To be fair, the first person is often inappropriate in a formal academic paper, and not just because of its informal tone. I, me, and my can make an argument look weaker, as if it's based on opinion instead of evidence: In my judgment, Abélard is not a tragic figure. It appears to me that he is one more example of the irresponsible clergyman. By seducing Héloïse, fathering a son, and secretly marrying her, I believe, he determined his own fate. I think that's why he is remembered today more for his love letters than for his theological writings.
If you write like that, hedging your bets, you'll sound as though you don't have confidence in your argument. When you have a case you believe in, don't emasculate it.
Some Facts about Fiction
Fiction writers are often more comfortable, more themselves, in the first person. Beginners seem to find it natural to write in the voice of a character. But they're not alone. Some of literature's greatest novels have first-person narrators: Jane Eyre ("Reader, I married him"), Great Expectations ("The man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside down, and emptied my pockets"), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn ("I felt so lonesome I most wished I was dead"), Moby-Dick ("When I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor").
Be warned, though. Using the first person may be the easiest way to begin a work of fiction and the hardest way to finish one. Limiting yourself to one character's point of view can make it difficult to be everywhere you want to be and say everything you want to say.
A first-person narrator can't see around corners or through walls; only an omniscient narrator (one who's all-knowing and all-seeing) can. An individual character can't know other characters thoughts; only an omniscient narrator can. If what you're writing requires godlike knowledge of everything and everyone, the first person won't work.
Say you're planning a story about a young couple's visit to the obstetrician, and you want to write it entirely from the husband's point of view. If he's in the waiting room while the doctor and the patient are in the examining room, you can't very well describe the doctor listening through the stethoscope—unless you're writing science fiction and the prospective dad has X-ray vision.
An extremely skilled novelist, however, can write in the first person and still tell the reader things the narrator doesn't know. I'm thinking of Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, a novel seen through the eyes of a butler with blinkered vision. The narrator himself is unaware of the emotional and political turmoil around him, but through him the reader sees what he doesn't.
In one episode, Stevens, the butler, reminisces about Lord Darlington, the nobleman he devotedly served for thirty-five years, and about the importance of well-polished silver in the running of a great household. "I am glad to be able to recall numerous occasions when the silver at Darlington Hall had a pleasing impact upon observers," he says.
As he talks about the silver, we learn little by little that something much more serious was happening at Darlington Hall back in the 1930's—a meeting between a British Cabinet minister, Lord Halifax, and a Nazi diplomat, Herr Ribbentrop.
"But then at one point I overheard Lord Halifax exclaiming: 'My goodness, Darlington, the silver in this house is a delight. I was of course very pleased to hear this at the time, but what was for me the truly satisfying corollary to this episode came two or three days later, when Lord Darlington remarked to me: 'By the way, Stevens, Lord Halifax was jolly impressed with the silver the other night. Put him into a quite different frame of mind altogether.' These were—I recollect it clearly—his lordship's actual words and so it is not simply my fantasy that the state of the silver had made a small, but significant contribution towards the easing of relations between Lord Halifax and Herr Ribbentrop that evening."
The unwitting narrator sees only the world reflected in his exquisitely polished silver. But between the lines, readers learn that his adored employer, Lord Darlington, has been secretly furthering Hitler's cause among leading figures in the British government.
Not all writers can pull that off. If you'd like to try, read as much first-person fiction as you can, and pay attention to what's going on. Some wonderful first-person writing is layered and complex, like the passage above, and some is more straightforward. But all of it has a feeling of inevitability, as though it couldn't have been written in any other way. It's hard to imagine Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, the story of a young black man's struggle for identity, in anything but the first person:
"I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me."
That feeling of alienation, of barely suppressed anguish, wouldn't come across if the passage had been written in the third person. See for yourself. Try replacing every I with a he. Do the same thing when you have doubts about your own writing. Strip each I, me, and my from an important passage. If it collapses, the first person is the right choice. If your presence isn't called for, get out.
But enough about you.
23. Promises, Promises
MAKING THEM, KEEPING THEM
Every playwright knows you don't put a gun onstage unless you intend to use it. That's a good rule to follow, no matter what kind of writing you do. A careless hint or a subject that's raised and then dropped is a gun left in plain view but never fired. It's a promise to the audience—"Trust me to deliver the goods"—that's never kept.
A writer makes promises to keep the reader reading (or the audience awake). The promises can be quite obvious, like saying you have a major announcement to make, or more subtle, like the gun that leaves folks wondering when it will go off.
A promise is anything that piques interest and begs for explanation: As we shall see, his failure to test the bungee cords was to have tragic consequences. Or: Leona bailed out at $13 a share, a decision she would later regret. Or: They kissed outside the cryogenics lab, vowing to meet again in a better world, but it was not to be.
