writing is...

writing is a conversation that you have with yourself, over and over again, until youre ready let the world in on your mind.

coherence, a willful entrapment of footnotes within footnotes or: some thoughts on cohesion and

i have my favorite authors (Gladwell, Krakauer, Franzen, David Foster Wallace, Michael Lewis, Hunter Thompson--feel free to stop me anytime), yet i'm not always certain why i love their work. is it their style? sure, but, what about their style do i find so effective? what's the operative ingredient at play in their prose? and is that even a valid question?

who knows. all i can say is that it's a valid question for people still looking to make the Great Leap Forward in their writing. we (correctly?) assume our favorite writers have discovered that special something which elevates language into art--and we hope by pinpointing that rare and elusive flame, we might ignite our own candles by their fire.

and i guess that's what separates mere "reading" from the more self-reflective "reading like writer": the former suggests an activity that's information and entertainment based, whereas the latter involves being less a consumer of the text and more a kind of "scout" or "researcher" (or even "borrower") of technique. and, come to think of it, that's what i love about the work of Gladwell, Krakauer, et al.: the feeling that--somehow, someway--i'm being transformed by their prose. and just as a writer. but also as a person.

here's all i know: we will never unearth the exact magic that runs through the Great Works of literature. yet we most certainly can grasp (and apply) some of the lesser (but still radically important) features of good writing.

with that in mind, i want to share what i've been focusing on lately: cohesion and coherence. for cohesion, the writer wants to make sure the sentences and paragraphs contain proper thematic ties (words and phrases that logically link and unify ideas). for coherence, an author seeks to strike a kind of pragmatic balance among the three points of the rhetorical triangle (writer, reader, text). for coherence, moreover, the author gives greater consideration to his or her audience, gives greater consideration to the purpose and exigence of the work.

we might even say, moreover, that coherence operates at the macro level: a zone where the author seeks (by the final draft, anyway) to present a cogent structure that unfolds not by simple free association but through a system suited to an underlying purpose. cohesion, on the other hand, operates at the more micro level: a space where the author seeks to unify his or her sentences using grammatical, syntactical, and mechanical (punctuation) ties.

now i personally find cohesion in writing much easier to achieve (after all, there are innumerable handbooks out there that--if you don't follow their rules too rigidly--can prove immensely helpful). coherence, however, can be much more challenging. i am not always sure whether i’ve chosen the correct structure to best unfold my ideas, the pattern that's the most helpful, most logical, most effective. yet i remain encouraged because, well, i enjoy the trial-and-error aspect of questing toward coherence, of trying out different structures in an effort to unfurl my ideas as sincerely and clearly and naturally as possible.

coda: for all my talk of cohesion and coherence, it might seem a bit counter-intuitive that my all-time favorite book is American Psycho, a novel of such unwieldy digressions and unreliability that some of the more tame moments occur when, say, the protagonist--the unforgettable Patrick Bateman--takes page after page after page to properly adumbrate the true "meaning" of Phil Collins.

and it also may not seem obvious why David Foster Wallace--whose style can be rightly labeled as a sort of willful entrapment of footnotes within footnotes--remains my favorite author of non-fiction.

to both, here's why: Ellis and Wallace are such deft masters of both cohesion and coherence that they intentionally fracture their narrative structures, consciously disturbing the text's linearity in an effort to mirror the thematic ends their work seeks to probe. click here to watch Wallace briefly explain this idea on Charlie Rose.

hope that helps.

writing, some more notes on

i selected the below paragraph because it foregrounds two effective writing techniques--alliteration and word precision. as you most likely know, alliteration is when neighboring words share the same "starting sound," and thus create (among other effects) a kind of sonic repetition. word precision needs no explanation--though i can't stress enough its important. (consider the differing effects between writing, say, "the test was hard," vs. "the test was difficult," and you begin to see what i mean.)

in this excerpt from the film review in this week's New Yorker, i've highlighted all the moments that (for me, anyway) are working either formally or informally as alliteration.

The educator who matters in “Terri” is Mr. Fitzgerald (John C. Reilly), an assistant principal with a problem. His problem is Terri Thompson (Jacob Wysocki), a mountain in his mid-teens, with a penchant for wearing pajamas to school. Add the soft, unhurried waddle of the lad’s gait, plus the seconds that tick by as he ponders the answer to a simple inquiry, and you start to wonder if Terri is less of a student than a sleepwalker. It is Mr. Fitzgerald’s chosen task to awaken Terri to the world, along with other worrisome cases—Chad (Bridger Zadina), say, who claws at his scalp as if trying to get at the itchy thoughts inside.

now writer Anthony Lane's use of alliteration here might seem excessive, but only because i've drawn such attention to its salience; the repeating Ps and Ts and Ws would be invisible to a reader who hadn't been tipped off to their presence ahead of time. (though, it needs to be mentioned, the "invisibility" of alliteration does not mean the effect is lost; rather, what gives most literary devices their power is precisely their ability to subconsciously stir us without our knowledge.)

now let's take another sweep through the text, this time coding for word precision. my findings are highlighted.

