“Easy reading is damn hard writing.” (Nathaniel Hawthorne) Hawthorne is considered among the best of American fiction writers. Maybe, in school, you were assigned to read “The Scarlet Letter.” I’m amazed at his “writer friends”…Longfellow, Emerson, Thoreau, Melville. Creative writing is “easy.” All you have to have is an imagination and an idea of what interests people and connect the two and get someone to publish what you write and to sell it. ;-) Jack
FROM FACEBOOK LIZ: your blog is easy, too... because you make it seem that way! i know you gave great sermons.====JACK: In both instances (blog & sermons) I try to figure out the interests and needs of the readers/listeners and go from there.
FROM LBP: Have you ever done a grade level analysis of your writing? There is a fallacy that “smart” writing should be at a higher grade level. But, who wants to fight to understand content? I agree with this WW. Writing to be read is harder than it seems.====JACK: I have not had my writing grade-analysed, but I try to write based on experience. To write about what you haven't known is to "make-believe." Even fiction writers have to have some "experience", don't they? ====;BP: I thought that MS Word used to do this, but now I can't find it. Anyhow, a quick search and I found: https://datayze.com/readability-analyzer.php For what it's worth, your WW today has a Flesch Reading Ease score of 60.5 with 60 being "plain English" and lower numbers being harder to read. Other scores say that it's reading level is between about 7-10th grad. That's pretty good! Though knowing you, even these 6 sentences have great care and thought behind them.====JACK: I guess the analysts validate my goal...an easy read (except for a word or two that cause some head- scratching.====LBP: sure. I'll let you know if the WW starts to give me fleas ;)
FROM BLAZING OAKS: Oh Yes, The Scarlet Letter (unforgettable to a H.S. reader In Fanny Entriken's Lit. class,) and House of the Seven Gables...He did have a way with words! Easy reading writing is indeed hard work. I know how I sweated out writing articles to be published in our AB Women's Nat'l. magazine when I was Pres. of GRR AB Women! I was impressed when teaching Jr. High, by how well some "writers" expressed themselves in themes and book reports. etc. A privilege to nurture such talent! Most of us have at least one good poem within us! But, as you describe, the imagination, insight of interests, actual writing, publishing and selling is a whole other ballgame!! Your WW are insightful and very readable :-)====JACK: I remember being in Fanny's class,,,and I do remember enjoying writing. (and reading O. Henry's short stories)
FROM OUTHOUSE JUDY: You also have to have the knowledge on how to put the ideas together, put together a plot, a beginning, ending and a very intriguing and entertaining middle. Nothing to it!!!====JACK: I'm no Nathaniel!
FROM ST PAUL IN ST PAUL: that's all there is to it???====JACK: ...and don't make it too long. Although he was immensely popular, I wasn't a fan of Michener.====PAUL: some of his books seemed longer than the event he was trying to describe... ====JACK: ...sort of like some sermons on the text, "Jesus wept."
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