Paradigm, anyone?

[Tom's House]

For many years I published regional magazines and weekly newspapers. To help beginning writers whip their material into shape for these traditional “break‑in” markets, I explained to them that anecdote and personal experiences were the lifeblood of readable articles.

I put the structure basic to all good nonfiction writing into “one‑two‑three” form and gave it a name: the “freelancer’s paradigm.” Results were almost immediate. Marginal articles suddenly became publishable articles.

The paradigm is a simple pattern, but it is a very important one. It works the way our minds work, moving effortlessly from the general to the particular, leading the reader on with effective story‑telling. It consists of three parts:



a. A general observation, statement of fact, or question;

b. Followed by a narrowing of focus to a single case;

c. Followed by an example, anecdote, or quote.

Anecdote is antidote to the stale air of abstract fact. It lets the fresh air of personal, one‑on‑one experience waft through your narrative. Some very successful books are constructed almost entirely of anecdotes. This is particularly true of the classic best‑sellers in the salesmanship and motivation genre. Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, Zig Ziglar’s See You at the Top, W. Clement Stone’s Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude and Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People all fit into this category. So do more recent titles such as Wayne Dyer’s Your Erroneous Zones and, on a somewhat more intellectual level, M. Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled. Not to mention the granddaddy of them all, Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking.

The anecdote appears in the most unlikely places, and even the most highbrow authors ignore it at their peril. Take the case of Immanuel Kant and René Descartes. Kant wrote a monumental tome called the Critique of Pure Reason. Descartes wrote a slim volume called the Discourse on Method. Both writers were brilliant. Both altered the course of the history of ideas. Yet only one of them—Descartes—is widely read, widely quoted, and universally hailed today as the “father of modern philosophy.” Why is this so? It’s the power of the anecdote. Kant’s book is a dense and virtually impenetrable jungle of thought, a veritable collapsed universe of ideas and analysis. Descartes, on the other hand, starts out with a first person narrative and a fabulous use of the paradigm:

“I always wondered why mathematicians agree on everything but philosophers agree on nothing,” Descartes begins. “Then one cold winter—it was 1637, 1 believe—I was holed up in a small room, stoking a pot‑bellied stove and trying to keep warm, and I had an idea. What philosophers needed, I decided, was an absolutely universal starting place, a proposition like “a straight line is the shortest distance between any two points.” But was there any such proposition? I proceeded to doubt every idea in my mind, except for one. I could not doubt that I was doubting. My thought processes proved at least my own existence.

“I think,” Descartes concluded, “therefore I am.”

Anecdotes translate your ideas into the language of personal experience and make them come alive. An anecdote, by the way, can make a strong lead for a query. It tells an editor a great deal about your slant, your wit, and your writing style.

 

[Amber]

You're saying this is your paradigm for writing non-fiction articles?:

a. A general observation, statement of fact, or question;

b. Followed by a narrowing of focus to a single case;

c. Followed by an example, anecdote, or quote.

I used to write online courses and short self-help'ish ebooks.

I wrote an outline/proposal for each of my courses as well as each of the ebooks. It wasn't much different than writing for school. Introduction to an idea/concept - expand on said idea/concept - give examples, show how it operates in the real world, explain possible long term and short term implications - end with something inspirational. Sometimes an anecdote was necessary but often, any example would do. Making stuff up works.

The progression would vary according to the topic. For the philosophy course I wrote, I did an overview of each school and then picked philosophers from each school. Often there was overlap. I provided problems and suggested topics of discussion.

The bullying course included suggested best practices for teachers, students, and parents.

Each topic had it's own organizational challenges.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

Thank you for posting this @Tom's House. It's given me ideas about how to tailor query letters to literary agents, when I return to making submissions this autumn.

Previously, I've gone the route advised by writing gurus and as stipulated on the agency's website, shunning any personal anecdotes. In this way, I conformed to the dreams of those who still believe in the biggest fallacy about publishing—that fine writing, a compelling plot and a succinct synopsis will somehow stand out on the slush pile.

One aspect of selling myself as a writer that's puzzled me is how, if I'm not a career criminal or a retired detective, do I convince agents, publishers and readers that I know what I'm on about? However, if I start my query letter by relating a personal experience of feeling that I was being watched by a malevolent creature, when I lived on a remote sheep farm, seeing a large dark shape melt away through the undergrowth...then finding a large paw print that looked catlike in the mud of the stream bank—it would make the premise of my fourth novel An Elegant Murder believable, as the plot features The Beast Of Bodmin Moor (probably an escaped mountain lion or lynx).

I could throw in an anecdote about meeting a murderer who'd strangled his unfaithful wife, an hour before I knocked on his door to collect the rent money, and who was thinking about killing me...as he suspected I was one of her lovers!

I've got a new hobby: intriguing and scaring literary agents!