Forgotten Bestseller Secrets - Keep 'Em Reading: Lesson 04

THE FLOW OF IDEAS. The writer has two main effects to create - transporting the reader instantly, and keeping them involved. It's how the writing flows that makes this happen...

As we’ve seen, the reader wants to be transported from the first paragraph, sentence and word they read. You’ve already gotten them to read because of your title, your subheading, and perhaps (in printed books) your cover or blurb. Now, you must deliver the goods.

There are three elements in a virtual pyramid of length and usage.

These build in necessary continuity to keep your reader reading.

WORDS.

Your purpose will govern your choice of words in using them. When you are dealing with things, or strong, simple emotions, you had better use plain English—the short common words known to everybody and derived from the Old English or Anglo-Saxon speech.

When dealing with ideas, thoughts, subtleties, nuances, or any matter which is complex and intricate or slight emotionality, you will find that longer words derived from Latin, French, or Greek will serve your turn better.

Sophisticated and intellectual peoples derived these words from their speech. They are better suited to express shades of meaning than are the plain blunt expressions of the simple men who spoke Anglo-Saxon.

In all your writing, try to keep your eye on the object you are describing, whether that object be a material object or a complex idea. Otherwise you will find yourself getting well off the ground and fogging up your mind and your reader’s mind with mere verbiage that means nothing.

Take this warning: nonfiction continuity is logical, and logical continuity cannot exist without clarity. Without clarity the reader can’t grasp the successive ideas you offer him — and so he can’t progress with you. You’ve then lost your reader.

Cloudy, vague, mouthy writing, however, will not only offend the patient reader, it will affect the keenness of the writer’s thought. They say a dog does not bark because he is angry; he is angry because he barks. If you can prevent him from barking, he will wag his tail and be friendly. Clear thought causes clear writing. In self-defense, you must strive to be clear, incisive, definite, coherent. You must make sense. A person’s writing reflects their thoughts.

SENTENCES.

Some people write what we call “dead” copy. Their phrasings are lifeless and dull. They turn out stories or articles with everything that a story or article should have—except readability. I used to think that such people could never learn to write “live” stuff. But my experience as a teacher of professional writing on the campus and through correspondence courses has convinced me I was wrong. I observed that some are teachable.

Avoid repetitive writing structures. Vary them based on the effect you want to produce. Some writers’ monotonous sentences irritate. The writer’s slow composition forced his sentence structure onto subsequent thoughts. His thoughts outpaced his writing. So he repeated his recent phrasing, still fresh in his mind. Or perhaps he was just a lazy fellow, who followed his pen instead of pushing it.

At any rate, every sentence deserves its own best form.

If you are apt to repeat the same type of sentence, you may find it helpful to compile a list of a dozen or more sentences which you think good of their kind, and of many kinds: loose, balanced, periodic, simple, complex, and compound, etc., and post it up over your desk.

Before starting a new sentence, review your list of sentence structures and choose the one best suited to expressing your idea.

Our chief concern in writing is maintaining continuity of interest — to keep them reading. And never forget that unless we can maintain continuity, they will stop reading. Most find reading laborious.

The longer we’ve attended school or college, the more we’re immersed in their ideas of writing and reading. At last, we often cannot see that we don’t represent of the whole reading public. Our training involved sustained concentration, extensive reading of boring texts, and maintaining focus on dull subjects.

We have spent years studying textbooks, authorities, and sources — with painful, close attention. We do not expect every sentence, every page we read to be amusing.

This isn’t always true; a significant portion of the public lacks this training and habit. They have to be induced to read on, whether they are reading fiction for fun, or trying to learn something from non-fiction the easy way. They are always ready to stop, to close the book, or drop the magazine.

One long, run-on sentence could ensure consistent narrative flow in writing. But would be impossible to read. Sentences finish with periods, which Britons call full stops. The art of writing sentences is the art of inducing the reader to leap over that period, that full stop.

