‘Throat-clearing’ was what Mr.Giddens, my wisened and bearded A-level history teacher used to call it.
It’s that first sentence or paragraph at the beginning of a blog, article, essay, or chapter. It’s often the first line we write. It’s the warm-up exercise our brain needs, a flexing of the writing muscle before we get into the real meat-and-potatoes of what we mean to say.
His sage advice was simply to get rid of it, to delete it. And, having been well-served in following his words of wisdom over the years, I thus share them with you today.
Vibrant
Take a look at any piece of writing you are working on and just see, what happens if you remove the opening sentence or paragraph?
Often you find your writing becomes much more immediate, vibrant and alive.
Starting part way in, you bring us closer to the action. You’re in the thick of your thought, it’s edgier, sharper in construction and conveyance. We’re compelled to read on even if we don’t yet get it.
Throat-clearing is something we all do in our writing. I often find those opening words are like precious children too. They are the words that I have crafted, the ones I have lovingly birthed. Sacrificing them on the altar of stronger writing is not without a degree of pain (and my own way of dealing with it is by putting them in another word document, kept safe for posterity). However, find whatever mechanisms and support structures you need to be able to make the cuts. Your readers will thank you for it. Or would, if they only knew.
Throat-Clearing Caution
In fact, let me add a word of caution here too: Throat-clearing is a natural part of the process. It should not be demonised. Please do not waste time trying to sidestep it by crafting ‘the perfect’ opening to your writing project. That would be the equivalent to going out on a run having not warmed up, you’ll only do yourself an injury. The worst kind of injury too, where you never get off the starting blocks.
Rather, let your writerly soul have at its throat-clearing to begin with. Don’t deny it the great pleasure of taking the meandering route up to the beginning of what you need to say. There are a multitude of productivity-based reasons why you shouldn’t interfere with this process, but the one I’ll leave you with is this: You let the throat-clearing run free because there’s a beauty to those first words, a decadent enjoyment in penning them. And I believe our writing lives should be lived first and foremost from that point of beauty and decadent enjoyment…
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