Best writing advice I've read in a long time

From https://www.millersbookreview.com/p/how-long-should-this-sentence-be?img=https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F9817360e-0427-42cc-8cb1-5cff0ff9351d_1920x1346.jpeg&open=false

I have stopped buying books on writing; I have some of the really good ones. I've been asked to write one myself, but I don't need to choke the world with another book on writing, to paraphrase Annie Dillard. Everyone wants to find the secret sauce, and it doesn't exist in a recipe. It exists in the writing, the practice, the WORK.

The question isn’t how many words a writer employs but how clearly those words relate to the core. Length doesn’t cause problems. Muddled thinking expressed in clumsy writing does. Give a writer 100 words to build a sentence, and they won’t automatically become Faulkner, anymore than limiting a person to 15 makes them Hemingway.

The sentence serves the thought and desired effect, not the other way around. You can pile clause upon clause as long as the reader knows how each piece connects to the core. Confusion comes from losing the sentence’s center of gravity.

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