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Creative Writing and Expository Writing. Flip Sides of the Same Coin?
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Volume 2024, Number August (2024), Pages 1-7
Communication Corner: Creative Writing and Expository Writing. Flip Sides of the Same Coin?
Philip Yaffe
DOI: 10.1145/3690802
Each "Communication Corner" essay is self-contained; however, they build on each other. For best results, before reading this essay exercise, go to the first essay "How an Ugly Duckling Became a Swan," and then read each succeeding essay.
Creative (fiction) writing and expository (non-fiction) writing have fundamentally different objectives. Creative writing seeks to amuse and entertain; expository writing seeks to inform and instruct. But while aiming at different targets, they share fundamentally important approaches and techniques. Ignoring these commonalities does serious harm to both genres.
It is frequently said that you can often get to the same destination by many different routes. This is obviously true. However, what is not so obviously true is that the chosen path may in fact affect the destination, at least with regard to expository (non-fiction) speaking and writing.
What brought me to this seemingly odd conclusion?
I recently read a book on good expository writing. It counseled that before you do anything else, you must ask yourself three key questions:
- What kind of document am I writing?
- What am I writing about?
- Whom am I writing for?
I totally agree. However, I strongly disagree with the order of these questions.
The fundamental purpose of expository writing (and by extension expository public speaking) is to modify the reader's (or listener's) view of the topic under discussion. In the first instance, this requires knowing who one is writing for, i.e. what is their current opinion of the subject at hand and how it may be reinforced (if that's what you want) or how it might be changed (if that's what you want). Knowing what kind of document you are writing (annual report, financial forecast, news release, political platform, etc.), and who you are writing for (board of directors, company employees, newspapers, newsletters, online blog, the general public) are techniques, not objectives.
Let me reiterate this.
The fundamental purpose of expository writing (speaking) is to modify the reader's (listener's) opinion in the direction you want. Everything else is technique.
I imagine the author of the book intuitively understood this. However, apparently putting the three pieces of advice on par with each other, and also putting the most important piece of advice as number 3, is more than just a little bit confusing. It is seriously leading.
I can't count how many pieces of expository writing and expository speaking I have seen that have introduced their topic by telling the audience: "Play close attention to what I am about to tell you because it will be of benefit to you." And then proceeded to drone on as if the audience's attention had thus been acquired and would not flag.
Put more dramatically, imagine that you are stationed at point A and someone else is stationed at point B. You want them to join you at point A. So, what do you do? Do you shout at them saying "Hey, come over to where I am because you will benefit from joining me here?" Or should you go over to point B where they are and explain to them why accompanying you back to point A will very much be to their benefit?
Which approach would you most likely respond to? Almost certainly the second one. But what does this mean in practice?
You will not be surprised that it means employing the inverted pyramid, i.e. first putting as much pertinent information and broad ideas as possible in the first few lines of your text to attract the reader's attention and interest. Then adding the rest of the text with more and more precise information to reinforce this initial attention and interest.
Let's look back at how I described exactly how to do this in a previous Communication Corner: "Why Putting Yourself in the Mind of Your Reader is Easier—And More Challenging—Than You Might Have Imagined."
One of the most important ways of achieving these objectives is the Q&A (questions and answers) technique. As people read, questions about the text are constantly being raised in the back of their mind. Most often these questions are subconscious. However, the more questions that accumulate in the back of the mind, the less the text seems to really be saying anything of interest.
The Q&A technique requires the writer to immediately answer these unconscious questions or as soon as possible after they are raised.
The importance of this and how to achieve it can best be demonstrated by example. Newspaper reporters are masters at applying the Q&A technique; if they weren't, few people would bother to read newspapers. Below is part of an article taken from a major international newspaper. First, we will look at the article, and then analyze it in terms of Q&A.
ORIGINAL
The Pink Paper, Britain's longest-running free weekly gay newspaper, has gone into bankruptcy after 17 years. Barazoka, one of the world's oldest gay magazines, also seems likely to cease publication after more than 30 years of being sold in Japan.
Both publications cite the same three reasons for their demise: rising gay use of the internet, falling advertising revenues, and increasing coverage of gay news in the "respectable" press.
Readership of Barazoka, which began publication in 1971, rapidly rose and remained high for two decades; however, in the past five years its circulation has fallen to just 10 percent of what it was in the 1990s. Issue No 382, scheduled for publication next week, will probably be its last.
The final issue of The Pink Paper, No 859, was printed on October 1. The newspaper was founded in 1987 specifically to battle against plans of the Conservative Party government of Margaret Thatcher to introduce Section 28, a law that prohibited the "promotion" of homosexuality.
The fight was won when the law was repealed under the Labor Party government of Tony Blair in the late 1990s. Over the years, The Pink Paper reported extensively on other gay equality issues such as the ban on gays in the military, same-sex marriages, and adoption by gay couples.
(The story continues for several more paragraphs.)
ANALYSIS
The Pink Paper, Britain's longest-running free weekly gay newspaper, has gone into bankruptcy after 17 years. Barazoka, one of the world's oldest gay magazines, also seems likely to cease publication after more than 30 years of being sold in Japan.
