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

Unlock the full course today

Join today to access over 22,700 courses taught by industry experts or purchase this course individually.

Parallel ideas

Parallel ideas

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

Start my 1-month free trial

Parallel ideas

“

- A closely related concept to elegant transitions is what some people call parallel ideas. Keeping ideas parallel is another thing that contributes to the overall elegance of your writing. Have a look at this sentence, and tell me if you can see what's inelegant about it. The new head of the department, Mr. Emerson, is quiet, friendly, fond of drinking tea, witty and keen on jogging. Why does that sentence sound inelegant or clumsy? Well, it's because the ideas aren't strictly parallel, are they? It mixes together attributes that have a fundamentally different quality about them. Quiet, friendly, and witty are all personality traits, right? But fond of drinking and keen on jogging relate to specific activities that the new head of department likes to do. So be careful where you list things that are qualitatively different, like this, you don't wanna just mindlessly drop things into a sentence, because that's inelegant. You wanna distinguish different types of features, as necessary…

Contents