"You can't learn to write in college" -- Ray Bradbury Interview

theparisreview.org

3 points·jseliger··4 comments

I am a counterexample. I learned how to write in college during my freshman year. My professor capped all essays at 300 words which, at first blush, seems like a cakewalk. I found it much harder to get a point across in 300 words than all of the previous reports I'd written where the objective was to fill pages.

Filling pages is different from writing. The most frequent criticism he'd levy was "show, don't tell".

That's what most people don't understand about writing. Much like design, you aren't done when there is nothing left to add, you are done when there is nothing left you can take away. At least with really good writing.

Did you really mean three hundreds words? I very proud of having boiled http://www.cawtech.freeserve.co.uk/debt.2.html down to just 320 words. But in http://www.cawtech.freeserve.co.uk/wotter-or-berse.2.html I allow myself 620 words. The mathematical terseness needed to hold the word count below 300 would be self-defeating. Although I'm making a single, simple point, anything under 500 words will fail to prepare the reader to hold still for the pin prick at the end.

Why not 600 words? Doesn't a 300 word cap squeeze so hard that one is forced to respond with gimmicks? Can you link to any successful 300 word essays on-line, I would love to study them and see how the trick is done.

Yes. 300 words exactly. No tricks or gimmicks involved.

Sadly, I don't have any examples. It was a loooong time ago.

I think the 300-word cap was to force you to choose every word carefully.

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