The Mathematics of Great Writing

THERE'S MORE TO IT THAN MERE EXPRESSION And a number of reasons why 

I HAVE NEVER BEEN COMFORTABLE with it--- if you really want to know the truth. I know it looks problematic, but I have had some difficulty as soon as I start punching those keys. Not because I don’t have anything to say and all that, there are so many things going on in my mind, though, that a page is insufficient enough to cover it. 

I've been writing since my sophomore year in college, but I still have some nagging issues since as far as great writing goes. 

Writing, for a lack of a better phrase, is always a long haul for me. It takes time, imagination, and effort on my part to be able to connect its moving parts into a cohesive unit. Sounds more like a weekend laundry, to start with. 

You don’t disturb the universe yet unless you have a clear path to trudge into. Inspired writing is overrated. You’re not lucid most of the time in that everything that comes out of your pen is ordained by God. What a writer has to achieve is that his readers should be able to read his work as if he's, yes, inspired. There’s the difference. And he can only do that through constant writing, sleepless nights, and an unending flow of intoxication, whatever that means. 

Writing is work, no less. It is entirely different from journalism. Journalism is for the moment, writing (essays, short stories, plays) is for eternity. That has been the distinction of serious writing compared to its more immediate counterpart. I am using writing here as a separate entity from those we read in our morning paper. So I find it hard at times to engage myself in this stuff (seriously) because I’m dealing with eternal consequences. 

Yet there’s more to writing than mere expression. I don’t know if there’s a secret to great writing other than writing your ass out every day, but if you are fond of doing follow-ups, I think you might have a better chance of having some success with writing. If you can follow up your previous statement or sentence or paragraph to achieve a more in-depth look at an issue, I guess you’re on your way to Sweden. The more you add into it, the clearer the view it becomes. That’s the only way for you to stay a notch higher than the rest of the writing lot. No other way. 

I know this may sound trite, or you may have heard this cheesy line before: you need to write your draft first with your heart, and finish it with your head. Barbeque Chicken, I know. Shades of Finding Forrester. But I happen to agree with it. I’ve never been good in my drafts since I started writing, not at all, I’m careless about my word choice, and sometimes I’m using the wrong ones. But my take on that, as always, is the immediacy of such ideas. They need to be controlled the moment you let loose their arrows. And besides, I have my editor to deal with that, so why bother murdering that one lifeless foot soldier when you still have that horde to conquer? Kill it and then move on. 

Now I’m an advocate of Ernest Hemingway, and this argument seemed a bit contradictory to his minimalist view of writing. But contrary to his notion of the iceberg theory, the more you read his story as you go along with, the more you understand what he said in his previous paragraph, which is quite vague really, that those hills are like white elephants. Hemingway is the master of chopping to pieces his ideas, arranging them “as it is”, so he can place them in a clean, well-lighted place. It’s like wearing gloves while having a hearty meal.

I don’t have any clear take on how to write effectively other than following it all up. So if you like additions, particularly the distributive property of elements in algebra, then you are carved out for writing. Just make sure, though, as soon as you add something, that the resolution of the picture is getting clearer and clearer than when you first viewed it. Otherwise, you achieved the opposite. 

That’s the only cake I can give you as far as great writing is concerned. And since I’m uncomfortable with its innuendos, you might want to add into its process your way of dealing with it, so that my mathematical calculation of what great writing is and your lack thereof could somehow lend a much better view of what you intend to pursue the moment you start writing. 

I suggest you read D. H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover, especially the mid-chapters. That’s where you find the formula.