Creative
Non-Fiction.
I have often used the term
creative nonfiction, lately, and have been telling my friends something
of what it means. I’m learning what it means.
I purchased Zinsser’s book “On Writing Well.” I find many useful
tips in his book.
“Ultimately every writer must follow the path that feels most
comfortable,” Zinsser writes. “For most people learning to write, that
path is nonfiction. It enables them to write about what they know or
can observe or can find out. This is especially true of young people
and students. They will write far more willingly about subjects that
touch their own lives or that they have an aptitude for. Motivation
is the heart of writing. If nonfiction is where you do your best writing,
or your best teaching of writing, don’t be
buffaloed into the idea that it’s an inferior species.”
I bought another book in the same section
in the bookstore called Writing Creative Nonfiction, by Theodore
A. Cheney. This book also
has many helpful tips. In this book Cheney spells out in fine detail the various techniques
used in writing creative nonfiction. Zinsser writes more about what
creative nonfiction is in the larger sense. This larger sense may be
useful information but I want to learn what the tools of the craft are
in themselves before anything else.
“If a man
has a house to build, his impetuous hand does not rush into action.
The measuring line of his mind first lays out the work, and he mentally
outlines the successive steps in a definite order. The mind’s hand shapes
the entire house before the body’s hand builds it. Its mode of being
is archetypal before it is actual…let the poet’s hand not be swift to
take up the pen, nor his tongue be impatient to speak; trust neither
hand nor tongue to the guidance of fortune. To ensure greater success
for the work, let the discriminating mind act as a prelude to action.
Defer the operation of hand and tongue. And ponder long on the subject
matter. Let the mind’s interior compass first at what point the pen
will take up its course, or where it will fix its Cadiz. As a Prudent workman, construct
the whole fabric within the mind’s citadel; let it exist in the mind
before it is on the lips.” Poetica
Nova, Geoffrey of Vinsauf. ca.
1200.
I found this quote in my notes
from a review of the Norton Anthology of Literary Criticism, a book
that speaks about what literature is, or is not, in voices from across
the ages –and it seems to fit in here. I mention it because it is a
literary device. It is literary to add quotes from other authors
that eloquently illustrates your subject, especially if you can’t
come up with one yourself. It may also be that I relate to the quote
because I’m a house builder myself. I’ve learned in the course of that
profession that I wouldn’t want to build anything without first possessing
the tools. So what are these tools?
Cheney says in his book that
a creative nonfiction writer must write in scenes and this makes good
sense. “In traditional journalism”
Cheney writes,” the basic building block was the fact. Reporters rushed
around collecting facts from dusty records at City Hall, interviewing
experts, and talking with the people involved. Facts piled on facts,
interview quotes stacked on interview quotes. All of this took place
in the name of accuracy, completeness, and objectivity –certainly not
n the name of readability or memorability. Creative nonfiction writers, by contrast, remain
as respectful of facts. They usually have the time to dig up far more
facts about a story than do deadline-haunted reporters, but they don’t
think of them as the basic building blocks of their stories; they ‘think
scenes’ instead.”
An important consideration before you begin
to write in scenes is choosing the form or structure of your book in
the first place. The creative nonfiction writer Annie Dillard, the pilgrim
at tinker creek, says it would be best for the beginning creative writer
to write an entire book. “It makes more sense to write one big book
–a novel or nonfiction narrative- than to write stories or essays,”
Dillard writes. “Into a long, ambitious project you can fit or pour
all you possess and learn. A project that takes five years will accumulate
those years’ inventions and richnesses. Much of those years’ reading will feed the work.
Further, writing sentences is difficult whatever their subject. It is
not less difficult to write sentences in a recipe than sentences in
Moby-Dick. So you might as well write Moby-Dick.”
Cheney in his chapter on structure writes “most professional
creative nonfiction writers have a structure well
in mind before writing at length. The advance consideration of structure
is not wasted; in fact, It has value beyond the most obvious: by continually turning
over the compost of the mind, the materials become firmly entrenched
in memory –and by being in the brain rather than just on paper, the
material is promoted in the subconscious. There’s no predicting what
will grow in this repeatedly plowed and harrowed ground with all its
varied nutrients. In such fertile soil sprout the seeds of serendipity.”
