Choose your words wisely.

By Peter P. Jacobi

Writing means words, the way we use them to enchant and excite and amaze. And to soften. And to calm.

Here are words, specific ones, those important for a writer to heed.

One

Continuity is such a word. As an account of something or someone, the writer's story becomes history, a sense of going on. What is written becomes the thread that stitches time to time and person to person and place to place, the chain of knowledge.

And, of course, within that piece of writing, the writer -- please see to it, Editor -- must supply continuity, a sense of flow that eases the reader through from start to finish, that leaves no gaps to confuse.

Two

Attitude is a critical part of the process. More than almost anything, writing is a matter of attitude, a writer deciding that "this must be done because someone out there needs it and because I can fulfill that need."

As in Don Quixote's quest to reach the unreachable star. An attitude of over-striving; that's the writer's burden, a burden not so much happily as energetically, embracingly accepted.

Three

Perspective is a writer's gift to see subjects close from a distance, to telescope from a distance and thereby bring the reader close.

It can be a uniqueness of approach, too, the writer's or that of the person being written about. Singer-performer Henry Rollins was once asked whether he thought humans superior to animals. His response: " I was thinking about that today. I think people should look up to animals more. I was starting to think animals are god. Does a blue jay make bombs? Does a blue jay crash cars? Does a blue jay break hearts? No. A blue jay just does his thing. Flies, eat some berries, pecks at your window, then dies. That seems a lot more cool than some dude jackin' you up for your wallet."

Perspective is seeing anew.

Four

Observation is a writer's must: careful, scrutinizing observation.

The painter Georges Rouault, speaking of his work, noted: "I have painted by opening my eyes day and night on the perceptible world, and also by closing them from time to time that I might better see the vision blossom and submit itself to orderly arrangement."

Observation is a combination of the sensory taking-in and the thinking grope for understanding. Some writers can manage only the sensory. That's when an editor takes over the thinking, attempting to make sure there's a point to the story and that the point will be clearly, cleanly discernible to the reader.

Five

Detail. The importance of detail cannot be overstressed. Writing is only as good as the writer's available information.

At the time when Stacey King and Michael Jordan were fellow Chicago Bulls, after one particular game, King told reporters: "I'll always remember this as the night that Michael and I combined to score 70 points." That happened to be the night when Jordan scored 69. It is a detail that was worth using then. It is a detail that made that story.

Six

Meaning. A story must have meaning. Beyond the telling, beyond the showing, there's understanding. The writer must edge sharply -- with the editor's assistance -- what the subjects being dealt with mean to the writer. There will follow a meaning for the reader, not necessarily the same one suggested by the writer but a meaning nevertheless.

A writer's clarity of thought engenders clarity of thought on the part of a reader.

Seven

Simplicity helps. A sense of directness and of the unadorned, of the more easily grasped. Consider that an essential in writing today especially because of the hurried and harried reader.

Simplicity of language, of plan, of message. Out of such, profundity. Out of such most definitely will come reader loyalty. Urge your writers to say what they mean and to mean what they say.

As George Orwell put it: "The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink."

Avoid. Avoid.

Quentin Reynolds avoided as he reported from Paris in 1941: "There was no dawn. This was puzzling at first because it had been a clear night. Now the air was heavy with a smoky fog so thick that you could reach out and grab a piece of it in your hand. When you let it go, your hand was full of soot. Then you realized that this was a manmade fog, a smoke screen thrown over Paris to hide the railroad stations from the bombers. But for the first time in history Paris had no dawn."

No insincerity here but simplicity, directness.

Eight

Control makes my list. The control to know the very words that will say the best that needs to be said. And how useful an editor becomes as partner to the always struggling writer.

Nine

Passion. It is passion that brings conviction to paper, may be quiet and yet urgent, like the melody of Mozart or Duke Ellington.

Ten

Honesty. Always. The writer must be honest to his own drives and motivations, to her urges and feelings. The writer must be honest toward subject.

Editors can keep writers honest. A rare commodity on this team is in the more general world. It is a must for those who write and those who edit what is written.

A classic article from a past issue in tribute to the late Peter J. Jacobi, longtime EO writer and author of The Magazine Article: How to Think It, Plan It, Write It.

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