Meaning Trumps Sound

David Hewson on writing clearly, rather than beautifully:

Something pops up into your head and it sounds so good and cool you can’t wait to tap it into the machine, never once stopping to ask yourself along the way, ‘But does this actually make sense?’

(...)

The older I get the more I think the best writing is pretty much invisible. If you notice it something’s wrong. With The Killing I made a deliberate attempt to simplify my writing to the extent that it mirrored the blunt, monochrome nature of the TV series itself. I worried that might make me less ‘readable’, whatever that means. Judging by the feedback I get it actually makes me more.

If you require a short url to link to this article, please use http://ignco.de/463

designed for use cover

But wait, there's more!

Want to read more like this? Buy my book's second edition! Designed for Use: Create Usable Interfaces for Applications and the Web is now available DRM-free directly from The Pragmatic Programmers. Or you can get it on Amazon, where it's also available in Chinese and Japanese.