Book notes for Several Short Sentences About Writing

Several Short Sentences About Writing by Verlyn Klinkenborg.📚 is a book about writing. I felt very nervous when reading it—fearing if I would understand it.

Verlyn Klinkenborg’s main idea going into the book is that everything you learn about writing at school is wrong. And you need to unlearn it before you can know how to write well.

Notes

My hope with reading this book is that I can learn how to write better. And I found a lot of helpful information there. Some advice includes simple tips you can directly execute on your writing. But the broader topics are about how to learn to observe and what it means to be a writer.

Try reading your work aloud. The ear is much smarter than the eye, If only because it’s also slower And because the eye can’t see rhythm or hear unwanted repetition. (Page 51)

According to the author, the book is meant to be a beginning to better writing and finding your style. The book is intended to replace received knowledge. The idea is not to write in the style of the author. But to write in your style. And if it means that you argue with the author, then argue.

I think the book can be summarized as trust your writing and trust your reader. The author argues that in school we learn, that the reader needs to be guided through our written paragraphs. Which implies the reader is a passive party while reading. But this is not the case. When did you last trip over eclipsed or gaps between paragraphs?

It is crucial as a writer to trust your reader. She is capable of understanding you. They don’t need hand-holding. Trusting the reader frees the writer’s mind to write better.

Learn by understanding what interests you. The world does not come pre-noticed and sorted. There is no authority to do that. So write about anything you want.

Noticing means to let yourself out into the world. Be attentive to the world around you. Noticing also needs passivity.

You may be interested in your thought or thing you notice. But you were never prepared to write about them or that. What you see is essential.

Stated otherwise, what you notice is important. But keep in mind that you only notice what you let yourself see. That could come from Austin Kleon. And it also depends on what you feel authorized to notice. We live in a world where we are trained to disregard our perceptions.

Who’s going to give you the authority to feel that what you notice is important? It will have to be you. The authority you feel has a great deal to do with how you write, and what you write, With your ability to pay attention to the shape and meaning of your own thoughts And the value of your own perceptions. (Page 37)

To be a writer means you need to self-authorize yourself constantly. No one else can do this. It won’t happen overnight.

The process of writing does not have flow! The reader will have flow when the writer has done his job. As a writer, you need to think about every sentence and every word. Writing is painful and slow. It is interesting as I’ve had a moment where my writing was flowing. But perhaps it also means that I need to edit what I’ve written in such moments and analyze and optimize it?

“Flow” means effusion, a spontaneous outpouring of sentences. But what it really, secretly means is easy writing. (Page 69)

“Flow” and “natural” are concepts that cause writer’s block. The difference between talking and writing is like the difference between breathing and singing well. Writing is not natural. You need to learn it. Talking is natural. We learn to speak before we write.

Good writing is significant everywhere, Delightful everywhere. (Page 27)

Write one sentence after each other. Don’t write a beginning sentence. Each sentence is a beginning giving you options for the following sentence. Don’t think a sentence belongs at a specific position in the text. A sentence does not know where it belongs.

When is the writing done? Never “done” is always a compromise. The better question to ask is when is it “perfect enough”?

Trust the observation you make about life and your ability to share them. And also, trust that the reader has a brain and will use it. She is reading your work and not doom scrolling while watching a show.

It will free you from holding the reader’s hand and over-explaining everything. Or worse, dumbing down what you have to say.

All the authority a writer ever possesses is the authority the reader grants him. (Page 127)

• /review
• /writing
• /leaning
• /language
• /english
• /philosophy