The art of deferral
When you start a chapter, especially early chapters in your book, you’ll often face a very specific writing challenge: Fitting everything in the first paragraph. The problem, you’ll find, is that you have too many things to say, and you can’t cram them all in at once.
Say you’re writing a book titled How to Succeed with Body Language. To start chapter 1, you will probably want to convey the biggest problem most people face. But if you’re like most writers, you’ll find that your chosen problem statement comes with a lot of baggage you feel must go with it – not just an explanation but an example, definition, context, caveats, ramifications, a touch of color.
How do you convey not only your main point accurately but do so while engaging and orienting the reader with minor ancillary points?
To illustrate how you might include all this information without overloading paragraph one, let’s assume chapter 1 has the following message: Ignorance of your own body language can make you an easy victim for other people. Let’s also assume you feel it is imperative to include a definition of body language, the situations in which body language matters, suggestions on how much a person has at risk, and an example to make your point concrete.
Scale, scope, description, importance—you want all that right up front. So what do you do? If you try to put all of those things in one paragraph, you’ll get tangled in your burden of prose—not to mention get sideways with confused readers.
There are three ways I know of to tackle this challenge. All three require deferring some content to highlight other content. I call this the art (and craft) of deferral. Before you start drafting your lead, sort through all the apparently essential material and ask: What can I leave until later
Here are three ways I approach it:
1. Oversimplify your point and introduce caveats later. That is, start with a sweeping generalization and, in later paragraphs, reshape or hedge the distortions with qualifications.
Say you begin: “People who don’t pay attention to their body language get taken advantage of by others. Take the example of Betty Brown, a widow, who goes on a Monday morning to Joe Green’s used car lot. Her agreeable smile signals to Joe that he can quote her a premium price, and that she will surrender readily….”
The lead overstates. Agreeable smiles don’t always signal surrender during negotiation. But the oversimplification has the virtue of capturing the reader’s attention with its clarity. In a later paragraph, you can hedge: “To be sure, smiles don’t always convey meaning quite so clearly….” And then you explain the limitations of your assertion. (Journalists use this technique so often, they call it the “to be sure” paragraph.)
2. Choose just a piece of the message to start. After you’ve made your partial point, you can later explain that the subpoint is actually part of a larger message.
So you could begin another chapter. “Just by folding his arms as the neighborhood toughs approached, Jason Murdoch gave the wrong signal…”
The lead uses a specific instance of risky behavior in the face of aggressive adolescent men. After a couple of paragraphs of detailing the woe Jason brings on himself – which could make a riveting opening – you have given yourself breathing room to make your main point. “Jason’s use of his arms is just one example of how body language can put you at risk.”
3. Tell readers upfront you have a complicated or multi-part message. Then state one piece of the message at a time. Fill in the puzzle step by step.
“The ignorance of body language can, in four different ways, put you at a disadvantage to other people…”
The lead is not very enticing. It sounds like you’re going to take a dry approach to the topic. But its clarity and directness have a lot of appeal. And readers love clarity.
In any case, before you begin writing, think about how you break your package of must-have material into smaller, bite-size pieces. The goal is to guide your reader at a measured and enjoyable pace through your writing. You don’t have to cram all the content into a first paragraph, no matter how complicated it is. Defer some of the meal until later. The more you can defer, the sharper you can make your initial point.
