The other day I was talking to a friend about a piece she was writing. Ray tends to write in a personal style, but is starting to include more academic sources. Considering my own traumatic brush with academia, I’m ambivalent about this.
One thing she said bothered me, because of what it represents. She said: “My writing is getting to be too emotional. I need to be able to maintain the proper distance from it in order to get my point across.”
Emotion versus Exposition–False Dichotomy
Where do people get the idea that their writing should be balanced and emotionless and even bloodless? They get it from teachers. And teachers can be wrong. Has anyone ever finished reading something, whether poem or article, and praised it for being emotionless? One hears such things in journalism and academia, but even that is a bit of a canard, because journalists and academics, especially those long embedded in an area, are more opinionated than anyone.
I never mean for my words to come out in a flood, but they did, and Ray, if you’re reading this, I do apologize. But I made the following points in response:
“You’re so Emotional”
The idea of maintaining proper distance in your writing is inherently racist and sexist. I actually wrote my dissertation, in part, on this very topic. Check out John Locke (in his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding; please don’t make me go look up the page-number. Ok fine it’s in Book 3, Chapter 10: “The Abuse of Words”). Locke rails against the idea of rhetoric, ironically getting quite emotional in the course of laying out his arguments. The points he makes seem very sensible until you realize that it’s just the literary version of men calling women and minorities “emotional” and “uncivil” when they protest their rights being trampled.
Why not get emotional about something that is emotional? Does it make you less persuasive to show your anger when you write? Anger can be persuasive. Allow yourself to tell your story. Yes, marshal your sources as carefully as you can; explain them, contextualize them. But also allow yourself to get angry about a topic that is angering. Or grieve in writing about a topic that is laden with grief. When I read something that’s well-written and well-researched and also contains that spark of human emotion, I find the experience exhilarating. Which brings us to our next point…
Triangulate your Assessment of your own writing.
Why do we refuse ourselves things that, when others do them, we delight in? It’s really difficult to properly express emotion in writing; that is, if you want to express something else, as well. Or rather let us reverse directions: cogently and accurately conveying an argument on a topic, while also conveying your emotions on that topic, is quite difficult. When you read a piece by someone who succeeds in achieving that balance, the effect is a joyful one. Apart from any emotion the writing may convey, reading really good writing is always, at least in a small part, a joyful experience. I am not just yelling at Ray here.
I did this myself as a grad student. When I encountered an essay that was able to achieve a balance between emotion and exposition, it was like I was in love. But when it came to my own writing, I tried to squash that spark. Why? To what end? It all seems so foolish in retrospect. What makes for good writing in another’s work will serve as well in your own. That goes double for works that teach you that it’s ok to bend genre; to flout expectations and conventions.
This is where a writing community comes into play. Just as encouraging someone to get their chapter done helps you get your poem done, so too, complimenting someone for the emotional depth of their writing reminds you not to shy away from the same in your own writing. This essay about teaching under Covid-related strictures would make no sense without the anger that pulses under every line.
Why Limit Yourself?
A person writing for publication rarely has to worry about separating exposition and emotion. Very few publications have this stricture. I remain convinced that neutrality is a false idol and objectionable in and of itself. But nevertheless. It doesn’t come up. A lot of the big publications are quite open about their feelings, as well they should be. Well. They do it because of another false idol, clicks. Emotional writing is more exciting to read, and excitement breeds page-views. C’est la vie. Nevertheless, chasing this white whale of emotionlessness is actually going to make you less attractive to the majority of publications.
The Grey Lady Makes Mistakes
Something about imbibing the style guide of a publication like the New York Times just sticks in my craw and won’t let itself be swallowed. It’s probably fairly difficult to run a giant organization like the New York times. But can we take a moment to notice how nationalistic they are, how lukewarm their reporting on political and economic corruption in this country has been? They get a lot of crap for their incompetent coverage leading up to the War in Iraq. But rightly so. They lent legitimacy to that nonsense, and people died as a result.
Rather than ask myself or ask one of the writers I work with: What does the Grey Lady want you to write? I’d ask: What do you want to write? What is the story inside you that needs to be told? Often, that story will come with how it needs to be told. If a story is personal to you, don’t be afraid to make the style personal.
I visited someone in the hospital recently. Can you imagine if I were to write about the experience without talking about the visceral reaction to seeing the person lying in bed, pierced by IV-tubes? Or if I wrote some essay about hospitals, without mentioning ever having been to one? Perhaps such things are the norm. But it seems wrong. Another thing I would feel remiss if I didn’t mention is that the person in question was in a hospital wing named for the Sackler family. I nearly needed a hospital bed myself when I saw that. As well name a hospital wing for Typhoid Mary. There are horrible people in this world who do horrible things. You are not one of them if you want to acknowledge your emotions in writing.
I may have made other points to Ray. But that’ll do for now. Part of the point is this. I’m always saying to people: “That would be a good idea for an essay.” But as I was talking about this incredibly important topic—the balance between exposition and emotion—I found myself thinking: this would be a good idea for an article. The reason I thought that is because I was so upset by the topic; so emotional. I thought: if I can get this exercised about this issue, maybe someone who reads it will share my frustration.
Well? I’d love to hear reactions in the comments section. I suspect it’s a rather touchy subject. But touchy subjects are the ones we most need to talk about.
I also have plenty of school trauma…and $250k in student loan debt that may never stop growing. Another taboo subject.
What happens if we talk about our feelings?
We share them, and evoke emotional responses.
Yeah, even A.I. bots can create emotional drivel to drive sales…but people who read for pleasure are less likely to be manipulated by drivel than people who watch soap operas and read nothing…boomers like my aunt are the target of that style of “should be illegal but hete in America we protect profits over employees…”
As a person recently diagnosed ASD, I mastered tone and creative expression in the written word…i thought.
But conversational language and formal written language, as you mention, I learned in college what I never would have learned in our Florida education system.
Poetry really helped me get good at using imagery and detail to show feeling instead of labelling it. I highly recommend the works of Mary Oliver on teaching Poetry! A Poetry Handbook, and The Rules Of The Dance.