Symmetry: A Key Aspect of Good Writing
Copyright © 2008 Casco Bay Literary Services

Many authors would be surprised (and sometimes horrified) at the quick judgments publishing professionals often make about the quality of their manuscript. This article explores one important, though little-discussed, criterion these publishing professionals are using.

What Makes a Book Publishable?

Years ago I spent five or six years working as a freelance editor for a publisher that will remain unnamed. The company often seemed to follow a strategy of acquiring poorly written but promising manuscripts, then lavishing editorial attention on them in order to transform them into salable, respectable business books, scholarly books, and reference books.

Most of these books required what are called "heavy edits"—essentially, extensive rewrites. After doing only a few rewrites, I became intrigued with the question of how the production editor, other in-house staff, and I all knew immediately—by flipping through a manuscript, not by reading any of it in detail—that it was unpublishable. I also wondered how the in-house staff knew immediately after I finished the editing and returned the manuscript—again, usually just by flipping through it—that it was now publishable. In other words, what was the highly visible thing that the publishing company was tacitly asking me to add to each poorly written manuscript it sent me in order to make the manuscript publishable?

It didn't take long to figure out that of all the things missing in bad books and present in good books, nothing seemed more important than a property that has no name but that I'll call symmetry. What does this term refer to?

One size does not fit all and the content of a book should always dictate its structure. But within that framework, the various elements of a book (chapters, sections, paragraphs, and so on) should usually be relatively uniform—or "symmetric"—in style and length.  A lack of symmetry not only creates a feeling of sloppiness and gives the impression that you're a poor writer, but it may also cast doubt on your mastery of your subject. So editors spend much of their time restructuring chapters, evening out section and paragraph lengths, and making an author's style consistent from chapter to chapter in order to produce a coherent, cohesive book.

The relevance of these issues to your goal of getting your book accepted by an agent and publisher should be obvious. Most publishers are not going to be charitable enough to acquire mediocre books and then devote scarce resources to "rehabilitating" them. More often than not, they'll simply reject a flawed manuscript. So it's generally up to you to make your manuscript publishable, or nearly publishable, ahead of time.

Symmetry vs. Asymmetry: An Example

To take a simple example of symmetry versus asymmetry, suppose the title or subtitle of your book is The Four Main Causes of World War II.  Titles that contain enumerations (the ten best-known politicians, the three most important theories, the twelve steps in playing a sport) provide a clue to the reader about the overall structure of the book. 

In our case, the book will almost certainly consist of four chapters, with a chapter devoted to each of the four causes. Or it could contain some multiple of four chapters—like eight chapters, if say each of the four main chapters alternates with a background chapter. If the book is long and complex, another alternative would be to divide it into four parts (Part One, Part Two, and so forth), each subdivided into a number of chapters.

What the reader does not expect is a book with some illogical or unwieldy number of chapters like nineteen, or a book divided into seven or nine parts.  Devoting a single chapter or part to each of the four causes creates an impression of symmetry; devoting a single chapter say to cause no. 1 and thirteen or twenty-nine or fifty-one chapters to cause no. 2 would be an example of asymmetry.

Casting Doubt on Your Competence

How does this asymmetry cast doubt on your knowledge of your subject?  Suppose you've used a part structure for your book on the causes of World War II, with Part One devoted to economic problems, Part Two to the humiliating conditions created by the Versailles Treaty at the end of World War I, Part Three to anti-Semitism, and Part Four to the belief that it was time for another war.  If Parts One, Three, and Four each have twelve chapters but Part Two only has a single chapter, surely the reader is justified in worrying that you don't know much about the Versailles Treaty.

The same considerations apply at the section, paragraph, and sentence levels.  If you have extremely uneven section and paragraph lengths, not only can this leave the reader with an out-of-control feeling, but it may suggest that you're more on top of some aspects of your subject than others.  Or if most chapters have a scholarly, complex sentence structure but one chapter is written in a breezy journalistic style, does the latter style indicate an inadequate grasp of the subject of that chapter?

Our final example is one nearly every experienced editor is familiar with.  If most of your chapters contain a solid discussion but one is padded with dozens of lists or tables, what's going on in that chapter?  Does the topic of that chapter fall outside your area of expertise?

Breaking the Rules

Of course, there may be logical reasons for the discrepancies. Your first and last chapters could be shorter than usual because they're introductory and concluding chapters, respectively (since introductions and conclusions are sometimes numbered as actual chapters). One chapter may be written in a popular rather than a formal style if that chapter presents a case study, not a scholarly discussion. Finally, one chapter may contain more lists than other chapters because it's a summary chapter, or it may have more tables because it's your statistical chapter. 

In short, asymmetry is fine if there's an obvious justification for it.  Skilled writers often deliberately break the rules to achieve the effects they're striving for. If readers can detect the reasoning behind the choices you've made, they may appreciate your finesse as a writer.

But if major aspects of your manuscript seem asymmetric and readers can't figure out any logical reasons for this, problems can arise.  As noted, these problems can include rejection by agents or publishers, if they feel it would be too hard to bring the manuscript up to an acceptable stylistic standard, and especially if they have doubts about your professional competence.

Conclusion

Many factors go into the making of a successful book. But as you've seen, structural symmetry can be a crucial aspect of good writing.

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