How to do Research for Non-Fiction Prose

Everybody has times when the words don't flow. One way to reduce those times is to write more and get past more of those times. Write and write and write. Write when it comes easily and write when it doesn't.

For now, yes, I absolutely think that you should totally ignore cadence, music, and what you mean by grace. Totally and utterly. I think that you should write one hundred thousand words in the plain, normal-language style before you even consider thinking about those issues.

Why? Because you are not yet comfortable translating your own normal language into writing. And that ability is a minimal baseline. Before you can hope to go beyond that level, you have to master that level.

 

It's improved, but there is still some archaic phrasing that is serving no purpose.

 

If I write one-hundred thousand words and do not revise them for music, which is not what I call music, but what is called music by that book, "Keys to Great Writing", I will have one-hundred thousands words that do not flow at all.

Now you are telling me to ignore style altogether, and to only focus on clarity.

What is a plain, normal-language style, according to you, but no style at all? For without music there is no style.

 

What archaic phrasing?

 

By your definition of flow. But, yes, you might have exactly that. That strong possibility does not change my advice one bit.

It feels as if you not only don't value the concept of "practice", but you don't really have an understanding of the concept?

If a pianist said, "If I spend ten thousand hours practicing, I will have ten thousand hours of music not worthy of being published on iTunes," wouldn't you say, "But when you're learning, iTunes isn't the point. Building skill is the point."

Wouldn't you? Or do you not accept that practice is ever a good thing?

Re: "Now you are telling me to ignore style altogether, and to only focus on clarity.

What is a plain, normal-language style, according to you, but no style at all? For without music there is no style."

Style has countless factors. Cadence and rhythm are just one tiny, tiny part of style.

But I don't care if those hundred thousand words have any particular style. I care that you develop a comfort with translating your native language to the written word.

 

Bolded below. The first pair aren't as unusual as the last one, but in this paragraph they feel odd.

Because I think that writing fiction is harder than writing non-fiction, I want to write the latter, and to write not works that narrate a story, but works that inform or persuade. I cannot, however, do this with ease, because being ignorant of nearly all subjects I need to research them. So I ask you this question: How can I properly research a subject, since never before have I done so, but once wrote a paper in a course in college based on my own ideas.

 

The part that I feel that you're missing here is that it's not about the words right now. It's about you developing skill.

 

Why do you keep distinguishing between my meaning of flow, and your meaning of flow, between my meaning of grace, and your meaning of grace, when they are not at all different? When I speak of flow, I do not speak of special rhythmic effects, but merely the smooth sound of language. When I speak of grace, I speak of what is spoken of in the books I have read. Only when I speak of a special category of cadence do I refer to something beyond those two things.

If a writing style is devoid of cadence, even the most ordinary of them, is it not good. No one enjoys prose that does not flow, and flow is due to cadence.

If my goal should be to develop a comfort with translating my native language to the written word, then why should I write in my native language, and not in the written word? Why should I not in all my writing aim for a smooth flow? One hundred-thousand words without flow is too many for me to write. I cannot write that many words before moving to other goals.

 

I put : How to write cadenced prose into google, and got this on the first page or so. Google is your friend.

https://www.enchantingmarketing.com/rhythm-in-writing/

http://allwritefictionadvice.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/cadence-in-writing.html

http://writersinthestormblog.com/2014/10/cadence-writers-glue/

https://rewriterewordrework.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/cadence/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703529004576160322387772618



https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=mgD0DQAAQBAJ&pg=PT116&lpg=PT116&dq=How+to+write+cadenced+prose&source=bl&ots=EpC2SHYNOn&sig=pPuQZ9V8n-dPvTRgRec7Jyf--tw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiNo8OQvMDWAhVIJsAKHTYsARg4ChDoAQg8MAQ#v=onepage&q=How%20to%20write%20cadenced%20prose&f=false

 

You're missing the point. Every word I write I strive for smoothness; sometimes it doesn't come, and I have to go back and fix it later.

The point is to be prepared to write a million words before you achieve the skill you're striving towards, but getting better with every word you write.

I read a post by @BayView on another thread where she said she'd never been COMPLETELY satisfied with anything she'd written; but there comes a point where you need to let go or you'll drive yourself insane. Call it finished, send it off to a publisher, and move on. Bay's been published the odd time or two, and I've always found her advice on anything to do with writing to be sound.

