Forgotten Bestseller Secrets - Keep 'Em Reading: Lesson 02

FACTS AND FEELINGS. How your sentences themselves keep the readers reading. Because people like their facts flavored with feelings in every one - down to the last drop...

What fundamental facts and principles drive all successful writing?

There are arts which exist in space—like painting and sculpture; a man may see a picture or a statue at one glance. But literature—or writing, if you prefer—is an art which exists in time.

Nobody can read a book at a glance. Sequential thought mimics the eye’s movement across a printed page. Thoughts and emotions are fed into the mind like cartridges on a belt fed into a machine-gun. Each enters and explodes in its turn. Thus we hear people say, “I read to kill time,” or, “I haven’t time to read all that!”

Time, and the passage of time, is thus the basic fact confronting the writer. And since time passes, and the reader may stop reading at any moment, continuity is the writer’s main reliance. For when the reader stops reading, the writer has failed.

Therefore the first principle of the successful writer is so to interest the reader that he will continue to read.

Colloquially, every writer’s motto should be:

KEEP ’EM READING.

This is our first great rule.

How can we accomplish this? How may we make sure that our reader will continue to read one sentence after another to the end of our article or book?

There are two points of attack. Readers use both their minds and hearts. If we are wise, we shall lay siege to both, for both—to change the figure—must march together, if they go far. Intellectual interest and emotional interest are like a man’s two legs. Readers prefer alternating use, avoiding extended use of either. He wants, on the one hand, facts and ideas to hold the attention of his intellect, and on the other, emotions and feelings which stir his emotional nature. He wishes to think while his heart beats.

Therefore, a skilled writer engages both intellect and emotion, both head and heart. He presents both factual information and emotional appeals. How can a writer accomplish this?

If one-glance reading was possible, a book’s facts and ideas could precede its emotions, while maintaining reader interest. But readers don’t switch from intellectual to emotional interest while reading a book.

So writers should incorporate both facts and feelings into each sentence, alternating between them.

Schoolbooks define sentences as complete thoughts, subject plus predicate. To writers, a sentence practically unites fact and feeling, idea and emotion. That is the writer’s working definition of the sentence.

Everyone knows a subject-predicate sentence can be utterly uninteresting. Actually, some writers merely string sentences together. laying their sentences in rows like undertakers. Their sentences are all “stiffs.” All the necessary parts are there, as all the necessary parts of a corpse are there when it is laid out on the slab.

A missing element—the soul—renders the sentence emotionless, lifeless. Marketable writing requires sentences and clauses expressing both fact and feeling.

In sheer poetry we find that the idea and the emotion exactly coincide where both at once are expressed in a single memorable phrase or word. This coincidence, this wedding of fact and passion into one phrase, one word, even one syllable, is the ideal and consummation of perfect craftsmanship and inspiration. This is the creation of living literature at its highest, a union of body and soul. To achieve that is the ultimate success in literature.

That of course is why poetry outlasts and outshines all other writing—simply because it more perfectly achieves the union of fact and passion. As Thomas Wolfe is reported to have said, everyone would write poetry, if he could. The writer who scoffs at poetry has either tasted sour grapes, or does not know what writing consists of.

It would be wonderful if we could always make the fact and the passion unite in a single phrase or word, to make them exactly coincide. But even the greatest poets are unable to perform this feat continually. They give us a phrase of poetry like a gem — in a setting of more prosaic phrases. Thus even the finest poems are fully poetic only here and there. For the rest, we find that the idea (fact) and the emotion (feeling) become separated, and so necessarily appear in succession.

This is the most basic and most important trade secret of the writing profession. It’s a technical trick so simple — and so obvious — that all the poets and writers of fiction have used it from the beginning.

Everyone from the great geniuses to successful hacks have applied this. However, to my knowledge, no one has ever explicitly stated it before.

In all good prose, nearly every sentence has a feeling or emotion at one end, and a fact or idea at the other. To keep the reader interested and reading, we must always apply our second great principle of style:

A FACT AND A FEELING IN EVERY SENTENCE,

or—if you prefer—

AN IDEA AND AN EMOTION IN EVERY SENTENCE.

Here follow some sentences taken at random from several sources. In each sentence, we have a fact and a feeling, an emotion and an idea. Parentheses have been used to set off the (fact) and the (feeling) in each sentence—that is to say, the words which express these. Try to determine which parenthetical expression is the fact, and which one is the feeling.

(Tickets) (please!)

(My kingdom) (for a horse.)

(The cow jumped) (over the moon.)

(Give me) (liberty.)

(That dinner) (was delicious.)

(Now Barabbas) (was a robber.)

(Get) (out!)

(I regret that I have) (but one life to give for my country.)

(It is obvious that the beginning of a story) (is the most difficult part to write.)

(The ideal for which one must strive is) (to inform and excite the reader at the same time.)

(“Very well,” said I) (“there will be a fight.” )

(They laughed at the idea) (of complying with any directions of mine.)

(A corner of the box) (struck me.)

(“My skull is broken,”) (I cried.)

(My skull) (is broken.)

(Let us) (have peace.)

(Thirty) (days!)

(Saw sub; ) (sank same.)

(He did not like) (his friends.)

(I wish) (I had said that.)

(Never min(1 (you will!)

(But suppose that time) (never comes?)

(Measured by the standards of his time) (his book was well-written and authentic.)

(People who quit when they are losing) (can never conquer the world.)

