Words on a page

A short while ago, while taking a break from the endless work my wife and I are doing around the house, I grabbed a collection of Isaac Asmiov‘s essays off a bookshelf and just started to read. Once again, I found myself being caught up with what was on the page.

I’ve been a big fan of Asimov’s non fiction for decades. While he wasn’t the most brilliant prose stylist, Asimov’s writing was clear and lively and easy to read. And he packed a lot of information into what he wrote, no matter how long or short it was. The best thing about reading Asimov, though, is that you’re learning something without realizing it.

Why do I find Asimov’s prose so effective? The key is in an exchange that Asimov had with the late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould (a brilliant writer in his own right):

I picked up the phone one day, and a voice bellowed “Gould, this is Isacc Asimov. I hate you.

So I replied with an astonishing lack of originality, “why so?”

“I hate you because you write so well,” he said.

So I replied, “And if I’d written four hundred books instead of 10, I wouldn’t be paying such rapt attention to stylistic nuances either.

I have nothing against descriptive, nuanced writing. But, as Asimov proved, you can be an effective and interesting writer even if you ignore (or, at least, don’t put too much stress) on stylistic nuances. If you take that lesson to heart, you’ll be able to produce more. You won’t be as prolific as Asimov was (at one point, he’d written 141 books over 138 months), but you’ll probably do all right.

Photo credit: mensatic from morguefile.com

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 14th, 2010 at 5:30 am and is filed under writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.