This chapter is talking about some affairs happened in a school speech. I perceive this as the author casually talking. But this section is still a general outline of the whole book, On Writing Well.
The section starts with the author being invited to a school in Connecticut (one state of America). The school would hold "a day devoted to the arts" and the author was going to talk about writing as a vocation. However, there was another person, a surgeon who had recently begun to write and was going to talk about writing as an avocation.
Here we could see how conflicts arose. Obviously, the author will definitely talk on his behalf, which is what he'd like to tell us in the whole book. Let's see how he contradicted the surgeon. Some excerpts listed below:
He said it was tremendous fun. Coming home from an arduous day at hospital, he would go straight to his yellow pad and write his tensions away. The words just flowed. It was easy. I then said that writing wasn't easy and wasn't fun. It was hard and lonely, and the words seldom just flowed.
Next Dr. Brock was asked if it was important to rewrite. Absolutely not, he said. "Let it all hang out," he told us, and whatever from the sentences take will reflect the writer at his most natrual. I then said that rewriting is the essence of writing. I pointed out that professional writers rewrite their sentences over and over and then rewrite what they have rewritten.
There are many more.
After this activity, students might feel bewildered. But the author thought that they gave the students a broader glimpse of the writing process. For there isn't any "right" way to do such personal work, written the author. But there is still something to talk about. Let's see how the author tells us:
But all of them are vulnerable and all of them are tense. They are driven by a compulsion to put some part of themselves on paper, and yet they don't just write what comes naturally. They sit down to commit an act of literature, and the self who emerges on paper is far stiffer than the person who sat down to write. The problem is to find the real man or woman behind the tension.
Sometimes the author finds himself reading with interest about a topic he never thought would interest him. And it's not necessary to spend a year alone at Walden Pond to become involved with a writer who did.
Finally it comes the main ideas of this book:
This is the personal transaction that's at the heart of good nonfiction writing. Out of it come two of the most important qualities that this book will go in search of: humanity and warmth. Good writing has an aliveness that keeps the reader reading from one paragraph to the next, and it's not a question of gimmicks to "personalize" the author. It's a question of using the English language in a way that will achieve the greatest clarity and strength.
After reading this section, you will find that there is nothing "correct", but something that really shows the authors personality. As to write well, we should keep our writings alive just like a real author.
Unfamiliar words
- avocation: an auxiliary activity; a hobby.
- excerpt: a passage selected from a larger work.
- arduous: to describe an activity that takes a lot of effort. [If you spend an arduous week studying for your final exams, you'll do well because you've worked really hard!]
- vulnerable: capable of being wounded or hurt; weak.
- stiff: rigidly formal. [The letter was stiff and formal.]
- gimmick: a trick intended to attract attention.