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Writing an essay |
Issue N° 22 |
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Each almost monthly issue of W3 treats some writing topic using writing theory, samples and exercises. Writing teachers may borrow at will. Please share W3 with other writers. New subscribers may find earlier W3 issues at www.wisewordsonwriting.com To subscribe or unsubscribe send an email to donna-lane.nelson@wanadoo.fr with the word subscribe or unsubscribe in the title. THEORYWhen Robert Atwan published the first Best American Essays in 1986, it was a gamble in the world of letters. But not only has the series continued every year since, other anthologies are also flourishing. Once a "second class citizen" (E.B.White), the essay today finds a regular home in periodicals ranging from the New Yorker to Creative Nonfiction, from Newsweek to Esquire. And it has seeped into all other kinds of non-fiction writing, from travel pieces, to op-eds, journals, commentaries, and to memoirs. As Annie Dillard writes, "The essay is all over the map, there is nothing you cannot do with it, no subject matter is forbidden, no structure is proscribed." A short history of the essay would start with Montaigne, in the 16th century, writing essais (attempts), letting the subjective and the objective intertwine into a new form of prose. Montaigne was a gentleman farmer, his essays were conversations with an unseen neighbor. If we skip up to the 20th century, Virginia Woolf speaks of the essay as a balance of subject and style, each component equally important. When writing an essay, says Philip Lopate, "It's not enough to render the experience. You also have to put it in perspective. It's not enough to show. You also have to tell." So how do we do this? Let's look at four steps, each step a new draft, and then let's pretend we're following the four steps to write a story about going food shopping in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But remember, we have to have gone food shopping in Cambridge. We cannot imagine the whole experience. This is the litmus test of nonfiction. We can embellish description, include dialogue, write in scenes, but the experience has to have happened. Here are the four steps.
Now let's write our essay. Or rather let me write the experience that I had food shopping in Cambridge, for my daughter and son-in-law and three-day old baby - food shopping in a country where I had not lived for thirty years, but in a country that looked like me and spoke like me. First draft (step one), it was a sad experience. I felt out of place. Misunderstood. Second draft (step two), I started to make it into a story. I added some dialogue, some humor. Some tension. I moved towards a revelation. Third draft, I polished the images (paper or plastic bags, pink fingernails, the pin-striped suit), the rhythm (plastic or paper…the young man stopped and waited, the people stood still and waited). And the core? The truth of the experience? Well, let me ask you. Here is the story, as it was published in The International Herald Tribune, Meanwhile Column. SAMPLE - Plastic or Paper"Plastic or paper, lady?" asked the young man with a pony tail, as I was looking in my purse for enough cash to pay the groceries. It was summer vacation, and I had returned to the States to become a new grandmother. "May I pay with my American Express card?" I said to the woman at the register, not yet ready to tackle the option of plastic or paper. "No, Ma'am, only Visa or Masters." "And a check?" "With two identification cards, Ma'am," she answered, handing me the stub. Her fingernails were longer than I remembered ever seeing and painted brilliant pink. "Do you have a driver's license?" I started to fill out the check. "I have a driver's license but it's Swiss." The young man who had asked me about plastic or paper eyed me with curiosity. He had three earrings of different lengths all on the same ear. "What did you say dear?" asked the cashier. The line behind me was getting longer, but it was also getting interested. "I said my license is Swiss. I don't live here, I live in Switzerland." Everyone turned toward me. If only I had a hint of a foreign accent, no one would have paid attention. This was Cambridge, Massachusetts, where in summertime one out of two people speak a foreign language. But my English sounded like their English. Where did I come from? I looked American, I spoke American, but I didn't perform American. "Let me see dear. I don't want to make you trouble." Again the young man asked, "Plastic or paper, lady?" Lady? I thought I was a woman. What was this lady business? And ma'am? And dear? "Honey, he just means how do you want it wrapped? In a plastic bag or in a paper bag." I had such a large, attentive audience that I found the question difficult. Which was more ecological? I should give the right answer. Making paper bags destroyed the trees and forests. But was the plastic bio-whatever? I never had learned that word. I made a wish that the plastic be whatever it should be and said, "Plastic, please." The young man snapped open a large bag and placed it on a frame at the end of the check out counter. The plastic bag sat suspended. "Your license please, and another piece of identity." All this hassle for $22.20. I thought about giving the groceries back, but my daughter and French son-in-law were waiting for them - one romaine lettuce (not iceberg, but French and leafy), three red apples (they were so polished I squished one just a little to see if it were real), sharp cheddar cheese (they didn't tell me there were a dozen varieties of sharp cheddar), and steak (ah, I thought, after thirty years in Europe I could easily choose steak, but no, there were meters - I mean yards - of packaged steaks, each with different names.) I couldn't give it all back, it was to be our dinner. So out came my Swiss driver's license, written in French, with a photo of me about twenty years back, well, maybe thirty. The cashier looked at me and then back at the photo. Skepticism. Next came my American passport, recently renewed, like one month ago. Mistrust. Grandmothers do age. She rang for the manager, her bright pink fingernail poised on the bell. I waited. The young man packing my groceries stopped and waited. The people in line stood still and waited. No one murmured, no one was impatient. This too was different. I could hear the air conditioners. When the manager, dressed in a grey pin-strip suit arrived, I was so confused I reached out to shake his hand. I was ready to apologize. I had only wanted to do the shopping for my daughter and son-in-law and their new baby, born three days earlier. I had flown from Geneva to be a grandmother. I was even trying to be an ecological grandmother. "Is this all right?" I asked, pushing the check, the Swiss drivers' license, the American passport in his direction. "Yes. Everything is fine." He smiled and wrote his signature on the back of my check. I could feel the wave of general relief. "You know," he said, "I always dreamed of going to Switzerland." The core: The little grocery store in Cambridge welcomed me back home. NOTES
See you next year, D-L Nelson |
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Wise Words on Writing may be shared with other writers as long as it is attributed to D-L Nelson. For anyone wishing a special topic to be treated in this monthly newsletter, or for other comments, please contact donna-lane.nelson@wanadoo.fr. |