Megan Response to Chapter 4

[Anonymous]

#429

I once had a professor for a fiction writing workshop who made the suggestion to complete a draft and then erase the first three pages. She agreed that beyond the first line, beyond the first paragraphs, “sentences begin to zing with a melody that leads to a voice that leads to what the piece is trying to be about — and its future shape.” Personally, the concept of first lines tower dauntingly in the same way it does for Camus’ writer. I never begin with a beginning. I usually begin, I think, with an image, line of dialogue, or a physical arrangement of characters in a setting set in my mind and, if I can see it through to fuller development, its placement in the shape of the piece only becomes clear later.

Structurally, while “sometimes shape can precede content,” I haven’t experienced much success imposing a shape on a piece before I’m well into the content, which is an ambiguity that can actually make writing the content more difficult for me. I think it’s a matter of perseverance to work a draft into a “full” state, at which point the materials present new options, but it’s also an act of faith that the piece will find a melody and voice strong enough to compose a structure for itself (another personal struggle of mine).

At worst, sometimes I look at the segmented essay shape and feel that a popular mistake made by students and aspiring writers is in fact “using the segmented form as an excuse for not knowing what your essay is about” – and I find it tricky to not let it slip under the defense of “style.” How does a teacher constructively discuss what he/she perceives as a possible aesthetic/structural weakness when the writer only sees an expression of his/her fragmented consciousness? I find segmented writing to be one of the most difficult forms because of these questions and insecurities about what is clearly threading the pieces together for the author vs. which threads the reader can/cannot see. Achieving a successful balance between showing and telling would make the implicit connections clear while successfully navigating the piece’s landscape for the reader. However, the differences between the “I” voice of the author, discussed in Chapter 5, and the freedom of reader interpretation come together to challenge my ideas about shape during the process of writing.

[Author]

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