Why every writer should know rhetoric

Simply put: because writing is rhetoric. Rhetoric is communication, or more specifically communication with intent. Rhetoric is NOT manipulation, it is not about getting your will through, it is about how to phrase what you say or write to suit your audience, your situation, and your intent. Your intent is what determines if it is manipulation or not, and intent is not rhetoric.

So what is it concretely, and how do we use it?

Wow, I am so glad you asked that! The first example I was given to show what rhetoric is was a man sitting on the street with a sign reading “I’m blind, please help.” A woman comes up to him and picks up his sign, crosses out his original words and replace them with “it is a beautiful day and I can’t see it.” You can see the video right here, it is quite impactful. 

Rhetoric is the difference between “fat” and “curvey”, between “it’s a beautiful day” and “the sun breaches the clouds in thin rays of light playing in the waves splashing against the shore”, and most importantly it is the difference between knowing when to use which and not knowing.

It is, in a nutshell, fitting your words to your intent. I did a post a while ago where I explained about Blitzer’s rhetorical situation; about exigence, audience, and constraints. If you don’t know what any of those words mean you can read that post right here, don’t worry, I will still be here when you get back.

Rhetoric is a tool box filled with handy little theories, models and “rules”. This means that you don’t need to use all of it all the time. When you need to put up at nail you pick up the hammer and leave the saw, screwdriver, and thongs where they are.

So what tools do you have at your disposal?

Well, there’s Bitzer’s rhetorical situation. This is kind of like a measuring tape – you need it for basically everything, but the more you use it the more you train your eyes to judge distances on their own. Bitzer goes over when a situation is rhetorical (exigence), who you should speak to (mediators or change), and what obstacles stand between you and them (constraints). Like I mentioned earlier, I did a blog post a while ago that went more in-depth with this, you can read that right here.

Then you have the appeal forms, these are the power tools. They help shape your utterance quickly and effectively, and then you can take the finer tools later to give it a nice finish. The three forms of appeal are: logos, which is appealing to the logical side of the audience; pathos, which is appealing to their emotions; and ethos which is your own trustworthiness. Most often a mix of all three of these, or at the very least two, will make for the best utterances.
Logos: “the top 1% of the richest people in the USA have 40% of the wealth, therefore we need to help the poor”
Pathos: “people are starving, children are malnourished and living on the streets sniffing glue to quiet the hunger, it is our duty to help them!”
Ethos: “I was there myself, I have lived on the streets, I know what it feels like. I don’t want anyone else to have to go through that: will you help me?”

The arguments are your hammer and saw. There’s a whole list of them, and I went over quite a few of them in the post I mentioned earlier.

Humor is your screwdriver. This twists the narrative to perfection when used right, or makes it all crash when done wrong. There are three types of humor: degrading (both of the self and of others), incongruence and ???.

And then we have the fine tools, the sandpaper, the coating, the paint, this finishing touches basically. These are general rhetorical tools, like metaphors, zeugma, and all the others. These we use basically on gut instinct, but if you want a complete breakdown of them check back in later, I will be doing a post about them soon.

All these tools go together to build our narrative, to help us grow our platforms and sell books, to make sure our books are the best version they can possibly be.

If you want a concrete guide to how this is useful specifically to character voices (since we all use the tools according to our personality), you should join my email list: you get a free guide to all the tools useful for character voices, you get statistics to show you how the “average” person uses them and how big differences there can be from person to person, and you get a checklist to use for your own characters.