The best writing advice is simple. Evan Thomas, former editor-at-large for Newsweek, is co-teaching a winter writing program for Harvard students with Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson (and, oh yeah, chairman of CNN and managing editor of Time Magazine). Thomas shared this insight about how difficult and crucial it is to write simple.
Writing, clear and simple | Harvard Gazette:
“Simple does not mean ‘simpleton,’ ” [Thomas] said. “Simple often means quite the opposite, that you’ve really thought through the problem and found a clear way to express a complex thought. But students see a lot of different models of writing and think that they have to sound sophisticated by writing convoluted sentences. Really, they should take complicated thoughts and figure out how to render them in a clear way.”
This is so true and such hard work to do well.
(Via Harvard Gazette)