[Question: Why are these newspapers going bankrupt? The answer is in the next paragraph.]
Both publications cite the same three reasons for their demise: rising gay use of the Internet, falling advertising revenues, and increasing coverage of gay news in the "respectable" press.
[Question: How bad did the situation get? The answer is in the next paragraph.]
Readership of Barazoka, which began publication in 1971, rapidly rose and remained high for two decades; however, in the past five years its circulation has fallen to just 10 percent of what it was in the 1990s. Issue No 382, scheduled for publication next week, will probably be its last.
The final issue of The Pink Paper, No 859, was printed on October 1. The newspaper was founded in 1987 specifically to battle against plans of the Conservative Party government of Margaret Thatcher to introduce Section 28, a law that prohibited the "promotion" of homosexuality.
[Question: What was the result of The Pink Paper's battle against Section 28? The answer is in the next paragraph.]
The fight was won when the law was repealed under the Labor Party government of Tony Blair in the late 1990s. Over the years, The Pink Paper reported extensively on other gay equality issues such as the ban on gays in the military, same-sex marriages, and adoption by gay couples.
DETAILED ANALYSIS
This story is an excellent example of many aspects of good expository writing, so it is worth looking at in detail.
The Pink Paper, Britain's longest-running1 free weekly gay newspaper, has gone into bankruptcy after 17 years. Barazoka, one of the world's oldest2 gay magazines, also seems likely to cease publication after more than 30 years of being sold in Japan.
1. "Longest-running" is a weasel word, raising the question of just how long is long. The answer "17 years" comes at the end of the same sentence.
2. "Oldest" is also a weasel word, raising the question of just how old is old. The answer "more than 30 years" comes later in the same sentence.
Both publications cite the same three reasons for their demise: rising gay use of the internet, falling advertising revenues, and increasing coverage of gay news in the "respectable" press.
Readership of Barazoka, which began publication in 1971, rapidly rose and remained high for two decades; however, in the past five years its circulation has fallen to just 10 percent of what it was in the 1990s. Issue No 382, scheduled for publication next week, will probably be its last.
Note all the precise information in this paragraph, including the number of Barazoka's final issue (No 82). This clearly tells readers that the writer knows what he is talking about.
The final issue of The Pink Paper, No 859,1 was published on October 1. The newspaper was founded in 1987 specifically to battle against the plans of the Conservative Party government2 of Margaret Thatcher to introduce3 Section 28, a law that banned the "promotion of homosexuality."
1. Once again, note the number of The Pink Paper's final issue (No 859).
2. Not just "the government" but "the Conservative Party government." This helps readers better understand what the political/social climate was like when the paper was founded. Recalling that Margaret Thatcher was in power further helps readers better understand the political/social climate of the time.
3. Not just "a law that banned promotion of homosexuality," but "Section 28," its specific name.
The fight was won when the law was repealed under the Labor Party government1 of Tony Blair2 in the late 1990s. Over the years, The Pink Paper reported extensively on other gay equality issues such as the ban on gays in the military, same-sex marriages, and adoption by gay couples.
1. Not just "the government" but "the Labor Party government." This helps readers better understand what the political/social climate was like when Section 28 was repealed.
2. Recalling that Tony Blair was in power further helps readers better understand the political/social climate of the time.
Most people take their daily newspapers for granted. However, experienced writers know that they are the best source of inspiration for writing well no matter what genre of writing they wish to engage in. As evidence, here is a short list of noted novelists who began as journalists: Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan-Doyle, Graham Greene, Ernest Hemingway, John Hersey, Jack London, H.L. Mencken, George Orwell, George Plimpton, Ayn Rand, Will Self, Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck, James Thurber, J.R.R. Tolkien, Mark Twain, E.B. White, Walt Whitman, Tom Wolfe, P.G. Woodhouse, and many others.
As noted in Writer's Digest, a magazine specifically for fiction writers, "Small, concrete details are usually the difference between a story that works and a story that fails, between a good piece of fiction writing and a great piece of fiction writing."
If this is true of fiction writers, it is even more so of non-fiction (expository writers), because without detail they have nothing. This is perhaps why so many fiction writers started as non-fiction writers. They knew this implicitly (if not explicitly); otherwise, they would have failed as non-fiction writers and probably never gone on to become the successful fiction writers they later went on to become.
Author
Philip Yaffe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1942 and grew up in Los Angeles, where he graduated from the University of California with a degree in mathematics and physics. In his senior year, he was also editor-in-chief of the Daily Bruin, UCLA's daily student newspaper. He has more than 40 years of experience in journalism and international marketing communication. At various points in his career, he has been a teacher of journalism, a reporter/feature writer with The Wall Street Journal, an account executive with a major international press relations agency, European marketing communication director with two major international companies, and a founding partner of a specialized marketing communication agency in Brussels, Belgium, where he has lived since 1974. He is the author of more than 30 books, which can be found easily in Amazon Kindle.
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