From the section, “What are Some Structure Options” from
Hertz’s “What’s the Structure?” we are offered a compilation of tried and true
frameworks for cnf writing. He breaks down these ‘standard’ frameworks citing key
examples to help emphasize that while the structures themselves are generic,
writers can and should manipulate the structure to fit the narrative. As a
developing writer who often struggles with choosing the appropriate structure,
regardless of genre, I found these insights and advice regarding
microstructures super valuable. In regard to structure, he quotes his role
model John McPhee saying, “Every essay, every book provides a new opportunity
to play with order” (123). As I was reading this, I couldn’t help but mentally
perform essay autopsies of some of my favorite pieces. Leslie Jamison’s “The
Empathy Exams” is one of these. I wonder, at which point in her writing
process, did she begin playing with a segmented/braided structure; was the genre-bending
format of some of her sections something she had experimented with from the
start, or did the material show her how it wanted to be framed? In performing
this autopsy, my mind wanders over to my cache of abandoned essays wondering if
there may be life in them yet.
Hertz says, “The structures are as individual as the
narratives” and emphasizes this by citing Biss and McPhee’s work ethic. He
writes, “Each subject deserves its own individual construction” (134). What
resonated with me was McPhee’s response to the Paris Review, “Structure is not
a template. It’s not cookie cutter. It’s something that arises organically from
the material once you have it” (134). While we might begin with a fail-safe structure
as we draft, revise, expand, etc., Hertz seems to be arguing that at some point,
we can rely on our material showing us which framework will best suit its
needs. But, I am somewhat anxious about
putting so much responsibility on the material.
Structure is not a new topic of discussion for this group of
writers; we’ve discussed which comes first, the content or the structure pretty
thoroughly. As a writer, I am curious about what sort of factors one might look
for within the content, as ways to determine a structure for the piece.
We, by no means, have to address all of these, but here are
a few ideas to help get this week’s conversation going:
·
I want to know what things I can be looking for
as cues to structural insight—what works for you?
·
What particular elements seem to lead to a ‘structural
spark’ in your writing? Are you stuck in a framework rut?
·
Consider a piece you feel is ripe enough to
begin playing with structure—was there a particular framework that Hertz shared
that you think might work? How?
·
I am wondering if it’s possible to perform a
collective ‘essay autopsy’ with Justin Cronin’s piece, “My Daughter and God” as
a way to discover how content might ‘show’ writers the way it should be
structured.
·
Also, I am generally curious about your thoughts
on Cronin’s choice of structure—what worked well for you as a reader, etc.?
·
From a writerly perspective, what risks (if any)
do you feel he could’ve taken with the content of this piece? What factors do
you feel helped determine Cronin’s structural choices?
I would guess that "cues to structural insight" would probably be thematic. I've been thinking about how I can restructure my essay that I shared this week. As I was writing it, I was considering it as having 3 movements, but after shuffling the sections around and deleting chunks of writing, I think that it ended up severely lopsided in a way that makes the end seem rushed and unwarranted to me. I'm not a fan of my ending on a summative reflection, for reasons that have been discussed in class, but I wasn’t satisfied that I had demonstrated how I saw the various parts of the essay fitting together. As it is, it is roughly chronological, but it could potentially use either a framed structure, or a collage (I don't currently understand the difference) by beginning with the last scene and then organizing earlier scenes by theme, breaking down the overarching question of my essay into smaller sub questions that I resolve one at a time. I think that this structure would be satisfying in its thoroughness. I also think that this structure would involve relegating some of the more obtrusive reflection to footnotes. On the other hand would lose some of what I'd hoped would be dramatic momentum, and would involve promoting the question posed then to a privileged position over questions that I think are more central to my essay.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the structure of “My Daughter and God,” I think that the flashback structure (starting with the central traumatic event, then moving to early scenes of the author and his family’s experiences with religion, then the aftermath of the wreck, then the author’s medical issues and finally the scene of driving and going to the beach with his daughter) is prompted by the author’s questions, first about why his wife and daughter each responded the way that they did, and then by questions about the impact of his daughter’s atheism on her dealing with the trauma of that event. If the same material were presented chronologically, it wouldn’t have presented the same sort of driving question about faith, at least not from the beginning, but then maybe the move toward faith might have been slightly more interesting. I don’t know that there is enough going on in the multiple timelines to allow for any sort of braided or parallel structure, nor are there enough themes in play to warrant the more complicated frameworks.
