{"id":897,"date":"2014-11-24T14:03:12","date_gmt":"2014-11-24T19:03:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/?p=897"},"modified":"2014-11-24T14:06:43","modified_gmt":"2014-11-24T19:06:43","slug":"work-hard-but-dont-try-so-hard-wait-what","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ellismorning.com\/blog\/2014\/11\/work-hard-but-dont-try-so-hard-wait-what\/","title":{"rendered":"Work Hard, But Don\u2019t TRY So Hard. (Wait… What?)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"stretch\"<\/a>(Image credit: Gratisography.com<\/a>)<\/em><\/small><\/p>\n

Have you ever surprised yourself by half-assing a homework assignment, and getting an A on it? Or by posting something to social media you thought was dumb, but it really took off?<\/p>\n

Sometimes, the amount of sweat you put into something is inversely proportional to how well it comes out, and how well people receive it. Weird, but true. The makers of Goat Simulator <\/a><\/em>only spent 10 weeks<\/strong><\/em> on development, yet have sold 1.1 million copies. Meanwhile, that crappy Dungeons and Dragons<\/em> movie from 2000 was in the works for 10 years<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Good writers constantly worry about whether they’re being profound\/funny\/original\/smart\/etc. enough. They want those golden, inspired words so badly that sometimes they\u2019d rather write nothing at all<\/em> than risk writing something they perceive is crap.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re not as bad as you think you are.<\/strong> When you find yourself having those doubts, let go and just focus on writing well enough to be understood.<\/p>\n

Work hard and finish. Don’t try so hard that you sabotage yourself- or, worse- give up.<\/p>\n

Most of the time, that\u2019s really all you need. Reaching for \u201cnext-level\u201d prose sometimes makes things worse<\/em> than if you\u2019d just gone with the simplest phrasing.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a simple sentence that might show up in your first draft:<\/p>\n

Tom picked up the ball.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ugh! How boring! Anyone could write that! You\u2019re a writer, you gotta do better! With considerable mental strain, you might come up with this instead:<\/p>\n

Reaching down with deft and practiced fingers, Tom scooped aloft the rubber orb.<\/em><\/p>\n

Stop.<\/strong> Is that really better? \u201cRubber orb\u201d isn\u2019t nearly as comprehensible as \u201cball.\u201d Plus, the action is now secondary to a description that may be irrelevant. Unless Tom is a major character whose fingers are important to something he does in the story, the reader won’t give a damn how deft or practiced they are. As for the action, is it really<\/em> significant enough to deserve this kind of attention? If not, then it may be perfectly OK just to tell us that Tom picked up the ball.<\/p>\n

If you’re going to reach, do it where you really need it: at important plot events, character moments, the climax. Give the rest of the prose a break.<\/p>\n

This is a lesson I needed a long time to internalize, especially with humor writing. My off-the-cuff prose is just not that funny, which is something I worried about when I first started writing for The Daily WTF<\/a>. With my first several articles, I stretched and strained to manufacture jokes- and, it wasn’t terribly well received.<\/p>\n

You know what? Humor’s a lot simpler than that.<\/p>\n

Here are three of the best articles I’ve ever written for the site:<\/p>\n