Writing First Person

1. Writing First Person

2. Very brief quiz 1. Did Malcolm Gladwell find story ideas from people at the top or people in the middle? 2. There were 2 pieces by Sufjan Stevens. One was about a secret he had when he was a kid. What was the secret? 3. The other piece focused on something his parents said he could change…what was it? 4. Does Colson Whitehead like ice cream? 5. Did Liza Monroy’s dad go to her wedding? 6. What was Tang’s problem?

3. Today! • Discuss Group Presentations and Group Edits • Sign up for group presentations and edits • Discuss writing first person pieces. Discuss narrative arc, honesty, self editing. • Places to find examples: NYT Lives • Pitch First Person Stories • Listening exercise: David Sedaris and discussion of the pieces you read.

4. Next time! • Read David Sedaris readings for next week. • Draft of first person essay due next Thursday. • Check to see if you are signed up for a group edit or group presentation! • Bring TWO copies of your first person piece to class. One to hand in to me, one to use for a peer edit.

5. For next week… • Write a narrative first person essay. • To write a narrative essay, you’ll need to tell a story. • The story should have some sort of insight. • But most of all, it should have “narrative arc.”

6. What is narrative arc?

7. Narrative arc is the thing that makes the reader want to know what happens next. • It answers the “and then what happened?” • And THEN what happened. • If nothing happened, sorry Charlie, you don’t have a story. You’re just babbling on. • Narrative arc means your story has a beginning, a middle and an end.

8. Some tips • SOMETHING HAS TO HAPPEN • Start with the action. Forget the typical academic intro. This is not that kind of writing. • SAVE the CHEESY endings. PLEASE. Or I will die. • It MUST BE TRUE. • 800-1200 words. Please include a word count. DO.NOT.GO.OVER. • Oh, guess what? YES, you can and SHOULD use the word “I.” • Watch your tenses!

9. Banish the editor on your shoulder! • There is no way you can write a good piece if you are self censoring. You need to just forget about your internal editor and pretend you are writing for no one.

10. You need some distance • You need to be able to see yourself from a bit of a distance. You need a clear and real understanding of how you come off or came off in a particular situation. • You want to be honest about your own flaws and your strengths. • DON’T try to be likable. If you’re honest, you’ll be relatable- which is WAY better. • DON’T spare the feelings of other people. This isn’t the place to make friends.

11. Tell the story how you would tell a friend. • Don’t bother with hyperbole or what I call “purple prose.” • Use dialogue! • Just write the story the way you would tell a friend. • On your first draft, forget the word count. Just tell the story.

12. Read. Out. Loud. If you don’t believe me, just wait. I will prove to you that this rule works. • Let. Your. Work. Breathe. Write, then take a walk to the store, go for a run, call a friend. Give your work some time before you go back for an edit.

13. Pay special attention to your lede Suck your reader in! First Line examples from the Lives column. 1. Mornings are not our best family moments. (From Mother’s Little Helper) 2. I was 6 when my brother John leaned across the kitchen table and casually whispered that he had killed Santa Claus. (From A Rat’s Tale) 3. Last winter, after more than three decades of silence, I desperately wanted to see my mother before it was too late. (From The Most-Hated Son) 4. I don’t think anything would rattle the mother of a preteen boy quite like the words my 12-year-old uttered this spring: “Mom, we need to talk,” he said. (From The Missing-Piece Son ) 5. I am parked in a rental car in front of the house where I grew up. (FromPrevious Address) 6. Patrick was the sort of student who made a teacher curious. (From The Lost Student)

14. 7. It’s impossible to look cool when you’re part of a tour group. (From In Too Deep) 8. Not very long ago I was in New York for a few weeks and decided to get a tattoo while I was there. (From Under My Skin) 9. When I travel alone, my preference is to keep it that way. (FromStrangers on a Train) 10. It had rained heavily the night before. (From The Letting Go) 11. It was an impossibly pristine Sunday afternoon. (From Online Mainline 12. He friended me just after Thanksgiving, Week 13 of regular-season football this year. (From A Brief Electronic Affair) 13. Paul was one of my best friends in high school, but we drifted apart after graduation. (From High-School Redux) 14. One day this past summer, I logged on to Facebook and realized that I was very close to having 700 online “friends.” (From Facebook in a Crowd) 15. It was a given that we would be conspicuous. (From The Art of Losing )

15. 16. I was vacuuming the bedroom one afternoon some months back when I moved a few books aside and spotted a dusty old scrap of paper. (From“BunchMuncherasi M.D.”) 17. The young man who came to see me a few months ago didn’t knock but stood at the doorway to my office. (From First Love, Once Removed) 18. I had almost forgotten I’d sent in an application when the e-mail message appeared, like Mr. Big, out of nowhere. (From Sects and the City) 19. There were a couple of dozen costumes to choose from — Superman and spaceman and muscleman and Popeye and, inexplicably, Baby Huey — but unless the customer had something specific in mind, I went with the gorilla suit every time. (From The Monkey Suit)

16. The point of every sentence, every detail, and every line of dialogue is to illuminate character and advance the story.

