The Writer's Art by James J. Kilpatrick

Author:James J. Kilpatrick [Kilpatrick, James J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4494-0561-8
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Published: 1984-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

5. We must keep our instrument properly in tune.

This is Rule One, I suppose, for the concert violinist. If the “A” on his instrument is not vibrating at the same frequency as the “A” in the string section, he is in for a bad evening. By extension the rule applies to writers also. We have to stay in pitch.

I remember a moment, back in the spring of 1949, when I had just begun writing editorials under the steel-framed eyes of Dr. Freeman. I brought him a change-of-pace piece about the Lee House down on East Franklin Street. The piece began with a lyric sentence, in which the ghost of the South’s noblest figure still lingered in the shadowed rooms, etc., etc. The piece ended, I am embarrassed to recall, with a sentence that wasn’t quite as bad, but almost as bad, as “Things ain’t what they used to be.” Dr. Freeman sent the editorial back to my desk with a note in his eight-point script:

Mr. Kilpatrick—

If you start purple, finish purple.

DSF

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