I love reading about writing.
Yes, at worst reading about writing can be an anxiety-inducing method of procrastination rather than actually helping one to write. But at best it can help jiggle one’s thoughts loose from the rut they have gotten stuck in.
This is the first in a series of posts in which I’m trying to distill a recipe for how to get a manuscript actually written by making use of my favorite pieces of writing about writing.
The one sentence that structures your manuscript
You know how you’re always told to have an “elevator pitch,” a short, pared-down, essentials-only version of what your book is about and how it contributes to the ongoing academic conversation? Well, it’s not just for elevator rides.
The elevator pitch can actually function as a useful device to organize your manuscript. In her 2011 The Memoir Project: A Thoroughly Non-Standardized Text on Writing & Life, Marion Roach neatly links what a book is about and how it is structured.
Roach, who is a well-known memoir coach, insists that every memoir writer must be able to boil down the memoir into a single sentence that describes what the book is really about.
The key to the “about”-sentence is that it must be both universal and specific. It must have an element that addresses some big theme (redemption, mercy, grief, what have you) and an element that illustrates that theme through something very specific. This combination of big theme and specific illustration constitutes the basic argument of the book (and yes, according to Roach, even memoir must have an argument if anyone is going to bother to read it).
In the elevator pitch, too, you want to make a claim related to a big theme—the meaning of democracy, how we process information, the drivers of political activism. But you must also have the specific element: you are explaining what the drivers of political activism are by examining what these particular people did in this particular situation, for example.
From the elevator pitch to manuscript structure
OK, so the first step is to develop a single sentence that captures the argument of your book. (Easier said than done, for sure, but a valuable endeavor in itself!)
Now for how the sentence helps you with the structure. Let me quote from Roach (because she’s a lot funnier than I am and because I like cats):
Let’s say your one sentence—your argument (and all books are an argument, no matter how small)—is that life is really hard unless you get a good cat to live with. Great. Here’s how that will break down. By each phrase: Life. Is hard. Really hard. Unless. You get. A good cat. To live with.
Well, there are your seven chapters. Don’t believe me?
Life: Who you are. Is hard. Really hard: First show us hard, then show us really hard. One chapter each. Unless: This is where you show us that you are open to alternatives. You get: This is where you show us all the things you’ve tried in order to make your life better, like speed dating, dieting, drinking heavily, perhaps. A good cat: Maybe you’ve had bad cats or good cats. Tell us. To live with: Show us living with that one good cat. Maybe there is a sad ending. Or a happy one. Or a sad one turned happy when the good cat dies and you have the courage to try again with a new cat. See how this works?
But it absolutely depends on the one sentence. It’s the spine upon which you build the rest of the body.
Do you have to follow that dogmatically? No. But is it fun and productive to play with? I think so.
OK, so now you have a method for linking your elevator pitch and the structure of your manuscript. The next challenge is to keep going. More on that in the next installment of the manuscript recipe series.
image: photo by Sung Jin Cho on Unsplash