is trying to avoid something, or must
confront some loss, or is tempted in
some way.
Take, for example, this opening to
a story by Ben Marcus (2011), “What
Have You Done?”:
When Paul’s flight landed in Cleveland,
they were waiting for him. They’d
probably arrived early, set up camp
right where the passengers float off the
escalator scanning for family. They must
have huddled there watching the arrivals
board, hoping in the backs of their minds,
and the mushy front parts of their minds,
too, yearning with their entire minds that
Paul would do what he usually did—or
didn’t—and just not come home. (p. 55)
to the subject, and I am tempted to complicate matters in the interest of keeping
things going for a couple hundred more
pages or so. I’ll try to resist, but will go
ahead and add a few more details to flesh
out the recommendations. Like, eating a
little meat isn’t going to kill you, though
it might be better approached as a side
dish than as a main. And you’re better off
eating whole fresh foods rather than processed food products. That’s what I mean
by the recommendation to “eat food,”
which is not quite as simple as it sounds.
(p. 1)
I contend that the same process is
at work. There is trouble here as well.
Why must this expert on food tell us
that his main recommendation is to “eat
Reading is not a treasure hunt for the main
Consequently, openings should be
read very slowly, and reread if possible. So much is happening. So many
commitments are being made, which is
why writers often find them so nerve-wracking to write. Openings establish
the topic, suggest the problem, and
convey a sense of the narration and tone
of the piece, risking at any millisecond
that the reader will go elsewhere. Sometimes when I hear that students are
taught to write “introductions,” I think,
“Introduction What is this? A kaffee
klatch?” There is far more work to be
done than “introducing” a thesis; the
writer has the much more difficult (but
interesting) task of creating the need for
the thesis, of setting up the dramatic
structure of the piece, one that a reader
aligns with.
idea; it is a journey we take with a writer.
So much trouble here. Paul clearly
doesn’t want to be here, visiting his
“mushy”-brained family—and he suspects that they would just as soon he
didn’t come. We learn that there is a
history of their waiting for him, and his
failing to show up. But he’s here, and
they’re here, and the story has forward
movement. How will this encounter
play out? Also, we have a sense of how
the story will be narrated, from Paul’s
perspective, with full access to his
negative opinions about his family (and
himself).
Now let’s look at a nonfiction
opening, the beginning to Michael
Pollan’s In Defense of Food (2009),
a book that would be classified as
argumentation:
Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.
(p. 1)
That, more or less, is the short answer
to the supposedly incredibly complicated and confusing question of what
we humans should eat to be maximally
healthy.
I hate to give the game away right here in
the beginning of a whole book devoted
food”? How have we gotten to a place
where this notion is at all controversial
or even an interesting thing to advise
us to do? Why is it “not as simple as
it sounds”? What gets in our way of
“eating food”? In other words, we have
the beginning of a plot. We have an itch
to scratch.
Identifying the Players
Readers of fiction instinctively begin
with the questions, Who are the actors?
and How are they in conflict? We have
no interest in reading about the mythical
happy families that Tolstoy mentions.
Similarly, all analytic writing needs
conflicting perspectives, contending
solutions, weaknesses and strengths,
even good guys and bad guys. If these
positions can be attached to spokes-persons, so much the better for the
drama. Writing is dialogic, involving
multiple voices, orchestrated by the
author. To comprehend a text is to be
attuned to this conflict.
Several years ago, I had a reading
crisis of my own when I had to teach a
graduate seminar in rhetorical theory
that spanned two millennia (most programs responsibly break this up into different courses). I had a good anthology,
but it covered so many diverse writers,
intellectual traditions, eras, rhetorical
issues, and writing styles that I was panicked about where to start. It was educational malpractice for sure. But I began
to read each writer with the questions,
Whom is this writer responding to?
Whom is he or she arguing with? What
provoked this writing? In the seminar,