The point may be a little esoteric but I see what he means. “I
believe you should know the ending before you begin writing.” Zinsser
says the same thing. So does John McPhee.
“Establishing the structure before you start writing” Cheney
continues, “may sound terribly mechanical and too linear for the creative
mind, but I don’t believe that’s so. Having the security of structure
(even just some structure) enables the writer to relax and play with
any number of creative possibilities to perk up each floor (paragraph).
To solve any problem creatively you have to let the mind periodically
go wild and wooly. This is difficult to do when you’re uncertain about
what will come next, and what after that, and how it will all end. You
are forced to keep asking yourself: if I go with this crazy but interesting
idea that right now seems to be evolving, where could I go from there?
This continuous, haunting uncertainty dampens our ability to let lose
the fetter of conventional thinking.”
The other consideration that Cheney mentions is the relationship
between the one who tells the story and the story itself –his consideration
that may help determine if the story should be told in the first or
third person point of view. Parishioners of creative nonfiction write
both ways. Some say the third person point of view is the most difficult
but the most rewarding –since the author has to stay more out the way.
You can focus on your subject and stay the hell out of the way. “One
great danger in writing first person narrative” Cheney adds, “is the
tendency for the “I” character to take over, rather than keeping the
focus on the main character (or characters)” in the story. The lesson here is if you are going to write
in the first person like Dillard learn how to get out of the way; be
subjective (its unavoidable) but maintain objectivity. It’s a balancing
act. It has to do with finding a voice.
Harper’s editor, Lewis Lapham,
writes: “On first opening a book I listen for the sound of the human
voice. By this device I am absolved from reading much of what is published
in a given year. Most writers make use of institutional codes (academic,
literary, political, bureaucratic, technical), in which they send messages already deteriorating
into the half-life of yesterday’s news. Their transmissions remain largely
unintelligible, and unless I must decipher them for professional reasons,
I am content to let them pass by. I listen, instead, for a voice in
which I can hear the music of the human improvisation as performed through
5,000 years on the stage of recorded time…as a student, and later as
an editor and occasional writer of reviews, I used to feel obliged to
finish every book I began to read. This I no longer do. If within the
first few pages I cannot hear the author’s voice…I abandon him at the
first convenient opportunity.”
Philip Lopate’s introduction to his anthology “The Art of
the Personal Essay” describes the scope or limits of the personal
voice and various famous authors have made their voice sound authentic,
spontaneous and human (especially Montaigne.) Give his
ideas consideration because, once the voice is found, “The writer can
posture, say things not meant, imply things not said” and have his fun.
Cheney says once he finds the right voice for a piece of writing, “it
admits play, and that’s a relief, an antidote to being pushed around
by your own words. Mark Kramer writes that a “Voice that admits of ‘Self’
can be a great gift to readers. It allows warmth, concern, compassion,
flattery, shared imperfections –all the real stuff that, when it’s missing,
makes writing brittle and larger than life.”
Making
a choice.
At this point in discussing what the term creative nonfiction
means with my friends I usually tell them something about the particular
form, point of view and voice that I have chosen for my own particular
work. I am choosing to write one big book like Annie
Dillard said so I can experiment and practice and cram everything in,
even the stuff I haven’t yet learned. The travel narrative will be my
form. It is probably the simplest form. It is chronological; it doesn’t
play tricks with time. It goes from point A to point B to point C etc.
and usually comes back to the beginning when the author gets home. I
can’t vouch that I’ll not make a new home somewhere else when I travel
but the writer of a travel narrative usually comes back to his beginning.
Besides that there are my parents to consider. They are both
elderly and frail; I need to come back for them.
