What we call a poem is mostly what is not there on the page. The strength of any poem is the poems that it has managed to exclude. — Harold Bloom, literary critic and theorist
Create
It’s a familiar feeling, the one you get when you stare at a blank page trying to figure out the best way to start writing. All that potential offered by the lack of writing that’s already there can be overwhelming, can’t it? It’s not necessarily that we don’t know what we’re trying to say, it’s just that each word we write seems wrong, leads us places we didn’t want to go, and forces us to string other words together just to finish sentences.
In the beginning, we’re told, the universe was a similarly blank slate and the word was with God; now we all can get an idea of what sort of a burden that must have been.
We stutter, re-start, write, re-write and erase.
The reason for the intimidating power of the blank page could be that we start with a fundamental misconception about what it is to start writing. We feel like we have to be creative, we have to capture our communication in words that will then deliver it, more or less intact and as intended, to our readers. Writing seems like a process of construction, crafting communication around our intentions, brick by brick until we have created a building that’s ready for the reader to inhabit.
The logistics of the writing process — grammar, typography, syntax, headings, paragraphs, even the edges of the paper or screen — reinforce the notion that we’re asked to create a little world of meanings and invite readers to step inside. That’s a tall order.
It helps here, as it often does, to look at things from the opposite point of view.
The Infinite Potential of the Blank Page
What if the blank page is not an empty space waiting to be occupied by your creativity. It’s not the heckle from the darkness at the back of the comedy club, challenging you to ‘be funny.’ It’s not a limitless lack of meaning that we’re struggling to overcome. Instead, it’s already part of a world of pre-existing significances, any and all of which are ready to disperse our intentions into a myriad meanings that hijack our writing and kidnap our readers’ attention. The burden is not so much a lack but an almost overwhelming abundance of potential significance.
Look at the blank page. It can be anything; let’s say it’s a picture of the sky. Oh – but what’s that crease on the top right hand corner? What does that mean? Well it doesn’t mean anything, it’s just a crease…but did you put it there or was it there already? Look, I don’t want to talk about the crease, it’s not important…wait – there’s a second piece of blank paper. Is that part of the picture? I think I see a watermark – could that be a hill or something?
What happens if the first violinist drops his bow during John Cage’s famous silent composition, 4’33”? What does it mean? What if it causes us to remember Victor Borge falling off the piano bench, and then recall his playing a tune backwards, upside-down – how does that relate to this evening’s performance of 4’33”? The audience is invited to consider anything and everything that happens in the four and a half or so minutes during which music explicitly doesn’t happen. Here, as with our blank paper picture, we’re forced to focus on the wealth of potential significances into which we’re plunged when we perform, paint or write.
There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we cannot. – John Cage, composer and writer
So how does all this help us, as we stare at the flashing cursor? As we sit in front of a keyboard that’s capable of writing the entire works of Shakespeare, face to face with our own lack of creativity,?
Exclude
It could be that when we write we’re trying to exclude rather than to create meaning. We’re trying to head off distractions and filter out anything that may lead our readers away from the message. So when we start to write, we start our attempt to close off irrelevant or distracting avenues of thought and instead try to keep our readers’ focus where we think it needs to be. We’re trying to anticipate and avoid random significance, keep the reader focused and away from all those “..meanings latent in the mode of action of the language, which may be far more elaborate and fundamental than those that can be written up.” – William Empson, literary critic and poet.
So to start writing, think of excluding not creating. Harold Bloom feels that in literary endeavors this leads to anxiety; how can I be original or remotely sure of what I’m communicating, when the reader cannot separate my writing from its unintended connections with everything else she has read? But I think for our practical purposes – trying to write more easily and more effectively — we can turn this on its head and make things a lot less scary. After all, when readers bring along all this pre-existing baggage it’s more like you’re already editing your first draft than you are starting to write from scratch. It’s not so tough to start when we feel we already started.
Let’s consider a few quick takeaways.