The educator who matters in “Terri” is Mr. Fitzgerald (John C. Reilly), an assistant principal with a problem. His problem is Terri Thompson (Jacob Wysocki), a mountain in his mid-teens, with a penchant for wearing pajamas to school. Add the soft, unhurried waddle of the lad’s gait, plus the seconds that tick by as he ponders the answer to a simple inquiry, and you start to wonder if Terri is less of a student than a sleepwalker. It is Mr. Fitzgerald’s chosen task to awaken Terri to the world, along with other worrisome cases—Chad (Bridger Zadina), say, who claws at his scalp as if trying to get at the itchy thoughts inside.

each of the words Lane selected--and i which i've highlighted--conveys something their more general counterpart does not.

gait v. walk.

tick v. go by(?)

ponders v. thinks about

inquiry v. question

scalp v. head

i could go into a detailed analysis of each of these examples--drawing attention to, say, the onomatopoeic resonance of "tick" over something dry and pallid like "go by" (or "pass")--but i won't. i think the logic behind Lane's choices are self-evident.

okay, so that's it. i hope i've shown that alliteration should be subtle but powerful. and our diction should be precise without being overly technical or awkward.

voice, compose in an authentic

in writing, some of the most obvious and helpful tips can also be some of the most under-appreciated. take, for example, the suggestion for writers to compose in an authentic voice, to let their human feel for language shine through. yet how often do we abandon our own easy gift for words when circumstances require us to write? how often do we let our syntax suddenly stiffen, calcifying into rigid and unnatural blocks of text? why does this happen?

i'm not sure. and i'm not sure i care enough to truly probe the question. what does interest me, though, are the ways we can write with a natural cadence, an organic gait that feels (in the positive sense) conversational.

a helpful way i've found to give my prose the color of conversation is to remember that all writing operates at the level of dialogue--and that's true whether i'm engaging an audience that's public or private, large or small, or (as is so often the case) limited solely to myself.

when i write from this place--from the persona of both Speaker and Listener--i'm reminded to establish exigence--an invaluable rhetorical tool that often gives writing that loose but logical voice. exigence (despite the forbidding name) simply means the "circumstances that necessitate communication"; or, put another way, exigence asks us to invoke the "timing" of our work, the circumstances that make "now" the right moment to hold forth.

writing is meant to be read, which means it's also destined to be performed (in whatever fashion that may take). as result, we should all want our work to feel as readable and honest and syntactically effective as possible. and, as i've hoped to make clear, establishing the exigency for a given article or essay or blog post (or really almost anything?) can help us remember that, while yes we are writing, we are also (in a very real way) speaking--and therefore word choice and sentence patterns must hit the natural beats and bounces of speech.

here are two strong examples of what i mean.

the first is from Scott Simon, host of NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday. (note: Marvin Gay's "What's Going On?" plays softly in the background during the feature.)

SIMON: Music is a way many of us mark time in our lives or even of history.

(soundbite of song)

SIMON: Forty years ago today, Marvin Gaye's album "What's Going On?" was released. It was sweet, sad and had bite. Without being explicit or obvious, it seemed to sing at the era of marching in the streets and mourning for those who died, both overseas and in the struggle for civil rights at home. The song seemed to catch the wave of history, became a huge hit.

for me, this is perfect. the intro engages the audience in a conversation--and does so by both its exigency ("Forty years ago today...") and its mix of elevated and colloquial expressions.

the second example is from a New York Times Magazine article that i think is destined for many journalists' end-of-year top ten lists. notice how the article's exigency--Derek Jeter's 37th birthday--informs the author's tone and style.

rules, breaking the

on one level, i always feel a bit self-conscious (okay, embarrassed) when i draw attention to how professional writers use punctuation; i mean, a close reading of punctuation--what could be more dreary? but i also see punctuation as an intrinsic part of our language, not simply something we "do" to our words. punctuation is not something we invented after the creation of written language; rather, it is something innate to language itself, to discourse patterns, to verbal expression. if that sounds crazy, consider how naturally and even unconsciously we inflect our words when speaking (a stress here, a pause for effect there). inflection in speech, then, is punctuation in print.

here's good example of how professional writers use punctuation to expertly inflect their words. the sentences below are excerpted from a Stephen M. North book review.

"I floundered around a long time seeking just the right way to introduce this review of Louise Wetherbee Phelps’ Composition as a Human Science. The truth is, I really like this book, with emphasis on that present tense; I find myself rereading it, pondering it, defending it, attacking it, recommending it to my students."

