Blurring the Boundaries: Explorations to the Fringes of Nonfiction

Writing Exercises

247 Writing Exercises Marcia Aldrich’s “The Structure of Trouble” Make a list of ten words (the number is arbitrary—it could be fourteen or twenty) that play a defining role in your life. Go through the list and pick the one that compels you the most, even if you don’t understand entirely why. In fact, it would be better if there is some mystery as to why this word draws you. (All the better to write about.) I chose a common word, a frequently used word, not a word used for its novelty, like defenestration (to throw something or someone out of a window). And it’s a word whose meaning changes depending on who is using it and in what context. Yet, generally speaking, we understand its import. This writing prompt might work best if you choose an equally common word whose abstract meaning is easily grasped but whose personal significance is yet to be discovered. Some other examples might be: pain, satisfaction, belief, silence, trust, melancholy. Begin writing about what your associations are with the word, what stories or questions are attached to this word, what problems. Research the word—does it have a history? How do other people use the word? Begin to think about creating your own narrative with the word using a “found” structure such as the diagram, the outline, the companion, the inventory. The point of using a found structure, though you are invited to innovate upon that form, is twofold. You are emptying that form of its accustomed contents and filling it with something unfamiliar, thus creating a kind of friction between the familiar and the unfamiliar. So, too, such a disciplined form provides tension and contrast, perhaps resistance, to the overwhelmingly personal material. 248 writing exercises Monica Berlin’s “The Eighteenth Week” What happens when we take a firsthand account and give it breathing room? Does this new distance allow us to separate ourselves from the experience? And can a personal essay reach greater depths by taking away the personal? As demonstrated in “The Eighteenth Week,” try working through a real-life event in the third person. Pick an event that means a great deal to you, but rather than retell it as you have before, replace the lyric I with the fictive he or she. How do a narrator’s capabilities change when a first-person story is told in the third person? If you’re up to it, experiment further by writing near-identical essays from different points of view. Which version best recounts your story? Eula Biss’s “Time and Distance Overcome” While journalism and the personal essay share many borders, one major difference is journalism’s attempt at neutrality. In a personal essay, the writer can take sides all she wants, though this “taking of sides” would likely be frowned upon if printed on the front page of newspapers. Attempt to create your own personal essay–journalism hybrid by taking an important date in your life (or in the life of a parent or grandparent ) and doing some research to see what other occurrences took place simultaneously. A good place to start is the microfiche collection at your local library. What was the front-page headline on the day you were born, on your parents’ wedding day, on the day of a grandparent ’s death? Essentially, we’re asking ourselves: What connections can be drawn between one’s personal life and the world at large? Allow serendipity to get to work and find out. Ryan Boudinot’s “An Essay and a Story about Mötley Crüe” How often have you started a sentence, “It would be so cool if . . .” writing exercises 249 Now what follows the “if”? In this exercise, indulge your wildest fantasy. If Mötley Crüe’s not your band of choice, then curse somebody else’s tour bus to break down in front of your parents’ house. Or better still, move beyond celebrity sightings and make yourself the hero. How cool would it have been if you had actually made the game-winning shot rather than thunked it off the backboard? You get the idea. Give yourself a chance to live out the dream you never lived yourself. Test yourself under these conditions, because you never know, just maybe—under the strangest of circumstances—those dreams may one day come true. Ashley Butler’s “Dazzle” While...