The best is often not enough, and the lousy you can zap

The Best Writing on Writing is a book edited by Jack Heffron.  It is a collection of pointers on how to write. One is by Donald Murray, “Letter to a Young Article Writer” (at The Writer). This piece has a gem of an idea.

The idea is simple.  In essence, Murray says that a writer should just go ahead and write what it is he wants to say.  However, that something is probably “not enough.”  But in the course of writing, you may stumble onto something else that makes the work more than “one something,” or something that is “one and a half.”  When you have that one and a half, you have something worth publishing.

In fact, Murray indirectly quoted an unnamed colleague of John Jerome (The Writing Trade: A Year in the Life, Viking, 1992).  According to Murray, that colleague reportedly said that “a 600-word essay needs about an idea and a half.”