17. The essence of good first-person narrative is sharing an experience, let the reader see and feel it, and reach a resolution from which both reader and writer grow or have an 'aha' moment. • Writers often confuse essays with a recollection of an event -- they fail to share how the experience enlightened them, affected them, changed their opinion.

18. The topics are endless. Almost anything can be the subject material for an essay -- nature, climbing, sailing, death, parenting, relationships -- but ask yourself what you feel passionate about, or what you have experienced that has universal appeal. Ask yourself what makes you happy, or what makes you sad.

19. Many essays for commercial publications are not lengthy -- perhaps 1,000 to 1,200 words, often less. • To share all you want to share, you must keep focused on three elements -- the beginning or hook; the conflict or the internal journey; and the ending, what you find at your destination. • The best essays have a universal theme.

20. The 3 Prong Approach The Hook: Begin with the action, not with what led up to the action. The Conflict: This is where we experience your challenge or conflict with you, grapple with the curveball, struggle to make sense or laugh or cry with you. The Ending: Tie the ends together. The ending or resolution doesn't have to be happy, but there should be evidence of growth or a new understanding in the author.

21. Let’s not panic. • Writing in the first person should not freak you out. • It is the most natural way to tell a story. It is how you tell stories every day.

22. First person examples • Go back and look for the hook/conflict, the journey and the resolution in each one.

23. Our Readings • Sufjan Stevens essay. Look at the lede. Does it suck you in? Does it make you wonder what happens next? Is it self conscious? “There are some things you tell no one, secrets packed and folded away in the far reaches of your mind - admissions of mouth herpes, for example, or athlete’s foot, or a night spent in jail for drunk driving.”

24. Great details, lots of honesty, 0 cliches Details: “So in the beginning of third grade, I was transferred to a public school, a cinderblock prison camp with metal lockers and industrial carpeting and fluorescent lights so severe they took all color out of your complexion.” Honesty: “I couldn’t even spell my own name, so I was beaten up at recess, tickled and punched behind the swings, left in a rumpled mess in the gravelly residue of the playground.”

25. Second Sufjan Piece • Lede: After a few years moving in and out of various towns, religious cults, faddish diets, etc., my parents finally sat me down and apologized for the weird name they gave me. “We were out of our minds!” they admitted. “We didn’t know what we were thinking!” • Honesty: “My parents were confused, but also a bit relieved. They later told me they didn’t really have the money.”

26. Tang piece Lede: “As a first-generation Chinese-American woman who wears a size 36D bra, I can personally testify to the power of the American fast-food diet.” Honesty: “I couldn’t wear skirts because of my bulging stomach, and I had dizzy spells whenever I bent down to pick up something.” Details: “By the age of 10, I had a double chin and waddled like a Peking duck.”

27. Monroy Lede: When my father was born, he was strapped to a board so his spine would grow straight. (Check out the dialogue in this one.) Honesty: “But the next summer in Mexico, my best friend was the one who walked me down the aisle.”

28. Colson Whitehead Lede: “Mine is the story of a man who hates ice cream and of the world that made him.” Honesty: “As a teenage boy, I was seized by a potent suspicion that my right arm was growing bigger than my left.” Details: “There was a hot dog machine on site, where the franks spun eternally like grisly, grim planets, and occasionally I’d make a wretched feast of one, but most of the time I ate ice cream.”

29. Don’t censor yourself! • I don’t care what you write about. Nothing is too inappropriate. • BUTTTT……remember, something MUST happen. • The story of your last night out drinking martinis and getting one of your friends to do the lift from Dirty Dancing may have been funny but it probably isn’t much of a story beyond that. Remember you want narrative arc!

30. Malcolm Gladwell • Finds ideas in everything. Convince yourself there is a story in everything…..why isn’t there a ketchup to rival Heinz? • Understand the difference between power and knowledge.

31. Francine Prose- Reading Like a Writer “Like most—maybe all—writers, I learned to write by writing and, by example, by reading books.” “I read closely, word by word, sentence by sentence, pondering each deceptively minor decision the writer had made.” Consider her comments when completing the reading for this class.

32. Ira Glass • “The stagecraft of telling a story is not just a secondary concern.” • Don’t worry about “putting yourself in the story.” • “….what makes a piece of journalism great. It’s the pleasure of discovery, the pleasure of trying to make sense of the world.” • “I have this experience when I interview someone, if it’s going well and we’re really talking in a serious way, and they’re telling me these very personal things, I fall in love a little….They’re sharing so much of themselves. If you have half a heart, how can you not?”