1 — Excerpt from my book on the Trinity
I pulled out the book I wrote on the Trinity and read bits and pieces here and there. It smacks of graduate-school prose. Here’s an excerpt:
The problem with Origen is that he leaned too much on Neo-Platonic philosophy — a philosophy that has its roots in Plato. He posited that the Father was the one, true God, wholly divine, and that along with the Father was a myriad of co-eternal rational spiritual beings. From all eternity the Father generated the Son to be the mediator between himself and these beings. The generation of the Son is an eternal act: the Son, for Origen, is eternal, without beginning or end, but the Son is God in a secondary sense.
Most of this is an adaption of Neo-Platonic philosophy into a Christian scheme, but Origen was not a philosopher, but a theologian, and so he had to account for the Holy Spirit. His teaching on the Spirit is very similar to that of the Son and is very biblical: the Spirit, from all eternity, is brought into being by the Father through the Son, and just like the Son, the Spirit is God in a secondary sense.
Thus if we had to put a label on Origen’s error, it would be the label of subordinationism.
2 — Excerpt from a real grad paper
By way of comparison, here’s an actual excerpt from a real grad paper of mine (which was written about three year before the above excerpt). The title itself is enough to scare away any interested reader: “Aquinas on Sacra Doctrina: A Study of the First Question of the ‘Summa theologiae’“:

In article 1, St. Thomas argues that sacra doctrina exists. Thomas poses the question: “Whether it is necessary, besides the philosophical disciplines, to have another doctrina? The foundation of Thomas’s argument in the response is the following: it is necessary for the salvation of humanity for there to be a doctrina revealed by God. Two points need to be made about this argument. First, it is an argument by way of final causality; Thomas presupposes the supernatural end of humanity and then argues that for humanity to reach this end, it must have a doctrina based on divine revelation. This point leads to the next one Thomas uses a principle of sacra doctrina, namely, the supernatural end of humanity, to argue for the existence of sacra doctrina. Though Thomas’s argument may seem a bit flawed to us, the methodology is explained in article 8, which says that though a principle of sacra doctrina cannot be proved by human reason, it can be proved by using another principle of sacra doctrina (e.g., using Christ’s resurrection to prove the general resurrection). Thus, by positing the supernatural end of humanity that humanity cannot reach by the light of natural reason alone, Thomas establishes that there must be a divine revealed doctrina to teach humanity about and how to attain their supernatural end.
When I look at the two, the first thing that comes to mind is that at least I learned the art the short paragraph.
3 — On Writing Complex Ideas

