{"id":1041,"date":"2015-02-18T12:02:22","date_gmt":"2015-02-17T23:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=1041"},"modified":"2015-02-18T14:41:50","modified_gmt":"2015-02-18T01:41:50","slug":"make-it-easy-for-the-reader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=1041","title":{"rendered":"Make it easy for the reader"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?attachment_id=1043\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1043\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1043\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/olivetti-portable-286x300.jpg\" alt=\"olivetti portable\" width=\"286\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/olivetti-portable-286x300.jpg 286w, https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/olivetti-portable.jpg 332w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 286px) 100vw, 286px\" \/><\/a>Way, way back, I had the opportunity to work with a writer who was seriously under-rated.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t that he wasn\u2019t known.\u00a0 He was a high-profile man-about-town: the star of many a party; the host of many a fine lunch.\u00a0 He just wasn\u2019t recognised for his writing.\u00a0 And yet he wrote some of the most sublimely readable prose.<\/p>\n<p>To be honest, when I first started working with him, I was a bit in awe of him.\u00a0 If he said: \u2018Are you sure this is the most elegant way of expressing this idea?\u2019 I immediately assumed that it wasn\u2019t.\u00a0 And generally rewrote it.<\/p>\n<p>But, as I got to know him better, I took his \u2018challenges\u2019 as invitations to a discussion.\u00a0 One day (I seem to recall that it was after a couple of glasses of wine), I asked him if he had a guiding principle when it came to writing.<\/p>\n<p>I remember him looking up at the ceiling; and then down at the table; and then back up at the ceiling; and, finally, his sparkling blue eyes engaged my neither-sparkling-nor-blue eyes.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Personally,\u2019 he said, \u2018I always try and make it as easy as possible for the reader to read.\u00a0 If the reader doesn\u2019t read it, what\u2019s the point of writing it?\u2019<\/p>\n<p>It was a relatively short conversation, but it changed the whole way I went about my work.\u00a0 Cheers, Mars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Way, way back, I had the opportunity to work with a writer who was seriously under-rated.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t that he wasn\u2019t known.\u00a0 He was a high-profile man-about-town: the star of many a party; the host of many a fine lunch.\u00a0 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/?p=1041\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,6,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1041"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1041"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1044,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1041\/revisions\/1044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kiwistreet.co.nz\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}