Introducing the Idea of the Rhetorical Situation

There are many creative writers. If you’re anything like the vast 90% of them, you probably are, I know I am, you probably look online for writing advice. Prompt blogs, advice posts, “do’s and don’ts” infographics, articles from more experienced writers telling their stories and giving tips on how to make a story better.

This is all fine and dandy. Most people really improve from the advice found across the expanses of the internet. The attention to detail, perfecting the author’s grammar, how to create more effective plot hooks, what makes or breaks a scene.

Yet there’s a silent concept that no writer seems to talk about but is a staple among the college writing community.

The idea of the Rhetorical Situation.

Now I do not profess to be an all-knowing, fully understanding teacher whose word is law. I’m a student who’s still learning to write even as I write this story. Yet being at least introduced to the idea of the Rhetorical Situation has allowed for me to grasp the concept and theories of writing in a way that has taken my writing to a whole new level.

This is the Rhetorical Situation in a nutshell. It is considered one of the most major theories in writing. It’s a theory most reference… but no one really puts a label on it. No one says, “ah yes- when creating this scene keep [this part] of the Rhetorical Situation in mind to help maintain the balance in the story!”

Some of these are common sense, basics most writers assume as given. Yet even so, sometimes even the basic must be explained again. So even if this seems “common knowledge”, it’s best to bear through and reestablish your understanding.

There are 5 major pieces to the creation of writing as shown in the picture above. The balance of 3 allows for the other 2 to exist and be understood. There must always be a Writer to write, a subject to write about, and a reader to read what has been written. If there is no writer, then a subject cannot be written about and there would be no text for the reader to read. Focusing solely on the writer however has the subject take the back seat, which no longer makes it the focus of the writing. The writing becomes decentralized, the subject bland, and the reader has no interest in the writing any longer and chooses not to read it, negating the point of the writing.

If there’s only the subject, the writing can also become stale. The writer is no longer taken into consideration- if the writer genuinely enjoys what their writing is about. There is no longer any innovation because the writer does not care about what they want but rather how effectively the subject can be laid out for the reader. They lose their voice and the writing becomes about as interesting as watching food mold over. No subject at all and the writing becomes a blathering mess of nonsensical strings of verbiage and grammar that no one cares about.

Focusing solely on the reader’s experience is not terrible but it causes the subject to lose sincerity as the writer sacrifices the opinions of the writing to satisfy the needs of the reader. They neglect themselves and their ideas if it may potentially upset the reader. There becomes very little conflict, only happy endings, and every word comes with little baby-proofing pieces of plastic to protect from the sharp corners of the letters like the letter T. Focusing too little on the reader and then there’s no satisfaction at all. The writing becomes jargon meant only for the writer’s consumption, there’s little regard for the writing’s format- the execution of the writing or the grammar- and causes more pain reading it than any pleasure one might derive of attempting to cipher out any relevant story.

Those should be obvious to every writer. It’s fundamentals that writers that have never written more than 100 words on a short story understand on at least some level.

The context and text of story should be obvious as well. Context allows for the other 3 to find a single common ground and creates a fundamental understanding of why the writer wrote what they did, the subject matter chose, why the reader has come to read this medium in the first place.

The text is what most of the writing blogs and the advice given are about. Basic grammar, sentence structure, voice, phrasing, a slew of cosmetics that affect how a story is delivered. Text is how two identical stories can be told in ways that barely resemble each other.

Yet of the 5 portions of the Rhetorical Situation, there are three parts that don’t often come up. These are what are known but not yet labeled, the idea but not the definition. Of the 5, now 8 parts of the Rhetorical Situation, the understanding and mastery of the 3 constituent parts truly allow for a scene to take place: exigence, audience, and constraints.

To understand Rhetorical situation, it is best for most to start with the Exigence. Exigencies are needs or demands that can be solved by ways of human interaction or intervention. The need for human intervention creates the requirement of the Audience: people who can solve exigencies in some way, shape, or form. Not everything can be solved with every solution that comes to mind. Constraints are what whittle down the viable solutions to only the ones that are manageable and reasonable. It applies a person’s and a society’s ethos, logos, and pathos to a situation to satisfy the exigence within its context.

The understanding of this idea allows for us to more intimately examine why things happen in writing. In fact, it allows us to understand why anything may happen. We are more accurately able to identify the exigence. What was the problem that drove this situation to be what it was? Politically, this could be anything from gun control, abortion, or any other high-controversy topics. In writing, this could be what instigated the plot. We examine the audience that played a role in the event. Whether they’re characters or major political activists or other scientists contemplating the problem. By identifying the audience, we gather insight into why that problem was solved in a certain way. A politician and a scientist would have different approaches to an exigence. Then we have the constraints. The constraints of a futuristic society vs a medieval society would be huge. The constraints of a monarchy vs a democracy is different in how their political processes work. Having to have a solution due in a week vs being due whenever you please is significant. By being able to identify the constraints in which a work or situation you can more accurately correlate the cause and effects, consequences to actions.

Being aware of these elements drastically affect how one practices their writing. They become aware of contingences in the world around them. When one becomes aware, they can begin to apply to their own writing. They begin to understand the way situations and interactions begin to work. The motivation behind every action. The reasoning for choosing one solution over another with regards to the parties involved and the resources available to them.

This is a short, and albeit crass- understanding of the Rhetorical Situation at best. Yet, even then, as the writer I hope that I could take my subject and convey it to you, the reader, within the context of this writing community in legible text that achieves the point of the article.

Hopefully, through that, this article serves not only as an explanatory piece, but an example of the Rhetorical Situation as well.