I’ve been writing professionally in various capacities for over twenty years. The jobs have come in many different forms: press releases, white papers, studies on home prices, and more than a thousand op-eds for mises.org.
For me—and for anyone who needs to write a lot—it’s important to find some examples on which to model one’s work. Good templates make writing a lot easier. One can draw from many different authors while searching for ideas and models. For example, I consider the late film critic Roger Ebert a master of the short-form article, even if his subject matter has nothing to do with what I usually write about. Another great writer—closer to home ideologically—is Frank Chodorov. Chodorov had a great skill for getting to the point and keeping the reader reading.
But not every good writer provides realistic templates for us mere mortals in the writing game. H.L. Mencken’s writing is plenty entertaining, but its value as a model is limited in that Mencken’s work can be very free-flowing and casual. Reading a Mencken column is like listening to an old friend regale his friends with off-the-cuff and amusing anecdotes. That’s a pretty hard style to copy. Similarly, not a week goes by that I don’t wish we still had the weekly columns of Justin Raimondo. Reading a new Raimondo column was always like downing a shot of whiskey or smoking a filterless cigarette. The point came across fast and strong. In a good way. But, as with Mencken, Raimondo’s style certainly isn’t for every writer.
For most of us, however—and for nearly all of the people who send me article submissions for Mises Wire—I think there are two fool-proof models for writing a good article for mises.org. That model comes to us through the writing of Lew Rockwell and Murray Rothbard.
Now, for our purposes here, it wouldn’t make much sense, to recommend the works of these two writers in total. Both authors have employed a variety of different styles and formats over the years in different publications. But, if we want to understand how to write a good, short op-ed for the front page of mises.org, there are two places we can look for a concentration of some of their best work.
With Rothbard, we can look to his articles collected in Making Economic Sense. These articles are those written by Rothbard specifically for Mises Institute readers between the years of 1982 and 1995. Why are they so great? For one, they explain for the audience, through the lens of an economist, a wide variety of timely and important topics. Even better, these articles were written for a physical newsletter snail-mailed to Mises Institute members.
Importantly, most of these articles are under 1,500 words. There’s a 1,000-word article on the economics of gun control in there. It’s short and sweet and informative. There’s a 1,200 word article in there on the modern-day importance of the Whiskey Rebellion. So many writers who send in submissions to mises.org can’t seem to learn brevity. To that I say: if Rothbard can limit himself to 1,000 words, so can you. Making Economic Sense offers a master class in writing short articles about economics and the regime’s many attacks on our freedom.
When it comes to Rockwell’s work, I recommend his mises.org weekly articles during the days of the George W. Bush administration. Why these articles specifically? In those days, Rockwell and the Institute were under a lot of pressure to support Bush’s wars and to go easy on the administration in general. After all, the “good guys” were in charge of the federal government—or so many “supporters” claimed. Rockwell, of course, was impervious to this demand that we hold back from criticizing the “conservative” and “free market” regime. If we don’t support Bush, the terrorists win. Right?
In this period we encounter Rockwell at his contrarian best: especially committed to precision, brevity, and efficiency in holding the line against the Bushian collaborationists. If you’re looking to learn how to write fearlessly, read these columns.
Looking at these articles from both Rothbard and Rockwell we quickly discover how easy they are to read. They generally follow a predictable form and flow—which is a good thing. For those us who grew up reading seasoned pros known as “columnists” in newspapers and magazines, this is a recognizable form. It often begins with a “topical” opener which demonstrates why the topic is relevant to the reader right now. Once the subject—perhaps a thesis statement or a question to be answered—is established, the article moves on to examples and to “making the case” for the author’s conclusion. These examples and arguments contain specifics: specific quotations, specific events, and concrete images the reader can easily comprehend. There aren’t a bunch of vague, nonspecific concepts and assertions. The author tries to make sure we know exactly who or what they’re talking about.
Then, having provided the reader with just a few new ideas and facts he may not have considered before, the author wraps up with a final sentence or two reminding the reader of what’s most important.
With this kind of writing, no single article constitutes a particularly deep or lengthy interaction between the author and his audience. But here’s the great part: taken in the aggregate over a period of years, these short columns can constitute a lengthy, thorough, and important body of work.
The great writers of short articles have long understood this. That’s why, for those who know how to write, each article becomes a very small but engaging lesson in the topic at hand. This strategy only works if the readers keep coming back for more.
It’s easy to forget about all this, and for writers it often pays big dividends to return to the basics. It pays to return to models that provide the templates for an article that is not a chore to read, but which feels like a break from whatever is the day’s monotonous tasks. New writers, of course, must do this for the first time.
The advice is simple: read Rockwell and Rothbard.
