Anacoluthon
Anacoluthon — from the Greek anakolouthon, from an-: “not” and ἀκόλουθος akólouthos: “following”) is an unexpected discontinuity in the expression.
Sometimes writing that’s most rewarding to read starts out one way but then takes you to insights, actions and even emotions you didn’t expect. The simplest form of this rhetorical technique of “anacoluthon” — making an abrupt change of course — is in a sentence.
Shakespeare: Master of Anacoluthon
The Sweet Swan of Avon anacoluthons in Hamlet as he transforms death to sleep through the potential of devout consummation:
To die, to sleep —
No more — and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to — ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished!
You can enlist anacoluthon for a larger shift outside of a sentence as well. Start down a path, educate and inform on one subject and then change direction on a dime and end up in place no one expects at the outset.
Two Billion Heartbeats
Take the essay Joyus Voladorus by the late Brian Doyle. It’s a nature essay with the fascinating premise that all creatures with hearts have give-or-take two billion heartbeats to use over a lifetime. The Joyus Voladorus aka hummingbird at 1,200 beats per minute burns heartbeats fast and lives two years. The Galapagos tortoise’s heart beats six times a minute and can live 200+ years.
All other creatures lie somewhere in between. Learning this astounding observation is reward enough for reading the essay. But Doyle continues to discuss blue whale hearts (the largest, with valves “as big as the swinging doors in a saloon”), reptile hearts, turtle hearts, insect hearts, mollusk hearts, even worm hearts(!). If Doyle can make worm hearts compelling, how hard can the topic you’re trying to write about possibly be? But then, the anacoluthon:
So much held in a heart in a lifetime. So much held in a heart in a day, an hour, a moment…. [a]ll hearts finally are bruised and scarred, scored and torn, repaired by time and will, patched by force of character, yet fragile and rickety forevermore, no matter how ferocious the defense and how many bricks you bring to the wall. You can brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and impregnable as you possibly can and down it comes in an instant, felled by a woman’s second glance, a child’s apple breath, the shatter of glass in the road, the words I have something to tell you, a cat with a broken spine dragging itself into the forest to die, the brush of your mother’s papery ancient hand in the thicket of your hair, the memory of your father’s voice early in the morning echoing from the kitchen where he is making pancakes for his children.
Who knew pancakes were the meaning of life? Assuming you are neither a sociopath nor owner/operator of an artificial heart, you may need a moment or two to compose yourself after reflecting on Doyle’s examination of the vicissitudes of the human condition. But after you brick back up your heart, take a moment to reexamine how Doyle does it. You won’t be alone; the essay has hundreds of thousands of downloads. Made to stick indeed.
How to Write: In Sum
Looking back on these recent posts on the tips and tricks I’ve learned to communicate with greater precision, engagement and impact I have a few final suggestions. Before you sit down (or better yet, approach your standing desk like Hemingway) to write, think hard about what you’re trying to say. Does it need to be said? Has someone else already expressed the same thoughts or content? Are you saying something new or adding your voice to a preexisting chorus? You may need only link to an existing post instead of, wait for it, reinventing the wheel. Think of how much time you’ll have back for your life — how many free heartbeats you’ll enjoy to think great thoughts or play Fortnite — or both. Think of the frustration and angst you’ll avoid.
If not, take time to outline and structure your thoughts. Remember your audience with the fifteen-second attention span along with the hours required to create fifteen seconds of effective prose. Set your jargon detector to eleven. Verbs are ever at the ready to do what verbs do, chomping at the bit — put them to work and slay those adverbs. Try to inject a soupçon of levity, humor, pathos… or all three. Work hard to avoid abstraction and find the right concrete details that will stick. And let it flow. Find some compelling contrasts. Let the words come flowing, tumbling, cascading out, each coruscating with more fulgor than the last.
After you catch your breath and return to what you have written hours, days or weeks later take a moment to admire what you’ve accomplished. Then cross out 90% of what you’ve written. You now have the beginning of your iceberg. Rest, refresh with a sarsaparilla or Papa Double (Hemingway would have six on an average afternoon but would up crank it up to a baker’s dozen or so when he wanted to take it to the next level of figgity, figgity lit) and repeat as necessary. You’re a writer.
*Read the full series of posts on cutting through communication BS at BrandCulture’s Straight Talk.
Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
