Pollack writes, “The essay’s central
question keeps the writer focused on what he or she is supposed to be doing
with the material; the structure provides a place for the writer to start, and
a very clear sense of where to go from there” (51). However, she then suggests that the writer
may not be able to clearly formulate that question until after beginning the
writing process and that “[…] the interplay between the central question that
guides a writer’s research and the form that helps the writer organize his or
her findings is at the living, breathing heart of creative nonfiction” (Pollack
52). This is all driven, Pollack adds,
by “[…] the author’s passion for the subject” (57).
Considering these points, I want you to consider
the relationship between an essay’s form and an essay’s driving question in two
ways:
First, when you decide to write about a
particular subject you are passionate about, do you typically think about a
possible form first, or are you first driven by a question? Or do you feel you can really even separate
the two concerns? No matter what your
answer, how might you shake up your process (and perhaps find new inspiration
or ideas) by considering this relationship differently?
Second, describe the form of Angell’s
essay and/or the forms within the overall form of Angell’s essay? In what ways does Angell’s essay illustrate
the relationship between form and question in creative nonfiction? How does Angell’s choice to expose what
Pollack describes as the “journey” undertaken to answer his question shape the
form of his essay? Does this form seem
to, in turn, shape the question, or does it only seem to serve the question?
It depends for me on the situation, topic, and mood whether I am inspired by or think about form or question first. They seem to inform one another, though, because the question and form are very interrelated.
ReplyDeleteIf I do begin with a question or core idea I will typically just begin writing and find a form in writing. If, upon revising, something does not work then form can be altered to better suit the purpose and question. This can happen just as easily, however, with ideas or questions. Beginning a piece of writing considering form carefully but missing a question can also be revised to incorporate purpose throughout.
Looking back on the little writing that I have done I do not know if I have ever been so struck by a form that I then tried to fit a concept or idea into a specific structural concept. This second mode of writing sounds more difficult to me, but it would be something I can imagine trying if I was interested in working with a particular form—this would be a challenge I can picture attempting to think about the relationship between form and question differently.
Angell’s essay seemed to me driven by the lack of awareness for certain struggles that meet a person in very old age—the extremity of loss of people, loss of love, loss of bodily abilities, loss of present identity, loneliness, and acceptance of death. The essay works its way through time and series of losses slowly introducing the reader to more people—or animals—within his life that pass, for example Callie, Harry, and then Carole. This piece showed me a journey through life and time simultaneously in a way that is not always present for me in other works of creative nonfiction; time sensitivity and awareness as well as its relationship to events in his life was extremely existent and driving. The paragraph structure, movement between then and now, and careful use of tense within his form were just a few of the reasons why “This Old Man” was so successful.
This form, to me, however, is subservient to the question. While the form was effective and essential, I believe that it happened in response to Angell’s message about loss, love, and human relationships and interactions. Ending in a place of now-ness and making a clear call to readers of any and all ages is where the form needed to go in order to make his message (as I understood it) clear—to be present in life and both seek out and accept love and companionship while it is available. The manipulation of words and form in order to ultimately end in such an emotional and sincere place made me believe that this piece is an example of question leading form.
Great questions, Melissa. I have so internalized the personal essay genre's invitation to think something through that I just begin with no thought of structure. That was true, at least, until recently. My mentors instructed me that the writing will tell you what form the work should take, and I still believe this mostly. But I always inferred from this advice the structure and form weren't generative--that they weren't really relevant to discovery. I don't believe this anymore, and what changed my mind was the segmented/collage essay. As you all know, it is a form that fractures linear narrative. It encourages the writer to work in narrative fragments, and to jam them together to see what happens. It is a structure that prompts the writer to see a subject in multiple contexts, and it is this context-shifting that I have found to be so remarkably generative. And yet, these drafts may not retain the segmented structure in revision, and that's were I see the real work of paying attention to form takes place.
