If you can turn an analysis into a suspense story, you’ll own the reader. And you’ll be able to offer a balanced and powerful critique.
When you pose a question but delay the answer, you create a state of anxiety in the reader. Just the right measure of anxiety keeps the reader involved. “Think of the brain as a prediction machine,” says David Rock, a business consultant and lecturer on cognition. “Massive neuronal resources are devoted to predicting what will happen each moment.”
To keep any reader involved—whether you’re penning a murder mystery, a biography, a sports story, or a technical or political analysis—create cliffhangers. Create situations where the reader frantically tries to predict the outcome.
Think of arguments as intellectual stripteases. Reveal only enough to pique the audience’s interest … and then, only when your readers get bored, reveal some more. Raise a question, then tease them with possible answers. When you conclude one point, tease your readers on another point.
One last point: When you use suspense to make an argument, you not only keep the reader engaged. You also have a chance to explore all sides of an issue. By lining up a number of “suspects,” you make it easy to give each possibility its due. If you treat each suspect fairly—showing how much it contributes to the outcome—you will earn the reader’s respect.
Consider this example from the field of economics. In his study of deindustrialization—the decline of manufacturing in the U.S. economy, with the severing of the “social contract” between workers and companies—Barry Bluestone wonders: Whodunit? Who or what caused this economic transformation? Why did manufacturers lose their competitive edge? Why did they pick up stakes and leave their communities?
One by one, Bluestone explores the possibilities as if they are suspects in a murder mystery. Is it technology? The service economy? Deregulation? The decline of unions? Downsizing? Winner-take-all labor markets? Trade? Capital mobility? Immigration? Trade deficits? Bluestone reviews the literature on economic and social policy. He finds a conclusion that avoids easy answers.
“What do these results suggest?” Bluestone asks. “[T]he answer to our mystery is the same denouement as Agatha Christie’s in Murder on the Orient Express. They all did it.”
That might not be the most satisfying response—you always want to point a finger at one villain—but Bluestone’s writing creates some suspense while educating us about a complex issue.
To make an argument successful, dole out details and evidence slowly. Don’t reveal your whole argument at once. Trick the reader sometimes. Make a strong case for an argument, then reveal its flaws. Do the same for other arguments, until you have sorted all ideas and come to a convincing conclusion.
This hide-and-reveal strategy has two great virtues. First, you will break down questions into manageable pieces. Rather than explore the factors behind deindustrialization all at once, Barry Bluestone explored those factors one at a time. Because he explored only one factor at a time, Bluestone was able to corral the evidence systematically. And so he was able to show just how important each factor was.
This post is adapted from The Elements of Writing, the only comprehensive, brain-based system for mastering writing in all fields.
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