From the course: Writing with Flair: How to Become an Exceptional Writer

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Narrative elegance

Narrative elegance

From the course: Writing with Flair: How to Become an Exceptional Writer

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Narrative elegance

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- Writing flows well when it's arranged in an orderly way, when it's well defined, and well structured, when it's not random and disorganized. It's what I call narrative elegance, is probably one of the most important qualities that goes into creating exceptional writing. So, listen to this lecture very carefully, because it's also one of the least understood concepts, which explains why so much writing that we see all around us is so bad. Let's start by considering what a narrative actually is. Anything you write, a blog post, a book, a report, or an essay has a narrative. It just means the material is organized in a certain kind of way. There are so many ways you can organize a narrative, but most decent writing will have some kind of order to it, some kind of structure. Imagine doing a college essay. You're asked to discuss whether Shakespeare's play, King Lear, gives useful insight into mental illness, for example. Such an essay could take a narrative form like this. Now there's a…

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