However, the human mind can only keep track of one or two simultaneous concepts. And so we have to break up our article or book, dish it into these spoonfuls, and feed them to our reader one after another. It resembles infant feeding; interruptions are frequent.

With each spoonful, we have to suggest the desirability of swallowing the next. For between bites, there is always that dangerous stop. In short, the reader is likely to stop reading at the end of the sentence—unless you can prevent that. Fasten these units of thought together somehow, if you hope to keep him reading.

PARAGRAPHS.

This also applies to the paragraph; however, its author faces a greater challenge. For the sentences string along, one after another, line upon line. But a wide white space which catches the eye and invites the reader to stop reading as it separates the paragraphs.

Paragraphs can achieve better completeness and unity than sentences. But paragraph unity hinders flowing continuity. In short, the paragraph is one of the major problems of the writer.

In school, teachers teach us how to build paragraphs. Few textbook compilers have studied and practiced effective writing. Those compilers are also teachers — used to students listening to whatever they say, regardless of how well it’s said.

Textbook authors are unused to persuading readers. They offer few good writing models. The teacher holds their public on a leash. But the professional writer can only whistle up his public. He values proven dog-training techniques above academic rules.

Schoolbook rules often contradict sound practice. Sir Walter Raleigh used to say that you could take a grammar or a book of rhetoric, and illustrate all the faults listed by passages taken from the best authors. If writers persist in committing a “fault” for generations, despite critics and teachers, it must be a “fault” that works.

To achieve paragraphy unity, toss the textbook definitions of sentences and paragraphs. Most schoolbooks don’t address differences between fictional and nonfictional paragraphs. Schoolbook compilers seem to get their information only from other schoolbooks. They don’t observe how paragraphs are written.

We must connect paragraphs, avoiding breaks that tempt readers to stop.

Logical continuity is required for non-fiction’s structure. In fiction, the bridge will be one of emotion. However, bridge ends must be level. That is the vital principle.

In fiction, a hero’s emotions should transition between paragraphs. Those feelings should be consistent, or nearly consistent, in endings and beginnings. The stability or similarity of emotion is the point. Facts found in fiction may be different: it may be nine o’clock in the first paragraph, and midnight in the next.

In non-fiction the reverse is the case. Paragraph transitions maintain consistent logic, ideas, and facts. Emotional tone may vary. The core concept here is identical or similar ideas.

This is the basic rule for transitions, whether from paragraph to paragraph or from sequence to sequence, chapter to chapter, or volume to volume: the bridge may be logical, or it may be emotional. But that bridge must be level. It needs to be alike at both ends.

Did you ever watch an elephant cross a bridge? How warily he tests every plank! How gingerly he trusts his weight upon the yielding timbers. Keep that image before your mind’s eye, for it is a portrait of your reader. He does not like bridges; he would rather not cross. To move him, convince him the other side mirrors the ground beneath his hesitant feet.

Our schoolbooks tell us it is wrong to tack the topic sentence of the second paragraph onto the end of the first paragraph. Non-fiction writers sometimes find this technique useful.

English texts discourage using one paragraph’s last sentence as the following paragraph’s opening. But this is standard practice in fiction. And even common place in biography, or other non-fiction narrative.

Textbook writers overemphasize rigid paragraph structure. Schoolmasters prize paragraph unity, while writers need fluid continuity.

Writers work to maintain overall flow, which outweighs the unity of its parts. Unity becomes effective only with whole-system coherence.

The schoolmasters sometimes seem to treat writers like men condemned to death: they want us to write every paragraph as if it were our last word on the gallows. This finality is a lovely thing, if you have only one paragraph in you. But it may run at cross purposes to continuity, if more paragraphs are to follow.

BRIDGES.

In building a bridge or transition, three other devices prove useful.

A plant foreshadows a later-revealed detail. It arouses interest. The writer may name someone, so the reader is ready for that person to show up further on. Or the writer may mention have a revolver’s appearance early, in order to later use it as a murder weapon.

