{"id":402,"date":"2021-01-22T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-22T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromthebarstool.life\/?p=402"},"modified":"2024-04-02T06:53:50","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T22:53:50","slug":"writing-standards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromthebarstool.life\/2021\/01\/22\/writing-standards\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing Standards"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When I was fourteen, my father passed me a draft essay he wrote; he was entertaining the thought of submitting it to the News Straits Times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though I was regularly reading books then I lacked sophistication or depth in my reading. I read books but I was not a reader of books. There was no nuance or refinement to my reading; I simply chased through pages to know what happened. At the time, I enjoyed crass popular fiction and had no interest in non-fiction or essays. I had not yet discovered the classics, poetry, the diverse landscapes of fiction, the greater countries of non-fiction, and the greater world of foreign literature (translated into English, of course). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short, my reading abilities had not yet matured. Back then, I laboured under the impression that if I did not understand what I read that meant the material was of superior quality. The thinking went: if a moron like me didn’t understand it, it must be better than me! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I want you to read this and tell me what you think.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Of course!” I replied enthusiastically. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Can you get back to me tomorrow?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Of course!”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I took it to my room and read it. It was not long. He typed it out in two A4 pages. It consisted of no more than ten paragraphs. I don’t remember the words anymore but I remember how it felt reading it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reading it provoked a strange but not a wholly unfamiliar feeling: I understood the words by themselves but when I read them as my father arranged them they somehow lost all meaning for me; I couldn’t make sense of them. I read and re-read his draft but still could not make sense of it. It was English alright but it was still gibberish to me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I gave up after a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I tried again in the evening and made some headway in the sense that I understood a few sentences but an understanding of the whole continued to elude my grasp like someone trying to catch a wet eel with soapy hands. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Satisfied with my efforts, I tried no further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next day my father asked me what I thought about his essay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It is very good,” I replied. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Why do you say it is good?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Because I don’t understand it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“What?! If you don’t understand it then it’s not good. You are supposed to understand it. Do you, at least, know what the essay was about?”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Yah, something about royalty.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Okay, at least you got that part.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“But I am only fourteen. I’m sure an adult would understand it all.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“No, that’s not it. Whenever you write something it should be so clear even a fourteen year old understands it. Younger, even. If you can understand it then an adult must <\/em>understand it. That means I am not clear enough and have to revise it some more. Thanks.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think he was a little crestfallen. Looking back, I don’t think it was my father’s abilities that were wanting; it was mine. I concede I was not the sharpest tool in the shed then; I was the tool you didn’t know what to do with. Having come some way since then, I now appreciate my father writes well and wished he wrote more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that’s the standard I aspire to in my writing these days – so clear and easy to understand even a sixteen year old can understand; because to do that for a fourteen year old me is setting the bar too high, even for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I was fourteen, my father passed me a draft essay he wrote; he was entertaining the thought of submitting it to the News Straits Times. Even though I was regularly reading books then I lacked sophistication or depth in my reading. I read books but I was not a reader of books. There was no nuance or refinement to my reading; I simply chased through pages to know what happened. At the time, I … <\/p>\n

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