Written by Betsy Warland
ISBN 9781897151785 | 5.125" x 7.625" | TPB | $20
Categories:Non-Fiction - Essays/Letters
Purchase:Local Bookstores | amazon.ca | chapters.indigo.ca
Breathing the Page: Reading the Act of Writing (Preview)
Locating the Reader
Why does it take a while for my reader to become involved in my narrative?
I.
A reader’s decision to read a narrative may be a greater act of surrender than a writer’s decision to write that narrative. Although a reader may choose to moderate his encounter with the narrative, this can prove to be an illusion. At one time or another, most of us have believed we were reading judiciously, even dismissively, only to discover later that an image, line, or scene from a narrative has taken up residence within us.
The act of reading is an act of belief.
Most readers make the decision to read or not read or discontinue reading within the first seconds or minutes of encountering a text. Like dogs meeting in a park, scents are immediately exchanged; compatibility or lack of it is determined. Acted upon. When the scent is confused, overpowering, or too faint, the reader’s interest falters. For the bond between reader and narrative to flourish, the narrative’s opening lines or sentences must signal the reader to a compelling situation that the narrative promises to address. I call this “the predicament.” The predicament drives the entire narrative, whether it is a single poem or a book-length prose narrative. The predicament doesn’t spell out the whole story, but it cues the reader, signals or gestures what fuels our desire to tell the story — and the reader’s desire to read it. A simple device such as an arresting image or phrase, or engaging dialogue, can provide a compelling cue. The predicament may issue from a longing, a problem, a tension, a dilemma, or a puzzle that intrigues the writer, the reader, and the very narrative itself. It functions as a hinge on which the door to the narrative opens to the reader.
Consider the following excerpts from a work-in-progress. In the first excerpt, we encounter how the narrator handles her grief over her mother’s death. In the second excerpt, we get a glimpse of the conditions necessitating this narrative (the predicament) in her account of her rather bizarre actions on the heels of her husband’s death. There is a sense of stasis (predilection) in the first excerpt. In contrast, her emotional strategies are no longer tenable in the second excerpt. Consequently, our curiosity is incited. We become invested in the narrative: we want to know how will she navigate her way out of her utter disarray.
“After the First Death”
by Leslie Hill
We had picked out a coffin, a plot, a headstone, written the newspaper announcement, donations to charity in lieu of flowers, chosen the readings, spoken to the minister. There was little left to do when the time came except confirm the dates and times.
My sister had suggested a piper.
“You want bagpipes?” I’d said.
“Why not? She’s a McLean; she loves them.”
“Yes, well, I love them too, but if you think I can cope with bagpipes at her funeral, think again. I’d go to pieces at a stranger’s funeral if there were bagpipes. Absolutely not.”
My brother nodded agreement, his eyes bright with grief. My father was silent.
So there were no bagpipes. But it was hard enough. One of my mother’s friends came over to the house two days after Mum had died. She burst into tears as she came into the back yard where I was sitting on the steps with a book.
“For God’s sake, don’t cry, Sharon!” I snapped. She straightened up as if I’d slapped her.
“Sorry,” she said.
“We have to get through this, and if you cry we’ll all cry, so just don’t.”
“Sorry. I brought you ...” She held out a covered casserole dish and tried to smile.
“Thank you. It’ll be a huge relief from my cooking. Is your name on the dish? It’s chilly out here. Come inside and have a coffee. Or a drink. Never mind that it’s still morning, I’m surviving on sherry.”
The sherry would keep me upright and tearless, I thought, as long as other people showed a decent amount of restraint.
The funeral home visits were packed. My father greeted everyone, the ones he knew and those he didn’t. Dad never lost his social skills. Two older women who were strangers to me looked at me and burst into tears. I ground my teeth and turned away as my father patted them on the shoulders. Apparently they had known my mother when she was a girl. “She looks so much like dear Eallien,” they whispered, staring at me.
“How is the dog taking it?” asked Larry, a vice-principal at my father’s school, and I felt my composure begin to disintegrate. After a moment I managed to say through stiff lips: “The dog died a year ago Christmas,” and wondered how anyone over forty could be so fucking inept.
