As we observed in the previous post, acoustic resonance requires a certain aural space in which a pitch can resound. Other, competing sounds, would lessen the effect. As we take the idea of resonance out of the strictly acoustic realm, it might help to first notice what happens when we remove clutter.
Marie Kondo, famed organizing consultant, author, and host of her own Netflix series, invites her clients to transform their homes by going through their belongings and getting rid of those items that don’t ‘spark joy.’ The phrase itself draws on the notion of resonance. “Spark joy” in Kondo’s native language, Japanese, connotes fluttering, palpitation, vibration. By parting with books, clothes, and other belongings that clutter and occlude, Kondo’s method suggests, her clients’ dwellings will indeed sing with joy.
Here is a video of someone who tried Kondo’s method for herself.
At the 13:55 mark, she reflects on having finished and what she noticed about the Mari Kondo method.
“We didn’t add anything to the room. It was just a purely subtractive process. . . . We have really nice things here . . . [but they were] hidden amongst ridiculous amounts of clutter.”
By decluttering, the tidied dwelling resonates more clearly with notes of joy, or perhaps simply with a clearer sense of the person living there.
If writers strive to produce work that resonates more clearly with who they are, then wordiness is the writer’s version of clutter.
In their classic book on writing, The Elements of Style, William Strunk and E. B. White offer two versions of the same passage to illustrate this point.
The first is 51 words.
Macbeth was very ambitious. This led him to wish to become king of Scotland. The witches told him that this wish of his would come true. The king of Scotland at this time was Duncan. Encouraged by his wife, Macbeth murdered Duncan. He was thus enabled to succeed Duncan as king.
The second is 26.
Encouraged by his wife, Macbeth achieved his ambition and realized the prediction of the witches by murdering Duncan and becoming king of Scotland in his place.
(William Strunk and E. B. White, The Elements of Style, p. 25)
After pruning half the words, the second version resonates with clearer meaning. We might regard some of words excised from the second version—was, that, this—the way someone cleaning their apartment might regard books and clothes that spark no joy. Or, in more directly musical terms, if the first version is a guitar string, it hangs too loosely on the page to vibrate. The second version, by contrast, is taut enough to sound a clear note.
The maxim “Avoid unnecessary words” might therefore be understood as a law of writerly acoustics, especially if one wants the writing to sing.
Thank you for reading.