"Niceness" in Writing

 Hello, fellow writers! We're here today to discuss a tough subject: "niceness" in writing. Of course, no one wants to be "mean" in his work, but often we can come across as mean without intending it. No matter how carefully we write an essay or opinion piece, if enough people read it, at least one of them will be upset, for some reason or other. So what's a writer to do? Here are a few things to keep in mind when considering "niceness" as a factor in your writing:

1. "Nice" and "Good" are different. If I asked you to make a list of what traits make someone a "good person," you might include honesty, obedience, humility, love, patience, and kindness, among others. But guess what? Not all of these traits are "nice" when considered individually. Honesty can be hurtful, love can mean doing what's best for others even if they don't appreciate it, obedience can make you look like a goody-two-shoes or tattler. Goodness is doing what's right for the sake of others; niceness is doing what's pleasant for others.

How does this apply to writing? Well, truth hurts sometimes. Our readers might need to hear something they won't like. If you believe the truth will upset them, that's no reason not to tell it. The trick is to "speak truth in love." You're not doing this to prove yourself right or make a point--you're writing with the intention of improving the world or someone's life. If your friend asks you to keep a harmful secret, would you do it? Or would you have a heart-to-heart talk about the morality of the situation? You would do what's right, even if it hurts, because you love your friend enough to look past the emotions of the moment to the long term effects.

Takeaway: When you write, write as if you love your readers: That is, with humility, honesty, and kindness.

2. A note about "sensitive phrasing:" Some style guides suggest alternate phrasings (e.g., "person with mental illness" instead of "mentally ill person") as "more sensitive." I have no problem with being kind to the mentally ill. But what I do have a problem with is unnecessary wordiness in situations that are unlikely to upset anyone in the first place. When you read an article, do you notice or care if the author put the word "person" before the descriptors? No. And does putting "person" after the descriptors automatically signal hatred and evil intent? Certainly not.

In a similar fashion, "barnacle phrases" meant to lessen the impact of our ideas do exactly that: lessen the impact of our ideas--and not in a "nice" way. "Kind of," "sort of," "tend to," "maybe," "might," "could," "perhaps"--cut them out wherever possible. Oftentimes we put them in our sentences to decrease the potential perceived hurtfulness of our words, when really all they do is weaken the writing. Women are especially prone to this; we do this in our speech all the time, and it becomes a habit.

Takeaway: Don't let your inclination towards "niceness" weaken your writing or draw power from your words. If you truly love your readers, this will shine through whether your phrase things in special ways or not.

3. Some quotes from writers on the topic! Here are some quotes from famous (and not-so-famous) writers that might shed light on this difficult balancing act:

"Write hard and clear about what hurts." -Ernest Hemingway

"First tell the truth, then give your opinion." -Dennis Prager

"Raise your words, not your voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder." -Rumi

"Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer." -Barbara Kingsolver

"Assume the reader knows nothing. But don't assume the reader is stupid." -Ann Handley

"Write the best, most amazing book you can, the wisest, most honest, most human book you have inside." -Anne Lamott

"A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight." -Ursula K. Leguin

"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations." -George Orwell

"You own everything that happened to you. Tell your stories. If people wanted you to write warmly about them, they should've behaved better." -Anne Lamott

"How many times have people used a pen or paintbrush because they couldn't pull the trigger?" -Virginia Woolf

"A drop of ink may make a million think." -Lord Byron

"The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean." -Robert Louis Stevenson

"Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to split open." -Natalie Goldberg

"Writing is one of the crossroads where what is most disturbing can be explored and investigated without destroying yourself or others. This is one of the highest purposes of the arts." -Bonni Goldberg

"What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story." -F. Scott Fitzgerald

"I really believe that one should be able to imagine being somebody else. This is important for writers, but it's also important for readers, and for all human beings to be able to imagine being somebody else." -Yiyun Li.

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