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.
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 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.
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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.
Wisconsin Lawyer