Let me mark you two versions of that OP...

1/
Deeming the writing of fiction more challenging than the writing of what is not,

Because I think that writing fiction is harder than writing non-fiction,

A great improvement; you've omitted the obfuscations (deeming, more challenging, ...of what is not...)

2/
I wish to write things that are true, not writings that narrate a story, but writings that expound on a subject, works in the form of essays or articles, or works in the form of blogs posts or books.

I want to write the latter, and to write not works that narrate a story, but works that inform or persuade.

A minor improvement; less grandiloquent language (writings that expound) but the second version is still less than crystal-clear (to write not works that narrate) - strange Yodaesque word order, and narrate is a fancy word for tell...with an excessively specific meaning. Somewhere on another thread the point is made that there is a distinction between to observe and to notice. In the same way, to tell a story implies that it will contain all elements of story-telling; whereas to narrate a story implies no dialogue. You need to pay attention to the nuances of the language, and in particular use a simple word that means what you want instead of a fancy word that doesn't.

3/
This, however, I cannot do easily, knowing nothing of nearly all things, and needing to research to a great degree.

I cannot, however, do this with ease, because being ignorant of nearly all subjects I need to research them.

A minor improvement, but the second version retains the clunky sub-clauses (...however... and ...being ignorant of nearly all subjects...; curious that you comma'ed off the first sub-clause, but failed to do that to the second - I assume that you felt that too many commas made it look ugly and ungrammatical: and it does. But the fix is to remove the sub-clauses rather than fail to punctuate them).

4/
So I ask you this question: How can I properly research a subject, since never before have I done so, but once wrote a paper in a course in college based on my own ideas.

And for that reason I ask you this: How can I research a subject properly, having never done so before, but having once in course in college written a paper based on my own ideas.

Better, largely because towards the end of the second sentence you've joined the ...paper... with the qualifying statement ...based on my own ideas..., rather than interjecting the less relevant qualification that it was in college. I'd also observe that a college paper should usually be based upon something more solid than your own ideas; the ideas of leading lights in the discipline, the evidence of scientific research, etc.

 

Thank you for those links. I also have a book, other than the two books I mentioned in this thread, that touches on the subject. But sometimes when trying to write with cadence, my prose becomes convoluted and does not flow smoothly. This is not to say that I never have done it successfully before.

Now ChickenFreak is telling me to write for clarity, forgetting cadence altogether. And I understand her argument: A beginner cannot write like a master and must develop the skills. But I think that I can write clearly already, and although I could improve that skill and certainly should improve it, I think that now I should work on cadence, for I seem to fail to write with clarity mostly when I fail to write with cadence.

 

I'd disagree with that statement.

 

Can someone assign me an essay so I can practice writing clearly, one that does not require research? I don't want to write a story and I don't want to write cooking instructions.

 

Walking for pleasure.

 

To some extent, you seem to be setting your own definition of flow, cadence, and grace, so I wouldn't be at all sure that we agree on what they mean.

But that's not my point. When you consciously focus on those things, you torture your prose and make it unreadable. That's why you need to stop focusing on those things for a good long while.

Some people have liked my writing. Most people seem to be able to easily understand it. I do not consciously think about "cadence" or "rhythm" or "grace" in my writing. I primarily think about meaning. After I've achieved meaning, I then often "tighten"--compress the words so that I produce the same meaning in a smaller number of sentences and phrases. After that, I may do some tweaking so that the final result pleases me more.

That "pleases me more" tweaking might be about cadence or rhythm or grace, for all I know. But I'm not consciously thinking about it. It's absolutely not my first thought.

Your near-exclusive focus on cadence/rhythm/flow/grace is stopping you from writing anything that has cadence/rhythm/flow/grace. Because those things don't normally come first. You need to develop a base level of skill and of comfort before you can realistically expect to go beyond that base skill.

I'm suggesting that you write in the written word. Do you think that your "plainer" writing isn't in the written word? What is it, then?

Why not? It's not that many words. I finished NaNoWriMo one November; that was fifty thousand words in a month. It was a bit of a push, but, say, ten thousand words a month isn't really that much at all. You'd be done with the exercise in less than a year. You've been posting here for more than a year.

