Lists: Create Power and Propulsion in Your Writing

Establish Intimacy, Specificity, and Momentum

Lists are one of the most immediate and powerful ways to transport your reader. Lists and litanies (or rants) become portals to help reveal a tangible setting, a character's inner world, and the weight and dynamics of a subject or idea. In other words, when used well, a list can take a piece of writing from flat to dynamic; it can take a reader from passive to propelled—pushing them to turn the page, eager to see how it all unravels.

This Sunday, we will examine ten techniques for using lists to hook and propel your reader. Please join us for List and Litanies: How to Write Powerful Poems (essays and fiction).

Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

Today’s post previews how you can use lists to transform your writing. 

1. Increase momentum.

Lists change the energy and momentum of a piece of writing by establishing anticipation. This is because lists build on one another; the longer or more complex they become, the more we expect a climax, crescendo, or big reveal. Lists create surprise, taking the reader up, up, up—like the peak of a rollercoaster—until they can see an object, world, metaphor, or character more clearly. They transform flat moments into dynamic ones. 

Momentum Prompt: Start with a statement (emotional or objective) that feels charged to you. After writing that statement, write “and” to propel you to the next thought. Keep going until you have written at least twenty “and” statements. Don’t worry about making sense. Just go where your mind takes you. 

2. Add dynamics.

The list offers you a chance to show variation and texture. The more varied and specific a list is, the more it pays off. When writing lists, make sure nothing in the list is the same. For example, if you list something literal, also include something abstract. If you have something that you smell, can you bring in another sense? Something dark? Add something light. 

Dynamic Prompt: Begin with a broad statement, like “Things I Believe” or “Why the World Breaks Your Heart.” After writing the first line, add contrast to the next but keep them loosely related. Change colors, tone, category, emotion, etc. Zoom out and in. Shift from literal to metaphorical. If you’re writing about weather, can you shift to cooking spices? For objects of clothing, can you shift to emotions one wears? 

3. Force specificity.

The magic of a list happens a few minutes into the listing. The more we reach for, the narrower and more specific our lists become. For example, take flavors of ice cream; if you ask anyone to list a few, they might share your standard vanilla and chocolate. But if you ask for twenty flavors, the flavors will get more odd and uncommon. The longer the list, the more we are forced to reach for the surprising and new. 

Specificity Prompt: Take a place where an image or metaphor isn’t working and list twenty alternatives; the weirder, the better. Chances are, the more you push yourself to come up with ideas, the odder and more complex they will become.