Mark Tredinnick - The Little Red Writing Book-University of New South Wales Press (2006)

have all been produced by laws acting around us … Thus,
from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most
exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely,
the production of the higher animals, directly follows.There
is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers,
having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few
forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone
cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so
simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most
wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
—Charles Darwin, ‘Conclusion’, The Origin of Species
TRY THIS
1 Take a book you like, and read a passage out loud. Note the
way the writing moves, the ups and downs of it, the
balance—its voice. Note the passages that are particularly
lovely to say and to hear. Notice, too, where it is harder to
read because the rhythm disappears. The next book you
decide to read, take turns with your partner or friend or
child to read it aloud. Get used to hearing the way good
writing goes. It will help you hear your own writing and
practise it as utterance.
2 Try the same thing with a letter you receive or a report you
read at work that strikes you as dull. Try it with anything
that you’re finding boring. Notice how the writing ain’t got
no rhythm.
3 If you have children around you, notice among the books
you read to them which are the most pleasurable to share.
I can recite Where the Wild Things Are from start to finish not
only because my son Daniel wants it over and again, but
because it sings. It’s a nice example of quietly musical
prose.
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