The book chapter is essentially about the writer, Jane Tompkins, giving pointers on the potential dilemmas that a writer is bound to be faced with when they are writing a book or an article. From the very outset when a writer sits to write, the story flows, with little or no antagonism that he anticipates from either themselves or the readers. As time goes by, it becomes clear that there is bound to be counter-arguments on the propositions given by the writer on his/her work. Although there might be a strong inclination by the writer to rebut their own work, the book chapter emphasizes that the inclusion of nay-sayers opinions in the literary work goes ahead of them by sparking a debate and a conversation and not just having a fixed mind.
One of the categories of templates that the book chapter recommends should be used by writers is the template for entertaining objections. This is where phrases like “Many readers would probably contend that…” or “Yet some readers may challenge my view insisting that…”. These examples as illustrated from the book chapter are aimed at addressing a group of naysayers who may essentially not fall under any category of persons.
The second category is where the naysayers are actually named based on the groups that they fall into. Examples of phrases used in the book chapter include; “On this point, many feminists may contend that…” or “But social Darwinists would probably take the view that…”. These examples are just illustrative of the groupings that can be given to people based on the issues being addressed by a writer on their piece. The problem with this template is that is falls into the risk of people considering them as labels. However, this can easily be corrected by the tactical rejection of labels in the piece and refining the work so that it does not look like a label at all. An example that can be given in this scenario is using sentences like, “Although not all Christians are like minded, some will probably refute this by…”. Another way is by the exact categorization of the group that a writer is referring to.