It is curious to note that I’ve been reading John Steinbeck’s
book Travels with Charlie as an example of how to write a travel
narrative and that Cheney quotes Steinbeck in his own book for similar
reasons. Cheney says that Steinbeck’s travel book has an “organic” structure,
a simple style, with scenic descriptions and interviews and conversations
that are mixed with occasional self-reflections. The first portion of
the book even takes off from the place I will start myself –here on
Long Island. Steinbeck went to California
to visit his old buddies at the cannery but he started out from Sag
Harbor, in the late summer, after Hurricane Donna nearly
sunk his boat. Steinbeck traveled around the country in a camper van
with his poodle dog Charlie but he had a boat moored in the harbor –while
his wife stayed at home. But once he got the boat secured and said goodbye
to his wife and finally got started on his trip he took the Orient Ferry
and went north to Maine
–which, incidentally, is where I also hope to go.
I don’t think it’s proper to write at length about my impending
meeting with Arnie Neptune the full-blood Penobscot Chief but he lives
in Maine. Arnie is the
great great grand son of Louis Neptune, the
same Louis Neptune who Thoreau wanted to employ as a guide to paddle
up the river and hunt moose and climb Mt.Katadhin with his cousin W.Thatcher
(on his second of three trips to Maine). Thoreau knew that Louis had
been up the mountain before; Louis actually saved the lives of his climbers
by setting up rock towers at the top of the mountain. He placed the
towers along the trail as they climbed in case it should snow which
it did. Anyone who has climbed this mountain will understand Louis’s
precautions. Once you get onto the tableland above tree line it’s like
traveling in Tibet,
a windblown and rocky landscape where objects are dwarfed in size. The
top of this mountain is peculiar because it seems to have been sheer
off, which in was, by a glacier. It is entirely denuded of trees and
you can very easily loose the trail over the lichen-covered rocks as
you make the assent to the summit --if it snows.
In any case Louis didn’t want to go with Thoreau on that particular
day. Whether or not Louis was drinking, as Thoreau seemed to imply has
not been entirely established. I will ask Arnie about that. Thoreau
and Thatcher in the meantime went with Joe Polis who was another Penobscot
Indian Guide and the rest, as they say, is history.
Another consideration about writing this book alongside the ones
I mention has to do with Intention or Focus. This same question occurs
in a number of other books I’ve been reading on creative nonfiction.
I find all the answers equally intriguing but they seem to boil down
to this: a writer must ask himself what is his intention or focus when writing his book. If
the book is going to be a travel narrative, where is he going and what
does he hope to achieve? Steinbeck’s
Travels with Charlie was a kind of vast American retrospective (he admits this himself) of a well-established
author who was somewhat advanced in years, overweight, and probably
sick from drinking too much. His doctors prescribed he hit the road
and that’s what he did. He needed a vacation. He had spent too many
years sitting closed up in his office sharpening pencils and needed
to get out on the land and talk with the people.
“I began my little pilgrimage” R.L. Stevenson wrote about his
own travels, “in the most enviable of all humors: that in which a person,
with a sufficiency of money and a knapsack, turns his back on a town
and walks forward into a country of which he knows only by the vague
report of others.” Travel writing
contains a question of trust.
“For my part” he continues, “I travel not to go anywhere, but
to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move; to feel
the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off this
feather bed of civilization, and find the globe granite underfoot and
strewn with cutting flints. Alas, as we get up in life, and are more
pre-occupied with out affairs, even a holiday is a thing that must be
worked for. To hold a pack upon a pack-saddle against a gale out of
the freezing north is no high industry, but it is one that serves to
occupy and compose the mind. And when the present is so exacting, who
can annoy himself about the future?”
I am leaving for Maine this week. I have appointments
with the elder Arnie Neptune of the Penobscot Nation this weekend. What
happens after that is anyone’s guess. But I will follow the scenes,
and write the scenes.
I will be meeting with Arnie Neptune in the
Concord Library where he and Connie Baxter are lecturing on Indian Futures
and the spirits of Mt.Katadhin. I will try to persuade them after the
lecture to go for a swim in Walden Pond but that I can’t predict. Miss Baxter said she likes
to swim in the nude.
After the Concord affair we will attend the
Pow Wow on their Indian Island Reservation and after that
sit at a round table for a discussion about possible grants. We will
then see a photo exhibit of Katadhin by Miss.
