I like writing that moves: moves from the abstract to the concrete, moves from showing to telling, moves from the general to the particular. Sometimes this movement goes in one direction, sometimes the other, and sometimes back and forth. But move it must. Move, move, move! Go, man go!
Here's a passage from a book I like very much, titled The Arithmetic of Life and Death, by George Shaffner:
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Poynter.org -- Roy's Writing Tools: Tool #2
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Roy Peter Clark talks about Writing Tool #2: Order Words for Emphasis.
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At one time or another, most American children are told that they can be anything they want to be. The message is an American tradition; the traditional messengers are good-hearted parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. What they mean is that the United States is a land of great opportunity, which is true. But young children, who have yet to compare American economic, social, racial, and religious obstacles to those that exist in other nations, don't always get the intended message. Instead, what the children may actually hear is that they really can be anything they want to be -- which is not true and never has been.
That's one clever paragraph, somehow ballsy and iconoclastic without being disrespectful. Shaffner begins with a generalization -- something that most kids in America hear -- and then steps on it like a potato chip.
Now think of your reaction to that paragraph as a reader. Perhaps you permitted yourself to be persuaded by his argument, or you recognize something you learned in school or from a parent. Or you're a traditional patriot who bristles at words that tear at your beliefs. Or you despise unreflective flag-waving, so you silently cheer when you reach the point of Shaffner's argument. Whatever your position, what you crave most is evidence to endorse it. Not the general, but the particular.
Here's Shaffner's next paragraph:
Gwendolyn Sharpe, a very fit twenty-year-old at five-foot-two and 105 pounds, is never going to play defensive end for the Green Bay Packers. She's too small. Even though he loves to race, Billy Ray DeNiall, who at age sixteen is already six-foot-three and 190 pounds, is never going to ride a Triple Crown winner. He's too big. Although he loves airplanes, Joe Bob DeNiall ... never had a chance to be a Naval fighter ace. He is colorblind and has 20/400 vision.
I love the movement from general argument to particular evidence. To nail down that argument, Shaffner depends upon specific examples, each with a name and vital statistics, each with a reference to a particular profession. Three examples [for more on groups of three, check out Tool 20] provide a sense of the whole.
There's your tool: To persuade the reader that your general propositions are true, follow them with specific, particular evidence. In addition to proving your case, it will make your writing move, move, move, Daddio.
