John Williams comes straight to the point.
For 50 years, I have ranted (it has been futile) about anecdotal ledes and the abuse of readers with “good” writing that does nothing but delay and frustrate readers and put a writer’s hackitude on display.
Here’s a doozy from the November 2026 issue of the Atlantic. It’s a story about the tech oligarchy, particularly Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. The headline is “Battle of the Galactic Overlords.”
“The Adriatic has been crossed by Odysseus and Caesar, by Venetian fleets and Napoleon’s navy, by countless men bent on dominating the world. It has seen its share of courage and folly. But one day in June 2025, off the island of Cres, it witnessed something genuinely new: a man worth $240 billion standing waist-deep in bubbles on the deck of a $500 million yacht, wearing a white bucket hat.”
It doesn’t get any better. Here’s the second paragraph:
“The man is Jeff Bezos, and the woman photographed in the string bikini next to him—hugging him, rubbing him with bubbles—is his fiancée, Lauren Sánchez. Bezos is shirtless, and it must be said: He is ripped. His hairless torso is so buff, his expression so amused, that he looks more like a louche cartoon character—a Club Med Ninja Turtle—than a 61-year-old corporate executive. In the foreground, an anonymous crew member, his face hidden from view and his thoughts forever unknown, mans a cannon blasting bubbles into the Croatian sky.”
There is, of course, not a clue so far as to what the piece is about. At least half of the readers who started the piece won’t get past the second paragraph. Whereas the writer will have thought that this was sublimely good and clever stuff that vigorously pulled the reader into the story. Apparently the editors of the Atlantic also think it’s good stuff, because they print that kind of stuff all the time.
There is an excellent analogy to music. John Williams’ Star Wars theme is a beautiful example of not wasting anyone’s time. He starts with a loud chord to establish the key and to wake us up — almost a jump scare, the first time we ever heard that music. Then there are eight quick beats of triplets that barrel straight to the main point, which begins on the last beat of the third measure. Williams conducts the last triplet with a slight retardando to create an instant of suspense before the music is off and running.
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There are many forms of writing, of course. What works in novels does not work — never works, cannot ever work — in expository writing, in which we are reading for information, not to be entertained. Expository writing is not art. It’s science. But even art can come straight to the point.
Here’s another fine example from music — the first movement of Schubert’s Piano Sonata No. 21. It is as though Schubert wasted no time coming to the point. He probably knew he was dying. He died eight weeks after finishing this sonata.