Baxter. Miss Baxter is a photographer and the great grand niece of the
Governor Baxter who named Baxter Park where Mt.Katadhin is. I aim
to go paddling with Arnie Neptune’s nephew Stan on the river but whether
or not I get him to guide a hunt for moose is too early to predict.
They certainly do still hunt moose in Maine but the season isn’t until
October. And I’m not sure Stan has a license to hunt, if he’s not hunting
on his own land. In any case I will keep an eye on the scenes.
Think
in Scenes:
“The same dramatic need that exists in fiction
exists in nonfiction,” Chaney writes. “We like to see scenes in front
of us. After all, life does seem to occur as a series of scenes.
“Before starting to write, ask yourself what
could be transmitted to the reader best by a scene. Some of these potential
scenes will be embedded in the narrative summary, but it’s important
to first identify the scenes that make up a story.
“What constitutes a scene? A scene is creative
nonfiction includes who, where, when and what people said and even what
people said they thought at the time (using interior monologs). A scene
occurs in a specific place (where); usually the narrator and one or
more others are there (who); at a particular time (when); something
happens (what); people converse (dialog or captured conversation); and
sometimes someone thinks about something (interior monolog)…. Although
usually done sparingly, you might introduce your thoughts on the situation
or the people. You are the narrator. ”
“In creative nonfiction” Cheney informs us, “you
almost always have the choice of writing the summary form, the dramatic
form, or some combination of the two. (The dramatic form is the same
as the scenic form).
“Because the dramatic method of writing provides the reader with
a closer imitation of life than summary ever could, creative nonfiction
writers frequently choose to write scenically. The writer wants vivid
images to transfer into the mind of the reader; after all, the strength
of scenic writing lies in its ability to evoke sensual images…a scene
makes the past present…the reader sees the characters in action, see
their gestures, hears their voices in conversation…. The main point
behind writing scene by scene is that since the brain is “involved’
in the scenes, it more readily accepts the narrative information. As
in fiction, in creative nonfiction you can use scenes to do certain
narrative work….”
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Research
Methods:
“Readers today expect creative nonfiction
writers, journalists especially, to provide not only a complete and
objective treatment; they also expect some subjective treatment, which
usually means treating the emotional content of the story…. our minds
use emotions to add meaning and clarity to straight, factual information….
“Creative nonfiction writers still use the
basic research method –interviewing—but they also use many more methods.
They talk with the people immediately involved in the story to flush
out, and later to flesh out, the who, what, when ,
where, why and how elements of
the traditional news story.”
Saturate
and Immerse:
“This highly involved research effort, sometimes
called, appropriately, ‘saturation reporting’ or ‘immersion research,’
requires that the writer be willing (and financially able) to stick
with a story for weeks, months, or even years.’
Well yes I have a year to flush and flesh.
So lets see what else.
“The fiction writer can hole up in a garret
or a cabin and work largely out of his or her memory and imagination,
but the creative nonfiction writer can’t work out of those sources alone.
He or she must conduct research out in the real world, the raucous world,
the dirty world. This requirement to work away from the studio or the
study turns some writers away from this form of writing. Others love
that side of the profession –it’s what draws them in.” It’s my cup of
tea.
The
purpose of interviewing:
“Interviewing is usually a great part of the research
effort for this kind of writing. The interview is the corner stone for
most nonfiction articles and books because interviews add so much. They add fresh ideas, ideas you might never
have come up with on your own. They provide different angles, views,
perspectives, and insights on the person or the topic under study. They
give you names of other people you might interview….” (Round and round
we go).
Cheney, interestingly enough, says that
he never heard of these methods until he read Leon Surmelian’s
book, Techniques of Fiction Writing.
“A creative nonfiction writer will typically
conceive of his or her story as a series of scenes connected by a series
of summaries --drama
connected by narrative. He or
she will plan an article or book around a series of scenes, selecting
only those events that seem to have the greatest dramatic potential
and then organizing them in what seems the best sequence (which is not
always chronological). The writer will then accomplish other of his
or her purposes in between with what we’ll call ‘summaries.’ We’ll use
‘summaries’ here to mean the typical narrative journalists write, summaries
of what happened, as distinct from a running account of what is happening
at the moment.”