“Psychic Reading”
by Leslie Hill
“You want a reading? Thirty bucks. Come in here.” She pointed to a sagging armchair in a cluttered living room, then sat down across from me with a coffee table between us. I handed her the money.
“I don’t need to know anything about the past or the present,” I said. “Just the future, please.”
“I tell you what I see, I don’t do timelines.” She shuffled a grubby looking deck of cards and handed it to me to cut. “Use your left hand.”
She turned the first card over without a comment. Put down the second.
“Looks like you’ve been having a rough time lately.” When she turned over the third, she shot a glance at me. I stared fixedly at the cards, which meant nothing to me and were blurring anyway.
“You’ve ended a relationship lately, lost someone important to you.” There was a faint question in her words.
“My husband. He died. Yes.”
“When?”
“Wednesday.”
“Last Wednesday?”
I nodded. She put down the deck of cards. “But — why are you coming to see me?”
“Because you can’t say anything bad. Whatever you see can’t be worse than now. I thought, if you looked forward, you’d see something better, something that would ... I don’t know, help me move on.”
It seemed perfectly logical to me, but she stared at me in disbelief. Finally she shook her head, picked up the cards again, and started laying them out and talking fast.
“You’re going to have a hard time for quite a while. Work is difficult. I see minor health problems that you might have to deal with long term. Not everyone around you is as supportive as they appear. Someone is going to demand a lot of you that you can’t give and that person will be very angry with you. Money will be okay eventually but you will feel a lot of financial pressure in the short run. You’ll be doing some travelling but it won’t make much difference to the way you feel for a few years. Christ. Look, give me your right hand.”
She had changed tactics so quickly that it took me a moment but I flattened my hand in hers. She stared grimly at the lines in my palm and then relaxed. “Okay, here’s some good news; you’re going to live to be over ninety.”
I burst into tears.
If a narrative’s predicament is likely to evoke initial discomfort or resistance in the reader within the first few pages, it is crucial to take this resistance into account and reassure your reader that he is in good hands. There are countless ways to do this. The narrator, or a character, may embody this ambivalence while at the same time conveying her need not to turn away from the narrative’s unfolding.
The use of well-timed humour or conflicting perspectives can assure the reader that your narrative has been well considered. Pacing of the narrative is another manner by which to signal that the narrative will not be in the reader’s face — that the narrative itself understands the circuitous nature of storytelling, whether it is a poem or a novel. Pacing also acknowledges our human need for time to absorb and reflect. Curiously, narratives that provoke initial resistance often are the ones that have the greatest impact on us. They are the ones that become some of our most beloved narratives. If we do not take the reader’s resistance into account, however, we then fail to effectively locate our reader, and the book will be closed within the first few minutes.
As writers, we must create the conditions to locate the reader effectively, draw her into the narrative’s unique world with its own particular state of consciousness. When this happens, the reader is quickly able to make deductions and to draw inferences, much as we do in lived experience. Our tendency to write unnecessary and intrusive commentary — which I call “billboarding” — is quelled. It is not unusual, however, for writers to be unclear about what the narrative’s predicament is until we are well into the first or subsequent drafts. Once we do recognize it, we must return to the opening of the narrative and revise it to accurately cue the reader.
As an exercise, you may find it useful to pull a number of books off the shelf and read only the first page of each. Which first pages excite and intrigue you most? Which ones make you eager to continue reading? Once you have found a number of such first pages, determine how each author drew you in. Which strategies used by these authors appeal to you most, give you ideas for the first page of your own narrative?
One of the most remarkable locating sentences that I have encountered is in the opening of Jamaica Kincaid’s novel The Autobiography of My Mother: “My mother died at the moment I was born, so for my whole life there was nothing standing between myself and eternity, at my back was always a bleak, black wind.”
II.
Memory is our material — private or public, observed or researched, imagined or factual. All prose narratives, whether fiction or creative non-fiction, are constituted or reconfigured from various fragments of memory; narrative strategies used in fiction and creative nonfiction, however, are dissimilar. Identifying how these different prose narratives are built helps us to locate the reader effectively in each of these genres.