North places a comma after the word "is" (something our teachers told us never, ever to do) because he wants to create suspense for whatever his truth-claim will be. perhaps a lesser writer might have chosen the more traditional, blind-obedience-to-the-rules approach, and written:

"The truth is that I really like this book, with emphasis on that present tense;"

in the reworked version, the suspense (the pause) is lost; the reader is halfway through the sentence before he or she realizes its point. North solves this problem by substituting a comma for the word "that." (which is an important point, since it highlights my broader thesis that punctuation and words are not discrete entities, even though we may speak of them as such.)

next, lets very briefly examine why North places a comma after the word "book."

"The truth is, I really like this book, with emphasis on that present tense;"

we've, rightly so, learned not to attach a comma to a dependent clause (bolded below) when it follows an independent clause (e.g., "my dog wags his tail when he's happy," and not "my dog wags his tail, when he's happy.") so why does North break this rule? because he knows that the only rule to follow in writing is the one that helps achieve clarity of expression. or, put another way, if grammar or punctuation rules hinder clarity, ignore them. we don't write to appease robots; we write to express and connect and explain and emote. and we want to do so with as much clarity as we can.

and that's why North places a comma where normally he wouldn't. he wants to make sure the reader understands that the word "with" refers to his "liking." (otherwise, without the comma, readers might unwittingly read "this book with emphasis..." as possessing the same semantic relationship as, say, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (emphases mine).

moving on. read the sentence again, and ask yourself, why does North break the common-sense rule of placing a coordinating conjunction ("and," "or") just before the final item in a list of three or more items.

"The truth is, I really like this book, with emphasis on that present tense; I find myself rereading it, pondering it, defending it, attacking it, recommending it to my students."

North is signalling that his list is non-exhaustive. in other words, when you omit the final "and," you are telling the reader that your list includes only the most salient items. (example: "my grandmother was always baking something sweet--muffins, pastries, cakes." omitting the final "and" lets the reader know that the grandmother baked many more sweets than the three listed.)*

one final point.

North puts Composition as a Human Science in italics. as a writing teacher, i am frequently asked whether book titles get underlined, italicized, or put in quotes? the short answer: book titles should be italicized. that's the conventional standard. end of story. the long answer is that, well, it depends. when writing by hand, for example, we underline book titles, since we can't--at least not systematically--italicize our handwriting. also, a few publications (The New Yorker magazine, comes to mind) put book titles in quotes. it doesn't really matter which method you adopt--italics, underline, or quotation marks. what matters is that you understand why we inflect book titles (or any titles, for that matter) in the first place: clarity.

hope all that helps.

* "asyndeton" is the technical term for this.

comma chameleon

my relationship with punctuation has progressed through at least three separate stages.

the first--the "Golden Ticket" stage--began when my third-grade teacher, ms. shannon, told me to forget about the rules and just place commas wherever i naturally paused when reading. her advice didn't seem possible and, in some sort of weird act of misplaced rebellion, i put her advice to the test. i grabbed my textbook and felt sure i could breeze across sentences, riding the zephyr of my own reading rhythms, unconcerned by the commas that tried to jump in my way. try as i might, though, my breath would regroup for that split second whenever i reached a comma. it was almost supernatural--as if the author knew precisely where i would need a quick sip of air, and thus sprinkled specks of punctuation to show me it was okay. god, how i remember feeling like i was witnessing a kind of magic, and how quickly i felt myself falling in love with this idea--the freedom to punctuate not by a set of obscure and clumsy edicts, but by the most instinctual part of ourselves: the breath.

stage two--which we'll call "Drill and Kill"--began in grad school when i started teaching freshman composition classes. early in that first semester, i had happily shared ms. shannon's punctuation tip with the students. i remember deciding how grateful the students would be to receive such an intuitive and "cool" non-rule rule. the first batch of essays they turned in, however, were littered with commas in all the wrong spots, strewn in places that suggested speed, and absent in nooks that begged for breaks. (the essays were also plagued by a number of larger and more important issues--most of which we addressed as the semester rolled along. some we didn't.)

i felt capable, perhaps even uniquely qualified, to help my students compose with a greater sense of thematic coherence and purpose. but what i didn't possess was an empirical and scientific answer for the students who, say, asked why the sentence "since he was so hungry, jerry felt like ordering two of everything on the menu" needs a comma, but "jerry felt like ordering two of everything on the menu since he was so hungry" does not. or why "my sister studied in paris, france, while in college" necessitates a comma after the word france.

luckily (if that's the right word), an intro to college grammar class was being held just down the hall from where i taught. and so the next morning, i spoke with the professor and she graciously allowed me to audit her class. thus began my systematic plunge into the science behind comma usage in specific, punctuation in particular, and grammar in general.

