Christopher Hitchens: “Write more the way you talk”
The famous contrarian writer most celebrated in recent years for his antitheist rhetoric dropped a considerable number of jaws last year when he composed a Slate column in 20 minutes the day after undergoing a chemotherapy session. When it comes to the written word, we could all take a page out of his (very quickly drafted) book — and after being diagnosed with esophageal cancer and slowly losing his ability to speak last year, he gave us one in the form of a Vanity Fair column. In it, he discusses the importance of mastering the spoken word before the written one, and the importance of hearing your work read out loud. Find a brilliant speaking voice; then write in it, he says:
I owe a vast debt to Simon Hoggart of The Guardian (son of the author of The Uses of Literacy), who about 35 years ago informed me that an article of mine was well argued but dull, and advised me briskly to write ‘more like the way that you talk.’ At the time, I was near speechless at the charge of being boring and never thanked him properly, but in time I appreciated that my fear of self-indulgence and the personal pronoun was its own form of indulgence.To my writing classes I used later to open by saying that anybody who could talk could also write. Having cheered them up with this easy-to-grasp ladder, I then replaced it with a huge and loathsome snake: ‘How many people in this class, would you say, can talk? I mean really talk?’ That had its duly woeful effect. I told them to read every composition aloud, preferably to a trusted friend. The rules are much the same: Avoid stock expressions (like the plague, as William Safire used to say) and repetitions. Don’t say that as a boy your grandmother used to read to you, unless at that stage of her life she really was a boy, in which case you have probably thrown away a better intro. If something is worth hearing or listening to, it’s very probably worth reading. So, this above all: Find your own voice.
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