If each sentence and clause must include both a fact and a feeling, the question that arises is: which should come first?

If in doubt, the writer may simply try the sentence both ways. Then decide which is the more effective. He may write it with the fact first and the emotion second, and then turn it over and write it the other way round, with the feeling first and the idea second. Effectiveness hinges on context and purpose.

This brings us to our third guiding rule:

FACT FIRST OR FEELING FIRST: WHICH WILL BE BETTER?

Let us examine a few sentences written both ways, and see what happens, try to decide which version is better—fact first or feeling first.

1. (The ideal one must strive for) (is to inform and excite the reader at the same time.)

(To inform and excite the reader at the same time) (is the ideal we must strive for.)

2. (They laughed) (at complying with any instructions of mine.)

(At the idea of complying with any instructions of mine) (they laughed.)

3. (When he sat down at table) (he found his breakfast was cold.)

(He found his breakfast was col(1 (when he sat down at table.)

4. (Pride goeth) (before destruction.) (Before destruction) (pride goeth.)

5. (Measured by the standards of his time) (his book was well-written and authentic.) (His book was well-written and authentic) (measured by the standards of his time.)

6. (They give us a phrase of poetry) (like a gem in a setting of more prosaic phrases.) (Like a gem in a setting of more prosaic phrases) (they give us a phrase of poetry.)

7. (Carry a big stick) (and keep off other people’s toes.) (Keep Off other people’s toes) (and carry a big stick.)

8. (If that rule is followed) (we shall get the best results.) (We shall get the best results) (if that rule is followed.)

Concisely presenting fact and feeling requires alternating them throughout the paragraph. It is wiser to arrange sentences in a passage one after the other, like a string of elephants in a parade holding each other’s tails. Thus all the sentences move in the same direction. For if we face our sentences otherwise we shall have our elephants head to head, and tail to tail. This will halt the march and destroy that continuity for which we are striving. And this brings us to our fourth great principle:

LET FACTS AND FEELINGS ALTERNATE THROUGHOUT A GIVEN SEQUENCE.

Examples:

(a) sequence in which the fact comes first, and the feeling second.

(The news of the gold-strike) (had reached and changed them.) (The word ‘gold’) (rang in their ears.) (They were no longer clod-hoppers) (but adventurers.) (They plodded through the dust) (into the golden West.) (Fatigue) (never stopped them.) (Poverty) (only Spurred them on.) (Opposition) (made them strong and dangerous as lions.) (They were) (on their way.) (“California,) (here we comet”)

(b) sequence in which the feeling comes first, and the fact second.

(Nothing is free) (in this world.) (Love cannot be) (without devotion.) (Friendship cannot exist) (without a return in kind.) (Delight in natural beauty) (arises from experience.) (Pleasure in the fine arts) (is a fruit of study.) (Something for nothing) (is a three-word expression, whose only content is nineteen letters of the alphabet and five syllables.) (You pay for what you get) (in this world.)

Naturally, expressed emotion needn’t be intense. Writing emotion that’s relative to the idea, not intensity, is key. From the examples given in this chapter of sentences containing both a fact and a feeling, you will readily understand that some parts of the sentence, some phrases or words, are relatively less exciting than others. That is all that is necessary. A writer must be sensitive to the qualities of words, able to distinguish between a cold word or phrase and one slightly warmer.

Naturally, the same word may seem cold in one sentence and warm with emotion in another, where the context is different. Each sentence must be judged for itself. Thus one might say, “War is hell.” In this case we have the emotion in the last word, and the fact in the first. One might say, “Hell is murky,” and find that the word “hell” is now the fact, while “murky” carries the emotion. So any single word can convey fact or feeling depending on context.

And now to recapitulate. Here are the four great rules for style which implement our purpose to present FACT WITH PASSION:

I. KEEP ’EM READING.

II. A FACT (IDEA) AND A FEELING (EMOTION) IN EVERY SENTENCE (OR CLAUSE).

III. FACT FIRST OR FEELING FIRST: WHICH WILL BE BETTER?

IV. LET FACTS AND FEELINGS ALTERNATE (As A RULE) THROUGHOUT A GIVEN SEQUENCE OR PARAGRAPH.

You will do well to memorize these rules now, and practice them consciously and deliberately until they become second nature to you. Always review your writing for consistent rule application. Look before and after. For if you send out your final copy without making sure it lives up to these rules, you stand a very good chance of getting it back by return mail.

I didn’t invent these rules. The rules are dictated by the nature of speech and human thought and feeling. Successful writers have adhered to them since the start.

That is true, simply because, without following these rules, CONTINUITY becomes impossible.

Accordingly the author, in order to keep the reader interested, must first make sure

• that there is a fact and a feeling in every sentence.

• that the sentences in any given sequence are all moving in the same direction, and

• that that direction is the right one.

These are the basic principles of all good style and effective writing.

These rules prove straightforward in practice. Where a writer can distinguish between words conveying ideas and emotions, they can quickly assess their sentence composition. To determine the most effective order, he can experiment with placing the fact before or after the feeling.

Thus the author need not merely “dream up” his composition and hope for the best. He may apply sure principles and test it out, sentence by sentence, and paragraph by paragraph, until he achieves the best result possible.

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The thread we follow leads to ensuring your reader continues to read. Next, we'll find that these sentences align into a larger structure, an age-old pattern that readers nearly always prefer. At least since the Greeks wrote it down...

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