Writing is quite different from speaking. When we speak, we might say that whole sentence together, with a pause in between. Our expressions and pauses help the person we are talking to understand our meaning. Not so in writing. We have to be concise and clear in what we write. Let’s talk about the power of one idea.
Clear And Simple Writing: The Power of One Idea
Continuing the Clear and Simple Writing Series from my last post on short sentences, here’s another tip to keep sentence length brief.
One sentence, one idea.
We may use several sentences to convey an idea, but never attempt to convey more than one idea in a sentence.
Let me give you an example to illustrate this:
Never seek a fight if it comes to you, yield, step back, it is far better to step back than to overstep yourself
Ask yourself:
- Does this sentence contain only one idea? (Three, is what I think)
- Can each idea stand by itself as a complete sentence?
Let’s try that again: Never seek a fight. If it comes to you, yield, step back. It is far better to step back than to overstep yourself.
Better, don’t you think?
‘One idea, one sentence’ makes your sentences more powerful.
Why don’t you try this sentence?
If you make a point, do not cling to it, if you win be gracious, the greatest martial arts are the gentlest, they allow an attacker the opportunity to fall down.
Does it have only one idea?
Let me see your rewrite in the comments.
Remember: one sentence, one idea.
This is a WOW series! Powerful message indeed!
You’re right about talking and writing. Well, I guess, my sentences have lots of ellipses and emoticons 😛
Lazy Pineapple’s version comes closest to mine. Whenever I write now, I am more aware of making my sentences brief 😛
Like I told Lazy Pineapple, the last sentence could also be broken into two, Melissa. So now do you have my ‘voice’ playing in your ear when you write? 😛
I agree Corinne! The shorter, the better. Less is always more.
I love your style of writing, Anne. Succinct and so rich with meaning!
In fact,after reading this post,it sounds so simple.
Didn’t occur earlier to me.
Thank you, Mr Chowla. I appreciate your feedback.
Your sentence has three beautiful ideas and I love the idea of your posts a lot.
I’m glad you like these posts, Sulekha. Thank you for sharing – as always.
Food for thought Corrine…how effective an exercise like this is. WOW!!
Thanks, Deeba. I’m glad to be re-using my training that was getting a bit rusty!
Corinne, Nice point and good post! Short and bang on the point.
If you make a point, do not cling to it. If you win, be gracious. The greatest martial arts are the gentlest, as they allow an attacker the opportunity to fall down. or The greatest martial arts are the gentlest; they allow an attacker the opportunity to fall down.
Corinne, there is a small typo in the first bullet point — contains instead of contain. <3
Just a quick response, Rachna. Thanks so much for pointing out the error. Too much re-drafting, I guess.
Thanks, Rachna. What about this: If you make a point, do not cling to it. If you win, be gracious. The greatest martial arts are the gentlest. They allow the attacker to fall down.
Yeah, typos creep in for me too in my posts with all the edits and re-edits :). Absolutely Corinne, this version is good too. I, however, prefer using a semi colon when the two thoughts are very close to each other and almost seem like a continuation as is the case with the last two sentences.
<3 the topic and the energizing discussion around it!
If you make a point, do not cling to it. If you win, be gracious. The greatest martial arts are the gentlest, they allow an attacker the opportunity to fall down.
There are three ideas in this sentence. Love this post. What a unique way to engage your reader 🙂
Correct. Except you could also break the last sentence into two, by taking out the comma.
Thanks for attempting this and for sharing it. I appreciate it.
Hi
Very useful. Thanks . 🙂
Glad you found it so, Jaish.
I love this and the ‘Short Sentences’ post in this series! Very useful 🙂 Looking forward to the next post! xx
Glad you find it useful, Emma. More follows, next Monday!
Corinne, I got your point, this sentence has more than one idea – and I like the exercise: If you make a point, do not cling to it. If you win, be gracious. The greatest martial arts are the gentlest. They allow an attacker, the opportunity to fall down.
thanks for sharing!
Glad you like the exercise. You’ve done a fabulous job of it too! You got the four sentences correct. Only you added an unnecessary comma in the last sentence.
Let me try
If you make a point, do not cling to it. If you win, be gracious.
The greatest martial arts are the gentlest. They allow an attacker; the opportunity to fall down.
Am I right? Since they have different ideas, so there should be different sentences and paras.
You’re absolutely right about breaking this up into four sentences, Bhagyashree. Well done!
Since they’re essentially around one central idea, there’s no need to change paragraphs. I’ll come to the paragraphs in a few posts. The comma in the last sentence is unnecessary.
It has three ideas.
If you make a point, do not cling to it. If you win be gracious. The greatest martial arts are the gentlest as they allow an attacker the opportunity to fall down.
Very true. Sometimes while writing we are so lost in the idea that we think it makes sense but from a reader’s perspective it all seems stretched sometimes.
Try four sentences instead of three, Privy. It would make much better reading.
How about this?
If you make a point, do not cling to it. If you win, be gracious. The greatest martial arts are the gentlest; they allow an attacker the opportunity to fall down.
Agree, Corinne. We don’t want to present more than one idea in a sentence, simply because it will confuse people Presenting more than one idea is also going to take more time for the readers to grasp the idea (people don’t want to spend much time with anything these days – everything should be instant!).
So, we writers need to adapt to that instant demanding environment. Write one idea per sentence. More white spaces.
In your response, I would take out the semi-colon and make that into another sentence.
Like I told Harleena, I feel, you’re in trouble if a reader has to read your sentence twice to get the meaning. More white spaces, indeed!
If you make a point do not cling to it. If you win be gracious. The greatest martial arts are the greatest, they allow an attacker the opportunity to fall down.
This has more than one idea. Three.
Nice exercise. Thank you.
Fab, Janu. Except the last sentence could be broken into two sentences where you inserted the comma.
Short, sweet and great advice. Tweeted 🙂
Thanks a lot, Pamela. Appreciate the share!
Love the exercise Corinne!
Oh yes – keeping short sentences is the key and breaking it up further related to one idea is what should be done! Let me try this one out –
If you make a point, do not cling to it. If you win be gracious. The greatest martial arts are the gentlest. They allow an attacker the opportunity to fall down.
The above has many ideas, so we can’t club them all into one sentence. Yet, I do see people try doing that so often.
Thanks for sharing and helping us brush up our skills through these series. 🙂
I’m so glad you like the exercise, Harleena. I’m trying hard to keep my posts to the usual length and given information. I feel, you’re in trouble if a reader has to read your sentence twice to get the meaning. 🙂
Your skills need no brushing up, my dear. Your response was spot on!
Thanks for sharing this, its really helpful
So great to see you back here, Akum. I thought we had lost touch. How are you doing, my friend?