Do you want to be a better writer or speaker? Philip A. Yaffe’s new book, “The Gettysburg Approach to Writing & Speaking Like a Professional” is a good place to start.
Right away, he states that the biggest obstacle to non-fiction writers and speakers is simple: nobody cares. This obstacle is a tough one to overcome, both in terms of getting your point across and in terms of even feeling motivated to write in the first place.
So what is a writer to do? Shall we all give up and blame the apathy of society, or shall we do something about it? Yaffe prefers the latter approach, and he shows us how to get and keep the reader’s attention though a series of rather simple principles which he details throughout the course of the book: clarity, conciseness, and density. Writing isn’t an exercise of showing off your vocabulary or ability to string complex ideas together; it’s a method of communication.
Since Yaffe is a master of the very principles he writes about, the book is a fast read. All of the examples serve to clarify the points, and when you finish reading it, you may never look at writing the same way again.
