The Elements of Writing provides a unique system for building stories and arguments. Charles Euchner developed the system while teaching writing at Yale University and working on his own writing projects. He sat down for a Q and A last summer.
Explain the approach of The Elements of Writing.
I have taught writing at a number of colleges and universities, and I have also worked hard at my own writing. I have published a bunch of books and also written for a number of magazines and newspapers, including The American, Commonwealth, Newsweek, The Boston Globe, and The New York Times. As a teacher and writer, I have always tried to master the “tricks of the trade.”
In every profession—carpentry, plumbing, auto repair, sales, cooking—the real pros use these insider tips to do their job. Over a lifetime, they accumulate these bits of wisdom. The best ones do what they can to pass these tips along to apprentices. That’s what The Elements of Writing is to me—a chance to pass along the big and little tips that I have learned as a writer and teacher.
Give me an example of the “tricks of the trade” of writing.
Here’s one of my favorites: Start strong, finish strong. That’s what I call the Golden Rule of Writing. If you start everything strongly, and finish strongly, you will always engage the reader. Some people call it the 2-3-1 rule. You should start with the second-most important idea or image, finish with the most important, and stuff all the rest into the middle.
So never start a sentence with a long phrase like “Contrary to the argument that…” Try to start with the subject, so the reader always knows what you’re talking about; finish with the most important idea or outcome. If you need to provide background information—“according to a new report by the Comgressional Budget Office,” for example—stuff it in the middle.
The same goes for paragraphs, chapters, whole essays, even books. Start and finish with the strongest material. You’ll make a great first impression and leave a great lasting impression.
If you’re trying to organize a piece—however long—remember the adage to start strong, finish strong. If you know where to start and where yo end, all the middle pieces just fall into place. It’s better than any outline.
That’s my favorite “trick of the trade.”
Do you identify specific, simple skills covering every challenge of writing?
That’s right. You know, all the experts on learning say you need to boil skills down to their simplest components. When you do that, anyone can understand it. Then you combine all these pieces.
You call The Elements of Writing a “brain-based system.” What does that mean?
It’s simple, really. The brain is this fantastic organ, as complex as anything. It has amazing power. The best computer can do just a few things that a brain can do. So it’s very protean. But it’s also the result of ages of evolution. It developed the way you add onto a house, where you just add on new functions rather than building the whole thing from scratch. So it has all these separate parts, and sometimes they work together and sometimes they don’t. And some of the parts are more dynamic, more powerful, than others.
So the brain is this big collection of instincts and desires and capacities.
Now, to write well — or do anything well — you need to understand what the brain “wants.” Well, we know that the brain wants regularity — routine, predictability, a regular way of doing things. But the brain evolved to get excited by surprises, so sometimes it wants a departure from regularity. The brain is also, in the words of one neuroscientist, a “prediction machine.” We can’t help but make predictions when we see something, even if it’s for tyne first time. And the brain is, above all, a storytelling machine. If you can tell a great story, you can do anything as a writer. In fact, once you understand the basic structure of a story, learning all other skills is almost automatic.
Can we talk about how short- and long-term memory work?
OK. Start with shortterm memory. As the name suggests, shortterm memory works with what’s going on right now. You are hearing these words right now. Contrary to all hosannas for “multitasking,” we can only focus on one subject at a time. If you were trying to read this while singing an aria or scrambling eggs, you would fail. You would not be able to really take in the words.
Longterm memory is best understood as a storehouse of facts, ideas, and models. The longterm memory gives us tools for understanding things right in front of us. In the previous sentence, when I used the word “models,” you probably thought of different concepts that simplify the world. you had that concept stored in your longterm memory, so you could understand what you were reading. If you didn’t know what a model was—or you misunderstood the term to mean fashion models or model airplanes—you would have gotten stuck.
How do these two kinds of memories relate to each other?
Working on any project requires both the attention of the shortterm memory and the store of information in the longterm memory.
To master any craft—writing, cooking, carpentry, motorcycle repair—we need to develop skills, or models of doing things and the physical ability to act on them. once we have mastered those skills, we store them in our longterm memory for use when we need them. At first, learning requires conscious attention. When you first learn how to drive, you need to pay close attention to how you scan the road, turn the wheel, press down on the accelerator and brakes, and so on. Once you master these skills, they become “second nature.” You don’t have to think about them anymore. You do them automatically.
Certain skills become part of the longterm memory?
Once you have mastered a skill, it goes into the longterm memory. Those skills wait to be used by the shortterm memory for specific chores.
How do people develop “automatic” skills?
To develop new skills, you need to build on existing knowledge—which, of course, is stored in the longterm memory. Usually, you apply concrete situations to models that you already understand. You use existing models to these situations. You play with every you have, like a child playing with blocks.
Give me an example—from writing, if possible—of the concept of beats.
Sure. Suppose you want to learn about “beats,” a concept in cinema that refers to the interaction of characters in a scene.
You’re better off starting with some concrete examples—scenes from classic movies like “Casablanca” or “Chinatown,” for example—and then applying them to concepts you already know. One of favorite scenes occurs in “Casablanca,” when the Nazi officers decide to humiliate the expats in Rick’s bar by singing the German national anthem. Victor, the leader of the resistance, goes over to the bandleader and tells him to pl;ay the Marseilleise. The band leader looks to Rick, who nods OK. So the band starts playing. Then the expats start singing. Then the German officers try to play louder to drown them out.
But the expats sing even louder, so the Germans give up and sit down. In victory, the expats whoop and cheer. “Vive la France!” one woman shouts. Then the german officer orders an underling to shut down the bar. Looking at that scene, we can talk about how every great scene shows a rat-a-tat-tat exchange among people. Every action moves the story forward. Once we see the “Casablanca” scene—or any scene in cinema or theater, fiction or nonfiction—we can develop a more abstract concept.
But first we have to tap into ideas we already have stored in our longterm memory. Most people understand beats in biology—we know about heartbeats. We also know about other rhythms in natural life—the circadian rhythms of the day, the ides coming in and out, the shifts from season to season as the earth circles the sun. We also understand the idea of beats in music. We know that beats give music its pace. Beats often involve exchanges of musical ideas in music.
So we take the concrete example from “Casablanca” and apply it to the models that already reside in our longterm memory. Voila, we now understand an important new concept for storytelling.
Here’s a definition which we can now add to our longterm memory for later use in writing projects: Beats, an essential building block of any dramatic scene, depict an exchange of words, actions, or gestures. This exchange necessarily moves the story forward—advancing the plot, exploring the issues and conflicts, showing the characters of the people involved, or showing something important about the setting. Every beat should advance the whole drama; extraneous actions only detract from the story and should be removed.
Talk more about The Elements of Writing—its content and approach.
The Elements of Writing has identified 96 specific skills you need to master to become a proficient writer, then organized them by the letters of the alphabet for easy recall. Each of these skills is simple to understand and simple to apply. By using lots of examples from great fiction and nonfiction writing, and applying them to simple concepts that most people already understand, you can develop a complete repertoire of writing skills.