Though structure in nonfiction narratives can seem super complicated to me, in my own work--at least initially-- it comes down to a very simple thing: where to begin. Joan Didion writes this: "What's so hard about that first sentence is that you're stuck with it. Everything else is going to flow out of that sentence. And by the time you've laid down the first two sentences, your options are all gone..." Of course, it's not just how we begin--what that sentence is--but where. Where do I open in relation to chronology, to the "inciting incident," to place? So often for me the task of restructuring a draft means revisiting that decision about how and where I began. I must say, too, that that initial decision so often seems arbitrary. I just start writing and if I like it the work develops from there. There is more to it than that. I think that I run a mental program in the background when I draft that guides the structural moves I make, though it's not super sophisticated. On a most basic level I imagine the work that the beginning, middle, and end needs to do. I think, too, about the micro-structures as I'm going along in an early draft, especially thinking about not over-extending exposition so it slows things down, and shifting to narrative when it feels that way.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to our autopsy of the structure in "My Daughter and God" because I thinks it's unusual. Drawing on Hertz, June's description of the essay as "flashback" seems right. But what I find especially odd about the piece is that it's unclear until halfway through who this essay is really about. The wife, the daughter, or the narrator? One of the ways that we know we're being told a story is that we sense someone is being "followed," and this is typically established in the very beginning. This is not the case with Cronin's essay, I don't think. In the past few years, I've been drawn to the 3-Act structure as a basic way of describing nonfiction narrative, and in some ways this essay doesn't seem to conform. I'm not even sure where the first Act ends. I'm anxious to hear what the rest of you think.
I'm a heavy believer in the idea that my material will show me the structure. I like Bruce start at a seemingly arbitrary point, some tear in the space time continuum. I move forward from there and my options are set out. If there is a parallel moment I want to explore I gravitate toward the braided essay, fragmented and moving back and forth in time. Sometimes it's not even clear to me why these moments want to be talked about together. I leave those hard questions for workshop and revision. If I'm exploring one story and the now me is guiding us through the frame makes sense to me. I think having a trigger at the start of why this memory is surfacing in the now life helps give the now me a stage, and a reason for the writing in general. The circular structure totally escapes me. I suppose I'd be really curious to hear from those of you who choose a structure before hand and how that works. Does it then go the other way? Does the structure help guide you to what you want to say? We've probably talked about this.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the Cronin essay more for sheer story telling than anything else. Big car accident, miracle survival, odd living situation in a not only a new town but a heavily religious southern town, etc... There is so much rubbing up against each other here creating tension that I stopped really analyzing how it was working as nf essay. And I think that counts for a lot. I do see Bruce's interest in that it isn't made clear who this is "about." I'd like to offer that it's about the family collectively as a unit and the odd shape we take with each other. The event presses not on one of them but all of them. I think we do settle into a closer interest with the father daughter relationship. The mother feels more like a catalyst every step of the way. I think this is best highlighted in the section on page 68, "We now go every week - the three of us." It talks about his daughter not going with them, the overall affect it has on the collective.