I’ve had the inkling that I’d like to write seriously again. As I’ve noted, I spent several years writing fiction. What if I’ve taken what I learned and applied it to writing nonfiction? With this in mind, I went to the library and checked out Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark.
Unless you very new to the craft, books like these aren’t worth reading in detail. There’s only so much you can say about writing; read enough writing books and you get the feeling you’ve been listening to a bunch of bad cover bands.
However, the good how-to-write books teach you lessons the others don’t. For example, though every how-to-write book talks about the writer’s necessity to read a lot, Ray Bradbury’s “How to Keep and Feed a Muse” is the absolute best essay on the subject; if he doesn’t convince you, no one will. Therefore I’m always on the lookout for a good writing book.
I’m happy to say that Roy Peter Clark’s Writing Tools is one of these books. The most valuable lesson I learned from him (so far) is this: Use short sentences to talk about complicated ideas.
If you go back to the second paragraph of the excerpt from my book on the Trinity, you’ll see that I used only two sentences to talk about the Origen’s use of Neo-Platonism. Not good for the reader.
Now I’ve always known about the curse of academic prose, but have never been able to figure out it’s malady. Long paragraphs? Two-dollar words? Technical jargon? None of the above. Those are symptoms of the real problem. The real problem is using long sentences when dealing with complex ideas.
As William Zinsser said in On Writing Well (and I’m citing from memory): “The biggest problem writers have with the period is they don’t get to it soon enough.”
4 — Books on Writing
While we’re at it — how many writers read this blog? A few, perhaps. If you’re one, then here’s a list of the writing books I’ve found most helpful:
- William Zinsser, On Writing Well
- Strunk and White, The Elements of Style
- Ray Bradbury, Zen and the Art of Writing
- Stephen Koch, Writer’s Workshop
And for you aspiring novelists and short-story writers, here are a few more:
- John Gardner, The Art of Fiction
- Damon Knight, The Craft of Short Fiction
- James N. Frey, How To Write a Damn Good Novel
- Elizabeth George, Write Away
And if you’re an aspiring sf/f writer, I think you’ll find these helpful:
- Orson Scott Card, How To Write Fantasy and Science Fiction
- Robert Silverberg, Science Fiction 101
5 — A Helpful Practice
When I learned how to play the guitar, I first had to learn the basics: how to hold the pick, where to put my fingers, how to read music, etc. Once mastered, I started learning how to play songs. For a while, I learned a song a week. I got the point where I could put in a CD (Metallica’s Kill ‘em All, for example; yes, I was a rocker back in the day) and play along with the album.
I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but I used what I learned from real songs to write my own. I finally got to the point where I could hear a song on the radio and know exactly how it was put together.
Why is it we don’t teach writing this way? All the books on writing talk about the need to write a lot — daily, if possible. But what about learning how to write by writing out professional writer’s prose?

I had never heard of this until I read it John Gardner’s On Becoming a Novelist. I must have typed out a dozen or so stories. But not having a storyteller’s talent, I didn’t learn much. My typing improved, however.
Just recently, I applied this practice to nonfiction. I started typing out Frank Sheed’s The Holy Spirit in Action. After the first 1000 words I’d learned more about writing popular theology than I had in all my blog posts and half-finished articles put together. After 5,000 words (20 typed pages) I learned three times more.
How much can one learn from one writer? That’s hard to say. After about 12,000 words (about 50 typed pages), copying out a writer’s work becomes a typing exercise. You’ve learned the style. It’s only one style, however, and if you stick with it you won’t go far.
So you have to do it again, with a different writer — 50 more pages. And again with a third writer. Then a fourth, and a fifth, and so on. After a few hundred pages of copying out the words of professional writers, one should have learned enough that one can dispense with the practice.
6 — My Writers?
Provided that I decide to take writing seriously, which writers do I plan to imitate? Here’s the list:
Frank Sheed
- Mortimer Adler
- Alban Goodier
- Ronald Knox
- C. S. Lewis
- G. K. Chesterton
- Thomas Merton
When making this list, I had two criteria in mind.
First, the writer had to write in English — either the American version or the King’s. No translations, thank you very much. The point is to learn how to put together good, English prose, not a readable translation.
Second, the writer had to be known as a writer; they had to have a reputation as a writer. This eliminated, for example, writers such as Fr. John Hardon and Scott Hahn; both are known as exemplarily teachers, but neither (as far as I know) are hailed as great writers.
7 — Basic Discipline
Stephen King said it best: If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all else — you must read a lot and you must write a lot. Which means that if I’m going to take writing seriously (and not just talk about writing, or think about it) then I have to develop a schedule and get disciplined.
Last January, I set a serious of fiction-writing goals: To write short story a week, and to read at least 50 pages of fiction a day.
An article a week is doable, I think — at least the rough draft is. The typical article is between 1,000 and 3,000 words (4 to 12 pages), where as the typical short story is between 5,000 and 7,500 words (20 to 30 pages). I’m assuming that just as fiction writers write stories that don’t work, nonfiction writers write articles that don’t work. That’s okay. It’s part of the learning process.
For reading, 50 pages of nonfiction a day is a bit much. I know, I’ve tried. If I do this, I really think I’m going to limit myself to 200-page books. Why? Because I then should be able to read a book a week. That’s a fine practice.
But I must ask, “Is this something I want to do?”