First, Entertain

It’s a very recent thing that there’s a premium put on
making writing so difficult that only a charmed
aristocracy is capable of understanding it.

— Tom Wolfe

Besides brevity, what improves writing?

The aim to entertain.

When I was a college student, my professors would assign a mountain of papers to write—as many as one every week.

The papers were a serious matter, their grades representing two-thirds or more of the final grade for each class.

I decided early on that if I wasn't entertained by my paper, the professor surely wouldn't be; so I sought a quirky angle for nearly every one.

While I remember few of these papers today, one from a Theology course sticks in my mind. 

The assignment was to react to some book we had to read about the divinity of Christ. 

I wrote my paper all in dialog, from the viewpoint of a subject on a psychiatrist's couch. I swiped that gimmick from Philip Roth, who used it throughout Portnoy's Complaint.

The Theology professor commented that, although I had "underestimated Christ's divine nature," the paper was "entertaining." 

I received an A+.

The effort to enchant my professors worked like a charm for the most part, enabling me to ace papers on topics like Beowulf, Blake, Tolstoy, Bismarck, Hegel, epistemology, subcultures, collectives, and Muscovite hegemony in Yugoslavia.

It didn't quite work out with a paper on protein-deficient neurotransmitters.

The most frequent comment the professors offered was "shallowly thought out, but entertaining."

Aiming to entertain also provided a stimulant (along with coffee), helping me plow quickly through otherwise tedious material. 

That gave me more time to spend on my primary interest: coeds.

There was nothing original about my effort. 

Writers, if not undergrads, have been acting as entertainers since the Bronze Age.

Shakespeare, by injecting prankish novelties into his plays, upped their quotient of "fun" measurably. That effort paid him well at the box office. 

And the late best-selling novelist Tom Wolfe codified the writer's role as entertainer, telling editor Tom Freeman in 2004 that he wanted to make all writers swear to be entertaining.

"I’ve begun working on a writers’ Hippocratic oath,” Wolfe told Freeman. 

"The first line of the doctors’ Hippocratic oath is 'First, do no harm.' And I think for the writers it would be: 'First, entertain.'

"Entertain is a very simple word. I looked it up in the dictionary. Entertainment enables people to pass the time pleasantly. And any writing—I don’t care if it’s poetry or what—should first entertain."

But how would Wolfe's dictum apply, say, in business, where the writer's oath is more like, "First, inform."

You might lean on something your audience doesn't expect.

Here, for example, is an email I just received, in its entirety:

Your business is important to us. It's our mission to keep you up-to-date on what's happening with business in the Delaware region and how it affects you. But we need your help to fulfill that mission.

Right now, you're receiving our email newsletters, but you don't have access to our best resources and Insider-only content.

I've got great news.

Now through July 29, you can become a full Delaware Business Times Insider for only $4 per month. This is 50% off our normal rate and is our best rate of the year. As an Insider you'll get all 24 issues per year of Delaware Business Times (digitally or in print), immediate access to all of the Insider-only content on our website, priority registration for all DBT and Delaware Today virtual events and discounted registration for all DBT and Delaware Today in-person events.

Becoming a DBT Insider is a valuable investment for your own business and a strong investment in local business journalism right here in Delaware.

Here's the same email with the fun quotient upped by leaning on, of all things, a pharma commercial:

Physicians agree: there's one thing worse than FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). FOMB (Fear of Missing a Bargain).

Now you can cure both with one easy action.

Through July 29, become a full Delaware Business Times Insider for only $4 per month—half off the normal rate. By subscribing, you'll receive all 24 issues of Delaware Business Times (digitally or in print), access to Insider-only content on our website, priority registration for all DBT and Delaware Today virtual events, and discounted registration for all DBT and Delaware Today in-person events.

You'll never miss an important business story—or the year's biggest bargain—again!