Avoiding Rambling

Lets discuss appealing to your audience.

I hadn't considered this concept until reading passages from two different authors. Kurt Vonnegut is the author of the first passage, which is here and on numerous blogs in a condensed form. He outlines eight points which are all illuminating, but these two caught my attention:

2. Do not ramble, though. (followed by one sentence of advice: "I won't ramble on about that.")

7. Pity the readers. They have to identify thousands of little marks on paper, and make sense of them immediately. They have to read, an art so difficult that most people don't really master it even after having studied it all through grade school and high school --- twelve long years. So this discussion must finally acknowledge that our stylistic options as writers are neither numerous nor glamorous, since our readers are bound to be such imperfect artists.

These points merge with guidelines for successful conversation: don't ramble on too much, and have pity for the other person. #7 takes on a different meaning in conversations -- don't overload people with personal information, since they're not ready (or willing) to process it -- but the spirit is the same. Winding syntax and thesaurus-aided diction do not imply good writing.

The second passage comes from rule #12 in Strunk and White. Here is the excerpt:

Writing, to be effective, must follow closely the thoughts of the writer, but not necessarily in the order in which those thoughts occur. This calls for a scheme of procedure.
...
Most forms of composition are less clearly defined, more flexible, but all have skeletons to which the writer will bring the flesh and the blood. The more clearly the writer perceives the shape, the better are the chances of success.

Again: avoid rambling, and adhere to a structure the intended audience will understand. Structure is a mechanism for conveying the writer's thoughts. By deviating from that structure, the writer descends into incoherence and risks losing the confidence of his or her audience.

Vonnegut, like many other writers, recommends Elements of Style as a technical guide to writing. The "little book" has definitely influenced many writers; maybe I'm onto something here.