the third stage--and the era in which i currently reside--goes by a rather banal-sounding name: the "Signal" stage. simply stated, commas (and this goes for all other punctuation, too) are signals. as writers, we use them when mere words alone can't (or shouldn't) do the job. but you already knew that. perhaps, though, what you've haven't fully appreciated is that punctuation--when considered as a system of signals--means we are given a sort of second Golden Ticket. and this ticket is good for something much more creative and, ultimately, life-affirming than the original. what i am talking about here is punctuation in service of personal taste. when i sit down to write, i let personal taste dictate where my thoughts do and don't benefit from "signals." i use punctuation to help my words achieve (hopefully) the highest level of flow, clarity, precision, (insert other effect i may be working toward at any given moment). and there is no rulebook--which i know of, anyway--that has already divined the punctuation needs of sentences i have yet to write.

and that's the very advice i'd give to anyone who writes, wants to write, or even hates to write. punctuation, if you so desire, can come with a user's manual (a very, very helpful user's manual); but punctuation can also bend to personal taste--as long as you are crystal clear about what you mean by personal taste. for me, as i've said, i seek a kind of conversational ease, but with all the coherence and lucidity i can possibly muster. i want my writing to achieve what the thoughts swirling in my mind lack--namely, organization and concision and (dare to dream) elegance. and so when i've sketched my sentence as far as i can without punctuation and something still feels maddeningly "off," that's when i use punctuation to turn "on" what mere words cannot.

of course, the broader and more meaningful point i want to make here has very little to do with punctuation--either rule-based or otherwise. the deeper point is that personal taste isn't everything in writing, nor is it the only thing. but it's damn close. the only way a writer will ever get his or her sentences to flow forward--to gently role down the slope of smooth syntax--is through harnessing the power of personal taste. which, yes, is easier said than done, because personal taste often involves catering to (or at least being aware of) the preferences of the audience, the reader, the public. yet, the truth remains: we must develop the ability to look at our sentences and ask whether or not we've expressed ourselves in the best way. and then we must gather the courage to shape and reshape our thoughts into their highest form. and that requires a deep confidence--not in the rules--but our rules.

symmetry, structuring the pattern of your words to create balance and

artist: metamorfize

so today i came across the below paragraph, and i think it offers us a really easy chance to brush-up on the idea of parallelism: a term that (in grammar circles) means structuring the pattern of your words to create balance and symmetry.

here's the paragraph (note the words i've bolded).

"The book is modernity’s quintessential technology—“a means of transportation through the space of experience, at the speed of a turning page,” as the poet Joseph Brodsky put it. But now that the rustle of the book’s turning page competes with the flicker of the screen’s twitching pixel, we must consider the possibility that the book may not be around much longer. If itisn ’t—if we choose to replace the book—what will become of reading and the print culture it fostered? And what does it tell us about ourselves that we may soon retire this most remarkable, five-hundred-year-old technology?"

at its most basic, parallelism uses the same word structure to create balance--example: "i like hiking, jogging, and kayaking." okay, that sentence works. but now imagine I wrote, "i like hiking, jogging, and to kayak." um, yeah, not so much.

easy stuff. so let's move toward the more advanced level, which goes something like this: if you pay attention to professional writers, you'll see them employ parallelism to preserve the flow and clarity of their more intricate and involved sentences. in the words, the longer and more intricate a sentence becomes, the more it craves a balanced pattern--because it's that balance, after all, which keeps the sentence smooth and rhythmic.

look again at the sentence.

"But now that the rustle of the book’s turning page competes with the flicker of the screen’s twitching pixel, we must [...]."

"the-rustle-of-the-book's-turning-page"

which grammatically translate* as "article-noun-preposition-article-noun-adjective-noun."

and the words "the flicker of the screen's twitching pixel" are an exact grammatical match: "article-noun-preposition-article-noun=adjective-noun."

that's how it's done.

now as some sort of pedantic refresher course on parallelism, this post means absolutely nothing. which is fine, because i'm only really really this point: just as math freaks can "see" The Math, visually watching numbers zip and zoom into their most natural answer, the same is true for professional writers. they can see the syntax often before they even see the words.

for us mere mortals, however, we've only briefly tasted such a gift. but taste it we have. i'd bet that anyone reading this blog has, at some point, seen the syntax line itself up, and just slid the words into their most natural slots.

ah, to live!

and what we'd pay for another chance.

which is part of the reason we read, read, read. and while we do, noting parallelism as we go. lingering over its particular math. before dipping back into the text--knowing that our reading is slowly revolutionizing our writing.

__

*i'm blindly guessing as to the proper way to grammatically parse those words. i doubt i got exactly it right. but i got it right enough to preserve my point.