Creative writing - Mike Sanders 2014

Expository essays
The masterful essay
Short-form genres

So far, you’ve learned about the various tools that come in handy for most any kind of creative writing. Part 4 begins the process of investigating just what kinds of creative writing you can practice and perhaps attempt to get published in. I begin with these shorter genres because beginning writers are going to write a story before a novel, a scene before a play, and so on. However, if you are determined to, say, write a novel, don’t skip Part 4. It’s still very important because it provides techniques that make composing longer genre forms possible.

We’ve already explored some of the fundamental differences between nonfiction and fiction writing, and Chapter 10 focuses on a short version of the former, the essay, because I believe getting that right helps with the slightly more complex topic of Chapter 10, the short story. In the last decade or so, a special kind of very short story called flash fiction has gained a growing readership, and Chapter 11 examines the challenge of writing the shortest of self-contained prose. Chapter 12 moves into perhaps the most difficult kind of creative writing, the poem, while Chapter 13 explores a genre familiar to many people, thanks to the popularity of movies, the dramatic scene or one-act play.

CHAPTER 10 The masterful essay

In this chapter

·  Exposition in nonfiction writing

·  Description in nonfiction writing

·  Persuasion in nonfiction writing

·  The “New Journalism” movement

You might think the writing of a truthful nonfiction piece—an essay—would be an undertaking that would appear and remain close to the heart. Not necessarily so. In fact, it has often been said that the key element in any essay is finding a measure of distance from your experience, or learning to stand back, narrow your eyes, and scrutinize your own life with skepticism.

Distance is important because it helps authors separate themselves as living, breathing people from the projection of themselves who narrates the essay. In other words, it makes you less touchy and embarrassed about relating your imperfections in places where your essay calls for that. It’s also important to reveal your faults so the reader will believe what you relate. If an entity who has never tasted defeat or rejection is narrating the essay, the reader is going to resent them at worst and reject them as a false and inhuman voice at best.

DEFINITION

An essay is a short piece of nonfiction prose composed on a particular theme.

In addition to the idea of distance, good nonfiction writers always strive for the interesting ideas or questions that lie beneath the generalities of a subject. True, they might begin with generalities, but very quickly they’re going to jump into what makes their experience unique. By way of example, here’s the opening of the essay SCHOOLED: Life Lessons of a College Professor:

I count myself among the luckiest of creatures. By nature and profession I have had the good fortune to have been a teacher and a learner for nearly my entire life. It is the best occupation I could ever hope for. I am surrounded by brilliant young people and coworkers who constantly teach me new things, and who also seem to believe there are things I can teach them. Though I have not always been so, I have become grateful in retrospect for the other jobs I’ve had—farm hand, trail guide, manual laborer, park ranger, bus driver, writer of semi-important speeches and unimportant manuals, among many others—and have come to love them all in different ways for the things they taught me. In the end, however, my collective experience in these employments has only served to make me treasure even more my current occupation, which I happen to consider my true calling.

When, not long ago, I was threatened with the not unrelated loss of both my eyesight and my brain, together with certain other compromised functions, I experienced the relatively common sufferer’s reaction of waxing even more appreciative of my occupation, as well as the little everyday pleasures it is in our preoccupied natures to take for granted: the feather, for example, drifting on the breeze, catching the sun, not a bird in sight. Indeed, being of an artistic disposition, the very slightest variables of existence began to leap out at me with a power and vividness I had never before experienced. I stood in awe of them, stunned, barely even able to function sometimes in the presence of what it was my privilege to witness over the course of a given interval. I would find myself weeping for what an objective onlooker might consider no apparent reason when, in truth, the reason simply lay beyond his faculties to discern. An old writing teacher of mine liked to say that one of the gifts and curses of certain serious writers is that we possess the capacity to see, feel, and suffer more than others—and I have found that to be true. But when one adds to that dynamic the prospect of one’s imminent demise—either via outright death or, perhaps worse, the loss of those powers which have enabled one to see and love and know with the deepest and most vivid passion and clarity—then that ability to discern and comprehend is multiplied a thousand-fold.

Essays exploring a one’s decline into serious illness are among the most commonly seen by editors of magazines. There’s a good reason for this: these events are among the most traumatizing you can experience. Too often, however, when writing about such a malady, the writer focuses on the idea that what has happened isn’t fair and that they’re entitled to great pity. Are these reactions natural and true? Sure. But are they interesting for a reader? Not very often.

The problem is that there are certain things readers already know, and that includes mortal illness—either involving themselves or someone they know. What seems truly significant, then, when it occurs in your own life, generates a misleading illusion that it will stir powerful feelings for readers.

The opening of SCHOOLED throws the reader off-balance. The narrator, although medically compromised, feels fortunate; he values a wide array of occupations from his past as equally valuable; and he marvels at the intensified sense of observation his malady affords him. These dynamics are going to interest readers more than those of a narrator who chooses merely to bemoan his plight.

Always try to imagine an audience made up of real people who do not know you and are not inherently eager to read what you have written. You must invite or hook these readers into your work, or you risk losing them. Only by focusing on these anonymous readers will you find a way to truly reach your audience.

Now let’s have a look at some different kinds of essays—expository, descriptive, persuasive, the “New Journalism”—that make this short genre of contemporary writing.

Expository essays

The expository essay requires you to investigate an idea, evaluate evidence, expound on the idea, and set forth an argument concerning that idea in a clear and concise manner. This can be accomplished through comparison and contrast, definition, example, the analysis of cause and effect, etc. Sounds very much like an academic paper, doesn’t it? It draws on many of the same elements, only it still allows for personal voice and various manifestations of artfulness.

DEFINITION

An expository essay is a piece of writing in which the writer presents data, opinions, points of view, ideas, concepts, and arguments on a particular topic in an effort to explain it.

Given its similarity to academic research writing, the structure of the expository essay is quite prescriptive and consists of the following:

·  A clear, concise, and defined thesis statement that occurs in the first paragraph of the essay.

·  Clear and logical transitions between the introduction, body, and conclusion.

·  Body paragraphs that include evidential support.

·  Evidential support, whether factual, logical, statistical, or anecdotal.

·  A conclusion that does not simply restate the thesis, but readdresses it in light of the evidence provided.

As noted, although creativity and artfulness are not always associated with expository essay writing, it is an art form nonetheless. As prescriptive as it might seem, try not to get stuck on the formulaic nature of expository writing at the expense of writing something interesting. Remember, although you might not be crafting the next great novel, you are attempting to leave a lasting impression on the people reading this kind of essay.

It might prove helpful for you to think of an expository essay in terms of a conversation or debate with a friend of equal knowledge and education. If I were to discuss the cause of the Great Depression and its effect on those who lived through the tumultuous time, there likely would be a beginning, middle, and end to the conversation. In fact, if I were to end the exposition in the middle of my second point, questions would arise concerning the current effects on those who lived through the depression. It would be something akin to an interruption in the conversation. Therefore, the expository essay must be complete, and logically so, leaving no doubt as to its intent or argument. However, that doesn’t mean it can’t be infused with artfulness, wit, and a sense of humor. In fact, one or more of these elements is often its saving grace.