Start with the reader
With all this other stuff to read, and with everything else going on in their lives, why have readers decided to read your writing in the first place? What’s their purpose in putting in that effort? You need to keep your writing on track and minimize distracting ‘noise’ that doesn’t contribute to the overall purpose. That means getting teasing out your main points and getting to them early, and then sticking with them. Otherwise readers will waste effort ‘reading into’ the writing, searching between the lines for what they need. And it’s surprising how, when we try to create rather than exclude, it can take an awful long time to get to our main points.
In this example, readers want to know why they should download a new internet browser. Simple. We need to stop them thinking about their current software and about potential problems updating it and so on. But they are instead told why the new browser is almost as good as their old one; the writer is writing about new features, but is thinking about fixed problems that he feels he needs to explain before he gets to his point:
Features: What’s new in Internet Explorer 8
View sites with ease
Now you can quickly display websites that were designed for older browsers. If you’re looking at a page and the text or images aren’t lined up right, just use the new Compatibility View button next to the Refresh button on the Address Bar.
As a result readers are shifted from a world of new software that they feel they may need, to a world of incompatibility, extra buttons, things that aren’t lined up right — and they’re thinking as much about the old browser as they are the new one.
Stay with the reader
The boundary between writer and reader is always slightly fluid. As you write, you’re also reading what you write and trying to keep on message. As you read, you’re constantly ‘making sense’, working to construct messages from the text. Ask yourself how much effort it would take to make your writing serve your primary message. Is it more or less of a struggle to read your intended points out of your written arguments? Have you perhaps been guided by your own language away from your main purpose, maybe even by the purely structural need to balance a sentence or bring a paragraph to completion?
A manager may want to make his workers feel appreciated after a tough quarter, and he is trying to create something suitably motivational out of all his thoughts about family, the season, his business, and how everyone should enjoy their holiday and return to work excited about the new year and new possibilities ahead. But what are readers to make of the following e-mail message?
My wife and I particularly enjoy this time of year. [Uh-oh – he’s going to ask me round for soft drinks and cake again…] The holidays are a time to unwind, have fun, and recharge the batteries. [Ha yes – all those toys..must get a few packs of triple-A’s] We continue to delight our customers, [delight is a funny word, isn’t it? Delight. Delight, delicious. Cake and soft drinks..oh I hope not.] and we should be pleased with the progress we’ve made. [We should,
yet he must think we’re not. Why is that? Maybe we need a pay rise..] Let’s return with renewed effort [Oh no – another year just round the corner with extra work and no pay rise…] after some well-earned time off! [in lieu of a pay rise? Must remember those batteries on the way home.]
Head off uncontrolled significance
You are your first reader. Spot places where readers may go astray and either rewrite or write around them.
As one-line example, consider McDonalds’ use of the following quotation in its marketing materials. Its purpose we assume is to stress the value of McDonald’s employees, in particular their power and effectiveness as a collective team. What we don’t want the reader to take from this is that individual employees are expendable, or that the team as a whole is about as much use as no team at all.
None of us is as good as all of us. – Ray Kroc, founder.
Doesn’t work, does it? It’s one step away from Yogi Berra. It assumes readers will read it in the intended way.
Though it’s a tough quotation to use, if we really need to feature it we must do our best to exclude the humor by framing it with something like:
McDonald’s recognizes the value of teamwork, and of the power of individuals when they collaborate in a great organization. In the words of our founder, Ray Kroc: “None of us is as good as all of us.”
But it’s still a bit comical, isn’t it? They would probably be better off finding another way to advance the teamwork message.
If in doubt…
In practice, the more we stray from the central purpose of our writing the more we are likely to introduce uncontrolled meanings. With all the preceding examples, the rule of thumb should be – if in doubt, leave it out. Don’t mention a fix when you want readers to think about features. Don’t talk about your family when you’re thinking of your readers. And never think you share assumptions about what you’re writing with your readers.
More of this in articles to come, and other thoughts on how we can get tools and techniques for better, more effective writing from artists, philosophers and thinkers you wouldn’t normally turn to for practical advice…