After a long hiatus, I caught up with my friend and expert writer Clark Morgan for another installment of "Bagel & Schmear" -- our occasional series of conversations about composition between bites and bad 80s music at our local Manhattan bagel shop. This time our talk turned to the paragraph, that unheralded workhorse of writing. Here's our discussion. - Editor
VT: So the subject is paragraphs. Topic sentence, three sentences of support and a concluding sentence which repeats the topic sentence just in different words. Am I wrong?
Clark: Maybe.
VT: Maybe not?
Clark: Well, that's the formula they teach you in high school and Freshman Comp.
VT: The formula?
Clark: What happens in composition class is they're trying to teach you the simplest possible way to do it, almost like a formula. So that you can get through college. The assumption is that you're going to continue to develop your writing skills afterwards. With really good writing in say, the New Yorker or Harpers, you rarely see that naked Assertion-Support-Conclusion sort of structure.
VT: Why?
Clark: Because that's only one way to write a paragraph. It doesn't always suit the purpose. And it's not very sexy. Nothing against that formula. It's gotten me out of many a tight spot. And it will almost always get the job done. It's like potatoes. Always fill you up, but you're always looking around for the gravy.
VT: Alright, you said 'get the job done.' What is the job? What does a paragraph do?
Clark: A paragraph makes a point.
VT: I thought the whole piece you're writing makes a point. How is it different?
Clark: Length. In the whole piece you're going to make several points. Several assertions. A paragraph is shorter. It makes only one. And as I'm saying this I realize I'm oversimplifying. Paragraphs have other functions too.
VT: Fine, but let's keep it simple for now. You make an assertion?
Clark: You make an assertion and then you add concrete statements that prove that assertion. When you've proved it, when you've made that point, that's one paragraph.
VT: So a paragraph is about proving a point?
Clark: Almost all writing is ultimately persuasive; that is, you're trying to convince somebody of what you're saying. The paragraph is the most basic tool for persuasion. And the paragraph is stating the point you're trying to make and then making it.
VT: How do you make it?
Clark: If you follow the classic formula, you start high up on "the ladder of abstraction," as my old writing professor liked to say and then--
VT: Whoa, whoa, whoa, what's that?
Clark: Imagine a ladder. At the top things are more abstract. As you climb towards the bottom they get more concrete, more specific. So for example, if we say "professors" -that's fairly abstract. We're fairly high up on the ladder. If we say "English professors" we're moving down the ladder, but still fairly abstract. We could say "My old English professor" and now we're getting more concrete. Even more concrete would be "Professor Thayer, my old writing teacher."
VT: I see.
Clark: It's a handy tool as you're revising. Over the course of a piece you're going to climb up and down the ladder. You make a generalization and then climb down the ladder and talk about specifics and details. That's because you can't just make an assertion and expect to be believed.
VT: That's what you mean by "it's got to be persuasive."
Clark: Right. Now in a paragraph you want to spend most of the time towards the bottom of the ladder: specific and concrete. Professor Thayer always used to say good writing is full of concrete sensory details. He drilled that into us: concrete sensory details. That's what makes things persuasive. For example, if you're writing about, say, a master craftsman making a knife, you have to tell me the name of the knife. What kind steel did he use? What's that steel called? Where is that steel made? What did his workshop look like? And go beyond the visual. What did the shop smell like? What did the grinding stone feel like? What sound did it make?
VT: Concrete, sensory details.
Clark: This kind of writing is persuasive to me because I feel like, oh yeah, this writer knows what he's talking about. Concrete details actually persuade me of your main point. It's convincing. Also, it's a lot more fun to read. Do you see what I mean?
VT: Yes, absolutely. If you just say "Mr. Smith is a consummate master who uses only the highest quality steel and has had very long and very advanced training?"
Clark: That's abstract. There's nothing persuasive about it. You're just asserting something.
VT: But that could be the start of a paragraph, right? The assertion. You could fill it in. "He was an apprentice under a master for 15 years."
Clark: Yeah, that's good. But if you tell me the name of his master, and he grew up on the pampas of Argentina and was blind in one eye, even better.
VT: Got it. But what happens if you just give the specific details and don't explain them. Like, all details and no abstractions?
Clark: You need both. If you just have the specific details, at some point your readers are going to hunger to know: And? This leads up to what exactly? Why should I care?
VT: What does it all mean?
Clark: What does it all mean? In one sense writing is taking a welter of facts, details, and individual impressions and making sense out of them. Taking those impressions and giving them a meaning. Imposing a structure.
VT: And you're saying the paragraph is the primary building block of that structure.
Clark: Yes. Another important point, while I'm thinking of it. What we're talking about right now happens after the first draft or second draft for most people. This is the revision stage. We're not talking about generating the piece of writing. When you're doing the first draft you can have this in the back of your mind. But don't worry about what comes out too much. Just get it out. You'll give yourself writer's block if you think too much about structuring it while you're writing.
VT: But once you're in the revision phase, everything's got to count.
Clark: Everything's got to count. You've got to keep your reader firmly in mind as you're revising. You have to assume your reader is an interested, curious person, you know. But not a mind reader. They haven't experienced what you're writing about. You have to keep in mind, what's the point I'm trying to make? If you're having trouble, just keep the paragraph really simple and clear like the Composition 101 formula: Topic sentence, support it, then sum it up. It's guaranteed to bore people, but you can always spice it up later.
VT: How do I spice it up?
Clark: Well, you know, you give it some variety. This is what I was going to say earlier. A paragraph has more than one function. One is to make an assertion and prove it. Another is to break things up and make it more inviting to read. We've all had to suffer through those endless blocks of thick prose that make you feel like you're in Kafka's castle.
VT: So you're saying you want to keep a paragraph not too long?
Clark: Yes, generally not too long.
VT: Okay, but what if I've written say four or five sentences and I haven't proved my assertion yet? What if I haven't gotten all those concrete sensory details that I want to put in yet?
Clark: Well that's what I mean. You might fill up two paragraphs or more to prove one assertion. It's still the same single point and the proof for it. But you're throwing another indent in there so readers don't give up in despair of ever reaching the end.
VT: So how much it contains and where it falls in what you're writing is somewhat arbitrary.
Clark: Yes. You get to decide how long it is and where it starts or where it ends. It's determined by the material. Here's a trick. Sometimes you'll be revising, and if you take the last sentence of the preceding paragraph and make it your first sentence sometimes that makes it stronger. And vice versa. Sometimes your opening sentence works better at the tail end of the preceding paragraph. Finding exactly where that break is, is kind of?
VT: Trial and error, huh?
Clark: Trial and error. And something for your ears to decide. When you read it aloud what makes more sense? What sounds livelier?
VT: So you want to change it up, vary it.
Clark: Yes. Sometimes it's a lot more effective to jump right in with the details and then in the last sentence of the paragraph state the point. If you delay putting the topic sentence, the "what this means" till the end of the paragraph, sometimes that can be really startling.
VT: Interesting. There's a lot of flexibility.
Clark: The bottom line is that paragraphs are bite size pieces that you structure in a way a reader can follow. You have to have both the meaning and the details. The meaning followed by the details or first the details and then you find out what it means. Keep throwing an indent in there every few sentences to break things up. And keep the main point of the paragraph in mind when you're revising so that you're not for any reason including things in the paragraph that don't help persuade the reader of your point. Save those things and put them in another paragraph that makes another point.
