
"You can't learn to write in college" -- Ray Bradbury Interview  - jseliger
http://theparisreview.org/viewinterview.php/prmMID/6012
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thirdstation
I am a counterexample. I learned how to write in college during my freshman
year. My professor capped all essays at 300 words which, at first blush, seems
like a cakewalk. I found it much harder to get a point across in 300 words
than all of the previous reports I'd written where the objective was to fill
pages.

Filling pages is different from _writing_. The most frequent criticism he'd
levy was "show, don't tell".

~~~
alan-crowe
Did you really mean three hundreds words? I very proud of having boiled
<http://www.cawtech.freeserve.co.uk/debt.2.html> down to just 320 words. But
in <http://www.cawtech.freeserve.co.uk/wotter-or-berse.2.html> I allow myself
620 words. The mathematical terseness needed to hold the word count below 300
would be self-defeating. Although I'm making a single, simple point, anything
under 500 words will fail to prepare the reader to hold still for the pin
prick at the end.

Why not 600 words? Doesn't a 300 word cap squeeze so hard that one is forced
to respond with gimmicks? Can you link to any successful 300 word essays on-
line, I would love to study them and see how the trick is done.

~~~
thirdstation
Yes. 300 words exactly. No tricks or gimmicks involved.

Sadly, I don't have any examples. It was a loooong time ago.

I think the 300-word cap was to force you to choose every word carefully.

