For newcomers, Friday’s rant was called Why Preachers Write Aweful Books… and what they can learn from fiction. I say “rant” because I refuse to dignify that post with the label “article.” I shouldn’t have been surprised — a rant was inevitable after writing poetry for two months. Oh well…

In any case, here’s a simpler list for you more practical types that don’t have time for rants:

1. Only sissies use italics. My friend (the guy who writes Kinnaston) and I talked about this recently and came to this conclusion: italics aren’t completely useless, they’re just a crutch. Crutches can be helpful… but only if you’re seriously injured or if you invent some unorthodox sport and use yours as a bat.

Here’s what Lewis said:

“In the printed versions I made a few additions to what I had said at the microphone, but otherwise left the text much as it had been. A ‘talk’ on the radio should, I think, be as like real talk as possible, and should not sound like an essay being read aloud.

In my talks I had therefore used all the contractions and colloquialisms I ordinarily use in conversation. In the printed version I reproduced this, putting don’t and we’ve for do not and we have. And wherever, in the talks, I had made the importance of a word clear by the emphasis of my voice, I printed it in italics.

I am now inclined to think that this was a mistake – an undesirable hybrid between the art of speaking and the art of writing. A talker ought to use variations of voice for emphasis because his medium naturally lends itself to that method: but a writer ought not to use italics for the same purpose. He has his own, different, means of bringing out the key words and ought to use them.

In this edition I have expanded the contractions and replaced most of the italics by recasting the sentences in which they occurred: but without altering, I hope, the ‘popular’ or ‘familiar’ tone which I had all along intended.”

Radio’s “outdated” (save for podcasts) but that distinction still exists between an oral manuscript and a literary one. Italics should not be used in the same way.

Here’s are my conclusions drawn from Lewis’ era toward the modern era of .rtf files and HTML where italics are normal :

• Suspend use of italics in your first draft to keep from crippling your prose.
• Use whatever tools you have in your stylistic arsenal to emphasize certain words. Syntax and structure are your friends.
• When you find a situation (such as a lengthy bit of dialog) where it may be unwieldy to add more words, try using italics…
• …that defer to your syntax and structure
• …so that if and when others distribute your work through some platform (.txt file or .html) that cannot handle italics, the prose makes sense and stands on its own two feet.

Lewis was right, he just wasn’t thinking about HTML. Had he, I think he’d agree with my modern applications.

1. Hold your best cards for your last play. This is basic spades strategy — you don’t play your aces first thing unless your hand can win every single trick. That kind of hand is rare, and that kind of book is rarer, so hold your best cards for your last play. We had to wait two full Star Wars films to get to “I am your father.” We had to wait seven books to find out why Snape treats Harry so poorly and why Harry can do things other wizards cannot.

In the same way, preachers who like deduction will play face-up. Face-up only counts in beef manhattans, academic books, and DIY. For instance, I’m reading this 800-page tome called  The Resurrection of the Son of God by N.T. Wright (on Amazon). He says quite clearly at the start that he’s going to lay out every single primary source that could be considered a resurrection, resuscitation, renovation (etc.) text in every mythology from Babylonian to Egyptian to Greek to Jewish and THEN he’s going to show why the resurrection of Jesus is a unique, literal, and concrete event in history. Face up, beef Manhattan style.

Unless that’s the kind of book you’re writing, I think you’re better off leaving something to the imagination. Hold your cards. My best preaching professor used to say, “Your sermons should be like a miniskirt — long enough to cover the essentials, short enough to keep it interesting.” If I could tweak that for this: your book should work like an elegant dress — enticing, but leaving something to the imagination. Hold your best cards, draw it out, give us something to look forward to instead of hammering us with your main point every. single. chapter. intro.

1. Mixed metaphor IS metaphor. “That’s cliché” is the lit-snob shortcut for “stop being a lazy writer and tell us in your own words.” Clichés work for us because they provide guiding metaphors for the culture, microcosms of mythology. However, mythology works best when you use your own words. I had procrastinated buying the Edda of Norse Mythology until the day my best friend told me the story of Thor drinking an entire lake of ale. It was hilarious because it was in his own words. I borrowed the three texts immediately.

It’s the same for metaphors. A metaphor (from Gk. “to transfer”) creates a third reality through an unlikely collision of two unrelated, concrete images. Pigs fly. Cat on a hot tin roof. Diva vomits.

The first two are cliche, the last is my invention. All three call up something greater than the sum of their parts. We’re colliding two words (metaphors) to create a new metaphor. People critique mixed metaphor in literature — and I understand why, it can be confusing. But they forget that a new metaphor is, by definition, mixed metaphor. There are simply confusing metaphors and illuminating metaphors. Keep mixing it up until something solid sticks (another metaphor that implies fusion).

In short, try a unique collision. Don’t use your standard literary toolbox, try a sonic screwdriver. You’ll find you’re sounding more vivid.

More readable.

More you.