Concede to Your Reader
And Other Rhetorical Trickery
Today’s Shelf Life is about writing, which is, you know, great, that’s what you come here for. But it’s about a different type of writing than I usually write about: Persuasive writing. Usually I think of this type of writing as separate from fiction writing, but that’s not totally right. In writing fiction there are all kinds of opportunities to use persuasive writing. In fact, fiction is often an exercise in convincing your reader of something, for instance, that your characters are acting believably and your plot makes sense. In that respect, I use a lot of my persuasive-writing skills in fiction: I ask myself, “what questions will the reader ask that could make all this fall apart?” And then I make sure the answers are in the text.
One of my favorite college professors was teaching literature in my English department with a PhD in rhetoric: A rhetorician. She was a doctor of arguing. She also told me the single most important thing I learned in college which was that Virginia Woolf was not “a total dog” but instead “pretty in her own way, dear.” I have kept this important knowledge handy ever since.
Today I’m going to share some of Dr Shea’s top tips for persuasive writing that you can use for essays or for your fiction by putting them in your narrator’s or your character’s voice. There are dozens of rhetorical tricks under the sun and probably I should be starting at the top with the appeals to pathos, ethos, and logos, but instead I’m going right to my favorite rhetorical tomfoolery which is writing for your reader as though they are an intelligent audience.
Readers aren’t stupid. Well, some readers probably are. Some of every type of person might be stupid, I don’t know. It’s safest to assume your audience, on the whole, is not stupid. I like to assume my reader is smarter than I am; most people are. Because readers—because at least some readers—are thinking, wondering, questioning people, you cannot assume they’re going to take everything you write at its face value.
For instance: If one of your characters suddenly acts out of character, you can say to yourself, “well I’m the author and it’s my character so I can do what I want.” And this is true. You can do what you want. You are self-determined. No one controls your writing destiny but you. However, if your character suddenly acts contrary to their established character, that signals your reader to ask questions. Why is this character suddenly behaving in an inconsistent way? Maybe you, as the author, needed this particular character to do a particular thing to move the plot forward and that’s why they did a surprise 180-degree-turn from their previous behavior. If your reader is paying attention, they’re going to question that. If you don’t have an answer, you’re sunk.
That was all a bit of a tangent but I wanted to illustrate how the techniques that follow can be used in your fiction writing as well as your persuasive or argumentative writing. The techniques that follow all congregate around a single theme: Make a concession to your reader.
When you concede something, you admit that it is true. For instance, “to concede the point.” It can also mean that you yield something or give something up, like when a politician concedes an election before the overall result is in. In rhetoric, both of these meanings converge. If you’re arguing with someone and you concede that their point is true, you also concede in the sense that you yield that part of the argument to them.
If you’re writing persuasively or argumentatively, the purpose is to convince your reader to see your point of view (or in the case of fiction, you are convincing your reader to accept your account of fictional events as sound and believable). It might seem like the last thing you want to do is concede a point to your reader, to admit that they are right or their belief—whatever it is you’re trying to persuade them away from—might be valid or even correct.
This is because, as Americans, a lot of us are taught to never concede, never give up, never admit defeat, and certainly never admit that we were wrong about something. While I think things are better than they used to be and getting better all the time, the American way remains to never admit fault. After all, we’re a litigious society. If you feel an inexplicable innate resistance to admitting that your opponent may have a good point and you might be wrong about something, don’t panic! That’s just the American Dream. Be patient and let it pass.
When you’re arguing with someone in person, the quickest way to kneecap their argument is to acknowledge that it is correct. Most people don’t keep fighting after they think they have won a fight. I hope no one I regularly argue with ever reads this. When I am having a civil argument with someone, perhaps about the best way to do something, the correct order of operations for something, and so on, one of the things I like to start with after hearing the other person out is, “Yes, you’re right,” or, “Okay, I see where you’re coming from.”
People want to be heard and acknowledging during an argument, “I hear you and I understand what you’re saying,” is a great way to defuse. I sometimes will use that therapy tactic of repeating back to them what I have understood, as in, “I think I understand that you’re saying we should [x, y, z], is that right?” First, making sure you understand the argument your opponent is actually making is key to winning an argument. But also, assuring the person you’re speaking with that you’ve heard what they’re saying and you understand it goes a long way toward assuring their goodwill during your conversation. Two people each waiting for the other to finish speaking so they can say their own prepared piece are never going to come to understanding.
When you’re writing text to be read by an audience, you don’t have the luxury of your audience telling you their questions, concerns, and counterarguments as you write, or pointing out the things you haven’t thought of. The audience won’t stop you mid-essay to say, “but what about this?” As a persuasive writer, you have to anticipate what those arguments may be and address them preemptively so your reader doesn’t come away from your text feeling like you missed the point.
As you’re making your argument, think about what counterarguments your reader might make were they right there in the room with you. What questions would they have? What loose threads would they pull on to unravel your essay? Once you’ve got those figured out, it’s time to deploy the rhetorical devices.
