Easy Reading Is Hard Writing
Apple is the pinnacle of product design. The simple user interface of the loved-by-all iPhone is the result of painstaking behind-the-scenes work of Apple’s design team. That level of ease and simplicity for the user necessarily means foresight and meticulous planning by the designers, as they waded through complexity. The more intuitive it is for the user, or the reader, the more effort is required from the designer, or the writer.
Great writing conceals the amount of effort that goes into it. In the words of 19th century novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, "Easy reading is damn hard writing." Being a great writer means doing the work to create a seamless and enjoyable experience for your reader. The more intense your creative process is and the more work you put into it for the sake of readability — focusing on concision and clarity — the more impactful your writing will be.
The purpose of a piece of writing is to be read and to be understood. As a writer, your job is to help that happen. Great writing packs more meaning into fewer words, and that comes from diligent revision. Don’t be vague when you could add detail. Don’t be complex for the sake of sounding sophisticated. Go for the pure economy of language, cutting whatever doesn’t serve your main idea or the story at hand. Throughout the process, be honest with yourself and ask: “Did I put in enough effort to make this easy for my reader?”
The most effortless reads require the most effort from the writer to make them happen. That’s why Thomas Mann said, “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” The great writer works like a dedicated craftsman, weighing every word and tuning every sentence. No matter how good you get at writing, it will always be difficult to write something readable.
Just as the simple elegance of the iPhone is at the end of a long, hidden trail of design decisions, easy reading is the result of a dedicated writer’s many rewrites and revisions. If you do it right, you will turn dense forests of raw information into curated gardens of clear, inviting prose. The goal is effortless understanding, where the depth of your labor disappears into the pleasure of the reader’s experience.
