Seven Degrees Left of Center

The fight between "complexity vs. simplicity"

My writing wrestles with complexity vs. simplicity:

Simplicity has power. A clean sentence, one striking image, or a single line of dialogue can carry more punch than a page of ornate detail. Simplicity makes the work breathable and memorable. Hemingway leaned on this.
Complexity has depth. Layered structure, subtext, interwoven perspectives, or shifting timelines create richness that sticks with a reader long after. Think Toni Morrison or David Mitchell.

The trick isn’t to pick one—it’s to orchestrate the tension between them.

- A story that’s all simplicity risks feeling thin.
- A story that’s all complexity risks collapsing under its own weight.

But if you pair them—clean prose delivering layered ideas, or a complex structure handled with deceptively simple language—you get writing that feels both accessible and profound.

A better phrase:

Simplicity is how you deliver. Complexity is what you deliver.