You really need to understand the value of practice, and of mastering one skill before you build on it.

 

Your normal writing, when you're writing about fairly simple concepts, can usually be translated without the, "What? Maybe he meant this? Maybe it's that? No, it's contradicted by that," type of Dead-Sea-Scroll translation that's required when you focus on cadence.

But that doesn't mean that you've mastered clarity yet. Clarity goes beyond, "Well, I'm moderately sure of what most of the sentences mean."

And you're clearly not comfortable with normal writing. The fact that you apologize for the posts that are most normal and most comprehensible and, frankly, most graceful, means that there's some failure of understanding going on in you. Your plainest writing is your most graceful writing. Grace isn't achieved by struggling for for maximally tangled and baroque obfuscation.

No. You are absolutely not ready to focus on cadence. You are very, very far from it.

And that's based on the normal definition of "cadence". Yours, where you want to write in a Biblical style, is an immense stretch beyond that.

 

I have a book on writing that cover things like economy, precision, action, music, etc. Should I try to apply what that book teaches about the first three things? Those are things that pertain to clarity. I hope you are not going to say to write with no regard for the rules. I think that, with a knowledge of the rules, I will master clarity faster.

 

Never mind about what I had posted here.

 

I'm not positive what "action" means in this context`, but, yeah, economy and precision sound like perfectly good goals, and action may also be just fine. However, thinking of them as "rules" can be a trap; beyond the basic rules of grammar and spelling, I'd suggest thinking of them as advice/goals/guidelines.

 

Do you have any speciality, or any area of interest to you?

Ask me the same question and I can answer:

Speciality

Qualified Accountant
Degree in Economics and Politics

Areas of Interest

Cycling
History (especially around the Norman invasion of England)
Model Railways

Any of those I could write an essay about.

What about you?

 

Is this a joke?

 

Just for clarification, which parts of my original post made it unclear? I don't think the phrase "more challenging" is any less clear than the phrases, "harder" or "more difficult", a phrase which I have seen before. Please help me to understand which parts were unclear and which parts were clear, so that I can avoid similar mistakes in the future.

 

So are you writing, or are you using this as a handy dandy roadblock to avoid it?

OK, I'll take the bait.


> Deeming

Rarely used and old-fashioned. (I'm going to use the word "old-fashioned" instead of "archaic" because I suspect that "archaic" has some formal meaning in terms of words that I'm violating.)

Every time you use a rarely-used word you're affecting understanding just a little bit. Sometimes those words have just the right meaning, but you should always understand that they have a cost and therefore need to have a benefit greater than the cost.

Also, this structure moves the subject of the sentence one long phrase beyond the beginning, which also affects understanding just a little bit, and that's another cost that should be paid for.

> the writing of fiction

"the writing of fiction" is more complicated than "fiction writing". So why did you choose the more complicated choice? How does it pay back the cost?

> more challenging than

This is one of the very few phrases that is NOT a problem in your original. It's odd that you point to it in your question. It's likely to go away in a rewrite, because the phrases around it might no longer need that structure and because it's just a fraction more complicated than it needs to be, but it's harmless.

> the writing of what is not

"the writing of what is not" is way more complicated than "non-fiction writing". It's a more complicated phrasing, and it also refers back to the previous phrase. It's less readable and less graceful, and I see no way that it pays that back.

I pause here to note that with a different structure, you could have cut the sentence here. If you hadn't added so much complication, there would be no need to consider cutting it, but you did, and so this sentence needs to stop and sit down for some rest.

> I wish to write things that are true,

"I wish to" is is rarely used and old-fashioned. Sure, people know what it means, but usually "I wish" is used in the form of sentences like, "I wish that (something)." So people expect that, and when they get to the "to", their brains have to translate, "Oh, he wants to...something. OK. Why didn't he just say that?"

> not writings that

"writings" as a plural noun is rarely used and old-fashioned.

> narrate

How is the more complicated "narrate" better than the less complicated "tell"? How does the word earn its keep?

> a story, but

Did you search hard for a fancier word to replace the clean, simple, easily understood word "story"?

> writings

Again, old-fashioned rarely used plural noun.

> that expound on

"expound" is a fancier word than you need. How is it earning its keep?

