Exactitude

When Calvino discussed the principle of exactitude in his text, he focused on the need for a plan when creating a text. It is important to know where you are going with a concept, because it prevents the writer from getting off topic. Exactitude represents the importance of being clear and precise in a text. If a writer is not careful about being exact in his or her arguments, they may lessen the effect that their words have on the reader. Calvino also stressed the importance of using concrete images that would be memorable for the reader to catch their attention and hold onto it.

It is easy as a writer to become sidetracked and end up writing something completely different than you had originally planned. Doing this makes the finished work less effective. Having a plan and sticking to it allows the writer to develop his or her ideas within a set of guidelines. I felt that this was the most important point that Calvino made about exactitude. There are many works of literature out there that seem to jump all over the place, which makes them very hard to read and understand. It is nice to open a book and be able to follow the story without having to turn back to the previous chapter to understand how the chapters are connected. I chose an image of a man deciding which direction to take to represent the principle of exactitude. I think it represents the importance of making a choice about how to approach writing and sticking with your original plan.The man in the image needs to make a choice in which direction to take, which is similar to the way that a writer needs to make a choice about what path they want to take in their writing before they can truly begin writing.

When thinking about an example for this principle, I kept thinking about the book The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. This book takes the path of telling the story of America's first serial killer and sticks to it. There is a lot of information about the other events taking place at the time, but Larson never deviates from his original purpose. He is able to include other information to prove his point, but he is precise in what he includes. This precision makes the book easier and more enjoyable to read because it allows the reader to simply read, while other works may require the reader to sift through information to decide what is essential for understanding the overall concept. I'm sure there are works that demonstrate this principle much better, but this is the one book that stuck out in my mind.