I don't think a lot about structure when I'm first starting a draft. I find that, for better or worse, the fast majority of my revision is always about changing organization and structure, regardless of the genre I'm writing in. The essay I'm working on for Bruce's other class is a great example--there are definitely some tweaks I want to make to the content when I revise, but mostly I need to re-structure. Right now it starts with a page-long anecdote about my grandpa's garage, then suddenly I talk about Montaigne for a couple pages (and he's supposed to be the central essay prompt), and then there's a strange conclusion where I bring up some stuff that should have happened way earlier. I feel like I have to get all of my thoughts out, and then I typically get inspired and will create a better outline. However, I don't really understand how that process works for me, or how I got to this point where I can usually intuit how my content could be better organized. As a teacher and in my work in the writing center, making intentional decisions about structure (or trusting that there's an ideal structure that will show itself) is consistently the hardest thing I see writers struggle to do.
ReplyDeleteIn Cronin's piece, I tried to pay particular attention to how the sections were divided. Looking over the essay again now, I notice that the essay could work with no breaks; the scenes we go into are pretty much chronological. It wouldn't necessarily work well, though, or the way Cronin wanted--the breaks let us know that something more nuanced is happening in the structure of the piece. I second the above comment about who the essay is really about not being revealed until late, and I think this has something to do with how Cronin has structurally divided the essay. I didn't notice this fully during my first reading, but each section is focused on a slightly different person and place. This structural choice allows Cronin to make his essay about more than just one central idea.
I've always operated on a sentence level. It works great for the first sentence and then the problems begin to accumulate. I think of structure as difficult but I would love to adopt a more playful attitude toward it. My first step would be to draft more loosely so the act of revision isn't synonymous with a sense of loss. I rarely achieve the feeling of just letting go when I write.
ReplyDeleteCronin's piece seems to benefit from a significant remove from the event. He writes this four years after the car crash and one year after his operation. From this distance, the theme (if I dare use the word) has had significant time to develop in his subconscious. I saw the structure as circular. At the beginning, parent and child are in the vehicle, crisis narrowly averted. At the end, parent and child are in the vehicle in the same circumstances. The child has taken on the role of driver/caretaker for the moment. This idea of being cared for/looked after/protected by an outside force is central to the piece and perhaps the feeling of being cared for allowed the narrative to coalesce into such an organic shape.
What evidence do I have to work with? How far can I go with this memory that's troubling me? I usually start with these questions, and go from there. If I find that I can't go very far with the isolated scene I've pin-pointed, than I try to think of other scenes or outside research I could weave into it. But, I think I'm most comfortable with framed structures. I feel like I have control of what I'm writing, if I can anchor a feeling to one scene. I'm using a framed structure for something I'm working on now, but I'm thinking about moving toward a "circular structure." I'm finding it hard not to end with a "and this is what I learned" ending, and I think using a "circular structure" could help me avoid this. I think Sound and the Fury follows a "circular structure" (begins and ends in the same way), and yet I think the resolution happens about thirty pages before the end. I want to use a "circular structure," so I can begin and end in the same way, and have my resolution crop up towards the end of a scene preceding the opening scene that I return to at the very end of the essay.
ReplyDeleteI didn't like Cronin's structure, because it felt messy to me. That said, I think the messiness could reflect the natural progression of Cronin's thinking as he processes the near loss of his wife and daughter. I think the messiness also reflects Cronin's negotiation with the varying beliefs of his wife, daughter, and son. I found that Cronin's isolated section about his son becoming an Episcopalian, helped indicate to me the significance and perhaps troublesomeness of his family investing in different ends to their stories.
I have a hard time separating form and structure in my head, so I appreciated the discussion of structures in Hertz's piece. I tend to gravitate towards collage and braided structures, simply because that's the way my brain works when I tell myself stories or remember things. I've also noticed that I think about "structures inspired by topics and theme," but that, too, seems related to form so I'm kind of confused on the difference between the two. (And I wish I could be there for tonight's discussion to get some clarity.)
ReplyDeleteThere's something about Cronin's essay that doesn't sit right with me, and I sense it has something to do with the structure. I am interested in Bruce's assessment that it's "unusual," and maybe that's my problem. I like the story a lot, and opening with the accident is really effective, but I can't quite put my finger on what isn't working for me. (Again, bummed I'll miss out on that discussion tonight.)
