Writing According to You
When it comes to writing, I’ve learned a fair share of rules over the years. Of course, there’s the typical rules, like “i before e except after c,” “don’t use contractions,” “don’t have one sentence paragraphs,” and more. E. Shelley Reid shares more “realistic” rules for today’s writer in my piece “Ten Ways to Think About Writing: Metaphoric Musings for College Writing Students” by using metaphors everyone knows. All the rules she writes about are important to think about. However, the ones that stuck to me have more to do with either my personal writing style, my own struggles in writing, or lessons I’ve learned from previous writing classes.
Reid knows that writing is hard. However, it doesn’t always have to be. Reid mentions that “writing is made harder than it has to be when we try to follow too many rules for writing” (Reid 3) and wrote this piece to help make writing easier for all of us. Her three main concepts for writing are:
- Write about what you know about, are curious about, are passionate about (or what you can find a way to be curious about or interested in).
- Show, don’t just tell.
- Adapt to the audience and purpose you’re writing for.
With writing, it’s no fun to just write about whatever. It’s more interesting for you, as a writer, to write about something you are passionate about. It also helps it make more interesting for your reader to read. If you are into your piece, so will they.
However, you have to be specific for your readers; they can’t read your mind. Reid uses the situation of show-and-tell to further the concept. When we were kids, show and tell was the time to show something important or cool to our classmates and tell a story about it. However, if an object was too big, too valuable, or too fragile, our parents may not have let us bring it to show-and-tell, leaving us to resort to just telling. This becomes a problem because we means one thing to you can mean a completely different thing to someone else. When it comes to description, Reid says it best: “if you’re going to show me…what you’re thinking, using only language, it will take several sentences, perhaps a whole paragraph – filled with facts and statistics, comparisons, sensory description, expert testimony, examples, personal experiences – to be sure that what’s in your mind is what’s in my mind” (Reid 7). It may take longer, but it gets your point across.
Another useful tip Reid expresses is “focus on not losing them [the readers] somewhere along the way” (Reid 10). How do you do that? Easy. First, you mention the purpose at the beginning of the piece to get your point across to the reader. If you don’t mention it right away, the reader may get confused and miss it. Reid compares this to driving down the freeway with friends from out of town, when suddenly, you point at a pink house along the freeway without any warning beforehand and they look around, confused, and miss it. Instead, give them insight on the purpose and then inform them of the purpose. Then, they’ll be ready and know what to look for throughout the rest of the piece, seeing what you wanted them to see. You also need to be sure to repeat your purpose throughout the piece. Reid states it best: “If you only say it once or twice – there, in the last paragraph, when you finally figured out the most important point, or maybe once at the start and once at the end – we might miss it, or only get a piece of it” (Reid 12). We have been told since we were younger that repeating the same thing over and over again was bad in an essay; but it’s actually not. Reid parallels it with the chorus of a song you would hear on the radio. The chorus is the most repeated and retained part of the song. You could hear the song once and you already have the chorus almost memorized. The purpose of your writing is the same as the chorus of the song. Reid states that “the core idea…needs to appear early and often, using the same key words, even, as an anchor for all the complex ideas, and examples you’re connecting to it, as a place for the audience to recognize the main idea and find a way to ‘sing along’” (Reid 12) and “as you’re revising, add your chorus back into some key middle parts of your essay – the beginnings and endings of paragraphs, like commercial breaks, can be places that readers expects repetition – until you start to really feel uncomfortable about your repetition…and then add it one more time, and it might be enough, but it shouldn’t be too much” (Reid 12). Repetition is actually good for your piece because it gets the purpose out there remains in the reader’s mind throughout the piece.
One of the hardest parts of writing is finding a way to utilize both your opinions and reasons together in a way that people would understand and be interested in. Most people try to just do one or the other, but it never ends up the way they want. Reid explains that “writing just your opinions, theories, and arguments is a lot like serving plain Jell-O: it seems like you’re doing something productive, but there’s just not much substance to it” (Reid 13). With no substance, readers get bored easily. On the other hand, “writing just your examples, reasons, and details is a lot like bringing cherries to the party: it’s interesting and lively, but readers don’t know what to make of it all” (Reid 13). This is also bad because there’s no personality in the piece; readers will not see yourself in the piece. Reid explains that “good writers blend argument and evidence as they write, so that readers get both elements together all the way through. Good revisers go back and adjust the recipe, seeking a workable combination” (Reid 14). In other words, finding the balance between opinions and facts keeps your audience interested and understanding of your purpose.
Now, I know writing may not be the most excited part of school, or life, in general. However, with the right set of rules, anyone can tell their story. “When you take control and anticipate your reader’s needs, you can make writing work for you in very powerful ways even without a lot of time” (Reid 20).