Pointers foreshadow future events. It provides context for what follows. A pointer may create suspense. Thus the writer may hint at bad weather, and later describe a storm.

Incremental repetition is a third device to maintain continuity. Repetition eases reading; additional data increases interest.

A quick example of incremental repetition is:

That day! That day! That dreadful day!

Sometimes, instead of something added, we have something subtracted with each repetition. Familiarity may diminish with each repetition, yet clarity remains. For example:

Hurry up! Let’s get out of here. . . . Hurry up! . . . Hurry!

Plants, pointers, repetitions: These three tools shift focus between subjects, times, places.

Transitions are important in non-fiction. Here the writer has to combine very diverse materials into one smooth-flowing text. We must include applicable facts and theory. Non-fiction writers need to know how to lead the reader with ease from shoes to ships or sealing wax, from cabbages to kings. Without this approach, your article will be no more effective than a greenhorn newspaper reporter’s.

The wise writer of non-fiction will therefore monitor the transitions in everything he reads. He cannot depend upon connecting words — nevertheless, but, however, and the like. He cannot rely only upon plants, pointers, incremental repetitions, overlapping paragraphs, and logic.

He must write so persuasively that the stubborn diversity of his subject-matter blends into a fluid continuity. Every writer of non-fiction should make it a habit to discover and internalize every good transition he finds while reading. Analyze it to learn its secret, and then use it in his own work.

He must learn how to lead his reader gracefully and gently across tremendous gulfs—in time, in space, in subject-matter. Bridging a lapse of time, or a distance in space are easy. But bridging a gulf between two unrelated subjects is not so easy.

A writer shifts topics, for example from cabbages to kings, by creating mental connections in the reader.

Thus, if one of his kings liked cabbages, the writer may say “The last of this dynasty had a peculiarity which set him off from the other crowned heads—he loved cabbages.”

Or, if none of the kings like cabbages, the writer may say “All these monarchs had an odd trait in common: they detested cabbages. Their nation’s considerable cabbage output made this curious. In fact . . .”

Cabbages and kings may have no relation to each other in reality. But in good writing, the writer must supply that apparent relation — or you lose continuity.

In fiction, it is a rule never to solve one problem until you have faced your hero with a worse one. In fiction, everything carries through; nothing gets cut off short. Nonfiction writing shares this truth, despite composition guides seldom addressing it.

In non-fiction, the rule runs:

NEVER ANSWER THE QUESTION YOU HAVE RAISED UNTIL YOU HAVE RAISED ANOTHER QUESTION, PREFERABLY A MORE IMPORTANT ONE.

In that way you create a kind of intellectual suspense.

In non-fiction, as in fiction, “false suspense” is dangerous and best avoided. It’s poor technique to stir interest in unanswerable questions or unsolvable problems. The same applies to bait the reader with some scintillating fact, well apart from the actual subject of your article. When you disrespect a reader, he knows it — and resents it.

Avoid using too-familiar gestures with readers. He distrusts a writer who tries to be pals with him. He doubts the writer’s skill and ability to please the customer.

It is also a mistake to be apologetic about your work. If your work isn’t up to par, it should be removed.

Never jest regarding your work; never, as the saying goes, “kid your own show.”

These three errors in behavior will drive away your reader, if you indulge in them. For they are all signs that the writer has no real confidence in his work, and—worse—that he is thinking about himself instead of trying to please his reader. Writers must treat their work seriously — readers expect it. The reader expects good literary manners by the writer.

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The professional author builds continuity into every successful article or story.

Words represent ideas. Words build into sentences, which then expand into paragraphs. All must have unity and continuity.

Ensure a smooth, engaging read through careful revision and polish.

Paragraphs then build into devices to glue your story, article, and book together.

Those devices then build into scenes — our next continuity tool to explore.

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How This Can Help You

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