Monday 20 June 2016

Writing at the Expected Level

If you can write and make sense
remember,  it's not enough
If you can write and make people laugh
remember, it's not enough
If you can write and make people cry
remember, it's not enough
If you can write and make people desperate to know what happens next,
remember, it's not enough
If you can write and make people feel good,
remember, it's not enough
If you can write and make people think and wonder,
remember, it's not enough
If you can write and make people want to be where you went,
remember, it's not enough
If you can write and make people want to be some of the people
you've written about
remember, it's not enough
If you can write and make people want to read more and more and more
remember, it's not enough
But:
if you can write something
that no one is particularly interested in,
no one is desperate to read more and more,
no one laughed or cried or wanted to be where you went
or wanted to know what happened next,
no one wondered about what you had written,
yet,
you included commas, semi-colons, colons,
expanded noun phrases, fronted adverbials, and
embedded relative clauses
over and over and over again
that's enough.