Comments on: Surprise and delight: ten tips for writers

By: Tools for writing: Economist Style Guide online - Bad Language

Tools for writing: Economist Style Guide online - Bad Language — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 17:34:18 +0000

[...] For more on this subject. Check out my previous articles: Geeks: How to write for a non-technical audience and Surprise and delight: ten tips for writers. [...]

By: Editing, rewriting and increasing readability: 10 ways to slim obese copy - Bad Language

Thu, 15 Apr 2010 07:02:59 +0000

[...] writing, they are usually full of inhuman Frankenquotes. For more on effective use of quotes, see Surprise and Delight and How to use quotations in your [...]

By: Janete Stibbe

Janete Stibbe — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 18:54:21 +0000

Quero saber mais de vc Matthew Stibbe, você conhece os Stibbe do Brasil?

By: Janet

Janet — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 18:52:11 +0000

Exasperated educator – I agree with you on your point. Afterall, the mark of a great teacher improves one’s writing without CHANGING his style. (or do you prefer “her” style?)

By: Bad Language / How to make money writing for the web

Bad Language / How to make money writing for the web — Tue, 13 May 2008 13:43:44 +0000

[...] How to surprise and delight readers [...]

By: Adrian McD

Adrian McD — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 00:43:04 +0000

Here’s one for you- get phunky with your writing; go freestyle. Use interesting ~~ grammar and punctuation points. It helps introduce suspense and is DRAMATIC in its result.

FO shizzle.

By: Martin

Martin — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 18:23:07 +0000

Remember that written language can (and usually should) be just as chatty and informal as the spoken word. So if you find yourself writing ‘prior to the commencement of’, when you would say ‘before’, change it.

By: Matthew Stibbe

Matthew Stibbe — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 13:22:34 +0000

Suddenly there are a lot of comments on this post. To try to answer a few of them:

Exasperated educator. Sorry. Didn’t mean you personally.

Andy. I quite like the ‘surprise’ of using She when people expect the generic ‘he’ or the tortured ‘they’ but everyone to their own, I guess.

Eggy. I fink u is clever 2.

Catherine. The Economist may be a little smug (I don’t think so but I can see why you might) but it’s not the only suggestion. It’s a fair point about too much ‘I’. The art of good writing is probably to find the right amount. I keep seeing stuff written by companies that totally avoids the first person plural or singular and puts everything in the passive voice. I think it reflects a culture of blame-avoidance and passivity as well as bad writing. I think this was what I was trying to get to.

Chris. Boo to stuff pinstriped language – I couldn’t agree more.

By: Exasperated Educator

Exasperated Educator — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 13:09:13 +0000

You talk about originality being yourself and then come up with the pathetically stereotyped comment that teachers “try to stamp out all traces of your personality from your writing”. You rather undermine your own ability to advise on creating “surprise and delight” when you resort to this sort of attitude. Some of us work bloody hard to bring out the originality and personality of our students – there’d be little point in teaching if our sole aim was to do otherwise.

By: Andy Uber

Andy Uber — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 11:53:51 +0000

Don’t try to be politically correct and insert “she” where the generic “he” used to be used. Even worse don’t use the awful compound “he or she” (or “she or he”). Use “they” or reword the sentence to avoid it altogether.

Seeing a sentence like: “If the reader thinks she has to wade through twenty pages and you give an excellent one page summary, think how happy she’ll be.” is just jarring.

Why not?: “If the reader thinks they have to wade through twenty pages and you give an excellent one page summary, think how happy they’ll be.

(Nb. I also leave both the toilet seat AND lid down)