Sentenced: The New York Times

This will be the first of many "Sentenced" posts, in which we'll zoom in on actual samples of real-life prose. Today's dissects a recent car review from the New York Times auto section. Beneath the tortured pun of a headline, "New-Age Mutant Ninja Wagons," we read:

MUTATIONS drive evolution. Say you're born with six toes on each foot around the time that an epidemic of the Five Toed Virus sweeps the planet and wreaks havoc on the normal-footed populace. From then on, you and the other six-toed people will have the upper hand, and your offspring will wonder how anyone got by with only five little piggies on each foot.

In the second paragraph, the author gets to the point: high oil prices (the epidemic) are culling thirsty SUVs (the five-toed victims)  from the herd. Gas-sipping luxury wagons (the six-toed mutants) have an evolutionary edge.

Never mind the painful metaphor that gives six-toed people "the upper hand." The real problem with this paragraph is that it's there at all. 

The best writing advice I ever got came from a Swedish art director named Tom Roth. "Dave," he said on reviewing a bloated ad I'd written, "you must kill your darlings."

It's safe to say most—more likely all—Times readers are familiar with the concept of natural selection. Why explain to people what they already know? My guess: the writer fell so in love with his silly opening analogy that he couldn't chop it off (like an extra toe, I'm tempted to add, but won't). Or worse, an editor thought it up and tacked it on.  Either way, the article is far more engaging with the offending darling slain.

To put it in evolutionary terms, the bloated, irrelevant preamble is doomed to be selected out.

"Hi, Everybody! I'm desperate." Writing lessons from the personals

I just spent an hour in the Craig's List personal ads. I was looking not for romance (which might trouble my wonderful wife of 25 years) but to learn how we write when what we're selling is ourselves. And what I found was something that could improve all our writing.

I looked only at ads without pictures, where words alone had to make the sales pitch. Instead of the lame banalities I expected (I love long walks in the moonlight), I found honesty and humor. More importantly, I found the kind of truth-in-advertising missing from most of the writing we do:

I'm a romantic who most women are attracted to but do not trust because of past experiences.

Cute and broke seeks cute and rich

This last writer clearly needs to be introduced to the man who wrote forthrightly:

You've got boobs. I've got a big wallet.

Writers learn to be truthful because deception ultimately backfires. If "Cute and Broke" isn't honestly cute, "Big Wallet" is going to be one unhappy customer. In fact, I could see many were writing from experience:

You must be single and not a convict.

I am ready to settle down and start a family with the right guy of course (who has eluded me for a while). It's important that we get to know each other first, though.

Your nonconformity will be valued more than your ability to sustain an erection.

Of course, the truth that comes out is not always what the writer intended, as in this guy's case:

What is truly unique, what is special and makes me truly covetous is wit and intelligence . . . and the ability to communicate well in written form.

While truthfulness should be your goal, don't neglect to take the target audience into account. Certain admissions, however truthful, are unlikely to pique interest among the intended readers:

I love SHOE SHOPPING.

I love to shop, get my nails done and do all sorts of stuff!

Hi. everybody! I'm desperate.

Here are two women who know whom they are writing to:

I am currently a student in massage therapy.

Hey, I know this is random, but I have season tix to the Mets and no one to go with. If you're into cute small brown girls with nice smiles, get back.

My favorite ad comes from a woman I wouldn't date but would definitely hire as a writer. Her headline declared, "Chubby, but kick-ass as a girlfriend . . . Here's 15 reasons why." Among them:

2. I'm not the jealous type

5. I won't try to change you

6. I don't care about money or material things

14. I like porn

Know your audience and tell the truth. Great lessons. I don't know if you'll get lucky, but at least you'll get read.

Up a tree without a paddle, and other mutant metaphors

You've probably seen the Axa Equitable commercials in which a large primate laments that his financial advice goes unheeded. "Why listen to me?" he says. "I'm just the 800-lb. gorilla in the room."

He may be, but he is also a mutant metaphor. It's "the elephant in the room" everyone persists in ignoring. The 800-lb. gorilla, as the riddle goes, "sleeps anywhere he wants."

I'm not talking about entertainingly dumb mixed metaphors, recorded elsewhere online. I'm talking about true mutant metaphors, ones that, through repetition, fall into almost acceptable use.

Ever hear someone claim to be "back at ground zero"? I though it was tough enough being "back at square one," which is where things start. But "ground zero"—that's where they end. Sometimes in a mushroom cloud.

Next time you hear someone "ran the gauntlet," you should throw down the gauntlet (a glove) on that one. Because it's the gantlet they were running.

Some say these mutant metaphors have been "set in stone," but that's not likely. Set in concrete maybe. Carved in stone, perhaps. But to set them in stone you'd need molten lava.

You can take these warnings with a dose of salts (although I'd prefer you took them with a grain of salt). But as George W. Bush said, the time has come to "make the pie higher." Mutant metaphors, however commonplace, make you look illiterate to those who know better.

Best way to avoid them: Have someone look over what you've written. Second best is to scope it out on the Web. But be careful—mutants are widespread. A search on "beyond a question of a doubt" turned up over 11,000 hits, even though the phrase is "beyond a shadow of a doubt."

I once had a colleague, a queen of the mixed metaphor, complain about a client who was "raping me over the coals." They're what? I asked. "Dave," she said, "I'm up a tree without a paddle."

And so she was.

What we have here is a failure to communicate

Crappy writing is everywhere, and I dedicate this blog to saving the world from it.

I'm not talking about bad screenplays and novels; I'll let the critics worry about those. I'm talking about everyday writing: emails, reports, blogs, letters, presentations, instruction manuals, road directions and all other prosaic prose.

This is important, because we are in the midst of a writing crisis. We are spewing out more words than ever—in over 100 million blogs alone. But the words are failing to achieve what the writers set out to do. Everyone is talking but no one is listening. Blah blah blah.

I don't intend this blog to be another smug rant about the decline of intelligent life on Earth (although some ranting is inevitable, and fun). We're going to look at failed writing and try to understand why it fails. And then we're going to fix it. Starting next time.