Cheney goes on to explain in detail what
the two methods are and how they are matched (summary and dramatic).
He says things for instance like this: “the dramatic method is the cinematographer’s
close-up shot; the summary method, in contrast, is the long shot…for
the best effect, the two methods merge. A single paragraph may us the
techniques of both scene and summary.”
Show don’t tell.
“You’ve probably heard (and have perhaps
even wisely heeded) the advice given to writers to show, don’t tell.
Dramatic method is show; summary method is tell.”
“In writing, ‘showing’ means much more than
offering visuals of the mind’s eye. You can also show something about
a person by letting the reader ‘hear’ him or her speak…when people appear,
and particularly when they begin to converse, the story comes to life.”
Bruce Chatwin,
Cheney cites, opens the chapter “An old Log Cabin” is his book In
Patagonia with conversation:
“Feel it,” she said. “Feel the wind coming through.”
I put my hand to the wall. The draught blew
through the chinks where the mortar had fallen out. The log cabin was
the North American kind. In Patagonia they made cabins differently and did not chink
them with mortar. The owner of the cabin was a Chilean Indian woman
clad Sepulveda.
“In winter
it’s terrible,” she said. “I covered the wall with materia
plastica but it blew away. The house is
rotten, Senor, old and rotten. I would sell it tomorrow. I would have
a concrete house, which the wind cannot enter. Senor Sepulveda was grogged
out of his mind, half sitting, half lying by
the kitchen stove.
“Would you
buy the hose?” she asked.
“No” I said,
“but don’t sell if for nothing. There are North
American gentleman who would pay good money to take it away piece by
piece.”
“Nonfiction and fiction writers (again) alike
must plan in advance which thing might be presented best by scene and
which by summary. Since creative nonfiction is typically written scene
by scenes (dramatically) and since scenes are usually joined (or separated)
by passages that use one of more techniques of summary, you need to
study and perfect both techniques.”
In the next chapter “Authority through realistic
details” Cheney discusses at length using concrete detail. “Readers
of all types and levels,” he says, “seem to need and appreciate concrete
detail.” Cheney says that readers like concrete detail especially if
these details “enter the brain in an envelope of emotion.” Refer to
the text for examples how this is done.
Cheney says “The method is
to write in a minimal way, largely providing the facts of a situation
and accurate reporting on what people do…the writer does not tell us
the meaning, nor what emotions to feel, nor what emotions the characters
are feeling. All of this is left to the reader’s brain, to add its details
from personal experience to what’s happening in the story, thereby bringing
to the story the emotions the reader felt in the original experience.
Like a haiku, this kind of writing requires an intelligent, experienced
reader, for it to achieve in the reader’s brain an emotion as close
as possible to what the writer experienced originally.” Pg.44.
The
Interview.
The most difficult part of the process Cheney admits, when writing
a creative nonfiction book, is the Interview; its
not to be taken lightly. It’s
unnatural, artificial, but necessary. Use a tape recorder and don’t
be chicken. Use prepared questions. Arrive early. Look nice.
“The interview is one of the most complex mental exercises you
are apt to be called upon to conduct. Considering how many distinct
activities the brain must undertake simultaneously. I liken it to that
of an air traffic controller at Chicago’s
O’Hare Field during the Christmas holidays, with a heavy snowfall during
prime landing time. It’s not unlike the simultaneous thinking process
going on in the brains of a television technical director producing
a live news show, the multiple ‘feeds’ coming in live from around the
world, slides coming in from a projector, film coming in from a film
chain, and three cameras operating, not to mention a live radio feed
from Beirut supplemented by a video tape that’s just arrived by plane.
In the midst of voices coming over the headphones and people handing
him or her notes, the director has to instruct and coordinate (in real
time) the activities of a half-dozen people- and the living-room view
must not be allowed to sense the chaotic control room scene. Everything
must seem under cool, professional control.”
In other word a tape recorder is a must. McPhee and Talese
don’t feel they are.
