The Five Canons of Rhetoric: An Ancient Checklist for Writing a Book

Long before anyone wrote a book about how to write a book, Roman teachers had a checklist for anyone who wanted to speak well. They divided the work into five parts. Today we call them the five canons of rhetoric.

One of the earliest statements of the five canons comes from a Latin handbook called the Rhetorica ad Herennium. It is the oldest complete Latin textbook on rhetoric that has come down to us. For centuries, people believed Cicero wrote it. Scholars now doubt that, so its author is usually described as unknown.

The handbook says a speaker needs five abilities: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. It also says we gain these abilities in three ways: by learning the theory, by imitating good models, and by practice.

Those five canons were written for speeches, but they fit the work of writing a book remarkably well. Here is what each one means, and how it applies to an author today.

1. Invention: finding what to say

Invention is the work of finding your material. The handbook describes it as coming up with the ideas and arguments that will make your case convincing.

For an author, invention is the season of gathering. What do you want readers to know, believe, or do when they finish? Which stories prove the point? Which passages of Scripture, which lessons from life, which conversations belong in the book?

Most people who want to write a legacy book already have far more material than they realize. It is in their sermons, journals, emails, talks, and the stories they tell at family gatherings. Invention is the work of finding it and choosing what matters.

2. Arrangement: putting it in order

Arrangement is the ordering of your material. The handbook describes it as deciding where each piece belongs.

The same handbook lays out six parts of a speech: an introduction that gets the hearer's attention, a statement of the facts, a division that shows what is agreed and what is disputed, the proof, a refutation of the other side, and a conclusion. A book can follow its own pattern. The principle still holds: order matters. The same stories in a different order can tell a very different story.

For an author, arrangement becomes the outline and the table of contents. Should the book move in time order, from childhood to today? Should it move by theme? Should each chapter open with a story and close with a lesson? These choices shape everything that follows.

3. Style: choosing the words

Style is fitting the right words and sentences to the material. This is where your voice lives most clearly.

The same handbook describes three kinds of style: grand, middle, and simple. It also warns against their failures, such as a style so puffed up that it becomes swollen, or so loose that it drifts. In the earlier articles in this series, we looked at the grammar, logic, and rhetoric that make up a writer's style.

For an author, style is the work of drafting and revising. It is also where an editor can do the most harm or the most good. A good editor sharpens your style. A careless one replaces it with their own.

4. Memory: holding it all together

Memory meant the firm retention of the matter, the words, and their order. For a Roman speaker, memory was a real skill. The handbook even teaches a memory system built on imagined places and vivid images.

A book author can leave the manuscript on the page. Memory still matters in two ways. First, a book must remember itself. A promise made in chapter one has to be kept by chapter ten. Names, dates, and details have to stay consistent. Second, an author who will speak about the book, on a podcast, at a church, or at an event, needs to carry its main ideas in their head and heart.

5. Delivery: bringing it to the audience

Delivery was the graceful control of voice, face, and gesture. For a speaker, it was how the speech actually reached the crowd.

For an author, delivery is how the book reaches readers. It includes the finished design of the book, its cover, and its format. In our time, it also includes the author's own voice on a podcast or in an audiobook, a website where readers can find them, and the talks they give. A beautiful manuscript that never reaches its readers has not yet been delivered.

Theory, imitation, and practice

Remember the handbook's three ways to grow: theory, imitation, and practice. They are still the best advice we know for any writer.

• Theory means understanding how writing works. That is why we are writing this series.
• Imitation means reading writers you admire, noticing what they do, and learning from it.
• Practice means writing, and writing again.

How Legacy Publishing uses the five canons

The five canons belong to the Roman teachers. We use their outline as an honest map of the work we do with authors.

We lead an author from manuscript to finished book, and on to a website and a podcast launch. That path runs through all five canons. We help you find your material, put it in order, shape it in your own voice, keep it consistent, and deliver it to the readers who need it.

If you are just starting out, begin with invention. Make a list of the ten stories you most want your grandchildren to know. That list may be the first page of your book.