“Major Assignment #1, Draft #1.

- A theory of Writing -

Imagine an automobile. Picture it. If you have driven one before, you will be surely imagining its inside by now. The cockpit not only provides you with a comfortable seat but also with the means of driving the said automobile. While there may be those who would feel satisfied by simply sitting in the said seat, most, I believe, would probably need the instruments provided in the cockpit. A steering wheel, a gas pedal, and the brakes would be somewhat important if one intends on driving it. Having gas in your tank is also good, but at the price that the barrel is, I cannot afford to put it here. So, we are focusing on three tools. The steering wheel will steer the automobile, without it the gas and the brakes are useless. If the said car does come with a steering wheel, it is convenient to have both pedal gas and brakes. If you do not have the pedal gas, the car will not move (unless you are in a slope and severely over-weight). Now, if your car by any chance did come with a steering wheel and a gas pedal, congratulations. You have a car that you can drive. However, the lack of the brakes may prove to be fatal by leading to an accident in some random road in rural Fall River, where the roads are great. So, we can now observe that these three independent tools are not really independent but rather autonomous.  One will always need the others. The same goes for writing, being the car - the book, the gas pedal – the genre, the steering wheel – the audience, and, last but not least, the brakes – the purpose. If one of these three fails, the others will not perform as they are intended. Now, in case your car does come without a steering wheel but has brakes and a gas pedal, it is not wise to retrieve a steering wheel from a motorcycle or an airplane. The result will most definitely not be the intended, for as even though it is a steering wheel, it is not the proper one.  So, if you do have an audience and you do have a purpose, e.g. a speech at a funeral to honor a deceased person, and you choose the very specific format of sarcastic dark comedy, reminding everyone that he still owes you 5 grand but at least you can now try to have a love relationship with the widow without worrying when he will come home, you might experience a severe case of an improper steering wheel for the brakes you have in other words, the wrong speech to the wrong audience. When it comes to books, however, you have a 50/50 chance – either its fiction or non-fiction. It may also be an academic work or a school paper or it may be random creative writing for the edification of your own ego. If it is the latter, you are in luck. You choose your genre according to your preference and it is the audience that will come to you. If it is the other way around, e.g. an essay for college, it is pretty much like the funeral situation – you have to adapt your content, the way you deliver it, always bearing in mind to whom you are going to read it, to whom it is intended to, and the purpose of the said essay, (or, depending on the grade, the eulogy). 

From the facts mentioned above, we are able to deduce that the genre that the writer chooses depends on his audience and the purpose of his writing – what he wants to elicit from his audience. Edgar Allan Poe was ahead of his time and was writing for an audience that he knew that was not there in that time and place. He wrote horror stories that would haunt future generations. He did not choose to please, he chose art. He could have written things that the American people at that time would have liked. He had the ability to do so. He chose art. Many authors today (and even in the past) are famous because they chose a genre that sells. William Shakespeare died in 1616, the same year that Cervantes died – they are immortal because of their writing. When a writer chooses a genre he does it because of his own preference writing style, that preference and writing style will attract a specific audience. That specific audience enjoys that genre. The purpose is common to both, one is active the other one is passive.

If we take Donovan Livingston’s speech as an example, his audience is the class of 2016, family, college teachers, and staff (all of the attending audience plus, due to modern technology, everyone who has access to the internet). The genre is, obviously, Speech based. Even though a speech that empowers teaching has the purpose of changing minds and raising awareness, usually, when done by means of what sounds almost as slam poetry, there is too much ego – the same as when your neighbor wants to show off his new Xbox series X and so he randomly calls you to watch the Bruins’ game. Donovan achieves his purpose not only with words but with the use of surrealistic promises about what can everyone achieve in the future while retaining their attention through rhythm and tone. On the other hand, if we read Martin Luther King’s letter, the genre is, in opposition to the previous case, a formal letter that pinpoints problems and tackles them. The purpose is to contrapose what eight clergymen stated in “A call for Unity” and justify going against the Law, and to evoke sympathy towards his cause. He achieves his purpose through the use of both emotion and logic, appealing to the humanity in each person. His audience is not limited to the eight clergymen – it will reach, by extension, each and everyone who reads the open letter. As for Gloria Anzaldua, she starts “in medias res”, probably trying both to create curiosity in the reader (why are we here?) and making a connection between the literal tongue and tongue as a language. Her audience is everyone who reads the book (I am guessing people from Cultural Studies). She attempts to use metaphors to engage her audience and, like in Martin Luther King’s letter, she appeals to the humanity in each and everyone of us, but in a quite different way.