When writing fiction, we typically begin with a relatively small set of specific narrative elements: characters, settings, time frames, gestures, physical appearances, and possible themes. Perhaps we even have a sense of the plot. Our task is to flesh out these narrative elements and determine the story’s structure. We seek to replicate, as close to the bone as possible, lived experience. Even when writing speculative fiction, lived experience must be evoked enough for the narrative’s elements to be believable. When writing fiction, we gradually discover a strange familiarity with aspects of the story that we had not anticipated or imagined. We experience a knowing that we cannot logically explain. If you imagine a funnel, we begin writing at the small opening and finish at the wide opening.
a handful of reads like creative
fictive elements non-fiction
A good piece of fiction reads as realistically as creative non-fiction.
In creative non-fiction, the narrator has the narrative within her possession, and it is seemingly a matter of retelling the story. In contrast to fiction, creative non-fiction begins with an overwhelming array of memories, observations, documents, research, and, not infrequently, a cast of thousands. The central challenge with creative non-fiction is to determine the focus, select, then evoke. When writing creative non-fiction, we gradually discover aspects of the story that we had no clue about. These discoveries may arise from our research, from a new perspective gained in the reconfiguring of our material, or from our recognition of the unconscious forces that drive us to write the narrative. Using these new discoveries to guide us in determining the text’s structure and focus is the key. In turn, we must offer the reader a similar discovery process, using subtle devices of déjà vu, premonition, and foreshadowing. We utilize devices of fiction to bring vivacity to the non-fiction narrative. In this sense, we begin writing at the wide opening of the funnel and end with a coherence symbolized by the small opening at the opposite end.
an array of creative reads like
non-fiction elements fiction
A good creative non-fiction narrative reads as compellingly as fiction.
Reading is full of consequence.
Reading is an irreversible act of trust.
Since I began writing in the 1970s, the necessity I perceive for me and for other writers to locate the reader has increased. Diversification of communities, the migratory nature of contemporary lives, and changes in representation of reality by information technology make truth more complex, even illusive. In our first few lines, we must create the conditions for the previously assumed “handshake” between writer and reader; we must affirm that reading is an act of respect.
Locating the Reader
Why does it take a while for my reader to become involved in my narrative?
I.
A reader’s decision to read a narrative may be a greater act of surrender than a writer’s decision to write that narrative. Although a reader may choose to moderate his encounter with the narrative, this can prove to be an illusion. At one time or another, most of us have believed we were reading judiciously, even dismissively, only to discover later that an image, line, or scene from a narrative has taken up residence within us.
The act of reading is an act of belief.
Most readers make the decision to read or not read or discontinue reading within the first seconds or minutes of encountering a text. Like dogs meeting in a park, scents are immediately exchanged; compatibility or lack of it is determined. Acted upon. When the scent is confused, overpowering, or too faint, the reader’s interest falters. For the bond between reader and narrative to flourish, the narrative’s opening lines or sentences must signal the reader to a compelling situation that the narrative promises to address. I call this “the predicament.” The predicament drives the entire narrative, whether it is a single poem or a book-length prose narrative. The predicament doesn’t spell out the whole story, but it cues the reader, signals or gestures what fuels our desire to tell the story — and the reader’s desire to read it. A simple device such as an arresting image or phrase, or engaging dialogue, can provide a compelling cue. The predicament may issue from a longing, a problem, a tension, a dilemma, or a puzzle that intrigues the writer, the reader, and the very narrative itself. It functions as a hinge on which the door to the narrative opens to the reader.
Consider the following excerpts from a work-in-progress. In the first excerpt, we encounter how the narrator handles her grief over her mother’s death. In the second excerpt, we get a glimpse of the conditions necessitating this narrative (the predicament) in her account of her rather bizarre actions on the heels of her husband’s death. There is a sense of stasis (predilection) in the first excerpt. In contrast, her emotional strategies are no longer tenable in the second excerpt. Consequently, our curiosity is incited. We become invested in the narrative: we want to know how will she navigate her way out of her utter disarray.