> a subject, works in the
> form of essays or articles, or works in the form of blogs posts or
> books.

You switch from "writings" to "works". Why? And why this multi-phrase structure? It makes the sentence a very long one, a bit ungraceful, a bit difficult to follow. This sort of ongoing rhythm would normally express...something, some emotion, some feeling, some sense of complexity, something, and here it really isn't. It could--we could have an image of you surveying all the different possibilities for things that you could write--but all of the other issues weigh down the sentence and make it impossible for it to be expressive.

> This, however, I cannot do easily,

Old-fashioned phrasing. "Cannot" is terribly formal; what's wrong with "can't? And why do you need to again hide the subject of the sentence a few words in, and separate it from the object? What was wrong with, "I can't do this easily."

> knowing nothing

Old-fashioned phrasing.

> of nearly all things,

Old-fashioned phrasing.

> and needing to research to a great degree.

Old-fashioned phrasing, plus all of these tie back to the subject of the sentence, which you put on an inconvenient shelf.

> And for that reason

Old-fashioned phrasing, and also unnecessary. You just gave us the reason; you don't need to tell us again that you gave us a reason.

> I ask you this:

Old-fashioned phrasing.

> How can I research a subject properly, having
> never done so before, but having once in course in college written a
> paper based on my own ideas.

The whole thing is old-fashioned phrasing; I could continue to take the problem phrases apart, but I don't want to.

OK, now I'm going to straighten out the tangles.

> Deeming the writing of fiction more challenging than the writing of
> what is not

For me, fiction is harder to write than non-fiction.

> I wish to write things that are true, not writings that
> narrate a story, but writings that expound on a subject, works in the
> form of essays or articles, or works in the form of blogs posts or
> books.

So I've decided to write non-fiction--pieces that discuss a subject. I might want to write essays, or articles, or blog posts, or even books.

> This, however, I cannot do easily, knowing nothing of nearly
> all things, and needing to research to a great degree.

But this is hard, because I don't have expertise to write about. I would have to do research.

> And for that
> reason I ask you this: How can I research a subject properly, having
> never done so before, but having once in course in college written a
> paper based on my own ideas.

So I wanted to ask: How do I do research on non-fiction subjects? I did write a paper in college, but it was based on my own ideas, not on research.

I realize that since my rewrite is clear and uses modern language, you'll reject it out of hand. But there it is.

 

Another issue here: I notice, and maybe you now notice, that your original post had a really simple meaning. It basically says, to squish it again,

Writing fiction is hard for me. I'd rather write non-fiction. But I don't know anything to write about, and I don't know how to do research. How do I do research?

Really simple thoughts. But you weighed them down with complex and old-fashioned phrasing and words to the point that it was hard to get that really simple message.

Do you ever want to write even a moderately complex thought? If you do, then you need to stop making it all but impossible for you to express ideas.

Imagine an incredibly simple thought:

I'll have the cheeseburger.

It could be expanded to:

It being some hours, some dozen or two degrees of rotation of the earth, since I last ingested nourishment, and my sensing in my inward self the need for some sort of comestible, some food, some product of the agriculturalist's or herdsman's labors, I deem it appropriate to request from you, my well-respected follower of the ancient art of hospitality, the culinary creation known, whimsically, as the 'cheeseburger'.

Is the second one better? Can you imagine the person who ordered his cheeseburger the second way ever being able to discuss politics, or philosophy, or for that matter even being able to communicate coherently enough to return a pair of shoes?

Complex words and phrasing should be there because they carry the weight of complex thoughts. (Edited to add: And even then, they should be as simple as they possibly can.) When the thought is simple, the writing should be simple.

Edited to add: And, no, I'm NOT suggesting that you go to complex thoughts now! I'm suggesting that you learn to express simple thoughts so that they can be understood. That absolutely has to come first.

 

I don't see how some of the phrases you called "old-fashioned" are old-fashioned. The phrase "knowing nothing of nearly all things" consists of six words. They are all modern, and their syntax is modern.

I also do not understand why I should have to use contractions. Why do I have to use an informal tone? Also, I do not see why such a small delay in getting to the subject would be a problem.

As for the difference between the words narrate and tell, unless they have different meanings, why does it matter which one I use? Neither of them is any longer than two syllables.

But I agree with some of your other points.