How writers can move up and down the ladder of abstraction

Capturing concrete details & universal themes in your writing.

Whenever I’m writing a story, I picture a ladder. I envision myself climbing up and down it, intent on making sure I don’t get stuck on any one rung.

I spoke about this climbing structure — better known as the ladder of abstraction — last week during a keynote speech for about 200 university magazine editors and writers. As I explained in my speech, the ladder of abstraction is a writing tool that helps writers think about how to move between abstract ideas and concrete details to tell more compelling narratives.

This tool — which was popularized by the late professor and politician S.I. Hayakawa — is especially effective when you’re trying to illustrate the bigger meaning of something concrete, or when you want to provide a specific example of an abstract theme. I used it a lot when writing my forthcoming book, SLIP, and I want to share two related examples.

In the first chapter of my book, I described the ways that I tried to be perfect for my mother, who passed away from breast cancer when I was 11. As I wrote, I pictured perfectionism as the universal theme at the top of the ladder. But I knew that I couldn’t simply tell my readers that my mother wanted me to be perfect; I needed to show them by moving down the ladder. The lower you are on the ladder, the closer you are to the concrete — literally, but also in terms of the details you provide to help illustrate abstract concepts.

When describing perfectionism, I moved down the ladder of abstraction by explaining my relationship with my mother and then describing an object that has always made me think of perfectionism: the seafoam green quilt that covered the couch in my childhood home. In this part of the chapter, I wrote:

The living room couch where my mother spent most of her days was one of the first
new pieces of furniture my parents had ever purchased. My mom wanted to protect it from dirt and stains, so she kept it covered with a massive quilt that she had bought in the Amish country during a family road trip to Pennsylvania. The quilt was a patchwork of art, with intricate floral designs in each sewn square.

Mom didn’t think the designs matched the living room’s decor, so she would only display the underside, which was a solid seafoam green. Every day, she had me line the quilt neatly against the couch and smooth out any wrinkles. She would supervise over my shoulder, making sure I did it just right.

“Tuck in that corner on the left more. . . . Pull it down a little more in the front. . . . Even it out on both sides . . . just like that. There you go.”

My mother never told me I needed to be perfect, but in moments like this I sensed she wanted me to be.

If we apply this passage to the ladder of abstraction, we can visualize it this way:

Fast forward to the last chapter of my book, when I wrote about my fear of passing on my eating disorder to my children. Though I try hard to set a good example for them, I know there are many factors outside of my control, including genetics.

As I thought about the universal theme of this chapter, I kept coming back to the same word: Inheritance. But I knew I couldn’t just talk about this abstract concept; I had to show readers what it meant. I tried moving down the ladder, toward the middle, by reading as much research as I could on the genetic aspects of eating disorders.

I then interviewed one of the world’s leading eating disorder geneticists to learn more. Researchers are brilliant, but sometimes they can get stuck in the middle of the ladder. To help them move toward something more concrete, you can ask a simple question: Do you have a metaphor to help me wrap my head around this?

Sometimes you get lucky enough to interview researchers who provide these metaphors on their own. This was the case when I interviewed the geneticist, who compared genetic risk to a deck of cards. There are four key elements, she said, that determine a person’s risk for developing an eating disorder: (1) genetic protective factors, (2) genetic risk factors, (3) environmental protective factors, and (4) environmental risk factors. In the final chapter, I wrote:

The four factors are like the four suits in a deck of cards: spades and clubs (for risk and protective genetic factors) and diamonds and hearts (for risk and protective environmental factors).

We are each dealt a hand, one we carry throughout our lives. We don’t have any say over how many spades or clubs we hold, but our number of diamonds and hearts may change over time, depending on how we grow up, how we care for ourselves, and how we respond to the events that shape our lives. In other words, eating disorders are the result of what happens not just within us but also around us.

When writing this passage, and the chapter as a whole, I was able to move up and down the ladder of abstraction with hopes of helping readers better understand the research and the bigger picture of why it matters.

As you pursue your own writing, consider how you can move up and down the ladder — for your own advancement as a writer and for the benefit of your readers. The question “Can you give me a metaphor or example?” will drive sources down the ladder. But “Why does it matter?” will move them upward. The best stories address both questions, helping readers to ascend and descend alongside the writer.

How have you used the ladder of abstraction in our own writing? What other questions, if any, do you have about it?