Good writing isn’t creating an argument, but following one

I read John Fowles’ The French Lieutenant’s Woman a long time ago, but there is one part that still sticks with me. Sarah (the woman) is standing at a window in a storm, intending to jump from it. If you don’t know the book, then you might not know that Fowles frequently stops the action of the novel in order to say something about Victorian culture and politics, or his writing process. At this point, he says that his “plan” was that she would “lay bare” all of her thoughts. But she doesn’t. She walks away from the window. And Fowles explains why the novel doesn’t do what he planned. And then there’s a lovely excursus about writing. He says that authors cannot plan what their characters will do.

“We know a world is an organism, not a machine. We also know that a genuinely created world must be independent of its creator; a planned world (a world that fully reveals its planning) is a dead world. It is only when our characters and events begin to disobey us that they begin to live.” (81)

He goes on to explain that his characters sometimes refused to do what he wanted them to do, such as the character Charles deciding to stop at a dairy, and he imagines that the reader suggests that Fowles changed his mind while writing because he imagined a more clever plot. Fowles then says,

“I can only report—and I am the most reliable witness—that the idea seemed to come to me clearly from Charles, not myself. It is not only that he has begun to gain an autonomy; I must respect it, and disrespect all my quasi-divine plans for him, if I want him to be real.”  (82)

Yesterday, I had blocked out four hours for writing the conclusion to chapter five of the book I’m currently writing. This is the chapter about critics of US policy in Vietnam, and my plan for the chapter was that it would discuss MLK, Henry Steele Commager (a big deal at the time, and classic liberal), and Hans Morgenthau (a conservative, anti-communist “realist”), all of whom had extremely similar criticisms. My plan was to write about how, despite their different places on the political spectrum, they all shared criticisms that were dismissed at the time and later admitted to be accurate by no less than Robert McNamara, although they were demonized and dismissed at the time for making those arguments.

That’s a good argument; that was a good plan.

But, once I got near the end of it (and this was perhaps 2k words, which I’d taken four hours to write), I started to think that, not only was I making an argument very different from my plan, but that I wasn’t writing a conclusion to a chapter. I was writing the introduction to the book.

I was trained in a program that required that students turn in a thesis statement for their paper before they turned in the paper. Then there was a class day in which all those thesis statements were critiqued (by very sensible standards—and this was the thesis statement, not the topic sentence, and the paper had to be structured such that the thesis statement didn’t appear until the conclusion, if at all) [1] I often had students tell me that they worried that the more they researched or thought about the issue, the more they disagreed with their thesis, and they didn’t know what they were supposed to do.

“Change your thesis,” I said. They were always shocked at my saying that. For various reasons (mostly having to do with trying to prevent cheating), many of their teachers had told them that they were not allowed to change their argument.

It seems to me that it should be a premise of education, and of writing, that, if your argumentation doesn’t support your argument, then change your argument.

I think we have to respect our evidence and analysis as much as Fowles had to respect his characters. I think we should teach students to do the same.

I will say that I think Fowles was being hyperbolic. He did have a plan, and he changed the plan because the characters he’d created made the plan obsolete. If he had tried to write without any plan, it’s hard to imagine that he would have gotten there at all. Writers should plan—the plan is what gets you to the place that you can develop a new plan. Every plan is a ladder you should feel free to pick up and move to a new place. I think his point is that, if your writing is honest, you have be honest about where your writing has gotten you. And you create a new plan.

I’m not sure it’s the introduction, but I have to try to draft a version of the book in which it is.

[1] For non-writing geeks, I should explain: the thesis statement is the proposition that the text argues. In non-student writing, it is rarely in the introduction. It’s usually in the conclusion, but it’s sometimes never stated (e.g., “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” The more controversial the claim, the more likely the thesis is to be delayed or unstated.

What a lot of people call the “thesis statement” is what is more usefully called the “contract.” Outside of student writing, it’s sometimes the problem statement, the hypothesis, the thesis question, a vaguer version of the thesis statement, a map (“this paper will discuss…”).

. I think his point is that, if your writing is honest, you have be honest about where your writing has gotten you. And you create a new plan.

I’m not sure it’s the introduction, but I have to try to draft a version of the book in which it is.


[1] For non-writing geeks, I should explain: the thesis statement is the proposition that the text argues. In non-student writing, it is rarely in the introduction. It’s usually in the conclusion, but it’s sometimes never stated (e.g., “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” The more controversial the claim, the more likely the thesis is to be delayed or unstated.

What a lot of people call the “thesis statement” is what is more usefully called the “contract.” Outside of student writing, it’s sometimes the problem statement, the hypothesis, the thesis question, a vaguer version of the thesis statement, a map (“this paper will discuss…”).