First, allow me to apologize about the delay in new blogs. Life has a habit of becoming quite hectic, but I promise to come back with more great observations soon.
Anyways, on to the essays. While they all had their own great lines, I shall start with Anthony Setari's "Hunting the Smiley Face". One line in particular that I loved:
"Wal Mart does something to people. I don't know if they are all built on elusive Stephen King Indian burial grounds or what but there is something unnatural about this place."
Quite an apt description for Wal Mart, especially with how he writes about for the rest of the essay. His essay is rich in the descriptions of the people around him, and also what he sees. The listing for corn is quite hilarious, and drives home his central point very well: that Wal Mart itself is quite an interesting, if not insane, place.
Zach Bush's essay, "And What Could Be Said of Saturday's Emergencies?" to me takes a facet of Creative Nonfiction, which is rolling with what happens during a story, and incorporating it into the story. His contrast of what happened earlier that day with actually being in an emergency was great. The last line was particularly poignant for the story:
"I leave wondering, would this emergency room, with its two young nurses, been able to have handled the kind of crisis that I almost walked into early this morning?"
That was a very powerful line, and is a great way to end the story.
Lastly, we have Turqoise and her story on fasting, "Expect the Unexpected." In many ways, her and Zach's story are quite similar in that situations out of their control effect the writing of the story. The journal entries are a nice touch, and add some legitimacy to the story itself. One line I enjoyed was:
"I have no other choice. I can't turn my family off, they're permanent stress!"
It sums up the turning points in the story that are out of her control very well.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Games of Cuts and Bruises
"Haim, bai, please bring maw a cup ah tea," Ma called. (pg. 62)
This particular line struck me because I've always been fascinated by how well colloquial language is written into a story. Although there are many different topics I could cover about this passage from River Crossings, I have chosen this particular line because it helps me to better visualize the world that Professor Gossai grew up in.
The question I always ask myself is: when writing in colloquial speech, am I making my subjects sound uneducated? Am I making them seem bad? Dr. Gossai seems to have gotten over that thought, and I applaud him for it. Without such authenticity in a story, then there's no way anyone could enjoy it as much without the realism of everyday speech.
At first, it was a bit hard to read, but after a while I began to fall into the pattern what he heard as he was growing up. Without such dialogue, I can't really read the story as well, nor can I believe it as much.
This particular line struck me because I've always been fascinated by how well colloquial language is written into a story. Although there are many different topics I could cover about this passage from River Crossings, I have chosen this particular line because it helps me to better visualize the world that Professor Gossai grew up in.
The question I always ask myself is: when writing in colloquial speech, am I making my subjects sound uneducated? Am I making them seem bad? Dr. Gossai seems to have gotten over that thought, and I applaud him for it. Without such authenticity in a story, then there's no way anyone could enjoy it as much without the realism of everyday speech.
At first, it was a bit hard to read, but after a while I began to fall into the pattern what he heard as he was growing up. Without such dialogue, I can't really read the story as well, nor can I believe it as much.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Reflections, September 13, 2007
When writing creative nonfiction, it is always imperative to build the characters in a story. As I've read more stories in this genre, I realize that it is important to build yourself as a character. Just because you're writing the piece, doesn't mean that the reader will automatically know it's you. This brings me to my next quote:
"The art of characterization comes down to establishing a pattern of habits and actions for the person you are writing about and introducing variations into the system." pg. 38, Writing Creative Nonfiction
As Phillip Lopate goes on to write, it is important to tell the reader a bit about yourself through the story. Describe your likes and dislikes, your particular guilty pleasures and what you do for a living. Don't be afraid to let the reader into your world the way you would let in a newfound friend.
Above all else, make yourself human. Don't forget to make sure that you tell about both the good and bad about yourself. Refrain from just making yourself seem like some sort of flat, bland individual. We all have stories to tell.
I think that it is no coincidence that we cover such a topic on the eve of our immersion projects, since we will be central players in events which we'd otherwise never be involved in. Such is the stuff that conflict, and by extension story, is made of.
"The art of characterization comes down to establishing a pattern of habits and actions for the person you are writing about and introducing variations into the system." pg. 38, Writing Creative Nonfiction
As Phillip Lopate goes on to write, it is important to tell the reader a bit about yourself through the story. Describe your likes and dislikes, your particular guilty pleasures and what you do for a living. Don't be afraid to let the reader into your world the way you would let in a newfound friend.
Above all else, make yourself human. Don't forget to make sure that you tell about both the good and bad about yourself. Refrain from just making yourself seem like some sort of flat, bland individual. We all have stories to tell.
I think that it is no coincidence that we cover such a topic on the eve of our immersion projects, since we will be central players in events which we'd otherwise never be involved in. Such is the stuff that conflict, and by extension story, is made of.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Reflections, September 6 2007
This week's quote comes from the piece in Writing Creative Nonfiction entitled "The Shadow Knows".
"He is wearing jeans and a saggy white t-shirt. He has a kind of potato face, lumpy and uneven, a droopy lower lip and a bulbous nose. His hair is grey and thinning, uncombed. He is in his sixties, but he looks a good ten years older." -pg. 258
Initially, it appears that a passage such as this one tells the reader little about creative nonfiction. What brought my attention to the passage, though, is how rich it is in detail. I can actually see this old, seemingly broken down old man, in the room with me as I read.
I will be the first to admit that I struggle with good, vivid descriptions of people. Trying my best to not use one cliche, I inevitably stumble into using another one. But what Lowry did in this story was to bring every person alive, not only through their actions, but also in the way that they are described. Such a tool, the ability to bring someone alive through words, is essential in any creative genre, but in particular in creative nonfiction. After all, the individuals in these stories are real, so great care must be taken to nail that person accurately and fairly.
