Similarly, although we use prepositional phrases when we write, we apparently don't write more effectively when we can label our language in these ways.

Write about just one thing, I have said, and there is wisdom in this advice...And yet, there is wisdom also in William Sloanes contrary observation: Almost all effective writing above the level of the soup can turns out to be about quite a lot of things fused or laced or linked together.

When a young writer deliberately tries to create an effect, the result is often a little self-conscious and overdone. But why is it so hard for us to glory in what the writer has tried to do, or even in the very fact that the writer has deliberately tried to do something?

Meanings come not from events themselves, but from what we bring to them.

Teach the writer, not the writing.