ENGLISH 642: WRITING SEMINAR--NONFICTION spring 2008
Instructor: Richard Terrill Phone: 5500 Office: AH 212C
Hours: T 4-5, W 3-5, Th 1-2, and by appt. Email: richard.terrill@mnsu.edu
TEXTS
Holocaust Girls. Sandi Wisenberg
The Untouched Minutes. Donald Morrill
A few essays to be handed out or available in the box on my door for you to photocopy.
CREATIVE NONFICTION: Some definitions
According to the Associated Writing Programs, creative nonfiction is "factual and literary writing that has the narrative, dramatic, meditative, and lyrical elements of novels, plays, poetry, and memoirs."
Lee Gutkind (Creative Nonfiction) "believes the best creative nonfiction is focused, conveys the larger meaning behind personal experience, and has an informational quality or element of reportage," according to Poets and Writers magazine.
Norman Sims (in The Literary Journalists) defines Literary Journalism (a subgenre of creative nonfiction) as having the essential components of "immersion, voice, accuracy, and symbolism."
CREATIVE NONFICTION: My description
Creative nonfiction is writing that combines the narrative techniques of the fiction writer, the reportage of the journalist, and possibly the concern for language of the poet. That is to say, the writing offers some kind of information, but its organization is primarily narrative rather than expository; it is more concerned with telling a story than advancing an argument. On the other hand, by its tone and strategy it differentiates itself from fiction that just happens to be true. Since the form is essentially an essay, the writer will often comment on the narrative in a way a fiction writer usually won't. The writing will contain ideas that are usually stated and not just implied.
By its style and structure, creative non-fiction identifies itself as work that is intended to last, to be art; rather than to be topical or informative only.
By creative nonfiction I mean profile (of a person), travel writing, nature writing, some environmental, historical, or biographical writing, most personal narrative, and some other kinds of writing about a person, a culture, a place, or a thing. Creative nonfiction often, but not always, uses the first person "I." But it distinguishes itself from writing in a journal or a diary in that it intends an audience, and usually is at least as much about "the world" as it is about "the self." On at least one level, it's about a culture, a place, a thing, or a person other than the writer.
On the other hand, it's also safe to say that creative nonfiction can be "about" almost anything. For instance, surgeons, astronauts, El Salvador, your home town, a trip to the place in which Anton Dvorak spent a summer in Iowa, coal miners in England, a plot of woods in the suburbs, your family farm, people's feelings about work, American pop culture in Asia, train travel, your mother, your grandfather.
By creative nonfiction I mean the nonfiction work of such writers as John McPhee, Joan Didion, Annie Dillard, Edward Abbey, Tracy Kidder, Al Young, Maxine Hong Kingston, Ian Frazier, George Orwell, and so on.
CLASS REQUIREMENTS
To earn an "A" or "B" you should do all of the following:
1. Turn in to workshop, without missing any of your deadlines at least 9000 words of creative nonfiction (around 30 pages). You shouldn't include material you've had workshopped before unless there has been substantial revision (this material to be given less than full credit toward the page count, depending on the degree of revision).
Submitting a piece to the workshop suggests that you've taken it as far as you can on your own. No first drafts please. It's also required that you include the beginning, middle, and the ending of an article/essay/chapter you’re submitting. (The first two exercises we’ll write need not include an ending).
2. Turn in to the workshop two exercises (two pages minimum, no maximum, to be included in the word count). See “Syllabus” for particulars.
After this you’re free to turn in to the workshop whatever you like. You may also if you wish schedule an appointment with me to discuss a revision of work you’ve done this term. By finals week at the latest, turn in a revision of a piece you had workshopped during the term (this revision not included in the word count).
3. Turn in to its author a helpful and thorough critique of each piece that comes before the workshop on the night that we discuss that piece. Critiques should be completed before class begins. These critiques make up almost 50% of the basis of your final grade.
4. Turn in an "Evaluation of Critiques" form for each of your workshop submissions (due two weeks after your work is discussed).