In the past, I’ve felt like I’ve been limited by the urge to sit down and write a “perfect” essay in chronological order whenever I’ve started a writing project. I’ve also been too eager to leave out anything that doesn’t seem to fit in my essay and to stick to whatever structure I started with. Over the past couple of years, I’ve embraced a messier process to develop ideas and have actually struggled a little more with structure, but I think that might be a good thing. Especially over the past few weeks, this chaotic process seems to help me avoid writer’s block and develop more ideas. (And it seems to be the only way I can be at all productive with my chaotic schedule.) I think the next step is to try out more of the structure options Hertz discusses and to play with some other ideas for structure (as we’ve discussed in class). I do think that the subject matter suggests the best structure, but sometimes it’s hard to choose between several interesting possibilities.
ReplyDeleteI see Cronin’s structure as mostly chronological with the accident and his diagnosis/surgery (two life-changing events) as the two events that connect everything together, and I see that each episode is related in some way to the issue of faith for Cronin and his family. With that said, and maybe this is mostly because of the title and because I found myself annoyed on his daughter’s behalf, it almost seems like the structure was the result of Cronin trying to connect his spiritual journey to his daughter’s atheism in a way that doesn’t quite work. Put another way, I was a little uncomfortable with the ways her feelings were portrayed in the essay, and the attempt to include those feelings seemed a bit forced. I admit that I caught a whiff of a condescending tone on the top of page 63 and may not have taken what followed the way he meant it, though. My bad attitude could certainly have influenced my interpretation of his structure more than it should have.
Perhaps somewhat advantageously, I've attended a Cronin craft talk where he talked about his process for writing and constructing short fiction and narrative nonfiction. I can go more into this in class, but basically he looks for two points of unfolding, which can be small or big events or occurrences that then lead/cause things to happen.
ReplyDeleteAside from that, Cronin uses some interesting story devices: exposition + scene in the opening and then saving much of the backstory for how he and his family ended up in Texas till later. Then, Cronin ends the essay in scene. For me, I see his fiction background operating well here.
The Hertz essay is a great primer on forms available to us as nonfiction writers. I'm not sure I've tried many of these forms in nonfiction, though I have in fiction. One that he's missing--though I'm not sure on the structure, aside from it looking a bit like a poem--is the lyric essay. Which I suppose does sometimes utilize braided and montage structures.
For me, the content definitely informs the structure. I've found many times that if I'm focusing too hard on emulating one form, I end up cutting material that doesn't seem to fit into it. Like Madison, I need to get everything out before thinking about structure, and usually it just kind of magically reveals itself to me. I usually end up with a braided or collage essay, but I'm fascinated with the idea of a circular form and would love to attempt that.
ReplyDeleteAs for Cronin's piece, I also wasn't a big fan of the organization and agree with Ariel that it felt messy. But I think this is a reflection of the chaos, internal and external, that took over his life following the crash. So I suppose that even though the structure was (to me) disagreeable, it worked to convey the overall theme of the essay.
I am definitely stuck in a framework rut. I know that I have an academic essay style and structure and a creative nonfiction style and structure. In creative work I lean towards shorter paragraphs in either a linear or segmented form/approach. I do not know if this similar-always approach is because it feels like it’s what fits my typical funny tone, but all of Hertz’ structure suggestions both made sense and intrigued me. I love the idea of writing the same essay in several different forms to see what would be similar or different in each. This is something I would love to do sometime. But, in the meantime, Hertz has given me a descriptive list of options to consider when trying to break out of my rut. I am extremely interested in attempting a collage.
ReplyDeleteI will admit I read Cronin’s piece a long time ago and haven’t gotten around to re-reading or skimming quite yet, so these thoughts could be off base. While I enjoyed the essay I felt as though more risks could have been taken in the piece. Not giving too much away along the way worked, but I feel like it could have been more dramatic or narrative at times. So, yes, the structure worked, but as a reader I could have wanted more? I don’t know.