Toolkit: Finding the Fun

Imagine this: Scholar you walks into a bar. Or a cafe. Or a date. Or a Zoom meeting. You sit down, and the other person says the dreaded thing: “What’re you writing?”

You take a big breath, inhale deeply and then even more deeply, as your mind races. What am I writing? How do I explain it? How do I get my main argument across immediately and with all the context they need right now and make it interesting? How do I get it all into something clear and specific? Why am I still struggling to do this?

You exhale slowly and then . . . What happens? Where do you start?

Now imagine you’re sitting at your computer and looking at an empty file or many pages of writing that are resisting coming into line in a way that reflects the simplicity of the logic in your mind.

Are you struggling to see what exactly you have to say, in what order, and with what sense of perspective? Are you searching for the specific sentence that unpicks the lock of your book’s argument and scope?

In both instances, the question at play is, what’s your opening gambit, what many writing professionals call “the hook”?

How do you invite your interlocutor in to the field, topic, argument, thesis, big idea you’ve been mulling over and writing about for so long? How do you show them what’s there and why they want to learn about it from you?

Under the pressure to say it all at once, to punch home to big impact, we can lose our sense of where to begin, especially how to start telling our story (remember: all arguments are stories) in a way that is accessible and logical and, ultimately, fun for both you and your audience.

But, no matter how long you’ve been wrangling your project, across dissertations, job talks, scholarly articles, writing groups, and no matter how sick you might be feeling of it all, I promise you, something animating remains, and it is interesting for you and your potential audiences.

Another way of thinking of it — one that can calm some of the panic and freeze — is to ask instead, “what’s cool about all this?”

We’ve all got that thing — that one, weird, interesting thing that made our brains perk up forever ago and start thinking, or perhaps that made everything suddenly clear, if only for a moment. That’s the cool thing, the fun, and it’s a powerful place to start from. The challenge is to harness that and your excitement around it for readers, if only for your drafting stages, and maybe your book proposal. Often, the natural way in at this moment also becomes the organic way into your book at the end.

You’re the only person who can tell this particular story (make this particular argument) is this exact way. And that is your strength, and the strength of your book.

TRY THIS EXERCISE:

Take a friend out for a drink, coffee, meal, or walk and have them ask, “What’s cool about your project?”

Don’t overthink: Go with the first thing that comes to mind and start talking.

Record the conversation or ask the friend to take notes, emphasizing how you respond — the big steps you take as you narrate your project.

They can reflect it back to you, and you’ll be able to hear what you start with and how you talk through the way this thing unfolds into what you’re thinking and how you are approaching it and why. (You can also talk to yourself as to a friend or write an email to someone spelling this out, if that is more comfortable for you; or you could hire an editor to have this conversation with.)

Do you set up a vivid story or anecdote that has stayed with you and perhaps animates the way you understand the main question at play? Is there a weird moment in a text or a contradiction in your material that you find interesting, one that remains a touchstone for the way you entered your project or a reference point for new ideas? Do you explain a historical event or weird law or an a-ha moment you had once? Does something not fit way you were taught to understand it? Did something truly off the charts happen and how does no one else know about it?

There is your way in — for you and your audience. That’s your cool.

So, what’s cool and where’s the fun? Because I promise you it’s there, and we can find it again, together.