Writing at ease
 Needless
to say writing is an art. The craft of writing goes a long way in
communicating ideas and feelings. There are innumerable books available
on creative writing. These are new and old.
Some 40 years ago I found one book that was helpful. I borrowed it
from a friend and returned. It was called Simple and Direct – Rhetoric
for writers Barzon. There was another Fiction Writers Handbook by K D &
Whit Burnett. Some other fascinating writing can be found in Virginia
Woolf’s The Moments of Being, Jonathan Livingstone’s The Sea Gull.
Nowadays there are many more such books that can benefit young
writers who want to creatively.
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Every good writing has goals |
The purpose of this week’s column is to share my learning with young
people who may read my columns. I shall be brief.
Although I couldn’t lay my hands on two pioneer writing in English by
Lankans my lecturers informed me that in 1904 Lucien de Zilwa wrote a
book called The Dice of the Gods. There was another book titled Scenes
of a Life Time.
General Principles
In good writing we find four basic principles are followed in
reaching the reader or a listener. They are: Knowing what we have to
say, knowing how we are to say and knowing our purpose in saying it.
To write better we must have a clear thinking on what we want to say
and clear understanding of the subject chosen. Almost all great writers
write in simple manner and writing in simple ways is very difficult but
by training one learns to put even complex ideas in simple terms because
the writer understands fully the subject he is writing about.
Some of the Lankan prose writers who wrote clearly in English, in my
opinion, were Regi Siriwardena, Jayantha Padmanabha, Mervyn de Silva,
Godfrey Gunatilaka, Ajit Samaranayaske, A J Gunawarena, Neville Jayawera,
Tissa Jayatilaka, Lester James Peries, Sarath Amunugama, G L Pieris,
Jayantha Dhanapala Wimal Disanayake and one or two others.
Creativity springs from our own cultural experiences and context
All good writing has at least four goals: to inform and explain, to
persuade, to convince and to entertain. In good writing one finds these
qualities.
Knowledgeable writers have pointed out that success in purpose depend
upon the readers and listeners. They must be receptive to our
communication. In other words they must understand what we are saying.
What we say and how we say depends upon the nature and needs of those
who will read what we have put down in writing.
Two vital qualities of good writing are Unity and Coherence. What is
meant by unity is the inter-relating of thought. In order to achieve
unity the writer must stick to the point.
Information and ideas that are not closely related to the feature or
the topic chosen, no matter how interesting, should be avoided or be
clearly indicated as subordinate in importance.
What is coherence? They say our sentences must be connected with good
‘transitional devices’ so that they relate not only to the idea in mind
but also directly to each other.
Here are some examples of ‘transitional devices’: and, besides,
furthermore, moreover, again, along with, too, however, in spite of,
nevertheless, nor, rather, whereas, notwithstanding, therefore, hence,
in this way, it follows that, under such circumstances, as a
consequence, indeed, certainly, in fact, in truth, undoubtedly, because,
since, for, due to the fact that ,unless.
On another occasion we shall learn more on different types of
creative writing.
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