Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Resonance III

Resonance III

Resonance is more than rhythm and rhyme that makes your writing skip along. Having it makes for a more enjoyable read but it isn’t just the music that makes your writing special to the reader. No indeed! What makes a manuscript really start to “Hummmm” is the above plus the lyrics. It is the song’s composition. (The music plus the lyrics… duh!)

What is crazy Percy trying to tell me this morning? you wonder. Surely my writing resonates and it certainly makes sense to me. In response I have to reply, “Do you write Poetry?” Poetry is the font of resonance but it is also the well-spring of delightful nonsense.

“Lambs eat oats and does eat oats and little lambs eat ivy… A kidd'll eat ivy too, wouldn’t you?”

Now that resonates but it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. (Or does it?) It meets test one but not test two. The acid test is whether or not the thread of a thought carries a verbal image of absolute clarity. Does the thought the writer is trying to express come across vivid and sharp?

Most writing doesn’t “Resonate” because it lacks one or the other or both. Think about the directions you get with many of the electronic gadgets we buy. These are written in English but sometimes have to be read several times to get a sense for what the writer is talking about. It helps if there is a picture or diagram but often there isn’t and the reader is left to struggle with just the words.

This is a great example of someone knowledgeable writing something that is totally lacking in resonance. (An engineer probably.) These are very smart men and women who don’t usually “Resonate” with the minds of those around them. They are like Priam’s Daughter, who had the gift of prophesy, but nobody listened to her.

I think the best writers of instructions are those who acquired their knowledge recently. There is a great irony here. If such a writer has it ninety-five percent accurate, and the light is shining bright in the reader’s minds, the science freaks and educators will seize upon the smidgen that is wrong and try to disqualify all the rest. This is a favorite political trick… Undermine the credibility of a speaker by finding a mote that is factually incorrect. This tactic is used disparage those who can describe matters in lucid terms.

Last year I bought some computer desk furniture made in China and the instructions didn’t contain a single word. They were completely written in stepped diagrams. I thought they were some of the easiest to understand instructions I had ever used and my wife and I completed the assembly without too much yelling and arguing.

What I am trying to explain is that “Resonance” is important to communicating clear sharp lucid thoughts. It is the grease to ultimate perfection in the written word, squeezing Alfa characters into data arrangements that mainline thoughts and ideas into the visual and audio leads of your reader’s bio-processor… by-passing the filters of minuta.