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Vol. 72, No. 2, February 1999
In Plain English
Reversing Ripley: Telling a Story
Your Reader Can Believe
Three writing techniques can make the unlikely seem
natural - foreshadowing the surprise, establishing a solid foundation, and
showing more than telling.
By Mary Barnard Ray
I like to collect characters and settings. I fill in the time while waiting
in line by imagining how a person's demeanor or a physical setting
could create a feeling or illustrate a point. But some characters and settings
are unusable, simply because the truth is not believable. For example, consider
the man who repaired my cuckoo clock many years ago.
His shop was no more than 9 x 9 feet in size, and only one window provided
a shaft of light on the worn wood floor. Before eyes could adjust to the
dimness, ears would register the ticking of hundreds of clocks. Clocks lined
the walls from floor to ceiling, so that scores of pendula were moving,
each in its own rhythm. Rather than the soothing regularity of one pendulum,
the movement reminded one of a swarm of insects. In the darkness, the walls
seemed infested with clocks.
The owner, who worked in the back room, shuffled out, a man about five
feet tall, with stooped shoulders, long white hair, and delicate hands.
His bright brown eyes peered at the customer through small, round, wire-rimmed
glasses. Smiling, he introduced himself as Mr. T. Tock.
Although a writer of fiction can cast aside the incredible situation,
you as a legal writer have no choice. You face the challenge of making the
unbelievable or the unlikely seem natural. This writing situation requires
some special handling. Three techniques most likely to be useful are foreshadowing
the surprise, establishing a solid foundation, and showing more than telling.
Foreshadow the unbelievable
Prepare your reader for the incredible information before you present it fully. So, for example,
I referred to the credibility issue before I started my description of the
clock shop and its proprietor. Similarly, you might open your account of
a fire with a reference to your unlikely fact.
"This fire, which led to the injury of two fire fighters and dozens
of the Home's residents, was caused by the failure to turn off the
heat in one oven."
In effect, this allows you to tackle the problem of credibility head
on. You take the initiative to create a question in the reader's mind
("Is that really the cause of this much damage?"), and then you
explain the facts that lead the reader to answer that question in the way
you want. This leads to the next step.
 Mary
Barnard Ray is a legal writing lecturer and director of the Legal Writing
Individualized Instruction Services at the U.W. Law School. She has taught
writing workshops and offered individual sessions for law students; she
also taught advanced writing and commenting and conferencing techniques
in the training course for the legal writing teaching assistants. She has
taught and spoken nationally at many seminars and conferences of legal and
college writing instructors. Her publications include two coauthored legal
writing books, Getting It Right and Getting It Written and Beyond the Basics,
published by West Publishing Co.
If you have a writing problem that you can't resolve,
email or send your question to
Ms. Ray, c/o Wisconsin Lawyer, State Bar of Wisconsin, P.O. Box 7158, Madison,
WI 53707-7158. Your question and Ms. Ray's response will be published
in this column. Readers who object to their names being mentioned should
state so in their letters. |
Establish a solid foundation
Lead your reader systematically through all the facts or law or reasoning
that is needed to support your answer. Thus, I detailed the appearance of
the room first and saved the name, potentially the silliest fact, for the
end. I was hoping that this sequence would establish a context that could
reduce the distracting unlikelihood of the name itself.
Show, don't tell
When describing the hard-to-believe facts, resist the urge to shortcut
the process by describing with your own modifiers, the conclusion you want
the reader to reach. Thus, the dimensions of the shop, the cause of the
dim lighting, and the approximate number of clocks are more effective at
building credibility with a skeptical reader than a shorter, conclusory
description.
"The shop was small, dark, and infested with clocks."
By characterizing the facts rather than presenting them in sufficient
detail, the writer forces the reader to trust the writer's judgment.
Legal readers want to draw their own conclusions, and generally they
have an obligation to do so. Saying "trust me on this," even in
more believable situations, is one of the quickest ways to lose credibility
with a legal reader. For example, the following sentence may make the reader
feel uneasy.
"When asked where he had been, he seemed uneasy."
Instead, discipline yourself to present the facts that show the situation
in the light you want.
"When asked where he had been at 10 p.m., the time the assault had
taken place, he looked away and mumbled, 'Nowhere.'"
This allows the reader to see the situation and draw his or her own conclusion
based upon verifiable facts, a conclusion that the reader can trust.
Conclusion
In summary, credibility in statements of fact, even in incredible situations,
is earned in writing through thorough preparation, organization, and attention
to detail. In incredible situations, thorough preparation means foreshadowing
the situation. Organization means establishing a foundation for your incredible
assertions. Attention to detail means showing the facts rather than telling
the conclusion. Thus, writing about incredible situations differs in degree,
not in nature, from the legal writer's constant obligation to provide
the reader with sufficient information.
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