Change The World With Words

“When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand.”

- Raymond Chandler.

We may not all want to write in the same style or genre as Raymond Chandler, and we may not want men with guns in our articles, stories or blog posts, but Raymond has a point. One way to give your writing impact is to introduce something unexpected, or startling, or both.

Re-frame an issue. Often we’re so used to seeing an issue in a certain way we just don’t think it through any more. I like the way Susan Douglas and Meredith Michaels address this in their book The Mommy Myth when they talk about how popular media often represent poor, racialized single mothers and constantly refer to the fact that a particular ‘welfare mom’  has X amount of children by X amount of men. As they point out:

“Christy Brinkley, who has exactly the same reproductive MO, was never described this way. Just imagine reading a comparable sentence in Redbook. ‘Christie B., who has three children by three different men.’ But she does, you know.”

Use startling (true) statistics. The same book points out that most welfare recipients at the height of the USA’s infamous ‘war on welfare’ were white, and typically came from impoverished, but traditionally hard-working rural communities. Whatever your issue, there is a statistic about it that will rarely get presented in the mainstream media. Find it and use it.

Take a widely accepted ideology and debunk it with facts. (make sure they are correct and that you have all the sources to refer to if challenged). Linda McQuaig’s book The Wealthy Banker’s Wife did a great job of putting forward, in simple language, and with a range of facts to back it up, why the idea that a country can’t have a strong economy and strong social programs for its citizens is completely untrue. North American society (and many other countries) believes this so completely that it is a brave writer who makes a case against it, but McQuaig does, with facts and examples from other countries that hold up to closer examination, and while the book itself is somewhat out-of-date now, the argument still holds strong, and the way it’s presented has real impact.

Use quotes. Short meaningful quotes catch readers’ attention and stay in their minds. Quotes from an unexpected source that prove your point in reverse can have a double impact. For example you could start a piece about the blind acceptance of potentially harmful government policies with the Adolph Hitler quote:  “What luck for rulers that men do not think.”

Use humor. Even when discussing serious issues, humor can be a great tool for presenting uncomfortable facts, or facts people may disagree with.  Mary Pipher’s essay “Mr USA” in her book Writing to Change the World is an excellent example. Few Americans want to read a  straight  ‘America is going to the dogs’ style piece,  but it’s difficult not to appreciate the humor and warmth in this essay, in which the writer, a trained therapist, writes as if conducting a preliminary psychological assessment of “Mr USA”, as she would write it if the US presented itself as a potential therapy patient.

If you’re going to write for change, you need to write with impact. These tips can be applied whether you’re writing about political issues, business, self-development, health, and pretty much anthing else. Take any piece of writing you’ve done, and see if you can strengthen its impact with these techniques.

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