Narrative Structure and Point of View in Essay Writing
The Interior Gaze: Week Two
Hello! Welcome to week two of THE INTERIOR GAZE. I’m excited to share three pieces with you today, along with some reading questions and inquiries.
If you want to use these weeks as inspiration to write an essay, I suggest starting your essay this week. I’ll share some inspiration for this in this post.
We have a writing space every Monday from 10-12am EST (linked below the paywall), and we’ll be meeting on Sunday October 20th at 4pm EST to discuss the essays as well as any writing you’ve been doing (also linked below!). You MUST register for Sunday’s session (so I can get a feel for how many people are joining! We will have some writing time as well, with prompts.
This week we're thinking about structure and narrative point of view in essays
You will find the PDFs of our readings below the paywall. I am leaving everything else accessible to all subscribers!
In this week’s section, we’re reading Jo Ann Beard’s “The Fourth State of Matter,” along with Tim Bascomb’s short craft essay, called “Picturing the Personal Essay: A Visual Guide,” and Carolyn Forché’s “The Colonel,” which is a prose poem (also short).
Beard’s essay is long, but I encourage you to read it twice, because there’s a lot happening craft-wise and narratively. I also encourage you to read Bascomb’s essay after Beard’s, rather than before. Come to Beard’s essay clean, without any preconceived ideas about how it’s working, and make your own conclusions before applying anyone else’s ideas to the work. This is typically how I approach reading essays in general, unless there’s some specific context I may need to understand the work.
There are a few things you can do if you’d like to get into the nitty-gritty of craft in beard’s essay and you have the time and attention. As writers, we can all learn so much from “The Fourth State of Matter.” I don’t want to give anything away about the essay because the storytelling style is so well-crafted and deft, so I will save my own insights for Saturday, when I post a reflection about how the essay is written.
Here’s my suggested strategy for reading Beard’s essay:
Print the essay out if you can (I suggest this for all essays but, full disclosure, I do not currently own a printer and read a lot of my essays on my Kindle. You can learn how to send PDFs to your e-reading device here).
Read the it once, without taking notes or applying a critical lens. Let yourself be absorbed into the work. Try to read it all in one sitting (it will take about 45 minutes to an hour, depending on how fast you read), free from distractions.
As you read, underline or highlight any passages or moments that feel interesting or confusing to you, but try not to write any full comments (because that can take us out of the essay).
After you have read the essay, read “Picturing the Personal Essay: A Visual Guide.”
Then, preferably a day or two later, read the essay again (again, without distractions). Now you can write comments in the margins (or in a separate notebook, as I like to do).
Things to ask yourself on the second read:
Narrative point of view— what is the narrative point of view in this essay? What information is withheld by the narrator, if any? Which “characters” are privileged, and when? Does the narrative point of view shift or remain the same throughout the essay? If it shifts, when does it shift, and why do you think it is shifting?
Structure— How is the essay built? Think of the structures mentioned in Bascomb’s essay. We can think of an essay like a roller coaster, or a weather event. Tension ebbs and flows, drawing the reader’s attention to specific events, objects, and experiences. How does the essay control the reader’s attention?What is the impact of this control?
Auras— This essay is very poetic, and poems have what’s often referred to as an “aura,” or, as I like to say, a vibe. We can also call this tone. Tone can dictate the reader’s attention, and the type of attention they are giving a piece, as much as structure. What do you notice when it comes to tone? Think about word choice, imagery, and punctuation. Also notice verbs. Noticing verbs, and what verbs the writer chooses to animate the essay, can be help you develop a radar for your own crafting of essays.
What is left out— Noticing what the writer excludes is essential in this essay particularly. What’s excluded? What’s made ambiguous by these exclusions? Why might that be? What effect does that have on the story, the reader, and the reader’s perception of the narrator?
What do you look for when you’re reading an essay?
Now that I’ve shared some things to pay attention to while reading Beard’s essay, I’d love to hear how you read essays: as a writer, what do you want to learn, craft-wise? What’s interesting to you? What are some craft elements do you want to learn more about through the act of reading?
What is one thing you learned from Baldwin’s essay, or the Phillip Lopate essay about making oneself a character?
Lastly, what do you hope to do more skillfully in your own nonfiction writing? What do you want to learn more about? What kinds of essays are you interested in reading and writing?
Tell me in the comments!
Carolyn Forché’s poem “The Colonel”
Reading poems can be a fruitful endeavor for writers in any genre. Forché’s poem shows us how to use juxtaposition. Its spare language serves a specific purpose. As you read, notice both. Why do you think this poem was written the way it was? What story is Forché centering? Where is the narrator’s voice coming from?
Starting Your Essay
If you want to write an essay (or two) during this class cycle, now is the time to start! Remember, essays can be any length and any style. They can be personal, or they can examine something that isn’t particularly personal (we’ll be reading two essays next week that is less personal and more nature-centric).
My suggestion? Let it be messy. Offer yourself the luxury of a messy, messy first draft.
You can begin your essay with a question or point of inquiry, or with an event or experience you’d like to explore. What I notice in my own writing is that I often have to write into my work. This is why I encourage you to let it be messy. Letting yourself wade through what needs to come out before finding a seed of the story you want to tell can be quite productive.
Instead of knowing the end of the story before you start, I encourage you to begin with a freewrite. Don’t worry about how good the writing is, or how others may perceive it. Let yourself freely tell the story, as if you are telling it to someone who loves and accepts you. Making it good happens with revision.
Writing essays this way is like setting sail on a voyage whose destination you don’t quite know yet. The winds will carry you. Trust your unconscious to guide you into what needs to be expressed.
If you’re not quite ready to start as essay, make a list of things you’d like to write about.
As you write each thing down, leave some space below before writing the next. Then, when you’ve made your list, fill in those gaps with smaller ideas related the each individual essay subject.
When you’re done, notice which subject or idea draws your attention the most acutely. What’s asking to be explored?
This can be your starting point.
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