Category Archives: Problem Practices

Communication behavior or analysis that is often counter-productive

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Crummy First Drafts

Problem Practices, Rhetorical Mastery, , , , , , , ,

writing on paperThe problem with settling on a first pass of a statement is that it may reveal that we still don’t know what we think.

There are times when the right medium for addressing another is the written word.  An extended statement provides space to dwell on necessary complexities, make a case with sufficient amplification and evidence, and possibly guide readers towards an action they have been reluctant to take. Good writing is coherent, interesting, and expansive. Whether we’re working on an essay, report or letter; we know when we need to make the most of ideas laid down on the page or its electronic equivalents. This is a ritual for high school students working on the perfect essay to a selective college, the office worker on deadline to finish a report that will be seen by peers and management, or the citizen making a case to reluctant officials or neighbors.

In her useful book for writers, Bird By Bird, Anne Lamott declares unequivocally that every writer needs to get past the “shitty first draft.”  It’s her not-so-gentle way to remind budding scribes to take at least several more passes over the prose they  are usually too ready to accept as sufficiently worked out.

Part of the problem with settling on a first draft of any extended statement is that it reflects the likely fact that we aren’t yet clear about what we know or believe. Clarity comes when the theme of a piece begins to reveal itself, sometimes late in the process.

Whitman-pasted-notes-for a poem LOC
Notes of Walt Whitman for a Portion of Leaves of Grass                                   Library of Congress

Occasionally the last summarizing statement of an essay is the very first thing that should be said.  But we don’t know that until we’ve finished the chain of thought that gets us there. This is because we often think inductively from cases to conclusions.  But ideas on the page need a reverse process of deduction.  Major claims usually should come first.  And there’s the rub; we first have to discover them, lest we do the equivalent of showing up at a great party just as it’s winding down.

I suspect I’m not the only one to notice that after a day or so, my first drafts look dead on arrival. They are usually confusing, wordy, and both over-written and underdeveloped.  Having discovered what I really think, successive drafts refine the process.  With time it usually becomes clear that the points I wanted to make can be said with greater economy and clarity.

The left hemisphere of the brain thinks in language, and it’s sometimes only too happy to stay on the case longer than the rest of our mind.

A writer also discovers that the act of revising is enough to set the mind off on its own extended tour of the landscape that is being surveyed. This is a curious phenomenon. It turns out that not all writing happens when a person is formally on task. Better ways to make points force their way into our consciousness even when we move on to other things, like walking or trying to sleep. The left hemisphere of the brain thinks in language, and it’s sometimes only too happy to stay on the case longer than the rest of our mind.

We can also be eternally grateful that word processing makes edits so easy.  A few writers like to work out ideas in longhand, often on a legal pad.  But most have found the advantages of word processing programs that make changes easily, with the added usefulness of spell checkers and a thesaurus. The latter tool can help find not just another word for a feeling or idea, but possibly the best word.

I think I have only known one person who wrote and spoke in more or less “finished” prose. This historian was a phenomenon to listen to: a good scholar, amazingly fluent and a gifted lecturer.  It was a relief when he moved to another state.

Perhaps these modest blog posts look like they are dashed off as more or less complete pieces.  If it were only so.  Most take several weeks to develop, going through a dozen or more alterations. The process expands exponentially for a book.  Many authors I know take years to refine and polish a manuscript.  When it’s done well the finished work of a good writer scans so easily.  And that’s the irony of graceful prose.  It’s like sculpture.  Revision helps it take on a naturalness and clarity that makes it easy to ignore the unnecessary bits that have been carved away.

 

The Overstated Value of Rhetorical Consistency

Problem Practices, , , , , , , , , , ,
Photo: Moira Clunie
                          Photo: Moira Clunie

We are many selves. If you have the urge to fish around in the detritus of an individual’s rhetoric to catch them in ostensible inconsistencies, you are probably on a fool’s errand.

Comments about the questionable “authenticity” of the candidates are flying around the national press like Frisbees in a local park.  Everyone from political junkies at Politico.com to the ubiquitous panels of experts cycled in and out of the cable news channels insist on judging the large flock of presidential aspirants by gauging the distance between their current positions and shakey media reconstructions of what they once believed.  Somehow it gives us solace to find that a candidate has changed their tune.  It reminds us that that they are political animals, supposedly a lesser form of the species.

In actual fact we would spend our time more productively critiquing their current positions. Changes in attitude, especially regarding public policy questions, are hardly surprising. It’s shortsighted to think an individual wouldn’t adapt to the norms of the community they want to influence. In addition, past votes or positions on legislation often include a range of complicating factors, as when a bad amendment is attached to a good bill.

Of course candidates lie and pander. But consistency is the most overworked trope of political analysis. The implication of intellectual dishonesty is overplayed, a surrogate for the more difficult but useful act of critiquing specific policy positions.

It’s also something of a folly to declare the actions of another “inauthentic,” for a whole host of reasons.

First, we are players of multiple roles, many of which cannot be known to those outside the politician’s close friends. Past statements on immigration policy from the Republican field follow them around like lost dogs. Most recapitulations of these statements miss reestablishing the settings in which the original statements were made, as well as the incremental alternatives that were politically viable at the time.  For her part, candidate Hillary Clinton is frequently judged as not to be trusted because of prior statements that seem out of sync with the leftward shift of her views in the current campaign. Bernie Sanders is partly responsible for this change. But there have also been huge twists and turns of her career. Could it have been otherwise for a former Arkansas attorney, First Lady, Senator from the varied and vast state of New York, and former American Secretary of State? Opponents can feast on varied positions required by the many roles she has played and the constituents and stakeholders she has served.

The implication of intellectual dishonesty is overplayed, a surrogate for the more difficult but useful act of critiquing specific positions.

In addition to not acknowledging changing political views, a second problem is that we actually have very little understanding of even a well- known individual’s psychological biography. The forces that have shaped their judgments may be staked out in a dense landscape that biographers want to explore. But in searching for the first causes of specific beliefs and u-turns, we have launched ourselves into ambitious inference-making on a grand scale.

Stepping beyond the political for a moment, witness the early harsh judgments of mega-entertainer Bing Crosby after the publication of his estranged son’s book, Going My Own Way (1983). This was Bing as a cold and indifferent father. Years later these perceptions were partly undone by Gary Giddins’ well-researched celebration of Crosby’s solid talent and quiet generosity. (Bing Crosby: A Pocketful of Dreams, 2001). It lead to a full-blown renaissance of all things Bing and elevated him to the first tier of American jazz originals. The point is, the Bings of both books are still with us, and more or less valid within their distinctly different contexts.

We all acquire new facets of self that change what it means to be us.  Broad features of character and personality tend to endure, but they are not static.  Imagine the jerk who sat behind you in 7th grade homeroom. You can have some assurance that he has probably evolved and rejoined the human race.

Quick judgments of hypocrisy are mostly facile and dishonest in their misplaced certainty.  By all means hold this current crop of presidential aspirants to their statements.  But if you have the urge to fish around in the detritus of an individual’s rhetorical history to catch them in ostensible inconsistencies, you are probably on a fool’s errand.

Comments: woodward @tcnj.edu

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