Elsewhere, folks were talking about how to write essays that mix personal narrative and intellectual work. Im posting this here because Ive never spelled out my process doing this, and others might find it useful. Especially scholars trying to write non-dry (wet?) prose. Terris Writing Process for Academic Memoir Pieces: Rule #1: You need to tell a story (or perhaps a couple of stories) that matters, TO YOU (could be something that enrages you, made you sad, excites you, all of these.) Rule #2: The story must include people or objects that matter TO YOU (characters could be alive or dead, objects could be actual or media-created, and you generally include yourself.) Rule #3: The story (or stories) should be used as case studies that illustrate the limits, contradictions, complications or paradoxes of particular ABSTRACT THEMES of your choosing (e.g. feminism, objectivity, ethics, art, grief, love, etc.) Once you have a sense of what 1-3 might look like, I work to weave three things: 1. a timeline of plot events to give a spine to the STORY (that includes yourself, could be chronological but could also be ordered in reverse chrono or flashback); 2. a personalities section where I talk about the key PEOPLE or OBJECTS involved to keep the reader attached to the narrative (their back-stories, your memories); 3. a vocabulary list THEMES I want to make sure to hit for intellectual and political reasons (pedagogy, feminism, trust, etc.) In the drafting process, I tend to start with chronology because it keeps me focused (every time my emotions and thoughts go off, I tell myself gently, Tell the story.) Once the events are mapped in the draft, I give some flesh to the personalities, usually dealing with them as they appear in the chrono part of the draft. Once those two things are spelled out, I go to the vocabulary list, figuring out instances in the narrative where the arguments/intellectual work fits in; for me the objective is always to have the reader check the story Ive written and then think, Well, of course, this is a story that requires more explication with regard to feminism/pedgagogy/ethics, etc.) NOTE: This is generally where the stuff written by other people/theorists gets slotted in. Once the drafting process is done, I try to see if there are any critical darlings I should slot in (from emails, conversations, etc.) Next comes the hard work/artistry, which is deciding on the chronology for the opening and the ending:Do I start from the thing that upset me? Do I start from an earlier memory, or back story? Do I end by narrating the status of this one story? Do I use this as a springboard to raised awareness elsewhere on the net? Do I end by circling back to something I learned about myself? All are valid; all make for different emotional appeals to the reader. I usually play around with four or five different versions, but once I get a sense of how I want that to go, I then slot the rest in, per the draft notes above. Hope this helps others
Posted on: Thu, 03 Jul 2014 13:53:55 +0000
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