In my last post I endeavoured (and succeeded) at writing a post that did not use a single comma. It served as a writing exercise to address my tendency to hedge and pause (<– see).

Anyway(s)*, this post will be a reflection on a bit of advice I came across on either a Substack or a Reddit subreddit thread: many writers focus too much on technique, sounding fancy, or feigned sophistication, at the expense of communicating a message. If a writer has nothing to say, the likely result is a tossed salad of miscellaneous phrase combinations that may or may not be coherently apprehended by the reader. We benefit when a writer has a message.

This reminds me of when I was with my students at a Model United Nations conference in Xiamen many years ago. Now, my ELLs were intimidated by the English proficiency of the other delegates. I remember one girl who was particularly upset by her own felt inadequacies, despite being one of the strongest students. For about five minutes she tearfully vented to me that she regretted having come. When she finished, I didn’t know what to say, but I told her that the fancy talk of other delegates could not replace a coherent message or idea. There were of course other articulate delegates with good ideas (and fluent in Chinese!), but many weren’t. She ended up going back in to the committee room and even picking up delegate award, if I recall correctly.

And I suppose writing is like that, too. What’s form without function?

That’s my message for this post.

I can be a more effective writer if I have a message. Flair and polish can be added later. But first a shoe.

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*My tendency is to put an s here. Standard English would prefer anyway. But anyways works in more informal contexts.