It's the little things

Found this nugget in the Tao te Ching, which strikes me as an important guidepost on the road to good writing:


From Chapter SIXTY-THREE

"See simplicity in the complicated.
Achieve greatness in little things."

Isn’t that an important part of clearly telling a story or communicating an idea? So many times I see writing, especially by beginners, in which the author seems to rush to get the big picture out there, without paying attention to the details that make up the picture; It seems to me that they forget that without details, the reader won’t see what the writer sees. I’d suggest that seeing the simplicity makes the details clear, and describing the details makes average writing much better, and is likely a big part of what makes otherwise good writing great.

Somewhere in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig described a student in one of his creative writing classes who was stuck on a writing assignment. Pirsig had her try to describe her hometown, but not much good came of that. He told her to picture and describe the house she grew up in. Still stuck. Finally he had her focus on one brick in one wall of that house and expand outward. That worked.


Or maybe this guy put it best,

Auguries of Innocence
BY WILLIAM BLAKE

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour