Appendix 1

Appendix 1: Notes and Discussion Questions on Selected Creative Nonfiction Texts

Aciman, Andre “A Literary Pilgrim Progresses to the Past,” PDF. Here are some quotes from Aciman’s essay about why she writes about a place-

I write to recapture, to preserve and return to the past.
I write about loss and feelings unhinged in provisional places where everyone else seems to have a home and a place…
I may write about a place and displacement but what I’m really writing about is dispersion, evasion, ambivalence…
I may write about a little parks in New York that reminds me of Rome… and about so many spots in the world that will ultimately take me back to Alexandria…I turn to Alexandria, the mythical home of paradox.
I write to find out who I am.
Writing about Alexandria helps me give a geographical frame to a psychological mess…
I keep writing about places. It is because some of them are coded ways of writing about myself
I write about diaspora, dispossession but these big words hold my inner tale together, the way lies help the truth afloat.

Banaszynski, Jacqui “Profiles” (PDF)

The writer must learn how to describe people and place: to locate characters, to describe them physically, to explain their motivations.
Profiles provide specificity
micro illustrates the macro
Stories that rise above the
Specificity stays at the bottom of the ladder of abstraction while themes at the top
Interviews are crucial, knowing what questions to ask to dig out the essence about the subject
Take the person to places she wouldn’t normally go
ask deep questions;Ask questions so layered, so deep, and so odd that they elicit unusual responses
Askquestions that require descriptive answers
follow abstract questions with concrete ones, to elicit specific anecdotes
Make some assumptions that require them to validate what you say, or to argue with you.
turn the subject intoa storyteller
Immerse yourself in your interviews
Telling essential detail.
Moving in close. Then, you have to pull back
When you shift from reporting to writing, you must distance yourself from the characters, your allegiance must be with the reader.
The essential character could be a place, or a building, or a meeting or a festival.

Benham, Kelley “Hearing Our Subjects’ Voices…” (PDF)

Using quotations in a disciplined manner
Using strong quotes. The best quotes are not stand-alone quotes at all but dialogue
Dialogue is easiest for people to read than straight narrative because that’s how we listen to the world and how we communicate.
Dialogue opens up a bit of space on the page gives the story some breathing room
Give the subject’s voice through quotes or bits of dialogues
Drop the quotations marks and tighten it
Try to remain as close as possible to the spirit of the subject’s speech pattern. People’s voices are like found poetry- raw, uncrafted and imperfect. Still we do them the greatest justice when we choose carefully and get out of the way.

Biss, Eula “The Pain Scale”

How does the author connect her fragments?
What gaps do you notice between the fragmentations, which emphasizes the unknown?
How does the space or gap serve a particular purpose?

Bly, Carol “An End to Still Lifes,”

How does Bly write about her quirky character as an artist?
How does she dramatize her young artist’s experience?
How does she incorporate other characters such as her aunt and Mrs. Sasson?
How does she use dialogue to dramatize the scene?)

Bowden, Mark “Finders Keepers: The Story of Joey Coyle”

Why does the author describe the place (South Philly) first before his protagonist?
How does Bowden use dialogues to portray his characters? How else does he succeed in introducing different types of characters to the reader?)
How does Bowden use dialogues to portray his characters? How else does he succeed in introducing different types of characters to the reader?

Brown, Deneen L. “To Begin the Beginning” (PDF)

What’s the story about? What’s the theme? Where can I place a character quickly in a scene? How can I tempt the reader?
How can I allow a reader to enter the subject’s thoughts, show her feelings?
The beginning is where you can establish a relationship with the reader.
Beginning to read a story should feel life embarking on a journey, starting toward a destination.
The writer must decide what larger meaning the story represent and lead the reader to that.
If you had enough space to run with the full dialogue of your character, letting the truth of how people really speak, the truth what you saw?
Write our stories as natural story-tellers would. Don’t even stop for punctuation. Let the words fly.
Each sentence in your story should build on the one before, keeping the reader hooked.
Start the story with the tensest moment/pinpoint and then spread out. Start with a tight shot and then pan wide.
Begin with the specifics and then explain why.
The story should have a beginning, middle and end, so should each scene.
Create multidimensional stories and characters. Go deep.
“ Evoke the soul of a place” – Phil Dixson
“The story is in the dark. This is why inspiration is thought of as coming in flashes. Going into a narrative –into a narrative process- is a dark road. You can’t see your way ahead… The well of inspiration is a hole that leads downward. Go deep into the darkness to find the story”- Margaret Atwood.

Calderazzo, John “Running Xian,”

How does each author describe a foreign culture in a foreign place?
How does the author’s description of the culture serve as an unbiased introduction to the reader?
What may have caused their attention about the articular culture? What’s the author’s attitude? How does he convey such an attitude?
Is there any tension caused by the unfamiliar culture? How does s/he describe the tension?

Degregory, Lane “Finding Good Topics: A Writer’s Questions”

Unfolding actions- something has to happen so the story can progress from one point to another
Gain access- would you be able to interview people (or find details through research)?
I can make something happen.
Has something significant already happened? What are the effects? Are there any videos or pictures?
Do I want to tell the story around one scene or five minutes or a whole day or perhaps follow (focus on) someone over a period of time?
Do the characters experience epiphany? (What kind of realization do they have or lack at the end of the story?
What’s the big idea? Thinking about universal truth frames your subject and move it from one specific story to a symbol that everyone can appreciate.

DeSilva, Bruce “Endings,” TTS, 116-121

The ending is your final chance to nail the point of the story to the readers’ memory.
Your ending must do four things-
- Signal to the reader the piece is over
- Reinforce your central point
- Resonate in your reader’s mind
- Arrive on time
- They offer a twist that readers don’t see coming but they nevertheless strikes them as exactly right.
Ways to reach an effective ending-
- A vividly drawn scene
- A memorable anecdote that clarifies the main point of the story
- A telling detail that symbolizes something larger than itself or suggests how the story might more forward into the future
- A compelling crafted conclusion in which t writer address the reader directly and says,” This is my point.”
- Use symmetry ( end with an idea that echoes the beginning)
- End with a quote
- In narrative, the resolution of the problem is your ending. Once you arrive at it, find the nearest exit.
- When you story is a narrative, write the ending first. Remember the ending is your destination.

Ehrlich, Gretel “From The Solace of Open Spaces”.

How does Gretel Ehrlich explore the relationships between Wyoming’s wide open landscape and the language used by the cowboys, culture of exclusion and the characteristics of its people?

Faludi, Susan “The Naked Citadel” –

Research element questions:

Why does the place the author writes about require extensive research to expose its culture?
What are the parts that are informational?
How does the author incorporate research in her essay to enhance the reader’s interests?
How does the author expose her personal views toward the issue?

Dramatic scene questions:

How does Faludi use summary narrative passages to link dramatic scenes? What effect does the shift have on the reader?
Select an example of summary narrative in the essay and identify the traits of the passage (emphasis on the abstract, collapsed time, employment of direct quotes, topical organization, omniscient point of view, writer’s hovering over the scene, statement of outcome instead of process, high end on the ladder of abstraction, consisting of digression, backstory, and explication)
Select an example of dramatic narrative and identify the traits within (emphasis on concreate details, reader’s direct experiences of the event( actions are described as if they were happening at the moment), employment of dialogue, characters talking to one another, organization by scenes, specific point of view, clear narrative stance( writer is inside the scene), dealing with process and giving specific description, consisting of story’s main line of action)

Franklin, Jon “A Story Structure” by WTS, 109-111

All our lives are lives are narrative…story is something else: take select pats of a narrative, separately, then from everything else, and arranging them so that they have meaning. Meaning is intrinsic to storytelling.
We mistake meaning for opinion. Journalism has very little to do with meaning. …what made stories powerful…character and plot.
Anton Chekov defines a story by its points of change, or plot points. The first point of change, at the end of the beginning, is the character complication. It is the point when main characters runs into something that complicates his or her life ( not necessarily a conflict but something that forces the character to exert effort.
The key is to find the significant point of change.
“Points of Insight”, the moment when the story turns toward the resolution, when the main character ( and/or the reader) finally grasp the true nature of the problem and knows what must be done about it.
Good stories show how people survive.
All stories have three layers-

The top layer is what actually happens- the narrative
The next layer is how those events make the main character feel. If the writer succeeds in getting the reader to suspend disbelief ad see through the character’s eyes, then the character’s and the reader’s feelings will be joined.
There is another layer below the factual and the emotional. It’s the rhythm of the piece and evokes the universal theme: love endures, wisdom prevails, children mature, war destroys, prejudice perverts.

The rhythms are the most important to storytelling. Storytelling can be symphonic.
The narrative writers may choose to speak at three levels very consciously, but the effect on the reader is usually unconscious.
Rhythm exists in story from the sentence level right up to the sectional level.
We like stories because we think in stores; it is how we derive meaning from the world.
You know the narrative behind the piece of news. The human mind looks at the evidence- new information and past experience- and figures out scenario, forms the narrative. This is why structure reveals meaning and why we like stories that have structure.

Halberstam, David “The Narrative Idea” by (PDF)

Once you have an idea, it just flows out. Taking an idea, a central point, and pursuing it, turning it into a story that tells something about the way we live today, is the essence of narrative journalism.( 11)
The more time, the more interviews you can do, the greater the density of your work.
Telling a good story demands a great conception, a great idea for why the story works- for what it is and how it connects to the human conditions…you must be able to point to something larger.
The more reporting- the more anecdotes, perception, and wisdom on a subject, the better. Ask: who else should I see? The more reporting you do, the more authority your voice has. The more views of any subject that you get, the better.
Research and examine a good story. Figure out what the reporter did and how s/he controls the story and why it worked.

Hall, Meredith “Shunned,” In Fact, 49-70

How does she weave many pieces together to portray the suffocating loneliness after becoming an outcast?
She was not only ostracized by her friends, church but her own mother and father. She writes about her close friendship with her friends from school, her mother’s active role in a church, to the day when she revealed herself to be pregnant and how the community worked together to forget her and erase her existence.
She writes about a small box that contains things that survive the childhood; she even writes about the long lasting effect of her being rejected by the people she was close to after becoming a teacher in a university and her student still refuses to acknowledge her past.
She writes about Mrs. Taccetta from the church, Kathy and Chris, her best friends, Miss Millet her teacher, her stepmother, father, stepsister Molly, her giving up her baby for adoption, Mrs. Emmet the headmaster of a private school and even Paul her mother’s friend etc.
There are so many scenes and characters described in the narrative. What holds them all together? Is she successful? How does she do so? What’s her burning question?)

Harrison, William “Present Tense Africa” in pdf

What particular places in Africa does Harrison describe?
What cultural issues does he direct the reader’s attention to either subtly or directly?
How does he infuse the descriptions of the culture of each place in his essay?
Does he show his attitude toward the different cultures he experiences? How do you know?
What do you believe compel the author to write about Africa?
What does the title suggest his attitude toward the place and its people?

Hart, Jack “Summary vs Dramatic Narrative” by (TTS 111)

Most narrative pieces shift between summary and dramatic narrative. The summary (out of the story) provides the link between scenes, which are usually written in dramatic scenes (in the story).
Summary narrative: emphasis on the abstract, collapsed time, employment of direct quotes, topical organization, omniscient point of view, writer’s hovering over the scene, statement of outcome instead of process, high end on the ladder of abstraction, consisting of digression, backstory, and explication
Dramatic narrative: emphasis on concreate details, reader’s direct experiences of the event( actions are described as if they were happening at the moment), employment of dialogue, characters talking to one another, organization by scenes, specific point of view, clear narrative stance( writer is inside the scene), dealing with process and giving specific description, consisting of story’s main line of action

LeBlanc, Adrian Nicole “Narrative J School for People who Never Went” (PDF)

The assignment is just a frame to get started. When I start a story, I often feel baffled. I ask myself and others such basic questions as: What is a “gang girl?” What do people mean when they say those words? What associations do they bring to mind?
When I begin reporting, I’m the thermometer for the story. I constantly gauge my reactions.
I made personal journal entries while also taking field notes or making tape recordings. I wrote about how I felt about the field work, who I liked, who I didn’t like, who annoyed me, who held my attention, and why.
I must draft scenes immediately. I do it right after reporting — ideally, as I’m typing my notes. Fleshing out my notes as soon as possible.
The initial reporting can be extremely difficult. I find that I hit a wall of despair because I am so much on the outside. I need to move closer to the inside, but I don’t know how to get there or even where it is. I always get through that phase.
By listening to what I decide to say, I discover which story line I’ most interested in. If I keep coming back to one person, that’s the one I choose. That conversation becomes an arrow pointing to where I should go.
I don’t have questions yet. I really just want to shadow you for a while.
People need time — lots of time. Most people, regardless of age or social class, are rarely listened to without interruption, asked questions, and responded to thoughtfully.
Imagine I’m making a movie of your life. I have to trail you around with a camera because I’m trying to show people nothing but your life. I have to see your bedroom, meet your friends, see how you are with your mom. I’m going to watch you, and I’m going to see it differently from the way you do. I’ll talk to other people about you. I’ll be here for a while, and then I’m going to disappear and write my story about your life. It won’t be the story of your life. It will be one tiny piece of what we’ve talked about. You will tell me one thousand things, and two of them will end up in the story.” Ethically and logistically, it is important that your subjects understand the dynamic as much as they can.
It is important for me to understand my own responses to situations, not because they are inherently interesting but because they create a map of my unfolding understanding.
It is important to know, in equal measure, what I might want to believe, what I resist, and what I’m excited to learn. The dead ends and blind spots offer terrific paths to narrative. My own confusion sometimes informs a narrative strategy.
To help understand my own responses, I try not to fill my mind with other people’s ideas. I don’t necessarily do background preparation before I begin reporting.
To stay quiet and listen.

Lemann, Nicholas “ Weaving Story and Idea” by ( TTS 112)-

Wolfe uses status details about dress and décor and accent, precise location on a socioeconomic map, scenes, character’s points of view, dialogue
Wolfe uses a master hypothesis to drive the entire work while proposing constructs and rubrics throughout the book that drives and shape the story
Well-rendered stories include some larger issues or implications.
To develop a strong idea track, the writer gains strong command of the material. Ambitious narrative journalists must do literature reviews.
Once the writer is fully familiar with the subject, the next step is analogous to matching up the sound track ( an idea plot- an ordered succession of arguments that move forward in sync with the narrative plot. In these places, the writer stops the narrative and signals the meaning or where the narrative is headed next) and the visual track (the movement of the characters through a series of dramatic events I memorable settings) while making a movie.
The more the writer thinks about the movement of the idea tack in the narrative while reporting, the less clunky the execution.
The “marriage moments” are places where the idea track and the narrative track intersect. Marriage moments rise when authority figures make decisions that shape the story’s direction. Marriage moments fasten the idea track more firmly to the narrative track.
The marriage of narrative and analysis is the fundamental project of journalism.
According to Lemann, a CNF writer needs to create “an idea plot” or “idea track” (an ordered succession of arguments that move forward in sync with the narrative plot). He states, “In these places, the writer stops the narrative and signals the meaning or where the narrative is headed next”. Identify an example of such a “place “ in “The Naked Citadel”. Describe the “ idea plot” of the essay and a summary of the narrative. Are there any place where the idea track and the narrative track intersect, what Lemann calls “marriage moments”?

Lepore, Jill “The Prodigal Daughter”( pdf)

How does the author juxtapose her personal story with that of Jane Franklin’s, Benjamin Franklin’s sister?
How does she weave her mother, Jane Franklin and herself, three women from different generations together?
Although Jane Franklin lived from the 18^th century and could barely spell, she didn’t stop expressing her opinions to her famous brother and chronicling her own life. The author’s mother was young and wild once but contained after her marriage. Although she never stopped painting, she never pursued her passion. Now it seems the mother never stops urging her daughter to go further, college, grad school and writing a book about Jane Franklin. It is through researching about Jane and her mother’s constant reminder that the author finally becomes determined to finish her book. The ways she parallels her personal life and Jane Franklin’s make one wonder if the author is trying to say that behind each great success, there is great inspiration by unsung heroes such as Jane to Benjamin or her mother to herself. What do you think is the burning question that different parts of her writing are connected to?

Lopez, Barry “Landscape and Narrative” (PDF)

There are two landscapes-one outside one self, the other within. The external landscape is the one we see- not only he line and color of the land and its shading at different times of the day, but also its plants and animals and season, its weather, its geology, the record of its climate and evolution… these are the elements of the land.
The second landscape is an interior one, a kind of projection within a person of a part of the exterior landscape… the speculations, intuitions are formal ideas we refer to as “ mind” are a set of relationships in the interior landscape with purpose and order, many impenetrably subtle.
The shapes and climate of these relationships in a person’s thinking re deeply influences by where on the earth one goes, what one touches, the patterns one observes in nature- the intricate history of one’s life in the land, even a life in the city where wind, the chirp of birds, the line of falling leaf, are known. The interior landscape responds to the character and subtlety of an exterior landscape, the shape of the individual mind is affected by land as it is by genres.

Lott, Bret “Toward a Definition of Nonfiction”

Notes on Creative Nonfiction Writing

Page 195 & 200

Summary of the Excerpt:

As human beings, we are writers; we are artists. Creative nonfiction is a matter of looking back and reflecting on our experiences (our lives).
We have responsibilities to creative nonfiction. A proactive element of creative nonfiction is the responsibility as human beings to answer for and to our lives.
Responsibility towards Creative nonfiction is a complex task that comes with the reward of understanding.

The purpose of creative nonfiction is not to change history or change what happened; it’s to retell your truth, truly understand what happened, and learn from it.

Quotes that Support the Summary/Main Idea:

“Any definition of true worth to you as a writer will and must come to you experientially. What creative nonfiction is will reveal itself to you only at the back end of things, once you have written it.”
“There are occasions when we all feel guilt and remorse; we all want to turn back time. But even if we were able, things would go in precisely the same way, because the mistakes we make are not in our judgments but in our natures.”
“”It is in creative nonfiction we try to divine from what we have done, who we have known, what we have dreamt and how we have failed, an order to our lives.”
“This responsibility to answer for and to ourselves must be woven through the interrogation of self as to whether this is folly or wisdom, through the pledge to humility and to avoiding the abyss of self-righteousness…”
“And this responsibility to answer for and to ourselves must be woven through our recognition that the only truth I can hope to approach will finally and always and only be my truth.”
“But if we are rigorous enough, fearless enough, and humble enough to attempt this responsibility, this way of seeing– for creative nonfiction is simply and complexly a way of seeing– the rewards we will reap will be great: we will understand. To understand, and nothing more, and that is everything.”

Creative Nonfiction Characteristics:

Real life experiences/ No dramatic events needed
Focused / Truth
Tone:Telling The Truth; No Boasting; Admit One’s Fault
Purpose: To Inspire; To Make Connections; To Reveal Universal Truth; To Reflect

Lowry, Beverly “Not the Killing But Why” (PDF)

You go with what instinct tells you
You are in unknown territory. You marshal your wits, gather up your best imitation of nonchalance, turn the door handle, step in.
You are operating on instinct and the need to know
One foot in front of the other, let them( subjects) do the talking
On question may or may not lead to the next. You ask it anyway. Hope for the best, swing with the results, follow up with another. This will never change.
Imagination is perverse and the lively mind likes challenge, and stories based on event and facts.
Writing a story, you have to make the fictional technique work with the information you have gathered and the commentaries you have managed to come up with.

Kramer, Mark “Reporting for Narrative: Ten Tips”-

Characters move through experiences; the movement crosses the topical categories of any subject
Characters take action over time and events unfold
The author must gather all the topical information and all the actions.
Before selecting a topic, think carefully about what will intrigue readers
Once you have the reader’s attention, you can digress to give background information
Keep readers’ mind hooked by inserting new questions on every page, like laying out small puzzles for the reader to solve while keeping the flow of the narrative
Access is everything. For any story, you must have access to people at what Henry James called “ felt life level”, which means the level of informal comprehension that you have of your subject at the end of a day spent reporting
Do your homework before interviewing your subject
Find the unfolding action that will provide the narrative line
Subject doesn’t mean topic, location, main character, it mans what the story is about or at a deeper level.
You don’t have to follow chronological order. Your narrative should focus on your subject’s life.
Find hints of character in the action
Find the right scene details though careful sensory reporting
To construct long ago events or any scene, ask your subject to help you.
Pinpoint your subject’s emotional experience not your own.
Rigorously research your story’s context. Narrative exists inside a social context, economic context, etc.
Give necessary background information. Frame your story. Do just enough research to orient yourself, do most of your reporting.
Late in the drafting process, crystallize the point of your story. Narrative writing is creating the right sequential intellectual and emotional experiences for readers. All the scenes, characterization and background must head toward a destination. The ending must by a pay off
Very late in the writing process, refine the differences between your views and your subject’s views (you needn’t mask your view but make sure your readers can understand your subject’s perspectives.)
Cherish the structural ideas and metaphors that come to you while you are reporting. Write notes to yourself about how to write your piece.

McPherson,Sandra “Secrets: Beginning to Write them Out” (PDF)-

For what reasons would you refuse to write about it?
Have you at some time written about a subject or event that you withheld for a long time? If so, describe what you went through to get it on the page.
Writers need especially to feel confident about the decision they have made for themselves- to reveal or not to reveal. Snodgrass wrote, “When events in the poem became no longer applicable in my life, they will be applicable to feelings of other lives.”
We should place our work in history. The writer, unlike journalist, maybe struggling to survive a story of much personal anguish. We must ask for things we may not want to hear but which we crave because they are true. We must do it without tattling, or without a tone of tattling, gossiping or babbling.
To write about painful memories, we need to learn to ask questions about what we don’t see and to be good observers of what we do see. Any private story is human history not just your own. It can help someone else to live, some else who is perhaps feeling hopeless. Tobias Wolff says a good writer has “the willingness to say that unspeakable thing, which everyone else in the house is too coy, or too frightened, or too polite to say.”

Miller, Brenda & Paola, Suzanne “ The Body of Memory”

a. The Earliest Memory

What’s the memory that always emerges from dim reaches of your consciousness as the first one, the beginning of your life you call your own? ( p. 4)
a mysterious fascination( p.4)
Memory has been called ultimate myth maker ( p. 4)
” How we create ourselves through Memory”
The first memory then becomes the starting point in our own narratives of the self ( p. 4)
” This is who I ma because this is how I begin”
river teeth… vivid moments that stay in mind long after the events that spurred them have been forgotten(p.5)
moments of being
we get jolted out of our everyday complacency to really see the world that all that it contains- the shock receiving capacity
the pattern of her mother’s dress, the pull cord of the window blind skittering across the floor of their beach house( p.5)
the memories that have the most emotional impact( p.5)
the images that rise up before us quite without our volition ” our mother’s face as she sips from a cooled cup of coffee, her eyes betraying some private grief you have seen before, or the smell of grapefruit ripening on a tree outside your bedroom, the touch of a stranger’s hand (p.5)
what repository memory do you hold in your heart rather than your head?what pictures that rise up to the surface without your bidding?

Metaphysical Memory

make intuitive connections( p.6)
probe for any insights they may contain( p.6)
ask what but why-why these memories and not others ( p.6)
most stubborn and intractable part of the scene
The best material cannot be deciphered in an instant..inscrutable images whose meaning is never clear at first( p.6)
As a child I realized no such thing. but AS AN ADULT-AS A WRITER PRESERVING THIS MEMORY IN LANGUAGE- I BEGIN TO CREATE METAPHOR THAT WILL INFILTRATE BOTH MY WRITING AND MY SENSE OF SELF FROM HERE ON OUT.( p. 6)
Where is your body in this memory? What kind of language does it speak? What metaphors does it offer you to puzzle out in writing?

Muscle Memory

the memory of how to execute these movements will be encoded in the muscles ( p.7)
Because memory is so firmly fixed in the body, it takes an object that appeals to the senses to dislodge memory and allow it to float freely into the mind or onto the page ( p.7)
the body’s story
the most potent images and stories are those that ” by pass the rhetoric and piece the heart”( p.7)
The body can offer an inexhaustible store of triggers…( p.7)
Sometimes what matters to us most is what has mattered to the body…
Memory pretends to live in the cerebral cortex but t requires muscle to animate it again for the page.

The Five Senses of Memory

By paying attention to the sensory gateways of the body, you also begin t rite in a way that naturally embodies experiences, making it tactile for the realer. ( p. 7)
“Smell is a potent wizard that transports us across thousands of miles and all the years we have lived.”
…the image aroused by smell act as beacons leading to our richest memories, our most private selves. Smell is so intimately tied up with breath, after a;;, a function of our bodies that works continually, day and night, keeping us alive.And so smell keys us into the memories that evoke the continual ebb and flow of experience.
WHAT ARE THE SMELLS YOU REMEMBER THAT EVEN IN MEMORY MAKE YOU STOP A MOMENT AND BREATH DEEPLY, OR MAKE YOUR HEART MOVE VIGOROUSLY, YOUR PALMS ACHE FOR WHAT’S BEEN LOST?

Taste:

Food is one of the most social gifts we have.
The food acts as more than mere sustenance; it becomes a moment of communion.

Sound

..we’ve learned to filter sounds..becoming inured to the rest. But these sounds often make up a subliminal backdrop to our lives, and even the faintest echo can tug back moments from the past in their entirety.
Music is not so subtle but rather acts as a blaring soundtrack to out emotional lives.
We often orchestrate our memories around the music that accompanies those pivotal eras of our lives.

Touch

As we grow, this need for touch is essential as medicine for their patients healing.
We are constantly aware of our bodies, of how they feel as they move through the world. WITHOUT THIS SENSE WE become lost and disoriented IN SPACE AND TIME. and the people who have affected us the most are the ones who have touched us in some way, who have reached beyond this barrier of skin and made contact with our small , isolates selves.

Sight

..Our sense of sight seems to tied up in our perceptions, stance, opinions, personalities, and knowledge of the world. To see something often means to finally understand, to be enlightened, to have our vision cleared. What we choose to see-and not to see-often says more about us than anything else.(12)

Miller, Brenda & Paola, Suzanne ” The Basic of Good Writing in Any Form” ( pp 163-180 Tell it Slant 2nd edition 2012)

Scene vs Exposition

Scene is based on action unreeling before us as it would in a film, and it will draw techniques as fiction-dialogue, description, point of view, specificity, concrete details. ( 164)
Scene also encompasses the lyricism and imagery of great poetry.
[scene] gives eh reader a more experiential version of the time
Moves:
1. include representative scene
2. make a choice for point of view
3. dialogues sound real

Miller, Brenda & Paola, Suzanne ” Writing the Family” ( pp 17-24 Tell it Slant 2nd edition 2012)

Situating Yourself in Relation to Family

Summary & Main Ideas:

Despite being a separate individual, we are a part of something greater– we’re a part of a clan, a family.
Our families are key to who we are. They contribute to our development as an individual.
When writing about family, it’s best to address the broad big issues by focusing on specific small details.
If you address every single thing, you will leave your readers confused and exhausted.

Important Quotes:

“From the minute we arrive in the world, we’re put at the mercy of the people who care for us. And we might find the rest of our lives taken up with dual, contradictory impulses: to be an integral part of this clan and to be a separate individual, set apart.”
“Our families, however they’re configured, provide our first mirrors, our first definitions of who we are. And they become our first objects of love, anger, and loyalty.”
“The most important strategy for dealing with family is learning how you can approach the big issues by focusing on the smallest details.”
“It’s often tempting, especially when you’re dealing with emotionally charged material, to try and encompass everything into one essay. Such a strategy will leave you, and your readers, numb and exhausted.”
“This subject will lead into even bigger ideas about how we read history to one another, how we re-create our histories as part of our love for one another.”

The Biographer

“This slight shift in perspective just might be enough to create the emotional distance necessary to begin shaping experience into literature on the page.”
“It will also allow you to take a broader view of your subject that encompasses community, culture, and history.”
“It will still be a subjective account— all biographies filter through the mind and emotional perspective of a writer— but it will be an account that has managed to take a wider view.”
“Sometimes it’s helpful to imagine our relatives as they must have been before we knew them as mother, father, grandmother, and so forth.”
“We then move from this imaginative scene into a ‘real’ one closer to the present day; the contrast between the two allows for a kind of understanding and character development that would otherwise be impossible.”
“You’ll find that even if you haven’t written a full-fledged biography, you will have found fresh ways to conceptualize those people who are closest to you.”

The Obstacle Course

“When we write about family, we set ourselves up for a plethora of ethical, emotional, and technical issues that may hinder us from writing altogether.”
“And when we set out to write about family, we are naturally going to feel compelled to break long silences that may have kept the family together in the first place.”
“In recent years, many creative nonfiction works have emerged that take on issues of child abuse, incest, alcoholic parents, and other emotionally charged issues. When you sit down to write, you might feel obligated to write about traumas of your family history. You might feel these are the only issues ‘worth’ tackling in literature.”
“Family is always an enormous subject, and as writers, we must find a way to handle this subject with both aplomb and discretion.”
“If your family history is particularly charged, it will be even more essential for you to find the smaller details— the miniscule anecdotes— that will lead the way into a successful essay.”
“But they must arrive on the page less as issues and more as scenes, images, and metaphors that will evoke a strong response from the reader.”

Permission to Speak

- “While drafting your essay, you must instinctively drown out the voices that tell you not to write.”
- “But once you know you have an essay that is more for public consumption than private venting, you have some difficult decisions to make. How much of this is really your own story to tell?”
- “Writers deal with this dilemma in a variety of ways.”
- “However you choose to negotiate these tricky issues, remember that your story is your story to tell. Yours is not the only story or perspective on family or on your community, but it is a perfectly valid voice among the chorus.”
- “And if you examine this truth with a healthy sense of perspective and with literary skill, you may be surprised at the reactions you evoke among your subjects.”
- “If we are going to write successfully about family, our motives must be more than simple exposure of family history and secrets. We must have some perspective on our experience that spurs the essay beyond on our personal ‘dirty laundry’ and into the realm of literature.”
- “Our role as writers can be that of the witness. We continually beat witness to those around us, and sometimes our job is to speak for those who have never spoken for themselves.”

Monson, Ander “I Have Been Thinking About Snow” (pdf)-

How does Monson use a particular form to connect the various scenes?
How does the form fit the story?
Is there any particular form you may like to adopt or invent for your content, which can enhance the meaning of your essay?

Peterson, Brenda “ Growing Up Game”

Consider your own gender. What expectations are on you because of your gender?
How do you feel about those expectations?
Were you ever envious over another gender? If so, why? Have you ever been discriminated against because of your gender?
What sorts of tasks do you perform at home, in school, in life, which are gender-based?
What does your gender “get” you?
What does it exclude you from?)

Rhodes, Jewell Parker “ Mixed- Blood” Stew

Examine the diction of “Slave Auction”.
What details are specific references to “truth”?
How are child’s curiosity and mother’s shame juxtaposed?
Chunk up the scenes that move the story horizontally.
List five characters and each group focuses on one character. Identify lines that suggest action, or reveal quirks in the character.
How does Rhodes inject historical context in her essay?
How does her personal story reflect history?
How do we use documents or artifacts to explore our past ( discover personal story)?
How does the author use dialogues in this piece?
How does Rhodes end her piece? How does she explore the ethical implications and lyricism through the ending?

Sanders, George In Saunders’ “ Buddha Boy”, how does the author make the reader “ hear” the Buddha boy’s “ voice” even though Buddha boy never spoke a word? What other strategies does Saunders use to reveal the subject’s voice? His own?

Schwartz, Mimi “Research and Creative Nonfiction: Writing so the Seams Don’t Show” (PDF).

research enriches the text, making people , events, and their historic and cultural contexts come alive more fully ; but research can also interrupt the narrative flow and break down the voice so the writing sounds more like a text book or news report than like creative nonfiction. So how do we gracefully weave what’s known and what came from research so that readers can’t tell what came from where?
Schwartz suggests conscious research-jogging existing memory of people and place, reading books on the subject, doing research before writing; the more you mastered the new information, the easier “ effortless” is. Reflect on how Lepore incorporates her research about Jane Franklin into her essay in the “The Prodigal Daughter”.

Slater,Lauren “ Three Spheres”

Who are the characters and what do you know about them?
Identify scenes that correspond to each sphere. How does the author use various scenes to move the story horizontally?
What’s the purpose of the initial intake notes?
How does the author portray a conflicted character through a blended doctor-patient image?
How does the author use writerly techniques to create “I”? ( self as a character, as described in Lopate’s piece)
How does she move between past and present? What effects does the movement have on the reader?
What’s the purpose of specific places used throughout the essay?
What tension/conflict does the author explore to keep the story moving? When and where is it revealed first? How does she iron out the conflict in the end?
How does Slater use language ( i.e. doctor’ jargons) to shift her voice?
How does Slater trek the borderline between fiction and non-fiction?
Ethically, how does she select report or details that are within the boundary of a doctor-patient confidentiality?
What makes us believe her story? To what extent is her story believable? Why?
How do we write about secrets? What can we learn from her piece? ( i.e. academic distance, sensibility, making ethical decision, narrative voice showing vulnerability / authenticity)
What kind of connections can we make with other readings such as thematic connection, character connection or craft connection?

Talbot, Margaret “Gone Girl: The Extraordinary Resilience of Elizabeth Smart”

Which part of the narrative is research-based, reporting, or through interviews, respectively?
What kind of interview questions do you assume the author used to portray Elizabeth Smart?
What is the author’s attitude toward Smart and how do you know? What’s the subject’s attitude toward the issue? How do you know?

Vowell, Sarah “What He Said There”,

how does the author seem to be “journalistically” reporting about Lincoln?
How does she establish a sense of urgency or importance to the topic?
How does she reveal her subjectivity on the topic? How does she portray Lincoln from a very specific perspective?
What questions could she have used for her interviews and research to help her gather information? What do we know about Gettysburg, its past and present through this piece?
How does the author connect with her subject?

Wilkerson, Isabel “Interviewing: Accelerated Intimacy” (PDF); “

Interview ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances
We can’t write the beautiful narrative stories unless we caught some things from the mouths of our sources
How to make our sources comfortable enough to tell us anything-
- Define a natural relationship between you and the source
- Ask many questions and be a great audience (nod, look straight into their eyes, laugh at their jokes etc.)
- Consider interviews as guided conversations- make the interaction as enjoyable as possible
- Interview is like pealing an onion- we need to make sure we don’t give up before the 7^th phase
  - Introduction
  - Adjustment- feeling each other out
  - Moment of connection- give people a chance to get their thoughts together
  - Settling in- enjoy the interactions
  - Revelation- the source feels conformable enough to reveal something very deep and candid. Even when what the person says is important to her but not important to you. It suggests a turning point in the person’s sense of trust
  - Deceleration- you try to bring to closure. Close your notebook and stop taking notes.
  - Reinvigoration- the source feels to say almost anything and now make the very best revelation of the interview.
- Don’t ever lead your sources. We must have tremendous humility as we interview and understand the enormity of what our sources are doing when they talk to us.
- We have a tremendous responsibility and obligation to tell their stories accurately and in a fair and balance way. Your own sense of integrity, honesty ad empathy matters more than anything. Empathy is the balance to power. It is important to honor the people who allow themselves to be represented of something larger in our society.

Wolfe, Tom “ Yaeger”-

How does the essay begin with a profile of a typical captain of an aircraft, with specific emphasis on his voice, a particular drawl?
How is the protagonist, Chuck Yaeger, introduced?
How is Yaeger physically described? How does the physical portrayal of the subject serve a specific purpose?
How does the information about Yaeger’s background help reveal his character?
How does the niche profile of Yeager as a pilot during the WWII reveal deeply what kind of man and soldier he was, thus foreshadowing the events that were forthcoming?
Why is it necessary for the author to add a paragraph profile of Pancho Barnes?
Why is the scene of Yeager getting broken ribs after falling off a horse crucial to the development of the story?
How is the background information about supersonic airplanes integral to the development of the story as well as Yaeger’s character?
When Yaeger broke the sound barrier and became the fastest man on the earth, how did he communicate the breaking news with the engineer on the ground? How does the scene relate to the beginning of the story?
How does the story end? Did you anticipate such an ending? How does the ending clinch Yeager’s character as well as a period in the American history?
How does the author use dialogues? How does he describe Muroc by using sensory details and quirks of the landscape, such as Joshua tree? Why is the description of the place essential to the story?

Craft questions-

How does the author draw the reader in by establishing a sense of urgency or importance to the topic or create a sense of immediacy and interest for the reader?
How does the author use scene, exposition, description, dialogue, imagery, metaphor, lyricism to serve a specific purpose?
How does the author’s subjectivity and positionality come into play in writing this piece, if at all?
Is the author the central focus or a peripheral presence in the story? How do you know?
How does the author reveal his or her voice, shed a certain light on the subject and reveal something about his/her own character and ethos?

WRT114 Creative Nonfiction

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