Rhetoric: The Small Stuff

I’m starting a two-part series with this post – two part; so, blink and you might miss it. But I want to talk to you about rhetoric – you know, that stuff you hear on the news all the time that’s keeping politicians from actually getting anything done? Fortunately, I’m kidding: today’s political rhetoric is about as juvenile as college humor compared to what it actually means. It is, technically, using words to convince the listener of the rightness of the speaker. In its highest form, though, it’s supposed to convince the opposition of the rightness of the speaker – not convince those who already agree, like political rhetoric tends to do.

This understanding – along with spending an entire semester studying it – has enormously influenced the way I look at writing. Because, despite the exhortation to leave the reader with questions and no answers (can you even do that, and have anything of a resolution to your novel?), I think writing at its best tries – subtly, not allegorically or didactically – to convince the reader of a certain perspective on reality.

Which is why my innards start twisting when a writer, or teacher, or whomever, gives the vague, completely useless advice to “cut all unnecessary words.” Because they never follow up with what exactly constitutes an unnecessary word. The prospective writer is, I suppose, just to intuit that answer, or abandon all desires to be a good writer.

Here’s what’s never said: what makes a word necessary or not is if it will further your thoughts to the reader’s mind. Two things are necessary for this answer to be complete: you have to know your thoughts, and you have to know how the reader understands.

Knowing your thoughts should be simple – or, at least, you should be able to sit a while and figure out what you want to say to the reader. Knowing how the reader understands is something that only experience and practice will teach you.

But even a scientific dissertation will make the reader understand, given the proper technical depth of knowledge the reader possesses, or the layman’s terms the writer is able to use. But for writing to come alive, there are many other words necessary to the text.

It comes down, essentially, to the tone of your theme and your book. If the narrator becomes tinged by the character’s thoughts, then of course the writing must reflect the tone of that character – who may be a concise, minimalist character. But woe to you and to your story if the characters and themes are best supported by rambling, by verbosity, or by elegant description, and you do not do it.

So, when writers talk about getting rid of unnecessary words, remember: getting your word count as close to zero as possible while still telling a story is not always the benchmark of what is necessary. Do not apologize for intruding on your readers’ lives, and promise your story will only take a minute. What is absolutely necessary is for your writing to convey your meaning to the reader, and this happens not only in the specific words you use, but how your sentences and paragraphs are constructed.

Next Wednesday I’m going to talk about the big stuff: scenes and characters. Join me then!