Category Archives: Rhetorical Mastery

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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.

 

Words That Wound

Problem Practices, Rhetorical Mastery, , , , ,

blue language image

It turns out that we are all poets of the dark side: we can muster an entire string of devil terms to deflate a person, without ever resorting to a dictionary or thesaurus.

We all know the childhood aphorism that “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.”  It sells itself as a shield against verbal assaults that kids must sometimes endure. And now, it seems, we can include presidential candidates as well.  But it’s so wrong. The language of personal attack can be devastating. We are selling language short if we dismiss its power to inflict psychic pain.

Perhaps a third of the ordinary language we use every day includes nouns, verbs and adjectives that can be chosen to praise or blame.  I think of myself as a “scholar” and an “educator.”  But perhaps to some of my students I’m a “windbag” or a “pedant.”  The first two words are of the type known as”God terms,” expressions that not only name, but also judge positively.  The second two are “devil terms,” renaming and judging downward.  Naming upward with God terms naturally binds us together and suggests a certain amount of empathy. Though we sometimes do it for the wrong reasons, praise is often a small act of grace, as when we describe someone we work with everyday as a “smart” and a “major asset” to the organization.

But it turns out that we are all poets of the dark side: we can muster an entire string of devil terms to deflate a person or their actions without ever resorting to a dictionary or thesaurus. In recent years I’ve witnessed a grandmother thoughtlessly calling her daughter a “bad” mother for seeking a medical solution that would improve a grandchild’s hearing.  We’ve also seen a presidential candidate calling a competitor “weak” and “low energy:” a news anchor calling their opposite at a competing network “savage” and “vindictive.”  We are supremely equipped to throw the weight of our judgment around with the abandon of a professional wrestler.

This pattern which has always been a part of private communication has increasingly bled into our public life.  A New York Times listing of public insults from Donald Trump includes a lot of language about other individuals not typically heard in the remarks of a presidential aspirant:  “Hypocrite” (Bill Clinton), “dumb as a rock” (Glenn Beck), “a total embarrassment” (Jeb Bush), “totally incompetent” (Hillary Clinton), “a crude dope” (former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter), “very stupid” (the current administration), and so on.1 To be sure, the wounded are often quick to respond in kind.  And so, as the popular phrase goes, “our rhetoric escalates” or, more accurately, devolves.

Some individuals function so commonly in this mode that it seems apparent that this kind of rhetoric originates from some unmet needs: perhaps a defensive urge to strike first in order to ward off comments about one’s own vulnerabilities.  A rapid barrage of judgments seems to represent a line in the sand, a warning of a person’s willingness to strike back. This is obviously the realm of the bully whose vulnerabilities are hidden behind the identity of a rhetorical pugilist. Not only does this political season feature some of these folks as potential political and moral leaders, but most of us have had to learn to cope with this kind verbal aggression in other parts of our lives. And then there are the genuine human horrors portrayed in film saga’s like David Mamet’s Glengarry, Glen Ross  (1992) or  Armando Iannucci’s In the Loop (2009).  As in life, some of the characters’ taste for toxic put-downs turns out to be surprisingly moralizing, helping us learn to cherish relations that show more civility.

The hectoring and intimidation of sharp verbal rebukes is often its own reward for the impaired person who depends on them. In addition, an observation that marks another as a “fool,” or “worthless” offers a shooting gallery that can draw audiences to witness the guilty pleasures of a rhetorical take-down. In the age of the troll these diatribes are  issued with the relentless frequency of machine guns emptying out their lethal contents.  When writers talk about the “coarser culture” than the one their parents knew, this kind of vituperative rhetoric is often what they mean.

The problem readily suggests its own solution: It is sometimes better so say nothing than to toss out a harsh judgment about another that will hurt more than help. It’s also good to remember that such language is often seen as self-reflexive; many understand it as better describing the source rather than the target.

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1Jasmine Lee and Kevin Quealy, “People, Places and Things Insulted by Donald Trump,” New York Times, January 31, 2016, Week in Review, p. 4.

Comments: woodward@tcnj.edu

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