or editing phases.
During first draft, ask yourself…
…How can I help the reader to SEE more clearly… what is happening and where?
…How can I help the reader to HEAR more clearly… the overtones and undertones?
…How can I help the reader to TASTE more intensely… the unique flavour of this world I’m creating?
…How can I help the reader to FEEL more intensely… the conflict at stake in this sentence, this scene?
Later, when editing: take each word, each paragraph, each chapter and aim it, like an arrow, at the heart of what you mean.
The First Key: Clarity
In school, our English teachers told us to have a beginning, a middle and an end and to write out our points in advance. This is clarity imposed from the outside.
The creative writer, of fiction or non-fiction, clarifies a piece of writing in a different, more organic, way.
First, we let a first draft emerge. It comes from where? We’re not quite sure. We’re part of it but only a part. We are open, receptive. We let our imagination flow through the words, and the words flow through us.
When we’re first-drafting, we are like night drivers, headlights shining into the dark. We may know our ultimate destination, or we may not, and such notes as we may have are like occasional signs flashing up. All we can see is a few yards ahead.
It is enough.
This is very different to writing to a set, pre-ordained outline. This first draft is for us. It is what gives us clarity. Through it we come to know what we are writing about.
After we have written it, finished it completely, then we must draft again, and redraft, and edit, and polish — all as many times as is necessary for the reader to get just as clear as we are.
And in that exercise, in the opening ourselves to others, to how they will receive our words, we gain more clarity. More insight.
Sometimes as writers, we may need to to tease our readers, or puzzle them, or even keep our meaning obscure — but we have done the work, the drafting and redrafting, and so we are clear about our purpose.
In our finished work, we know what we are doing, and why, in every paragraph and every sentence.
Five Keys To Writing Excellence by Orna Ross
Five characteristics are common to all good writing, fiction or non-fiction. I think of these characteristics as keys to good writing. To get them right is to unlock the power that writing has to move, convince or persuade a reader.
The five keys are:
1. Clarity — Say what you mean
2. Accuracy — Say precisely what you mean so the reader can’t possibly misunderstand
3. Unity — Say precisely what you mean so the reader can’t possibly misunderstand, with consistency from start to finish.
4. Brevity — Say precisely what you mean so the reader can’t possibly misunderstand, with consistency from start to finish, in as few words as possible
5. Confidence — Say precisely what you mean so the reader can’t possibly misunderstand, with consistency from start to finish, in as few words as possible, in your own unique, inimitable style.
Next week, we’ll examine each key separately.
Till then, happy writing!
Orna
Summary of our “10 Things NOT to say to an Editor or Agent” Series
If you’re in Dublin, Ireland this weekend, head on down to a great reading on Saturday afternoon. Two Font writers, Orna Ross and Amanda Brunker will be sharing the stage with writer/film director Peter Sheridan and best selling novelist, Monica McInerny, in Charleville Mall Library, Dublin 3 at 2pm on the afternoon of April 26th.
We’d love to see you there.
Our series “10 Things NOT to say to an editor or agent” is now complete. If you’ve missed any of the advice, click below.
Next up: ” Five Keys To Writing Excellence” by Orna Ross This series will start on Friday next, 25th.
Till then…
# 10. “I’m so angry / disheartened / fed up with the publishing industry.”
# 8. “Dear Agent or Dear Editor…”
#7.“I need a six-figure deal if I’m to keep on writing and I’m available for radio and TV.”
# 6: “Hi, me again! Did you not get my other five messages?”
#4: “This is the first of a trilogy.”
#3: “Do you represent/publish sci-fi?”
#2: “I’m not going to write another book until I know this one is being published.”
#1: “Please read the attached writing and give me feedback.”
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