5. Don't miss class.
6. Participate regularly in class discussion.
7. Complete all reading assignments.
If you don't meet all of the above requirements, the appropriate grade is "B" or lower. I reserve the right to differentiate between and "A" and a "B" based on the above criteria and the quality of your writing.
WRITERS: At the top of each piece you're turning in to the workshop let us know: 1) if this is an essay or article meant to be part of something larger, like a chapter in a book, and 2) if you intend the piece for some specialized audience (most of your writing will likely be for a "general educated audience").
Make sure your submission has a beginning and an ending. It should be a completed draft, not an excerpt (the two exercises at the beginning of the term exempt from this requirement). Remember that our expectation is that you’ve taken each submission as far as you can on your own before showing it to the group.
Writers, of course, are not allowed to speak during the group's critique unless a misprint or error is causing problems, or they feel the group is beating a dead horse.
READERS: You owe the writer a complete and thorough critique based on an intelligent reading. Workshops, of course, ask for your opinion, but it’s most helpful if your opinion is informed by other creative nonfiction you’ve read and thought about.
We’re not in the business of personal attacks (or glowing praise of the writer rather than the writing), neither are you doing anyone a favor by saying simply "Thanks for sharing" or "Gee, I liked/hated all of it."
You shouldn’t read a colleague’s work looking for things to change. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Instead, try to determine what this writer is trying to do, and think of ways you can help this writer write this piece better. Not having done this, your opinion is only an opinion, and it’s useless.
Remember that what happens during these three hours per week (“she said this about me, he just wants me to write like he does”) is less important than everyone turning out quality writing. You can choose not to learn if you please. But if your intent is to subvert and undermine the class for other people, to be a jerk, please drop the class now or I’ll give you an F.
SYLLABUS
1/23 – Bring to class multiple copies of exercise #1: a piece of creative nonfiction in which you share information with the reader (perhaps information that you gained in part through research rather than observation or experience). 600 words minimum, no maximum. Refer to Wisenberg and the other readings we discussed in class as models, or go off in another direction.
Read or re-read introductory essays by Sims and Lopate (photocopy, available in the box on my door). Read Wisenberg through page 45, taking note of how and where she reflects on experience.
1/30 – no class. AWP National Conference.
2/6 bring to class multiple copies of exercise #2: a nonfiction piece in which you as the narrator reflect or comment on the narrative or on the information you’re presenting. 600 words minimum, no maximum. Read The Untouched Minutes, paying special attention to fragmentation of the narrative (as well as information provided the reader and reflection on the narrative)
2/13 -- workshop exercise #2. Read more of Wisenberg, pages TBA
For the remainder of the term we’ll workshop three student submissions per week, and sometimes look at one piece of published writing.
5/7 -- due by this date at the latest is a revision of a piece you had workshopped during the term.
THE VARIETY OF NONFICTION
1. diary/journal -- no audience
2. autobiography --celebrities (Katherine Hepburn, Lance Armstrong, Bill Clinton)
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3. memoir (connotes to me a longer work, maybe of a distant time or distant place)
& personal narrative (connotes to me a shorter work, maybe more local to audience)
It’s like autobiography, but focused on a subject
Hellman Scoundrel Time.
Terrill Fakebook: Improvisations on a Journey Back to Jazz
McCarthy Memories of a Catholic Girlhood
Ondaatje Running in the Family
Young Kinds of Blue
4. Personal essay
it states more idea than memoir
it’s often primarily anecdotal rather than primarily narrative
it perhaps has something in common with a sermon
Abbey The Journey Home: Words in Defense of the American West
Morrill The Untouched Minutes
5. Literary Journalism
travel, profile/biography, environmental, nature,
other writing about a culture, place, person, or thing
it has a stronger element of reportage.
Didion Salvador
Kidder Among School Children
Frazier On the Rez
Conover New Jack
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6. Journalism and critical writing.
7. technical and business writing,
academic, scholarly, cookbooks etc.
8. shopping list (no audience)