Even small details can be promises. You might begin a profile of a corporate executive by describing her office, littered with promises: a wheelchair in one corner, a stuffed sailfish on the wall, a half-eaten jelly doughnut on the desk. Every promise raises a question. Is that her wheelchair? If so, what happened? Did she land that fish? Is she going to finish the doughnut? Readers will keep reading because they want to know.
And you have to tell them. An audience has the memory of an elephant. Never raise expectations you don't plan to meet. You might forget a casual teaser, but readers won't. And what you see as an insignificant aside (He knew he had to fix that step one of these days) might seem a portent to your readers. Don't leave them hanging.
Suppose you're writing a magazine article on dry-cleaning methods and you mention that you were furious when your marabou boa came back from the cleaner's. Readers will expect to be told why. Or you're giving a speech on exotic pets and you happen to recall warning your late brother-in-law not to hand-feed his crocodile. The audience will expect to hear the rest of the story, so keep your promise.
Those of you with attention deficit disorder may need nudging, especially if you're writing something long. Jot down a note whenever you make a promise in your writing—when you mention a subject or refer to an incident you plan to pick up later. Stick your reminder in an obvious place, on a wall or bulletin board or at the edge of your computer terminal. Any loose ends should be tied up eventually.
Our reading, both fiction and nonfiction, is full of promises that hint at where we're going and help move us along. Since we could be going almost anywhere, a promise can hint at almost anything, from unusual plot twists to a startling scientific discovery.
A promise or two at the beginning of a book can give readers a taste of what's to come:
"How did our Sun come into being, what keeps it hot and luminous, and what will be its ultimate fate?"
(George Gamow,
The Birth and Death of the Sun)
"This is the saddest story I have ever heard."
(Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier)
"Benjamin Disraeli's career was an extraordinary one; but there is no need to make it seem more extraordinary than it really was."
(Robert Blake, Disraeli)
A promise at the end of a chapter can engage readers and make them turn the page. In these examples, the promise is a note of suspense:
"As the year of 1931 ran its uneasy course, with five million wage earners out of work, the middle classes facing ruin, the farmers unable to meet their mortgage payments, the Parliament paralyzed, the government floundering, the eighty-four-year-old President fast sinking into the befuddlement of senility, a confidence mounted in the breasts of the Nazi chieftains that they would not have long to wait."
(William L. Shirer,
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich)
"Halfway down I paused and leaned on the handrail and told myself that I was descending into trouble: a pretty young woman with a likable boy and a wandering husband. A hot wind was blowing in my face."
(Ross Macdonald, The Underground Man)
"The truth about his new American correspondent was a great deal stranger than this detached, innocent, and otherworldly Scotsman could have ever imagined."
(Simon Winchester,
The Professor and the Madman)
"It would be many hours before I learned that everything had not in fact turned out great—that nineteen men and women were stranded up on the mountain by the storm, caught in a desperate struggle for their lives."
(Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air)
Promises can put readers on the alert that something important is about to happen. In these passages, hints of ominous doings create a sense of foreboding:
"Now I thought: There's going to be trouble here."
(V. S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River)
"So do not forget this Marvin Macy, as he is to act a terrible part in the story which is yet to come."
(Carson McCullers, The Ballad of the Sad Café)
"From my father I inherited an optimism which did not leave me until recently."
(Joan Didion, Play It as It Lays)
"Like the waters of the river, like the motorists on the highway, and like the yellow trains streaking down the Santa Fe tracks, drama, in the shape of exceptional happenings, had never stopped there."
(Truman Capote, In Cold Blood)
Promises are glue, gripping the reader's attention by holding a long piece of writing together. A good writer can juggle three or four or more promises at once, so there's always something else the reader wants to know, another reason not to switch off the light and go to bed.
Some promises, though, are subtle; the reader recognizes them only in retrospect. They may be as unobtrusive as a recurring image, like the umbrellas that pop up at fateful moments in Madame Bovary. Flaubert's first mention of an umbrella comes early in the novel, when the local priest tells the innkeeper he's left his umbrella behind and asks that it be sent on to him. That same evening, the Bovarys arrive in town. They dine at the inn, and then a servant carrying the curé's umbrella shows them to their new home. Later, Emma Bovary will buy her lover a present from an umbrella shop, a costly gift that she has to steal from her husband to pay for. And still later, she secretly meets another lover in a raging storm. As lightning flashes around them, they embrace and kiss—under an umbrella.
Whether they're subtle or not so subtle, promises make a book worth reading again and again because they seem more meaningful with each reading. As you read and as you write, think about promises and keep your eye on the ball—or the umbrella. And anytime you raise the reader's expectations, remember that you have promises to keep.
24. You Got Rhythm
WRITING TO THE BEAT
Mention rhythm and most people think of music: hip-hop, polka, fugue, march, waltz, rockabilly. But almost everything in life has rhythm, from your heartbeat to the clickety-clack of your keyboard, from a jackhammer in the street to rain drumming on the roof. And your writing has it, too.
