Narrowing the Delta
March 07, 2023

In mathematics and science, the Greek letter Delta represents the difference
between two things. As things move closer together, be they numbers or objects,
it's said that their "Delta" is narrowing. This, believe it or not, can be a 
useful metaphor when thinking about writing.

You start with an idea, an image in your mind. Your protagonist, on her belly,
examining a flower in a meadow as part of the research for her PhD thesis. Or 
the point that you intend to make about the position of "Red Badge of 
Courage" in the field of war literature. But this idea is protean, ill-defined 
and shifting a bit. You need to make it concrete. As Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch
said:

     You must first be your own reader, chiselling out the thought
     definitely for yourself: and, after that, must carve out the
     intaglio yet more sharply and neatly, if you would impress its
     image accurately upon the wax of other men's minds.[1]


Once you've gotten the idea perfect in your head, though, it becomes the fixed 
point from which you begin. You now only have to write the idea down.

Unfortunately, the writing is just as much work as accurately fixing the image 
in your own mind. You've now created a second point on the graph: the words you 
put on paper. One which often starts out far away from the fixed point of 
your idea. Your goal as you write is to narrow the Delta, to move the words 
you're putting on paper from sort-of-what-I-meant to pretty-much-what-I-meant 
to almost-what-I-meant to exactly-what-I-meant. That is often a long and
difficult task, one as complex and difficult as the highest mathematics.

I can't tell you the number of times I've heard (or even said myself), "That's 
not what I meant" and heard the inevitable reply "But that's what you wrote."
That's a clear sign that you haven't narrowed the Delta enough.

Work to narrow the Delta. Always. Always.


[1] Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, "On the Art of Writing," Lecture VII

(c) 2023 Andrew Gudgel
email: contact [at] andrewgudgel [dot] com