For good writing, look beyond correct grammar

Think back to your school English classes. If they were anything like those we sat through, “writing instruction” was often about grammar rules and principles: endless hours spent diagramming sentences, identifying restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses, and learning such “laws” of usage as “never end a sentence with a preposition.”

There’s just one problem. You can master these skills and be no closer to effective, memorable writing. At the core of our philosophy is the conviction that good writing is more than correct grammar.

Correct grammar isn’t enough for good writing. Nor is it necessary. Consider the following sentence:

The times were the best that they had ever been, but they were also the worst that they had ever been.

Not a grammatical error to be found, but still the prose is lifeless and confusing. Of course, the original is better:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

The original is more rhythmic and poetic. It’s also a grammatically incorrect wrong run-on sentence. And it’s more powerful for it.

There’s an alternative to focusing exclusively on grammar.

Far more effective for learning good writing is taking apart the best writing to see what makes it tick. At ClearWriter, our approach is to examine writing we admire, from newspapers, magazines, books, and annual reports, seeking patterns that we can identify, imitate, and teach. The straightforward techniques in this blog—and those in our premium products—will to help you develop an attractive style, going beyond obsessing over grammar rules, real or imagined.

The next entry discusses one of the most important patterns we’ve found: brevity and directness. We’ll also explain when to follow this pattern (hint: almost always) and when to discard it.