ReplyDeleteI'm quite fond of Angell's essay, which reminds me of E.B. White (who was his stepfather). The structure of "This Old Man" is roughly chronological, but what I noticed is that the segments were either "spatial" or thematic. For example, the opening segment--a brief survey of the narrator's disintegrating body--moves from knuckles to knees to heart and so on. From there,however, each segment seems thematically focused: loss, living, death, loving. All of these seem to addressing aspects of the question driving the piece: "How is it possible for an old man in his nineties with a crooked spine and a dead dog and wife not to feel miserable?" The form addresses the themes one might expect it to if that's the question driving the piece.
I'm looking forward to reading what the rest of you think.
Truthfully, I’ve never challenged myself to write with a driving question before this course. In past workshops I chose subjects that I thought would amuse me and the reader, like a man shining fake plants or the perspective of a female character in an arcade game. I never really thought about form, and comfortably relied upon four or five line stanzas to organize each part of a scene. I’m trying to see what form my writing will take on as I write. I’ve noticed that I’m most proud of what I write, when I don’t think about it too much, when I let myself move with the “and then” without knowing how or when I should stop. It’s like having a conversation with someone and thinking about what you’re going to say next before they’re done speaking. I think something similar happens when I write. When I have an idea of how I want it to be before it’s fully formed, it comes out awkward, tense, and choppy. I think about who will read it, and what they think, and if they’ll like it, and will they like me after they read it…. So, at least in pre-writing stages, writing in a way that races away from these self-conscious thoughts works well for me.
ReplyDeleteI’m struck by Angell’s first line “check me out” (9). Angell’s use of second person POV forces me to acknowledge his body, and listen wincingly at the descriptions of his various ailments. I don’t think this first part directly serves his question, but I do think it strategically forces the reader to acknowledge the writer’s body and proximity to death. I wonder if Angell’s essay fits under Pollack’s description of a “meditative thought-piece” (57). Other than the first section, the form seems to be shaped by various reflections on how Angell has managed to cope with getting older and losing loved ones. I think the essay starts this way, but moves into the necessity of throwing off the factor of invisibility endured by “elders” that places a stigma on engaging in sexual relationships after a certain age. I think it’s interesting how the last section returns to a second person POV, but appears to specifically address “you, old dears (21).” Angell’s essay also appears to be reaching out to this older audience and encouraging them to pursue their “unceasing need for deep attachment and intimate love” despite “anyone who’s younger and still squirms at the vision of an old couple embracing” (21).
Regardless of the question driving me, when I begin writing, I never think about form during the initial stages (unless it’s academic research writing, of course--in that case structure is almost all I’m thinking about). My process starts with a bulleted list of significant ideas, phrases, and themes I need to write about, possibly but rarely arranged in an order where the ideas feel connected, followed by fleshing out the things that feel the most urgent. It’s only in the very late stages of revision that I go back and consider form explicitly; I prefer to see how my writing might shape itself before that. This might make me seem like a bold and sophisticated writer, but really, I’m usually just stressed out and have poor planning skills. I can certainly see how more abstract topics could result in a structure that is more linear, reflective, and traditionally “meditative”, but I don’t see any direct links between particular types of questions and a corresponding form in my writing. I don’t think overarching theme and form necessarily need to be connected, and I’m hesitant to to begin a project with an intended form in mind--while I definitely want to shake up my process, I don’t want to feel limited in a genre I’m already not quite comfortable or confident in.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things I like most about Angell’s essay is that I could never really predict what would come next. To me, this indicated that form comes second to question in his work. We follow him as he explores a series of questions in the essay--What’s it like to experience loss? What’s it like to grow old? What’s it like to die? What’s it like to have sex while old? I agree with Bruce that the structure of the essay feels roughly chronological, but I feel that what really structured the piece was how Angell wanted to track his themes and tackle difficult questions. To me, this is a sign of a very confident writer; Angell seems to value honoring his content above perfecting structure or style. I’m definitely not saying that structure or style suffered for it, though--in fact, I think the whole essay benefited from the writer’s devotion to those big questions above all else. It feels authentic and cheeky and content, highly reflective while also rooted in lovely little concrete details.
