Under The Hood

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Under The Hood

Thomas Neuburger

Introduction To Controlling Emphasis

The consumer (buyer or user) of cars and trucks usually sees a vehicle's externals as its defining characteristics. It's not a car, he or she says, it's a flashy red Porsche, a dependable army jeep, a powerful (and intimidating) three-stage monster truck. The consumer, in other words, sees vehicles as essentially different from each other. The builder of cars and trucks knows better. Under the hood—that is, beneath the externals—these machines are almost identical.

In the same way, the consumer (reader) of writing—and sadly, the occasional writer as well—sees great differences between the syntax-crushing prose of a Henry Miller and the measured sentences of a Gore Vidal, between the tight "modern" verse of a William Carlos Williams and the graceful sonnets of an Edna St. Vincent Millay (or "Edna St. Louis Missouri," as Stan Freberg once jokingly called her).

And if styles of writing are different, genres must be wholly different, says that consumer, that writer. Poetry, for example, must be very different to produce than a software manual. (Note the added presumption that good poetry is more difficult to create than good technical writing.)

It’s All Just Cloth & Thread
Here another metaphor is helpful. Saying that writing verse is different than writing prose is like saying that sewing silk dresses is different than sewing tastelessly spangled (but perfectly fitted) denim skirts. Every good seamstress, of course, knows otherwise. If asked, she might reply, "Honey, if you can sew, you can sew. If it fits, it fits. It's all just cloth and thread to the good ones."

Clearly she's right. And what's so true of the craft of sewing is also true of the craft of writing. Technique is independent of style or "genre" and fully transportable across styles.

To a seamstress, denim is heavy, silk is light, and that's about all the difference. It doesn't matter whether the final outfit is high style or knockabout, a swimsuit or a dress shirt. You assemble fabric well or you don't; your clothes fit well to the body, or they don't.

It's the same with writing. Under the hood, all writing is just words, assembled to convey a meaning and create an effect. The rest is technique; and it's a prejudice—for a writer, a debilitating one—to believe that techniques are not in the same way transportable. If, as a writer, you have this belief (that techniques are not transportable), you will surely struggle.

Controlling The Spotlight
Let's take a quick look at just one of those techniques—controlling emphasis—to illustrate the point.

Emphasis in writing always exists—you don't have to create it. Because of the ways that language works (and the special ways that each specific language works), some words, phrases, and ideas will always appear in the foreground, relative to other words, phrases, and ideas.

So you don't have to create emphasis, but you do have to control it—usually in the revision stage—or the default emphasis that showed up in your early drafts will create effects you don't desire.

What confers emphasis in writing? Here's a good starting list—physical position, logical position, syntactical position, relative length, accentual rhythm, repetition, and sound. All of these can place little spotlights on phrases, sentences, sections, and ideas.

As a simple example, consider physical position. Any element that comes first, whether in a sentence or a whole work, automatically acquires emphasis based on that special position. Likewise for elements that come last.

In addition to physical position, logical position confers emphasis. The "climactic moment" is one such logical position; there are others. Ideas, characters, sounds, metaphors, or phrases that appear, even offhandedly, at climactic moments acquire natural emphasis. (This is also true in our lives, by the way; sounds or smells encountered during traumatic moments will always carry the emotional power of that moment.)

Note that most work, even non-fiction, has the equivalent of a climactic moment. This essay has a climactic moment.

Syntax confers emphasis. Ideas in the main clause of a sentence have a syntactic predominance over ideas in a subordinate clause. This is one reason you were advised never to write, "My main point is that XYZ is true." You just put the main point in a subordinate clause.

Emphasis also exists within phrases. Each strongly accented syllable—and the word that contains it—has emphasis relative to the syllables and words around it. This is the reason "I love you" is stronger on the page than "I love you very much." In the second sentence, the accent on "very" steals the emphasis (the accent) from "love".

A First Sentence That Works
Emphasis exists in all speech and writing. Better writers control where emphasis falls, by consciously editing to create stronger effects and eliminating weaker ones. For example, anyone who has read the first words of Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" remembers it.

I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving
hysterical, naked ...

That opening didn't become strong—those words didn't achieve that position—by accident. Ginsberg worked on it until it was "right."

What makes the opening strong? For a clue, ask yourself if the sentence is improved by substituting "saw" for "have seen". If you're like most people, you responded "no"—but why?

The answer is in the way the accents fall and the effect those accents create. The passage opens with six one-syllable words. In the most common “reading” of this line, five of these words are strongly accented:

' ' ' - ' '

I have seen the best minds ...

Substituting "saw" for "have seen" kills that powerful series of accents, in part because it reduces the initial "I" to a relatively unaccented word.

- ' - ' '

I saw the best minds ...

This is great writing. Note that this sentence could appear anywhere, in e-mail for instance. The passage isn't "verse" per se. Genre is about where the words are used, not what makes them good. Decisions about rhythm should be made when editing all writing, not just "poetry."

The Bard Starts A Play
For another example of positional emphasis, consider the opening of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night," usually considered a "problem play." Here is the play's first line, spoken by Antonio, the merchant of the title:

In sooth I know not why I am so sad ...

The information in that line is the key to understanding Antonio, so the author kindly places it first. (In fact, the initial words spoken by both of the play's central characters, Antonio and Portia, are remarkably revealing. I'll leave it to the bardistos and -istas among you to look up that second quote. Have fun.)

Taking Control
We could go on for a while, but today's point is more general. Controlling emphasis is just one of many powerful techniques good writers use to improve their work. Those techniques work across styles and genres—from verse to e-mail, from essays to letters home.

Good writers take control of these techniques. They don't let the first-draft defaults stand unexamined, but make those early decisions defend themselves. It's all part of the art of writing, under the hood.

About the Author
Thomas Neuburger is a writer and consultant living on the West Coast. He has published poems, short stories, political and sports essays, college English textbooks, and a series of books on the desktop publishing program FrameMaker. He can be reached at writers_ezine@twelfthnight.com.

© 2004 Thomas Neuburger
All rights reserved.