Antanagoge
Antanagoge is the rhetorical act of turning a negative to a positive; to employ it you must first acknowledge that there exists a negative. You foresee where your audience will point out the negative aspects of what you are arguing for and you concede their point: You acknowledge that they are correct and there are negative aspects. You can then counterbalance with the positive aspects. For instance:
“I know what you’re thinking: This new process is going to mean it takes longer to set up a new product. You’re totally right—it does mean we’ll have to frontload some of the work. However, it’s going to save us a lot of time on the other end when we don’t have to make time-consuming corrections after the product goes live.”
In this example, the speaker is acknowledging a criticism someone might raise—“Won’t moving to this new process mean it takes longer to set up a new product?”—and addressing it by explaining the positive aspects that balance the negative.
This devices acknowledges that your reader has a valid concern, and that you’ve understood that, taken it into consideration, looked into the cost-benefit analysis, and you still think you’re arguing for the best way forward. This can help your reader feel at ease that you’re not just trying to bludgeon them with your argument: You are thoughtfully considering theirs as well.
Procatalepsis
Procatalepsis is a similar rhetorical device to antanagoge in that it’s another way of addressing the likely counterarguments that readers will have while working their way through your text. Procatalepsis is a strategy in which you raise an objection to your own argument and then address it, to illustrate for readers how you would address the same counterargument had they raised it.
This differs from antanagoge in that you need not address the counterargument you’ve anticipated with a positive-for-negative strategy. You can attack with any strategy—the salient point is that you raise the counterargument yourself and address it peremptorily. When I use this tactic, I don’t raise the counterargument as something my reader might be thinking but as something I, myself, have thought (which, in fact, it is even if I thought it in anticipation of objections that might be raised. For instance:
“As I was developing this process, I realized it would add time and labor to setting up a new product and that was a concern for me. However, after detailed examination of the time and work we’re adding on the front end versus the time and effort we’ll save post-production, I’m confident that this new process represents a net resource savings.”
Or an example for the fiction writers among us:
“I know you all have concerns about my plan to sneak into the dragon’s lair and steal the Arkenstone. I share your concerns. After all, the whole shebang is guarded by a notoriously cranky dragon. However, I have a secret weapon: This master-burgling hobbit.”
You can use procatalepsis in fiction by having a character call out something that readers might see as flimsy or thin, and then addressing the weaknesses with a calculated counterargument.
An important side effect of both procatalepsis and antanagoge is that you demonstrate for your audience that you do not believe your position or yourself to be infallible, irreproachable, or above doubts and concerns. In employing these techniques, not only do you address concerns your readers may be having as they read but you are also expressing your own humility, by acknowledging that you’re not arguing from a place of unassailable, universal right.
Flattery
It will get you everywhere. Listen, I don’t have a fancy Greek or Latin word for flattery but it’s still a rhetorical tactic I like to employ, which Shelf Life readers, who are unusually astute, will have already noticed I do. That’s an example.
If I’m spending my time and energy arguing with someone about something, whether it’s in my personal life or in my workplace, the person I’m arguing with is someone who is important to me. I am a busy adult human with an amazing social circle and a healthy amount of self-respect. Therefore, I am never going to waste my time arguing with someone who isn’t important.
Someone on the internet said something demonstrably false or that I didn’t like? Man, whatever. You do you. I don’t care. Casual acquaintance? Not worth my time to argue with. I have more than enough of those already. When people who don’t matter to me start up on something I don’t agree with I just do the gray rock deal where I put on a neutral expression and let my eyes glass over and just say, “That’s interesting.” (It’s usually not interesting, but the point of saying “That’s interesting” is it neither argues with what they’re saying nor agrees with it.)
If I’m taking the time to have an argument with someone it’s because they matter to me. Further, that person is not my enemy in any meaningful sense. They’re my friend, loved one, or colleague. We may have different views of how to accomplish something, how to get from point A to point B, or on how we see a topic or issue, but we’re not trying to antagonize each other: We’re trying to reach consensus, harmony. We’re working together to come to understanding.
Maybe “flattery” wasn’t quite the right word for this final tactic, because it carries connotations of insincerity. Perhaps it would be better to say, be complimentary toward the person you’re arguing with or offer praise. Compliments and praise should come in the form of an explanation of why you’re taking the time to argue this with them, why you want to work with them to find a consensus, or why you’re confident that they’ll come to see the best way forward after hearing your argument. For instance,
I respect your opinions.
I know you have a lot of knowledge about this subject.
You’ve handled situations like this one well in the past.
You’re really smart and I know you can help me solve this.
And an example for fiction writers—although you wouldn’t come out and write this verbatim, you can indicate it in other ways:
I know you’re too smart to be fooled by shallow characterization or plotting.
Always assume your reader is a very intelligent, and also more attractive than average, like I do.
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