The question drives me or, more often, an unsettled feeling that I cannot articulate. I find the notion of form frightening. I put it out of my mind as long as possible. The idea Bruce suggests of fragmentation as a generative device is exciting to me because it might allow me to mess around in a broader context/ in multiple contexts without confronting form. In the meantime, the subconscious might help me out with a little patternmaking or, as Pollack suggests, perhaps I'll find a random object as spatial structure to armor myself in. I have had the recent impulse to write about the subject of blue jeans and will now consider how the jeans might double as form. Stay tuned.
ReplyDeleteThe form of Angell's essay begins grounded in physical territory: body, meds, synthetic parts. Then conceptual: mind, proximity to death, loss, loss, loss, memory, work, family/ intimates, joy, invisibility, death (his own), jokes, love, love, love. He confronts loss early on and ends on love. I hear him answering the question of how old age has surprised him and how it continues to do so. On page 13 he asks outright, "Why am I not endlessly grieving?" Perhaps the whole premise can be reduced to that question. He ends on a plausible answer. Love. Again.
I have tried to think about possible form in the early stages of drafting before, but I don’t think it’s ever worked out. I’ve found that when I pay too much attention to any part of an essay – the form, the metaphors, the voice – it ends up feeling contrived and nothing at all like I imagined it to be. I’m also not quite sure about being driven by a question. I think I understand what Pollack means when she talks about the formulation of the question coming after the writing process begins, but I think I might not formulate a question until well beyond the “beginning” stages of the process. Or, I might start with a question and go somewhere else entirely and find that I’m actually asking something different. I’m not sure how to shake up the process yet, but I like that you asked that question—it’s something to think about.
ReplyDeleteTo be honest, I have a hard time looking at Angell’s essay analytically. I like what Bruce said about the spatial/thematic segments, and that makes sense to me. But I have such a reaction to Angell’s subject matter – I have this intense, irrational fear of both aging and loss, so in reading this, I find I’m caught up in my own emotional responses, despite his tone, and I’m instead looking behind his voice and his words and wondering what he’s not saying. So, I guess I have trouble seeing his question without placing my own addendums, and thus am not sure about his form/question interplay.
Also, I just read this and it seemed relevant: http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/meeting-death-with-words
DeleteUp to now, I’ve postponed writing until I have a clear idea about what I’m writing and where it would end up. I guess that rather than answer my own questions, in my writing, I tend to imagine a question that I would want my reader to have, then plan the form of my writing to what I think would be most compelling. Being research oriented, when I have questions, I tend to answer them for myself through reading and reflection, not exploratory writing. That said, I think that in my mind, I’m always rearranging my thinking about whatever subject into linear, rational forms, attempting to bring ideas into agreement through a process of selecting, deselecting, scotomizing and descotomizing information and ideas to bring them into a coherent whole. In that sense, my thought process as I prepare to write, or as I answer questions for myself regardless of my intention to write to them, parallels exploratory writing and prewriting.
ReplyDeleteIn order to put Pollack’s ideas to practice, I think a necessary first step would be to begin to indulge in writing that is not end-driven. If I allow myself to write with a question in mind, rather than an answer, the forms that I chose may become more varied and interesting, rather than being, as one of my professors said of my writing style, “like soviet soldiers marching.”
One of my fears of doing this, of changing my relationship with writing to explore questions, is that I feel that writing solidifies my ideas in a way that I am not always comfortable with. I’m pretty suspicious of writing. I think that in writing, at least in my unpracticed writing process, rhizomatic ideas get pruned into a coherent whole. As thought, there is an element of free association and a freedom in irrationality; an ability to draw connections between both rational and linguistic thoughts and a potentially pre-linguistic synesthetic and emotional vocabulary. A lot is lost in the act of writing.