Fairness. That's another key word that must be explored when talking about creative nonfiction. You have to be fair to your subject, no matter your personal biases. In a sense, that comes out in chapter four of "Creative Nonfiction", about the art of interviewing. Don't come in with a personal agenda, whether writing a story or interviewing someone; simply write the story and get the facts.
"He is wearing jeans and a saggy white t-shirt. He has a kind of potato face, lumpy and uneven, a droopy lower lip and a bulbous nose. His hair is grey and thinning, uncombed. He is in his sixties, but he looks a good ten years older." -pg. 258
Initially, it appears that a passage such as this one tells the reader little about creative nonfiction. What brought my attention to the passage, though, is how rich it is in detail. I can actually see this old, seemingly broken down old man, in the room with me as I read.
I will be the first to admit that I struggle with good, vivid descriptions of people. Trying my best to not use one cliche, I inevitably stumble into using another one. But what Lowry did in this story was to bring every person alive, not only through their actions, but also in the way that they are described. Such a tool, the ability to bring someone alive through words, is essential in any creative genre, but in particular in creative nonfiction. After all, the individuals in these stories are real, so great care must be taken to nail that person accurately and fairly.
Fairness. That's another key word that must be explored when talking about creative nonfiction. You have to be fair to your subject, no matter your personal biases. In a sense, that comes out in chapter four of "Creative Nonfiction", about the art of interviewing. Don't come in with a personal agenda, whether writing a story or interviewing someone; simply write the story and get the facts.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Reflection Part Two- Talking about the Big Stuff
"I was struck by the profound gap in what people remember as important or surprising or tragic."
Page 30, Writing Creative Nonfiction
One of my biggest concerns when writing creative nonfiction has been whether or not I can remember everything that is needed to go into a story. Sometimes, I'll tell myself, "Yes, that's exactly what happened."
More often than not, though, my memory won't be the greatest in the world, whether it's because I simply forgot, or my own biases won't allow me to remember the truth fully. Then there's the whole case of my not wanting to remember something the way it truly happened, because the truth may make me uncomfortable or disgust me.
I liked what Laura Wexler and her journey in writing a piece about the 1946 lynchings in Walton County, Georgia, taught me personally. As a writer for both the George Anne and the Reflector, I've had the opportunity to find multiple points of view. One example that comes to my mind is covering President Bush's visit to Statesboro last year. After it occurred, I was asked to find out how he was really brought to our town. Many of my left leaning friends believed it to be a university breaking it's vow to remain non partisan. What I found out was that...it wasn't quite like that. In fact, the university had very little to do with what actually took place in Hanner that day. Putting my own personal biases aside, I was happy to write a story that didn't confirm what I already believed, and allowed me to find out how such an historic occasion could take place.
Page 30, Writing Creative Nonfiction
One of my biggest concerns when writing creative nonfiction has been whether or not I can remember everything that is needed to go into a story. Sometimes, I'll tell myself, "Yes, that's exactly what happened."
More often than not, though, my memory won't be the greatest in the world, whether it's because I simply forgot, or my own biases won't allow me to remember the truth fully. Then there's the whole case of my not wanting to remember something the way it truly happened, because the truth may make me uncomfortable or disgust me.
I liked what Laura Wexler and her journey in writing a piece about the 1946 lynchings in Walton County, Georgia, taught me personally. As a writer for both the George Anne and the Reflector, I've had the opportunity to find multiple points of view. One example that comes to my mind is covering President Bush's visit to Statesboro last year. After it occurred, I was asked to find out how he was really brought to our town. Many of my left leaning friends believed it to be a university breaking it's vow to remain non partisan. What I found out was that...it wasn't quite like that. In fact, the university had very little to do with what actually took place in Hanner that day. Putting my own personal biases aside, I was happy to write a story that didn't confirm what I already believed, and allowed me to find out how such an historic occasion could take place.
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Finding a Story...Fascinating!
For this week's blog, I wanted to write about the following statement:
"So basically I was following Seidenbaum's advice by seeing everything around me as material for a story, using the way the slaughterhouse uses the whole pig, including hooves and snout and squeal."
-p. 35
I suppose what caught my attention when I read this was that it spoke to my own personal fears for this class. Sometimes, I feel as though I have no stories of my own to tell, no great adventures to tell about to my grandkids someday. Has my life been exciting? I guess it depends on what you mean by exciting. I haven't enlisted to fight in some great crusade, nor have I had a chance to fight for equal rights the way my grandparents did.
But this reminded me that I do have stories in me, and around me. When I took Creative Nonfiction two years ago, I had the same fears about my life. Was it worthy of being put down on paper? Did I do or experience anything worthy of being recorded for posterity? Now, as then, I realize that I do have few good yarns in me, and this quote reminded me of that.
"So basically I was following Seidenbaum's advice by seeing everything around me as material for a story, using the way the slaughterhouse uses the whole pig, including hooves and snout and squeal."
-p. 35
I suppose what caught my attention when I read this was that it spoke to my own personal fears for this class. Sometimes, I feel as though I have no stories of my own to tell, no great adventures to tell about to my grandkids someday. Has my life been exciting? I guess it depends on what you mean by exciting. I haven't enlisted to fight in some great crusade, nor have I had a chance to fight for equal rights the way my grandparents did.
But this reminded me that I do have stories in me, and around me. When I took Creative Nonfiction two years ago, I had the same fears about my life. Was it worthy of being put down on paper? Did I do or experience anything worthy of being recorded for posterity? Now, as then, I realize that I do have few good yarns in me, and this quote reminded me of that.
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