Why A Writer Should Argue With An Expert

If you are looking for an idea to write about, or for a way to clarify your ideas on a particular subject, pick a fight.

Now, I’m not suggesting you call someone out in public. What I am suggesting, though, is that you start a heated discussion with the thoughts of another in the seclusion of your writing desk in order to get the juices flowing.

Why not manufacture a dispute with somebody and see who wins? And don’t pick just anybody.

Pick somebody big, somebody tough. Pick an expert and have an argument.

Stephen King, in his excellent book On Writing, has some fairly disparaging things to say about most of the other books on writing that are available.

I can’t give you the exact quote at the moment because his book, which I read long ago, is lost in the stacks of the many other writing books that populate my personal library, all of which I cherish (but not enough to keep organized).

These books are my friends and Mr. King, writer extraordinaire, is wrong.

Still, I like Stephen King because he has proven himself, over and over, to be willing to take a stand and pronounce firm ideas on controversial matters.

King understands the power of conflict. Good writers know that a story requires some sort of disagreement, people and ideas banging up against each other in a fight to the death.

“Story is struggle. How a character struggles reveals who he is.”

James N. Frey, How To Write A Damn Good Novel

Launching into a subject by finding and pursuing conflict has many benefits for the writer in search of a stronger idea to write about. Those benefits only increase as you up the stakes by taking on a bigger, more able adversary.

Here’s why you should write yourself into a conflict with an expert:

1. Conflict heightens your ability to pay attention to what you are trying to say. Conflict grabs our attention, even if it is conflict that we create ourselves out of nothing. This is the magic that conflict brings to the sauce: struggle. When we force our ideas to struggle for their lives, our focus on the content of the ideas is increased. When the foe is a dangerous one, that focus becomes high alert.
2. Conflict allows the best ideas to be tested. Even the best ideas deserve and need to be tested. This goes for the worldview of the “expert” as well as your own. If you are pretty strongly invested in a particular opinion, find somebody smart who disagrees with that opinion and let them take you to task. This is why boxers in training spar with more experienced boxers. The weaknesses in your position will be revealed. How does your idea hold up?
3. Conflict forces you to clarify your own thinking. If you are going to attempt to dismantle the argument of a more seasoned thinker, you must first be clear about what you think. Testing your idea against what has gone before creates the context in which you must cut the fluff and the fuzziness and hone your message to something sharp and succinct.
4. Conflict exercises your critical abilities. Learning to be ruthless while at the editing stage is part of the learned craft of writing. Putting yourself up against more experienced minds teaches you the courage you need to cut what needs to be gone. You will learn to forgive yourself of your sloppy thinking only as you also learn to reject the slop in favor of your best work.
5. Conflict creates immediate interest for the reader. Yes, I suggest this “challenge the expert” technique as a way to get us started writing, but still our ultimate objective in writing is to create something that tells the reader something in a compelling way, even if nobody besides us ever reads the thing. The goal is to be interesting. When we develop our written ideas in the context of opposing ideas, the conflict that promises to hold the eventual reader’s attention is baked into the structure of the writing. Organic intrigue: it’s a good thing.
6. Conflict forces you to up your game. Being tested in the “crucible” of an argument with a strong mind requires you to call on all of your resources, even those you were not aware you possessed. Or you may discover areas of weakness in your thinking or technique that need to be improved.
7. Conflict allows for failure in a controlled setting. If you pick the right expert for your opposition, you will likely lose the argument every so often. Maybe you will change your mind as a result. Maybe you will tighten your arguments and your prose as well. Humility is good for the soul. This is how we grow.
8. Conflict with an expert gets you into the bigger conversation. Arguably the biggest reason to engage with the great minds on your ideas in a particular area of interest is the increased exposure to the wide world of ideas you are bound to experience. Writing your thoughts for yourself in private is one way to write, but at some point you need to place your thoughts into the larger context. You simply cannot become “conversant” in your area of expertise without sustaining an actual conversation with the other thinkers in your area of interest. Sometimes we need to get out of our own heads and engage with the larger universe where ideas must compete.
9. It prepares you to take a stand in the world for something that matters to you. As you move your ideas into the world, you move closer to the source of the urge that got you writing in the first place. Let’s be honest. You do all of this hard work to improve your craft because you have something to say and because you want to make a difference in the world. The more practiced, experienced, and tested your idea becomes through this process of challenge through conflict, the more prepared you will be to launch your idea into a public conversation where real change can occur.

This is how Stephen King does it. Disparaged by a snobbish literary industry for most of his long career as a mere “genre writer,” King was selected to receive the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution To American Letters in 2003. The pick was a controversial one. No matter.

In his acceptance speech, King did what good writers do. He ratcheted up the conflict:

That said, I accept this award on behalf of such disparate writers as Elmore Leonard, Peter Straub, Nora Lofts, Jack Ketchum, whose real name is Dallas Mayr, Jodi Picoult, Greg Iles, John Grisham, Dennis Lehane, Michael Connolly, Pete Hamill and a dozen more.

I hope that the National Book Award judges, past, present and future, will read these writers and that the books will open their eyes to a whole new realm of American literature.

You don’t have to vote for them, just read them.

Stephen King, 2003 Acceptance Speech

King didn’t start this argument, but he certainly did not allow it to die. It’s a great conversation and one that needed to happen for a long time.

Engage an expert on her best ideas and see how you do.

Move into enemy territory and test yourself.

Be defeated and then understand why.

Write and grow.

This article originally appeared at scottwhisler.com.