In a post on Film Daft, Grant Harvey examines the concepts of ethos, logos, and pathos and how you can use them in your writing. “Ethos, logos, and pathos are terms coined by the ancient philosopher Aristotle to define the rhetorical strategies storytellers use to appeal to and persuade an audience of a particular argument,” he says. “Ethos, logos, and pathos are used to compel an audience to suspend their disbelief and invest their emotions into the world of the characters, as well as convince them into an important moral or ethical argument.”
But what does persuasion have to do with fiction? “Persuasion is the act of convincing someone of a particular point of view, compelling a particular opinion, belief, intention, or action to change,” Harvey writes. “In order to be successful at storytelling, the storyteller must persuade the audience that the lesson the character is supposed to learn is important.”
Logos helps you create a logical plot, ethos helps you create a moral story world, and pathos helps you connect your audience with your characters, so that you can convey your universal truth. “If the characters feel like real people making real choices, it will help the central message of the story feel inspired by a universal human truth,” Harvey adds. “In a story, you should be able to make a compelling case against why the character shouldn’t change – then make a better argument for their need to change.”
- Ethos – an appeal to credibility or authority. Ethos is how you, as the writer, convince your audience that your story is credible. Ethos can also be demonstrated through one of your characters, showing your reader that your protagonist has the heft to carry a story.
- Logos – an appeal to an audience’s logical reasoning. In writing, logos is the presence of story logic – internal consistency and continuity, and narrative flow. “Story logic connects each beat of the story to flow naturally to the next, so the viewer can draw their own conclusions and determine that everything makes sense according to the world of the story,” Harvey explains.
- Pathos – an appeal to the audience’s emotions or passions. Pathos is the measure of how well your writing persuades your audience to invest their emotions.
