Episode 30: Today we’re exploring a technique of looking at the world from a new perspective that will result in more engaging writing. I’m going to try to prove to you that “Everything is an Argument.”

SHOW NOTES:

So back in Episode 18 – the one about rhetorical devices – we talked a little bit about this concept of everything being an argument. In case you haven’t listened to that episode, or maybe it’s just been awhile, let’s start by reviewing it quickly so we have it fresh in our minds as we explore another aspect of it today.

I’m borrowing the title – “Everything’s an Argument” from a textbook that I use when I’m teaching persuasive writing at the college level. Now that class is all about academic writing, not the kind of writing we typically talk about here on the podcast. But we’re taking some of the elements from the world of persuasive writing and bringing them into creative writing to discover some really important techniques that will strengthen how you build characters, how you construct scenes, and how you bring tension and conflict into your stories.

So here’s the basic idea. Everything around you – at least everything created or manipulated by humans – is making an argument of some sort. And when I say “argument” here, I don’t want you to be thinking about “fighting” or “debating” or anything like that. When we use the word “argument” today, we’re using a much less aggressive definition. An argument, for our purposes, is anything that is communicating an idea or opinion to other humans. So argument isn’t a fight for us today. Argument really just means an attempt to convince someone else to believe something.

With this definition of argument in our heads, I think it’s easier to accept the premise of everything being an argument. The clothes you’re wearing right now, for example, are an argument. Whether it was in the front of your mind or not, you were thinking about how you want other people to see you when you chose to put those on today. Maybe you wanted people to think you’re laid back and cool so you’re sporting a hoodie or shorts and sandals or something like that. Maybe you wanted others to see you as a professional person so you chose a suit of some sort for the day. Even if you didn’t give any thought at all to what you wore today, I’ll bet you did when you bought it. At least some portion of your thought process was given to how others would interpret you when you wore those clothes. In essence, the clothes you wear are an “argument” attempting to influence others’ opinions of who you are as a person. That’s the kind of argument we’re talking about today, although the “fight” kind of argument fits right in with this as well…

Let’s look at a few other examples of things that aren’t usually considered arguments, but clearly are once you look at them a little more closely. I sometimes have students challenge me on this idea and they’ll look out the window and point to a tree and say “that tree isn’t an argument.” But is that true? If it’s a tree that was manipulated in some way by a human, meaning it didn’t just naturally grow there based on the laws and randomness of nature, then it is an argument. Somebody somewhere made all sorts of decisions about that tree. What kind of tree would it be? Was it chosen for beauty, for shade, for its resources (apples or cherries or whatever?) And why was it placed and planted where it is? I think it becomes very clear that someone placed that tree there with intention to, at least in part, influence how other people either felt about him or the building it was next to or the property in general. In other words, there is still some element of intended influence even in the tree that you might be looking at right now.

Here’s an example I usually use on the first day of my classes just to throw my students off a bit. I bring in a toilet seat and introduce it as a piece of art. (If you’re familiar with Marcel Duchamp’s 1917 piece of readymade art called “The Fountain,” you might have a better understanding of how this relates to an English classroom, but maybe not.)  I’m actually introducing it as an example of how art serves to defamiliarize us with a world we’ve become familiar with and, therefore, have stopped noticing. But an element of that is the exploration of the intentions of the people behind even something like a 5 dollar toilet seat from Home Depot. Is a cheap toilet seat an argument? Well, someone designed that thing, right? Someone chose the curve of the edges, the contour of the shape, the color and gloss of the paint. In other words, at least in part, it was designed to make an argument, to influence someone’s opinion either of the thing itself – the toilet seat – or of the person who buys it and installs it in their home or business.

This is what we’re talking about when we say that “everything’s an argument.” Literally everything that humans manipulate is, in at least some sense, an attempt to influence others to believe or disbelieve something, or to think in a certain way about something. Now, I’ve had a lot of students try to come up with examples of things that disprove this theory and, at least so far, I’ve been able to discover with them a way that it is still an argument. If you think you’ve got an example that disproves the theory, I’d love to hear it. You can share it with us over at the Talk to Us link on BradReedWrites.com.  But, even if you do come up with an exception, I think it still stands that virtually everything you see in the world is someone’s argument, and that’s enough for us to build on.

So what difference does any of this make when we’re sitting down to write a story? Well, the difference is two-fold. And we’ll explore each one in succession. The first difference it makes is that we, as humans, are interpreters of intention, whether we know it or not. The second difference it makes is that we can use the smallest of details to powerful effect when we use them intentional as part of the arguments our characters are making.

Let’s explore the first one: that we, as humans, are expert interpreters of intention. Even if you’ve never thought about how everything manipulated by humans is an argument, that’s the way you’ve been operating in the world. We are experts at reading other people’s arguments. Take the job interview, for example. Studies have shown that first impressions are formed within the first 7 seconds of meeting someone. You haven’t even gotten past the handshake and the “my name is…” portion of a job interview yet already you’ve sized each other up. How does that work? What information are we reading in those 7 seconds? Well, we’re reading each others’ arguments. Your clothes make an argument… we’ve already talked about that. The expression on your face makes an argument. Like it or not, your weight makes an argument. Your hairstyle and your posture and maybe even the way you smell makes an argument. You haven’t really even said a word yet but tons of communication and inferences and judgements have already happened. We do the same thing with places, don’t we? If you’re in a new city and you’re driving around looking for a place to eat, everything around you is making an argument. What other businesses are surrounding it? A restaurant next door to a fancy hotel makes a very different argument than a restaurant with a strip club out back, even though the two restaurants could look exactly the same otherwise. What kinds of cars are parked out front? A restaurant with a parking lot filled with luxury cars is very different than one filled with Harleys, isn’t it? How about the sign? Is it clean and legible and professional or does it look like it was put up fifty years ago and never touched again? All of this is argument… all of this is changing the way you perceive the place and it’s happening, for the most part, subconsciously, even if the differences are much, much more subtle than the ones I’ve just used as examples here.

It’s important to understand that we are always reading the world this way, whether we are aware of it or not. We are always reading and making inferences about the arguments we see in the people, places and things of our world. We can’t help it. It’s how we evolved to survive, I think. Read the little clues and interpret – hopefully successfully – what they mean.

Now the second part of this important lesson is that we, as creative writers, can hijack this overwhelming desire to read the arguments of our world for use in the stories we are writing. And it starts by looking at everything in your story as something intentional–something with intention. Your characters don’t just wear the clothes they are wearing because it’s the first thing you thought of when you wrote your draft… or at least hopefully that’s not the case. They, just like you, have chosen the clothes they are wearing in an effort to get other characters to think or feel about them in a certain way. And your reader, because they are so used to seeing the world as a series of subtle arguments, are going to be reading into what they are wearing for clues about that character. Dress your characters intentially. P