Angell’s essay seemed to be loosely organized around a series of half scenes. Moving from one to another before any sense of completion or meaning is fully granted by any of them. I can’t say whether it was a conscious choice on Angell’s part to adapt this form to his overall question, or his theme of attempting to make meaning of loss and relationship to death and meaning in old age, or whether he put forth these scenes and attempted to make meaning of them, thus leading to a discovery of his overall themes, but the form seems to work very well to emphasize both the theme that he is more direct about later in the essay of the absolute primacy of relationships and intimacy, and his exploration of how the meanings and fears that the younger make of life and death don’t end in life cohering to a clear, linear, sustained narrative or how life, love and death resist teleology, etc.
It's funny. With my nonfiction writing, I don't have an impulse to write until the prof (Hi, Bruce!) says you need to hand something in. The deadline, for me, really helps me to think of something and to focus pretty quickly. Also, I'm usually reading an essay and I think I want to do something similar. In the most recent case, Bruce's prompt last week about writing description helped me remember a certain time in my life and the stuff that was happening to me and to my friend. It seems the best essays start with it seemingly being about one thing, but then turns out to be about something else. For example, in "Charade" the essay spends a lot of time on her local environment and her friend and her mother. But by the end it's about people leaving or not in one way or another. (Though the last line of that essay still remains a bit of a mystery). Angell's essay seems more driven by his intellect, his retrospection, his memories--al three combining to give a sort of portrait of his life. Interesting stuff.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't until recently that I began to consider the effect form has on writing. For years the closest I came to scrutinizing form was making sure I was following the standard five-paragraph format we're taught to follow in high school. As I grew as a writer I learned to break free of that particular constraint, but rather than using other forms my writing is just kind of a free-for-all, letting paragraphs fall where they will and using narrative breaks wherever they feel appropriate.
ReplyDeleteIn the last couple years I've come to appreciate the format of the braided essay, which I love, but when I sit down to write on a subject I rarely think about writing in that form - instead I'll write something out fully, and go back to consider what form it should take after I feel the substance of the essay is solid.
I think everyone has made a lot of very good points about Angell's essay. I particularly liked Bruce and Jackie's thoughts about the essay being structured spatially/thematically and by the parts of the body. So much of what Angell is telling us is about physical ailments that we hardly even notice when he slips into describing the spiritual ones. It's a very smooth transition that serves his reflections on love, loss, and death.
When the passion drives the pen, my words and thoughts spill onto pages without form. I purge in fragmented frenzy in an effort to expel all of the thoughts on my mind in that moment. Sometimes these purges evolve into lists of questions, like a ring of keys that hope to open doors for more inquiry. In my experience, both in creative writing and structured article drafting, an assigned form tends to stymie thought or creativity. Like what Bruce mentions in his post, I’ve learned that most often, I can trust that the writing will guide me to the form it wants to be. That said, I am open to trying forms that I haven’t before—perhaps if the form is not assigned, but my choice to experiment with….
ReplyDeleteIt’s difficult for me to say something about Angell’s form that hasn’t already been said. But, I love the way the Jackie summed up the Introduction into concrete things when she says, he “begins grounded in physical territory: body, meds, synthetic parts” leading into more thematic segments. Like Emery, his words force me to internalize the idea of death and loss and fear of losing and/or leaving my loved ones behind….
It's a what came first kind of game. I don't have an answer. I always start with an image. It's the same no matter what genre I write in. (Unless Bruce asks me to do otherwise in which case I end up wandering around in the foot hills when the snow falls ). I write and write. I only think about form when I am shaping the things I have written into something the rest of you might see. To make a terrible metaphor it's a lot like working with clay, and being a sculptor. Only I just have tons of mounds all over my bedroom. I have to chip away at al the writing to turn something in. And it's only in the taking away that any kind of form becomes apparent. So, I guess the essay shows me it's form, rather than the other way around. I'm surprised, you silly essay, that you want to look like that. I'd be curious to know which leg of the Old Man essay came first. In my imagination it's the scene in the bathroom. I could be wrong.
ReplyDelete