Great writing, without exception, has four essential elements: theme, meaning, structure, and style.

William Faulkner had this to say about learning to write: “Read, read, read. Read everything: junk, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter working as an apprentice and studying the master. Read! You’ll soak it up.” Then write.” So that’s what we’re going to do in the next few minutes: we’re going to read parts of a very successful piece of writing and break it down a bit. We’re going to notice aspects of these 4 S’s of great writing in it and hopefully, as Faulkner says, absorb it so that we can use some of these techniques in our own writing.

The first is subject. The theme is simply what the piece is about. is the theme Some authors tell us their theme in the title; War and peace It’s a good example. How to win friends and influence people tells us in the title that the book is about winning friends and influencing people. moby dick it is a whale. sea ​​cake it is a horse.

The topic is the first thing a writer should consider when sitting down to write: What is this going to be about? And it’s often the first thing a reader considers when deciding what to read. The reason theme is one of the four essential elements of great writing is that theme is what gives the piece its purpose for existing.

The second S is significance. Significance addresses the question, “What does this book, article, or poem mean to me?” In today’s society, where we are bombarded with information, we are forced to filter out things that are insignificant to us. Think about your emails. Do you scroll, quickly deleting without even reading most of them? Because? Because those in particular are not meaningful to you. And you don’t have time to read things that aren’t important. If you think about it, when you’re standing at the newcomers table at Barnes and Noble, you’re drawn to books that have some meaning to you. And writers have to choose topics that are meaningful to a large audience if they hope to sell books. During a trip to Books-A-Million last fall, I noticed that the hardcover bestseller list had 4-5 books on politics. Because? Because we were in the middle of the presidential election. The paperback bestseller list was dominated by the fifty Shades of Gray trilogy and various imitations, none of them very well written books, in my opinion, but that just goes to show how important the subject matter is and how important it is to book sales.

The third S is structure. That is the way the part is built, the way it is assembled. For example, Elizabeth Gilbert’s best-selling memoir Eat Pray Love (which has sold around 8 million copies) is divided into three sections, they are called Eat, Pray and Love, and each section corresponds to a particular country on your journey: Italy to eat, India to pray and Indonesia to love. . And each of those sections is divided into thirty-six small chapters. It is a carefully structured book, and structure is so important to the author that she even took the trouble to point it out in her introduction. Other examples of ways to structure a play would be reverse chronology, where the plot is revealed in reverse order. The movie Eternal glow of the mind without memories, starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslett, is done this way. A journey or a search is another classic structure. Familiar examples of a search would be The Wizard of Oz and Lord of the Rings. There are hundreds of different ways to structure what you write, but make no mistake: great writing IS meticulously structured.

The fourth and final S is style. And style encompasses various aspects of writing. One is the author’s tone: does he sound happy, angry, hopeful, frustrated, or sad? Is the piece serious or funny? Does the writer use lofty language or is he more direct and straightforward? Are the sentences long, short, do they vary in length? Does the author use stylistic elements such as simile, metaphor, and hyperbole? The writer’s attitude towards the subject is also a stylistic matter. Now, writers have to use their unique voice, but the style often depends heavily on the subject.

Good readers make good writers. And that means they read analytically, choosing the four S’s that comprise good writing (theme, meaning, structure, and style) and paying attention to these elements in their own writing. The next time you choose something to read, think about those four elements. See if the writer paid attention to them and see if they contribute to the success of the work. And then experiment in your own writing on how to put the 4 S’s to the best possible use.