Sincerity, intelligence about your subject, empathy, and genuine
personal interest help during the interview process. You better get
this straight. Keep your opinions to yourself and warm up with
a conversation about something relevant and near, the children perhaps,
sports, books on the shelf;
listen closely and watch. Ask open-ended questions and
ask why. Elicit anecdotes…little stories about your character or topic.
Once they start coming maybe they won’t stop…so don’t rush to the next
question. Keep the mouth shut. Act enthusiastic, say nice things, and
be appropriately enthralled when that’s right. Ask people what they
felt and thought about something, at the time that something happened
–monolog material. Be gracious when ending. Inform the person what you
will do next –with these notes. Send them a copy if they want.
Don’t lead the jury. Don’t stick rigidly to your list of questions.
Don’t be afraid to ask dumb questions. Don’t be afraid to revisit a
question you didn’t understand.
The
Challenges of Research.
“You’ll need, too, to dig deep into the emotional side of
those interviewed, uncovering their innermost thoughts and feelings,
if you’re to give your readers that subjective reality which, when combined
artfully with the objective reality, will paint for them as honest and
accurate a picture of the world as it’s possible for you, a fallible
human, to paint. Emotional content enables you to create dramatic, vivid,
accurate scenes.” To get a story from a particular subject you may have
to be pokey. Poke, poke, poke. And like Janet Malcolm said don’t let the natives
cook you in their pot. You cook them first. Dig up the dirt and let it rip like Malcolm
says (or maybe not
--and don’t forget include thyself).
Cheney writes that we have to learn to watch people unusually
close, especially for anything unusual or distinct. Include in your
report “poses, posturing, habitual gestures, mannerisms, appearances,
glances.”
“Writers frequently describe a group’s entertainment
as a way to understand the group…frequently look
at the way people dress.”
“This is a great town, really great. (from Zen and the art of M.M.) Surprised there were any like this left. I was
looking all over this morning. They’ve got Stockman’s bars, high-top
boots, silver –dollar belt buckles, Levis, Stetsons, the whole thing…and
it’s real. It isn’t just Chamber of Commerce stuff…. In the bar
down the block this morning they hjust started
talking to me like I’d lived here all my life.”
Writing about the typical daily life of a
person helps illuminate a book and brings in the focus. Write about
the people’s “ornaments, decorations, adornments, architecture,
and arts…furniture to pets.
William Least Heat-Moon is often quoted
in the text. Heat-Moon shows us a segment of society in Kentucky by describing some of the
ornaments and adornments of the people:
“The highway took me through Danville,
where I saw a pillared antebellum mansion with a trailer court on the
front lawn. Route 127 ran down a long valley of pastures and fields
edged by low, rocky bluffs and split by a stream the color of muskmelon.
In the distance rose the foothills of the Appalachians,
old mountains that once separated the Atlantic
from the shallow inland sea now the middle of American. The licks came
out of the hills, the fields got smaller, and there were little sawmills
cutting hardwoods into pallets, crates, and fence posts. The houses
shrank, and their color changed to white to pastels to iridescent to
no paint at all. The lawns went from Vertagreen
bluegrass to thin fescue to hard packed dirt glinting with fragments
of glass, and the lawn ornamented changed from birdbaths to plastic
flamingoes and donkeys to broken down automobiles with raised hood like
tombstones. On the porch stood one-legged wringer washers and ruined
sofas, and, by the front doors, washtubs hung like coats of arms.”
Yikes!
The man sure can write. I never liked his attitude but he sure can write.
The
Realities of Individual Lives.
The creative nonfiction writer can and should occasionally “vividly
describe the day-to-day life of one person.” John
McPhee is often quoted in the text as a master of this craft. He
is another Princeton man like Zinsser –who later
went to Yale.
The following is an excerpt from McPhee’s
Pine Barrens for a close up view of a
person. McPhee was out for a walk in the Barrens and looking for a drink
of water. “I called out to ask if anyone was home, and a voice called
back, ‘Come in. Come in. Come on the hell in.”
