There Had Been Times When He Could Not Finish Any Prayer

On the difference between writing and speaking, and the place for each.

Over the weekend, I was reminded of perhaps the best piece of writing advice I’ve ever gotten. Funnily enough it came from one of my college classmates, not a teacher—my friend Sarah, who I’d had maybe a half-dozen classes with at Ohio State because we were in the same year, major, and program.

We were in a writing pedagogy class for aspiring English teachers, and instead of getting a grade from our instructor on our final paper, we instead went through a series of rigorous drafts and edits with a peer. I could probably find the paper on my old hard drive; without looking at it, I can almost guarantee that it was a self-impressed mess that tried to ape the style of three or four other writers I admired. (Which isn’t to say it wasn’t a lot of work. I cared, deeply, about what my writing looked like to other people back then, which is probably why I tried to rip off Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson so regularly. I still care deeply, but I sound a lot more like me these days.)

Anyway the advice, in Sarah’s tidy hand in the margins, was roughly this: You don’t always have to write the way you talk. In fact you probably shouldn’t.

This is good advice for a number of reasons, not least of which is that sticking to it prevents you from clearing your throat with bracketed commas every other sentence. But in the past eight years I’ve learned that it’s important for another reason. In person, I have a hard time speaking directly, and I am miserable at making eye contact, particularly if the other person or I is saying something especially difficult or heartfelt. In the past year I have had more occasions to have those intimate, heartfelt conversations than at any other point in my life . So it’s something I’ve had to work on a lot.

But on the page it is far easier to let loose. Writing this newsletter, for example, has allowed me to be open and vulnerable in a way that I am constitutionally incapable of in person most times. And that’s been reciprocated! What a beautiful and unexpected result. I’ve been lucky enough to have a handful of friends, mostly men, reach out over text or email about certain things in this newsletter that have moved them or made them think deeply about aspects of their own life. What would be kind of unimaginable in person with us has become a natural part of the writing process. Accordingly, the style should be different, and intentionally so.

I know none of this is exactly what Sarah meant when she gave that advice. But it’s brought me to a place, emotionally and literarily, that I love and depend on. (Her suggestion would stand regardless, though. She has a keen eye for craftsmanship.)

For example, I can’t imagine anyone speaking like this, not really. But it’s all the more breathtaking for that:

That second paragraph in particular: what a doozy. Even just the reversal of “feel” and “sometimes” from what would be the natural speaking order is enough to highlight the difference that I’m talking about. And it has everything, in such a tight space! A few lofty, poetic sentences full of commas, a few punchy declarations, even a sentence that is just a list absent a verb or object. Mastery of the craft.

The passage above comes from Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow, which I finished last week with equal parts relief and dismay—relief at having gotten through the hard labor of coping with the emotional blows the book dealt, dismay at being finished with one of the most haunting, challenging novels I’ve ever read. Its exploration of whether God or higher purpose can be found out in space paired nicely with the book I read just before it, Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man.

Why is it so hard to take a picture of a page in a book?

Coming across the final paragraph on that page during a time like this did a number on me, let me tell you. I want Earth. I want it so bad it hurts. The recognition that others have it far worse than you, are truly suffering, but dammit, you just want to be back in the world and it’s killing you not to be.

That’s all from me this week. If you want to keep supporting this (free, but not cheap) newsletter, why not buy yourself or someone else a book?

-Chuck