There are many ways we can learn to write more expressively. We can read all of the posts on The Write Practice and join Becoming Writer, or we can take writing lessons from Benjamin Franklin.
What Benjamin Franklin Can Teach You About Writing
Benjamin Franklin wrote about how he taught himself to write more elegantly and expressively in his autobiography, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin Franklin found writing he admired in the Spectator, and then imitated the writing.
Benjamin Franklin learned how to be original in his expressions by first learning how to imitate others.
“With this view I took some of the papers, and, making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, without looking at the book, try’d to compleat [sic] the papers again.”
— Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
The Franklin Five-step
Step One: Find writing you would like to emulate.
Step Two: Make short notes about the view or opinion of each sentence.
Step Three: Wait a few days, and then write a piece only using your notes on each sentence.
Step Four: Go back and read the original writing selection you chose and compare it to the writing you did.
Step Five: Find any faults, and correct them.
“Then I compared my Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, and corrected them.” — Benjamin Franklin,
Find Writing You Would Like To Emulate
Perhaps you like writing that is simple and unadorned like Ernest Hemingway. Or perhaps you prefer the flowery writing of Thomas Wolfe. As a writer of nonfiction, particularly memoir, the author I admire is James Herriot.
Two Ways To Use The Franklin Model
Rewrite a sample of writing in your own words as suggested in the five steps above. Another way is to use a sample of writing as a model for your own work.
I am using James Herriot’s writing as a sample of writing to model my own work.
Here is an example from James Herriot’s book, Cat Stories, “He’s alive, anyway, Triss,” I said as we began to wash the instruments. “We’ll put him on to sulphyridine and keep our fingers crossed that peritonitis won’t set in.” There were still no antibiotics at that time but the new drug was a big advance.
Using the excerpt from James Herriot’s Cat Stories, as an example, here is my selection.
Forbes magazine editor Lauren Stockbower sent me a fax with the deadline for the film, “We need the film by tomorrow morning. Send it by overnight express today.” I had enough time to get the slides of the head of Seiko processed and then take them to the Fed Ex office in downtown Tokyo. Digital camera’s wouldn’t be in common use for another twenty years.
The Goal is To Find the Beat To Your Own Song
Every writer has a cadence to their writing. Sort of like a beat in a song. By imitating writers whose musical quality of writing you admire, you will help develop your own beat. You can develop your own cadence by studying well-structured sentences of writing in the style you want to emulate.
In 1998 I took an American Literature class. American Literature 214. As part of the class we had to write papers evaluating the literature we were studying. My first paper I received a C. I had never analyzed literature before and I didn’t know how to talk about the story. In the college library, I found examples of well-structured papers. I used this papers as a model to write my own papers.
Here is the first paragraph of an eight-page paper I wrote for my American Literature class after I found writing to emulate. My grade improved after I found examples of papers written by others.
Differing Values in a Patriarachal Society in The Revolt of Mother
The Revolt of Mother by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
Sarah Penn, the female protagonist of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman’s fictional short story, The Revolt of Mother, valued her home and relationships; her husband valued barns and animals. Adoniram Penn had promised Sarah when they wed that he would build her a house on a certain section of their land. She had lived for forty years in a house that was “scarcely as commodious for people as the little boxes under the barn eaves were for doves”, without complaint, until her husband started to dig a cellar for a new barn in the exact spot he had promised to build Sarah a house. After the barn had been built Adoniram went out or town for a few days. In his absense Sarah moved all of their possessions into the new barn.
[Writing is like a Wendy’s salad bar. There are many ways to make a salad. But, it’s nice to have a recipe.]
Have you ever tried to write using Benjamin Franklin’s steps to improve your writing? Please let me know in the comments section.
PRACTICE
For today’s practice, spend fifteen minutes finding writing you admire and would like to emulate. Select a short passage and follow the five steps listed above. Then, after you have written your piece, please post it in the comments here. It might take you a few days. I will come back and read the comments.
Please be kind and comment on someone else’s writing. Just like it is nice to share your candy, it is nice to read someone else’s writing.
xo
Pamela
p.s. The Revolt of Mother was published in Harper Bazaar in September, 1890 and was republished in, A New England Nun and Other Stories (Harper & Brothers Publishers; New York: 1891)
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