Williams Clarity And Grace Analysis

I devoured Williams Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace like a breath of fresh air rushing into my lungs. As a new pristine writer, I always search for secrets that emulate the greatness of past masterminds. Williams teaches me to rely solely on perseverance in my first attempt to write in the active voice only. Williams states that a good story must possess both characters and action. Williams goes on to further state, to deliver “clear, direct, and readable content,” the subject must be your main character and the verb must deliver specific actions of that character. He stresses the point that we must “express action in verbs;” however, the real emphasis lies in weaving the characters into your subject matter. Williams points out that characters and their actions, will often help you to “retell the story to yourself” during periods of intense reading. Being an avid reader myself, this …show more content…
Williams focuses on uncovering the subject (characters), their verbs (actions), and fine tuning those into clear and cohesive stories. Williams believes that the key to clarity lies in the actions of the verbs. Williams cautions that though readers desire “flesh-and-blood characters,” a writer often must reflect upon “abstractions,” and assign them “general terms” like me, teacher, etc. Williams recants that “normalization” should never be used, and further concurs it as a necessary tool in certain situations. Williams urges that little nominalization equals minimal passive voice without avoidance.

Williams summarizes that revisions are necessary for both actions and characters. He explains that revisions for actions goes through a “three-step process” consisting of analyzation, assessment, and revisions. Williams converts characters into subjects by knowing when his subject is not in character form; where to search for his character, and