“I walked through a vestibule that had a dirt floor, stepped
up into a kitchen, and went into another room that had several overstuffed
chairs in it and a porcelain-topped table, where Fred Brown was seated,
eating a pork chop. He was dressed in a white sleeveless shirt, ankle–top
shoes, and undershorts. He gave me a cheerful greeting and, without
asking why I had come or what I wanted, picked up a pair of khaki trousers
that had been tossed onto one of the overstuffed chairs and asked me
to sit down. He set the trousers on another chair, and he apologized
for being in the middle of his breakfast, explaining that he seldom
drank much but the night before he had had a few drinks and this had
caused his day to start slowly. “I don’t know what’s the matter with
me, but there’s got to be something the matter
with me, because drink don’t agree with me anymore,” he said. He had
a raw onion in one hand, and while he talked he shaves slices from the
onion and ate them between bits of the chop….”
Notice the telling dialogue. It breaks up the piece, adds a voice
with some character. It’s a perfect vignette, spontaneous and perfect.
McPhee says elsewhere that he doesn’t prepare for Interviews for precisely
that reason. He doesn’t use a tape recorder either. He writes notes.
He doesn’t want to frighten his prey. In this way he preserves the spontaneous
moment –nothing seems calculated and the encounter seems as real as
life, as real as if we were there ourselves –which is part of the illusion,
its immediacy, its simplicity, its inevitability. But we should probably remember that McPhee
is a very calculating person, like the hunter stalking prey. The creative
nonfiction writer in him has developed a stance or an attitude toward
life, toward his encounters, which he carries over into his stories.
This stance is crafty. It is spontaneous and self-conscious, natural
and easy but also alert, casual yet very aware, perhaps even cunning
–he is always looking for the telling detail or telling expression in
these encounters (the scenes included), to use as materials for his
craft. It is not a natural attitude entirely…but probably a fitting
one for us.
Dialogues,
Monologs, and other logs.
“A creative nonfiction writer does not use all the conversations
captured during research. Similar to the use of character detail, only
those bits that seem most illustrative of the subject matter under consideration
or revelatory of one or more of the persons involved in the conversation
are used.”
Examples follow in Cheney’s text, examples of captured conversations,
of Nixon talking to the studio people on the set, of Nixon’s neighbors
talking about Nixon’s book, of Joe DiMaggio talking with his golf buddies
showing how he acts towards fans etc.
How to get material for creating Monologs is discussed next (where
a person is showed to think private thoughts and feelings). Using a
speech given by a person: it may be a formal speech, or an excerpt from
it, or it may simply be a lengthy speech by
one person within a lengthier conversation between two or more people.
It could also be a lecture, or part of one, given by a professor,
minister, or drill sergeant. “The writer can say a great deal about
a person simply be recording accurately what he or she says, especially
when speaking at length.” Capturing snippets of Telephone conversations can
be interesting, as well as snippets from the street.
Item: An eminent, kind and cultivated actress, beautifully
dressed, is taking a cab to an address on Second
Avenue. Cabdriver: Whereabouts is that
on Second Avenue,
lady? Actress, without a flicker in her equanimity: Don’t ask
me, bud, You’re the fucking cabdriver.
Item: I feel a sort of furry clutch at my right leg,
and peering down, find that it is being bitten by a chow. Oh Goochy you naughty thing, says its owner, who is following
behind with a brush and shovel for clearing up its excrement, you
don’t know that person.
Here is an example of writing that includes specialized knowledge,
fishing jargon, and local dialect. When recording local dialect we are
reminded not to overdo the case. “The creative nonfiction writer should
capture the speaker’s accent, dialect, colloquialisms, jargon, specialist
language, rhythm, color, tone, emphases, and mood…be
careful not to stereotype too many idiosyncrasies or a person’s speech.”
“Some people are plain feared of crabs, though Lord knows they
can’t hurt you much.” Mike grins from one jug ear to another. “Sometimes
they get to you,” he says.