By "rhythm" I don't mean just the toe-tapping beat created by the rise and fall of syllables as word follows word. I mean all the patterns in writing: the sound of words and phrases, figures of speech, rhymes, repetition, and so on. Taken together, these give a piece of writing its flow, its stride, its timing—that's rhythm.
Open a book, any book, and start reading aloud. Forget for a moment what the words mean. Just listen to the rhythm. Is it jerky because the phrases are short and choppy? Is it leisurely because the clauses are long and drawn out? Does the monotony of the cadences make you drowsy? Does the pulsating drive get your adrenaline going?
It should come as no surprise that language has rhythm. Our first acquaintance with it, after all, is through our ears. As children we hear language before we can understand and speak it; we speak before we can read; we read before we can write. And the language we write has something of the language we hear—the quality of rhythm.
We know that poetry has rhythm. So does prose, though its rhythms may not be as obvious. Great prose writers have always used rhythm to give their words another dimension. We mere mortals may not be able to do that. But when we're trying to write our best— in a love letter, a short story, an essay for admission to medical school—we should make sure that our rhythms don't detract from our words.
Not everything has to sing, of course. If you're writing a recipe or instructions for assembling a tricycle or dosage directions for an aspirin label, rhythm may not be your first consideration. Readers won't mind monotony or a bump or two, as long as the facts are right. A lot depends on how much time you have to fuss. A reporter covering a plane crash on deadline won't play around with rhythm as much as someone writing a feature story about the birth of a panda. Then again, rhythm may not be as critical in a news story that has its own excitement and drama.
Snooze Alarm
The most important lesson about rhythm is also the easiest to learn: Too much of it may put the reader to sleep. And that's the last thing you want to do, unless you're writing bedtime stories. A repetitive rhythm can have a hypnotic effect, lulling readers instead of holding their attention. This is the kind of writing I mean:
In the still of the night, a crack in the floor caught the heel of Mae's shoe, and she fell down the stairs of the rickety house. The bump in the dark put a limp in her walk and a run in her hose, but it didn't disturb a hair on her head.
Are you thoroughly anesthetized? The problem with the passage is that too many phrases (still of the night, heel of Mae's shoe, crack in the floor) have the same rhythm. Two or three similar phrases may be all right, but a long string of them becomes monotonous. The solution is easy. Break up the singsong pattern by changing a few words or moving them around:
In the dead of night, Mae's heel caught on a crack in the floor of the rickety house and she tumbled down the stairs. The fall tore her stocking and left her with a limp, but it didn't disturb a hair on her head.
Can you hear the difference? There are still a few phrases with similar cadences, yet the overall rhythm isn't sleep-inducing. Don't be obsessive about avoiding repetitive rhythms. Use them but don't abuse them, particularly if you're trying to convey excitement or tension.
Out of Sync
Here's Irritating Situation Number 47. You're in a romantic restaurant, enjoying an intimate meal with your one-and-only, when some jerk at the next table starts shouting into a cell phone. Kind of spoils the ambience, doesn't it? A piece of writing can be spoiled, too, if its rhythm is out of sync with its content.
Imagine you're the president of a family-owned company beset by rumors that it's about to close and everybody's going to be laid off. Your object is to assure employees that the rumors are false and that their jobs are safe. You draft an e-mail statement like this:
Dear friends: You're upset. Of course you are, and we are
too! Who wouldn't be? The rumor mill is out of control. But all the loose talk is untrue. This company is not closing. It's doing well financially. Sales are up. No one's being laid off. We expect to be in business for many years to come. And we hope you'll all be here.
That doesn't sound very soothing, does it? The choppy rhythm gives the writing a nervous edge, and the employees are nervous enough as it is. So let's fiddle with the rhythm:
Dear friends: We're just as upset as you are over false rumors about our company's future. None of them are true. In fact, our sales are up, business is good, and we're doing well financially. So there's no reason we would close or let anyone go. We'll be here for many years to come, and we hope you'll be here with us.
The first version could have been written by Barney Fife, the jumpy deputy on The Andy Griffith Show. The second one sounds more like the laid-back Sheriff Taylor.
Sometimes, though, an edgy, percussive rhythm might be just what you're after. In Miami and the Siege of Chicago, Norman Mailer describes demonstrators during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and he does it in a marching cadence, one that swells along with the crowd:
"In broken ranks, half a march, half a happy mob, eyes red from gas, faces excited by the tension of the afternoon, and the excitement of the escape from Grant Park, now pushing down Michigan Avenue toward the Hilton Hotel with dreams of a march on to the Amphitheatre four miles beyond, and in the full pleasure of being led by the wagons of the Poor People's March, the demonstrators shouted to everyone on the sidewalk, 'Join us, join us, join us,' and the sidewalk kept disgorging more people ready to march."
In that single sentence we feel the sting of the tear gas, hear the wagons rolling, and see the march growing in strength ("Join us, join us, join us"). He's got rhythm.
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