This could be the most important writing tip of your life

WILLIAM TAPPLY

Often teachers at the school and undergrad level tell their students that they write so well they should think about a career in the media. This is what happened to William Tapply, the prolific writer of mysteries.

Tapply writes:

In the beginning, writing came easy to me. My teachers always loved my stories. They came back with comments such as "Wonderful descriptions," or "Excellent use of vocabulary words."

But when Tapply showed the stories to his father, a professional magazine writer, he would only get laconic comments: "Another A. Congratulations."

Then a tough teacher came into Tapply's life. This time, to make sure he could create a good impression, Tapply first showed his assignment to his father and pointedly asked for his opinion.

Here's what happened next:

He read it with a red pen in his hand. Fifteen minutes later he handed it back to me. Every page had eight or ten words circled in red.

"Verbs," said Dad.

"Huh?"

"You depend too much on the verb to be. Use active verbs. Put them to work. Find the right verb, and you can eliminate all these flabby adverbs and fancy adjectives." He pointed with the tip of his pen at those excellent vocabulary words I had strung together to make my wonderfully descriptive passages.

I nodded. "Okay," I said. "Verbs. Otherwise, how is it?"

"There are some other things," he said. "But first, the verbs."

This conversation will be familiar to Commits students who have heard me talk (ad nauseam?) about the importance of verbs. And the necessity of keeping adverbs and adjectives to a minimum.

Tapply's story does not end there. He shows his father the draft of his next story and gets another lesson from the veteran writer:

When he finished, he looked up at me. "You've certainly attended to your verbs," he said. He jabbed at the paper. "Where'd you get this one?"

"Nicitate? I learned that last year."

"Good word," said Dad. "What's it mean?"

"Wink."

"That's a better word," he said. "Who're you trying to impress?"

And then his father gives Tapply perhaps the most important tip of his writing life:

Dad handed my story to me. "Invisible writing," he said. "Understand?"

"No."

"Don't try to impress your reader with how cleverly you write. These fancy words, all these adjectives and adverbs and vocabulary words" — he pronounced the word vocabulary as if it meant "disgusting human waste product" — "all they do is call attention to you. You don't want your reader aware of your writing at all. If you do your job, you'll have them thinking about your ideas, your arguments, your characters, or whatever it is you're trying to communicate. If someone tells you, 'Wow, that's great writing,' you know you've failed."

"You mean all my other teachers over the years. . ."

He shrugged. "You've been getting bad advice."

If you're really serious about improving your writing skills, you will want to read the full story (excerpted from William Tapply's book, Sportsman's Legacy). Go here: "Invisible Writing".