“Indeed they do. Maine
lobsterman can safely remove the much smaller numbers of lobsters found
in their pots with bare hands, seizing them from the rear. Chesapeake
crabbers cannot do this. Unlike the lobster, the blue crab has excellent
rear vision. There are too many crabs in each pot in any case for such
individual seizure. You simply plunge in with both hands and separate
the tangling masses as best you can, suffering an occasional bite from
a big Jimmy (male) that will make even the most hardened crabber wince.
Between such bites and the constant handling of pot wire the fabric-lined
‘Best’ rubber gloves last no more than two weeks during periods of heavy
catches. “You get a hole in them,” Grant adds, “the
crabs will find it.”
“We pull up a shiny new pot set down a few days ago. It is absolutely
jammed. Maybe fifty sooks (females). “New pots seem to attract females
this time of year,” Grant observes. “Don’t know why. Ain’t nobody really
knows about crabs.”
Character
Development.
Traditional nonfiction, particularly journalist nonfiction,
never concerned itself with developing characters…revealing a person’s
character. This chapter shows how its done. Capturing conversations is the key. Show the reader how things look to your character
in the world, leaving the reader to interpret what it all means. Don’t
moralize. Quote the main folks in authority but also the “enlisted men.”
Short phrases or outbursts are often telling. “Speak so I may see you.”
McPhee
again:
“Eventually, I made the request. I had intended to make when
I walks in the door. “Could I have some water” I said to Fred. “I have
a jerry can and I’d like to fill it at the pump.”
“Hell, yes,” he said. “That isn’t my water. That’s God’s water.
That right, Bill?”
“I guess so,” Bill said, without looking up. “Its
good water. I can tell you that.”
“That’s God’s water,” Fred said again. “Take all you want.”
Special
Techniques.
Litany. Make a list
to shorten a piece of writing, and to reveal details. See examples pg178…
Clumping. Cheney subdivides clumping into three types.
Our research may dig up too much stuff –but important stuff, like historical
or geological background stuff. What to do? Clump. Litany yes, but clump
too. Historoclumping sums up the history of a place (pg.181). Geoclumping –same deal, as with Chronclumping. The point is to get your information together
and tell it in a summary form; you don’t need to write a whole discourse
with the stuff. Compress it for the reader. And then move your ass on
down the line, to the next scene, hopefully where the people are.
VERBS.
“Intransigent verbs” Chaney writes, “…they come in disguise as
am, is, was, been, had been, to be, be.
My teachers and college professors told me time and again to
avoid any passive verbs, but no one ever stressed the prohibition dramatically
or thoroughly enough to make a lasting impression. In subsequent years
I’ve come to understand their reasoning.
“I call these verbs ‘intransigent’ because they behave so inflexibly
that one has trouble rooting them out. They keep popping up as though
they believe they belong in every other sentence. They don’t.”
“Your reader’s brain dozes in the shade with passive verbs (forms
of ‘to be’), but leaps into action when propelled by almost any other
verb. ‘Killer be’s’ do have their role in
passive places,. But rarely.
“’to be’ doesn’t conjure up any image in the brain. It says only
that the subject exists –and we already knew that. Tell us something
new. Better yet, ‘show’ us something new.”
“The
marines are dropped on the landing zone by helicopters.
“The
marines slide rapidly down ropes dangling from the helicopters
hovering about the landing zone.”
“She
was embraced by the clown.
“The
clown grabbed her and hugged her.” and
“As
he walked up to the bar, he quickly scanned the handful of customers
who were scattered around the tavern. Reggie was zeroing
in on a blonde who was sitting at the bar, and positioning himself next
to her. Reggie was a sucker for blondes, and he wanted this one.
(50 words).
“As
Reggie walked up to the bar, he quickly scanned the handful of customers
scattered around the tavern. He zeroed in on a blonde sitting at the
bar, and positioned himself next to her. A sucker for blondes, he wanted
this one . “ (42 words).
We
already mentioned in class how to weed out the qualifiers.
The Godfather of Creative Nonfiction (many agree) Lee Gutkind
finishes with this quote:
“That, in fact, is the essence and the meaning of creative nonfiction:
the ability to capture the personal and the private and to make it mean
something significant to a larger audience, and to provide intellectual
substance that will affect readers –perhaps even incite them to action
or to change….”
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