Mark Twain per AI

Here is another chapter from my book “Afterword“. It’s a series of chapters generated by AI. Each chapter features one dead author writing about my favorite subject journaling.

“Finding Your Voice: Authenticity in an Artificial World”

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## In the Voice of Mark Twain

The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.

I’ve been thinking about that for fifty years, and I’m still not sure most people understand what I mean by it. They think I’m talking about vocabulary, about choosing fancy words instead of simple ones, or precise technical terms instead of everyday language. But that’s not it at all.

What I’m talking about is the difference between writing the way you think you’re supposed to write, and writing the way you actually talk. Between the voice you put on for company, and the voice you use when you’re just sitting around with people you trust, telling them what you really think.

Your journal—if it’s going to be worth a damn—needs to be written in your real voice. Not the voice you use for college papers or business letters or Christmas cards to your aunt. Your REAL voice. The one that comes out when you’re relaxed, when you’re not trying to impress anybody, when you’re just being yourself.

And here’s the thing about that voice: it’s a lot better than the fake one. It’s more interesting, more honest, more alive. But most people are scared to death to use it, even in private, even in a journal nobody else will ever read.

Well, I’m here to tell you: use it. Use your real voice, or don’t bother writing at all.

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## On the Authentic Voice

When I was young—and this was back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and people actually read books—I tried to write like the fancy Eastern authors everybody admired. I used big words. I constructed elegant sentences. I tried to sound educated and refined and literary.

It was terrible. Absolutely terrible.

Then one day I was writing a letter to my brother, just fooling around, telling him a story about something that happened on the Mississippi, and I wrote it exactly the way I would have told it if he’d been sitting across from me. I didn’t think about it. I just wrote.

And when I read it back, I thought: Well, hell. That’s actually good. That sounds like a real person talking.

That’s when I started to understand: the voice I used when I wasn’t trying was better than the voice I used when I was trying very hard.

Your journal is where you practice not trying. Where you write the way you’d talk to your best friend after a couple of drinks, when you’re being honest about what you actually think instead of what you’re supposed to think.

This is harder than it sounds, because we’ve all been trained since childhood to put on voices. The voice for school. The voice for work. The voice for church. The voice for when the neighbors come over. We’ve got so many fake voices that sometimes we forget what our real one sounds like.

But it’s in there. I promise you. And your journal is where you let it out.

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## On Writing Like You Talk

Here’s a test: Read your journal entry out loud. Does it sound like something you would actually say? Or does it sound like something you wrote because you thought it sounded writerly?

If it’s the second one, you’re doing it wrong.

I spent years on the Mississippi riverboats listening to how people actually talked. The pilots, the passengers, the deckhands, the gamblers—everybody had their own way of putting things, and nobody talked like a book. They talked like human beings, which is to say they rambled, they repeated themselves, they used slang, they got the grammar wrong, they interrupted themselves mid-thought to go chase some other thought that had just occurred to them.

And you know what? That’s how writing should sound too. At least in your journal. At least when you’re trying to be honest.

When you’re writing, you should hear your voice in your head, saying the words. If you wouldn’t say it that way, don’t write it that way.

For instance, I would never say “I experienced significant emotional distress.” I’d say “I felt like hell.” So that’s what I’d write.

I would never say “Upon reflection, I have concluded that my previous assessment was erroneous.” I’d say “I was wrong about that.” So that’s what I’d write.

The shorter word is almost always better than the longer one. The simple construction is almost always better than the complex one. And the way you’d actually say it is almost always better than the way you think you should write it.

Your journal isn’t a term paper. It’s a conversation with yourself. Write it that way.

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## On the Courage to Be Plain

You know what takes real courage? Being plain. Being simple. Being direct.

Any fool can dress up their writing with fancy words and complicated sentences. That’s easy. What’s hard is saying exactly what you mean in the simplest possible way.

I learned this from my time as a newspaper reporter. You had to write for regular people, not for Harvard professors. You had to make yourself understood, not impressive. And the only way to do that was to use plain language—the kind of language real people actually use.

But somewhere along the way, we all got the idea that writing is supposed to be complicated. That if it’s too easy to understand, it must not be very deep. That real writers use words most people have to look up.

Hogwash.

The deepest truths are usually the simplest. “I love you.” “I’m scared.” “I don’t know.” “I messed up.” “I’m sorry.”

These are short words, simple words, words a child could understand. And they’re about the most profound things humans can say to each other.

In your journal, practice being plain. Practice saying things directly. Practice using short words and simple sentences when they’ll do the job.

Don’t write: “I found myself experiencing a profound sense of isolation and disconnection from those around me.”

Write: “I felt lonely.”

Don’t write: “The interpersonal dynamic between myself and my colleague has become increasingly fraught and uncomfortable.”

Write: “Things are weird with Bob at work.”

Being plain isn’t being simple-minded. It’s being honest. It’s respecting your own intelligence and the reader’s intelligence (even if that reader is just future you) enough to say what you mean without dressing it up in Sunday clothes.

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To be continued…..

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