“After the First Death”
by Leslie Hill
We had picked out a coffin, a plot, a headstone, written the newspaper announcement, donations to charity in lieu of flowers, chosen the readings, spoken to the minister. There was little left to do when the time came except confirm the dates and times.
My sister had suggested a piper.
“You want bagpipes?” I’d said.
“Why not? She’s a McLean; she loves them.”
“Yes, well, I love them too, but if you think I can cope with bagpipes at her funeral, think again. I’d go to pieces at a stranger’s funeral if there were bagpipes. Absolutely not.”
My brother nodded agreement, his eyes bright with grief. My father was silent.
So there were no bagpipes. But it was hard enough. One of my mother’s friends came over to the house two days after Mum had died. She burst into tears as she came into the back yard where I was sitting on the steps with a book.
“For God’s sake, don’t cry, Sharon!” I snapped. She straightened up as if I’d slapped her.
“Sorry,” she said.
“We have to get through this, and if you cry we’ll all cry, so just don’t.”
“Sorry. I brought you ...” She held out a covered casserole dish and tried to smile.
“Thank you. It’ll be a huge relief from my cooking. Is your name on the dish? It’s chilly out here. Come inside and have a coffee. Or a drink. Never mind that it’s still morning, I’m surviving on sherry.”
The sherry would keep me upright and tearless, I thought, as long as other people showed a decent amount of restraint.
The funeral home visits were packed. My father greeted everyone, the ones he knew and those he didn’t. Dad never lost his social skills. Two older women who were strangers to me looked at me and burst into tears. I ground my teeth and turned away as my father patted them on the shoulders. Apparently they had known my mother when she was a girl. “She looks so much like dear Eallien,” they whispered, staring at me.
“How is the dog taking it?” asked Larry, a vice-principal at my father’s school, and I felt my composure begin to disintegrate. After a moment I managed to say through stiff lips: “The dog died a year ago Christmas,” and wondered how anyone over forty could be so fucking inept.
“Psychic Reading”
by Leslie Hill
“You want a reading? Thirty bucks. Come in here.” She pointed to a sagging armchair in a cluttered living room, then sat down across from me with a coffee table between us. I handed her the money.
“I don’t need to know anything about the past or the present,” I said. “Just the future, please.”
“I tell you what I see, I don’t do timelines.” She shuffled a grubby looking deck of cards and handed it to me to cut. “Use your left hand.”
She turned the first card over without a comment. Put down the second.
“Looks like you’ve been having a rough time lately.” When she turned over the third, she shot a glance at me. I stared fixedly at the cards, which meant nothing to me and were blurring anyway.
“You’ve ended a relationship lately, lost someone important to you.” There was a faint question in her words.
“My husband. He died. Yes.”
“When?”
“Wednesday.”
“Last Wednesday?”
I nodded. She put down the deck of cards. “But — why are you coming to see me?”
“Because you can’t say anything bad. Whatever you see can’t be worse than now. I thought, if you looked forward, you’d see something better, something that would ... I don’t know, help me move on.”
It seemed perfectly logical to me, but she stared at me in disbelief. Finally she shook her head, picked up the cards again, and started laying them out and talking fast.
“You’re going to have a hard time for quite a while. Work is difficult. I see minor health problems that you might have to deal with long term. Not everyone around you is as supportive as they appear. Someone is going to demand a lot of you that you can’t give and that person will be very angry with you. Money will be okay eventually but you will feel a lot of financial pressure in the short run. You’ll be doing some travelling but it won’t make much difference to the way you feel for a few years. Christ. Look, give me your right hand.”
She had changed tactics so quickly that it took me a moment but I flattened my hand in hers. She stared grimly at the lines in my palm and then relaxed. “Okay, here’s some good news; you’re going to live to be over ninety.”
I burst into tears.
If a narrative’s predicament is likely to evoke initial discomfort or resistance in the reader within the first few pages, it is crucial to take this resistance into account and reassure your reader that he is in good hands. There are countless ways to do this. The narrator, or a character, may embody this ambivalence while at the same time conveying her need not to turn away from the narrative’s unfolding.