The Theory of Writing or The writer’s guide to utter, unequivocal success.

The fact that the GENRE (kind of writing), PURPOSE (why do we write), and AUDIENCE (to whom we are writing; who will read what we have written) are always connected gives us a better understanding of how a person can write well. It is also important to understand that writing can be FICTIONAL or NON-FICTIONAL. What compels us to write (are we forced to do it because it is a school assignment or are we writing to satisfy our own ego in the hope that someone will read it and like it, thus fulfilling the constant human need of external approval, much like a kid riding a bike with no hands down the hill, en route to smashing his head in a tree, screaming “Look, mom!”) should also be taken into account before formulating the ultimate guide to successful writing.

Let us start with the formula for academic writing – e.g. an essay on the evolution of linguistics or a PhD Thesis on Clapton’s Chord Progression. It would be NON-FICTIONAL writing, compelled by the need of a good grade (or at least a good enough grade to succeed in the course). The writing MUST be formal. Any jokes and/or vocabulary that do not belong to that register (such as the everyday “heck”, “gosh”, or “ain’t”) would be as welcome as Stewed Beef being served at an Indian party back in New Delhi, or a severe case of presidential flatulence during the State of the Union Address - which, on that particular occasion, would be transmitted live worldwide. An example of this is Martin Luther King Junior’s letter. His writing is very formal and the choice of words is exemplary, like choosing ‘’seldom’’ instead of ‘’rarely’’

(pg. 1), or ‘’moratorium’’ instead of ‘’postpone, delay, ban’’.  One uses those words when he wants to show that he can write, or when he wants to impress his future mother-in-law. Or maybe you just had lunch with the Queen.

Having done extensive reading on the subject will help greatly, or one might end up with an essay on Edmund Wells’ David Coperfield, Charles Dikkens Rarnaby Budge, or The Guide to understanding Beethoven’s Tenth Symphony (non-existent). Again, Martin Luther king’s letter is a stellar example of research done right. We can immediately see that he has done extensive research. Sentences such as ‘’History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily.  Individuals may see the moral light and give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals’’, show us just that, in this case that he read Reinhold Niebuhr.

Sources:

Collins, Billy. “Billy Collins Commencement Address.” Poet Laureate Billy Collins Gives Brilliand and Witty Commencement Address at Colorado College, 2008, 2013, http://www.graduationwisdom.com/speeches/0135-Billy-Collins-Gives-Brilliant-Witty-Commencement-Speech-Address-At-Colorado-College-2008.htm.

Anzaldua, Gloria How to Tame a Wild Tongue. 1987, http://www.everettsd.org/cms/lib07/WA01920133/Centricity/Domain/965/Anzaldua-Wild-Tongue.pdf.

King, Martin Luther. “Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963) Abridged.” Birmingham Jail, 16 Apr. 1963, Birmingham, Alabama.

Post Write:

Did this assignment remind you of any writing that you’ve done previously?  Please describe that work.  I haven't done this much writing in a very long time.

What was new about this assignment?  Please be precise. Everything was new about this assignment. This was a fresh new topic. I’ve done a little bit more reading then usual for this assignment.

What kinds of knowledge/writing skills did you draw on to produce this draft?  Please begin to use some of the key terms that have begun to form the basis of your theory of writing.  For example, did you draw upon your understanding of audience awareness or genre?  How so?   

To whom we are writing is important, who will read what we have written are connected and this paper gave me a better understanding of how a person should write.

When drafting and revising, what choices did you make? Please explain. My concern when presenting this work was to use vocabulary that is easy to understand. 

What questions do you have for readers about the piece?

Was it cohesive.