Rhythm
I never knew anyone else felt this way about writing:
It's a sickness, I think.
From: This Recording
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Also, if you want to be a better writer, this is the most helpful book you will ever read. I've probably read 30 or 40 books on the craft of writing, and Roy Peter Clark's Writing Tools is the most practical and straightforward of the bunch. If you apply these tools to your own writing, you will become a better writer overnight. True story.
"This is what I mean when I call myself a writer. I construct sentences. There's a rhythm I hear that drives me through a sentence. And the words typed on the white page have a sculptural quality. They form odd correspondences. They match up not just through meaning but through sound and look. The rhythm of a sentence will accommodate a certain number of syllables. One syllable too many, I look for another word. There's always another word that means nearly the same thing, and if it doesn't then I'll consider altering the meaning of a sentence to keep the rhythm, the syllable beat. I'm completely willing to let language press meaning upon me. Watching the way in which words match up, keeping the balance in a sentence — these are sensuous pleasures. I might want very and only in the same sentence, spaced in a particular way, exactly so far apart. I might want rapture matched with danger — I like to match word endings."
Don DeLillo
It's a sickness, I think.
From: This Recording
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Also, if you want to be a better writer, this is the most helpful book you will ever read. I've probably read 30 or 40 books on the craft of writing, and Roy Peter Clark's Writing Tools is the most practical and straightforward of the bunch. If you apply these tools to your own writing, you will become a better writer overnight. True story.