The use of well-timed humour or conflicting perspectives can assure the reader that your narrative has been well considered. Pacing of the narrative is another manner by which to signal that the narrative will not be in the reader’s face — that the narrative itself understands the circuitous nature of storytelling, whether it is a poem or a novel. Pacing also acknowledges our human need for time to absorb and reflect. Curiously, narratives that provoke initial resistance often are the ones that have the greatest impact on us. They are the ones that become some of our most beloved narratives. If we do not take the reader’s resistance into account, however, we then fail to effectively locate our reader, and the book will be closed within the first few minutes.
As writers, we must create the conditions to locate the reader effectively, draw her into the narrative’s unique world with its own particular state of consciousness. When this happens, the reader is quickly able to make deductions and to draw inferences, much as we do in lived experience. Our tendency to write unnecessary and intrusive commentary — which I call “billboarding” — is quelled. It is not unusual, however, for writers to be unclear about what the narrative’s predicament is until we are well into the first or subsequent drafts. Once we do recognize it, we must return to the opening of the narrative and revise it to accurately cue the reader.
As an exercise, you may find it useful to pull a number of books off the shelf and read only the first page of each. Which first pages excite and intrigue you most? Which ones make you eager to continue reading? Once you have found a number of such first pages, determine how each author drew you in. Which strategies used by these authors appeal to you most, give you ideas for the first page of your own narrative?
One of the most remarkable locating sentences that I have encountered is in the opening of Jamaica Kincaid’s novel The Autobiography of My Mother: “My mother died at the moment I was born, so for my whole life there was nothing standing between myself and eternity, at my back was always a bleak, black wind.”
II.
Memory is our material — private or public, observed or researched, imagined or factual. All prose narratives, whether fiction or creative non-fiction, are constituted or reconfigured from various fragments of memory; narrative strategies used in fiction and creative nonfiction, however, are dissimilar. Identifying how these different prose narratives are built helps us to locate the reader effectively in each of these genres.
When writing fiction, we typically begin with a relatively small set of specific narrative elements: characters, settings, time frames, gestures, physical appearances, and possible themes. Perhaps we even have a sense of the plot. Our task is to flesh out these narrative elements and determine the story’s structure. We seek to replicate, as close to the bone as possible, lived experience. Even when writing speculative fiction, lived experience must be evoked enough for the narrative’s elements to be believable. When writing fiction, we gradually discover a strange familiarity with aspects of the story that we had not anticipated or imagined. We experience a knowing that we cannot logically explain. If you imagine a funnel, we begin writing at the small opening and finish at the wide opening.
a handful of reads like creative
fictive elements non-fiction
A good piece of fiction reads as realistically as creative non-fiction.
In creative non-fiction, the narrator has the narrative within her possession, and it is seemingly a matter of retelling the story. In contrast to fiction, creative non-fiction begins with an overwhelming array of memories, observations, documents, research, and, not infrequently, a cast of thousands. The central challenge with creative non-fiction is to determine the focus, select, then evoke. When writing creative non-fiction, we gradually discover aspects of the story that we had no clue about. These discoveries may arise from our research, from a new perspective gained in the reconfiguring of our material, or from our recognition of the unconscious forces that drive us to write the narrative. Using these new discoveries to guide us in determining the text’s structure and focus is the key. In turn, we must offer the reader a similar discovery process, using subtle devices of déjà vu, premonition, and foreshadowing. We utilize devices of fiction to bring vivacity to the non-fiction narrative. In this sense, we begin writing at the wide opening of the funnel and end with a coherence symbolized by the small opening at the opposite end.
an array of creative reads like
non-fiction elements fiction
A good creative non-fiction narrative reads as compellingly as fiction.
Reading is full of consequence.
Reading is an irreversible act of trust.
Since I began writing in the 1970s, the necessity I perceive for me and for other writers to locate the reader has increased. Diversification of communities, the migratory nature of contemporary lives, and changes in representation of reality by information technology make truth more complex, even illusive. In our first few lines, we must create the conditions for the previously assumed “handshake” between writer and reader; we must affirm that reading is an act of respect.
