Eradicating the Boring

Quality writing draws a reader in to the images and ideas presented, creates a unique world for the reader to live in, and has what Ernest Hemingway calls "vigorous language."

This week, and from our observations over this past week, we are to practice upping our language by focusing on the descriptive value of prose. The audience will most likely lose attention IF a writer is not willing to provide accurate detail, the right word choice, and expand on the ideas they themselves present in their writing.

As the semester chugs on, there is much we must consider in representing our cultures through our language. We must pay attention to the finer details, so that when we come to the page our vision of the culture is most accurately portrayed.

Writing Sins

Judgmental Words: you do want to provide your audience with what you think, but don't tell them how to feel about a subject. Have confidence that your audience will see the "bad" in a person who, for instance, thinks it is funny to go around kicking random people in the back of the knee!

• Example Bad words: bad, good, great, amazing, rude, mean, dumb, super, wonderful, sloppy, intimidating, cool...

• Exceptions: of course, writing would be hard if we weren't allowed to use these words at all, but the goal is to rely more on the describing the people and places that give you the feeling.

• To Combat: Yes, a graveyard may be spooky, but if "spooky" was all you had in your description of the graveyard, well, that's pretty low in value. What makes the graveyard spooky? Is there a rusted iron gate, falling off its hinges, are there ravens cawing on gravestones? Are graves packed closely together; grave markers ten feet tall, blocking out life beyond the cemetery? What I mean: focus on the surroundings, the details that provide you the feeling. Go in depth as to what gave you the feeling you have labelled on your subject.

General Store Language: an over-reliance on abstract adjectives, adverbs, nouns and verbs that have innumerable meaning. There is nothing more boring than reading an essay that is filled with flat, voiceless, faceless characters and unknown, under-painted landscapes. There is nothing more frustrating than when an author replies on the common associations and assumptions that go with a concept like "freedom" or "love," and won't provide their own subject-cultures definitions of these concepts. (As Foreigner sings, "I want to know what love is, I want you to show me.")

• Example Abstractions: love, freedom (!), happy, people, animals, thing, everything, everyone, no one, nothing ...

• Exceptions: Of course, you will have some of these words used, but again you want to make sure that you don't casually use these terms. If, for example, you are studying a culture like a Protest Group, and "freedom" is one of the things they are protesting for, you would have to use the word. However, their idea of freedom might not be my idea of freedom, or your idea of freedom. Instead of relying on the catchphrase, your job as the writer would be to meditate on what that word means to your subject-culture.

• To Combat: As I said, defining generic terms is one thing. Another combat move would be to, in the revision process, seek out weaker phrases from sentence to sentence. When you see yourself using all-inclusive language like "everyone, no one, everything, people, etc." you need to stop and rewrite that phrase to the specific person or to be less all-inclusive. (I know you don't really mean "They love everyone" so why would you use this weak phrase?)

Pronoun High: we, us, they, them, he, she, it, this, that. Uggggggggggggh. Really? From the first two sins, the reasons these words are worth avoiding should be obvious. The constant use of pronouns to replace the noun is easy to do for any writer, but easy does not mean that using pronouns makes for the best writing.

Using pronouns can cause you to miss opportunities in your writing to re-define/develop your subject-culture more thoroughly. Yes, constantly referring to your subject as "The Outsider Graffiti Gang" might get tedious, or tiresome. However, instead of using a generic pronoun like "They," use a noun-phrase that helps build their character. For instance, you might replace "The Outsider Graffiti Gang" with "The lawbreakers..." or "The subversive artists...."

It, this, that are three words used at the beginning of sentences that are highly frustrating. Avoid these words if you can! You can build sentence-to-sentence coherence by using the specific reference instead of the vague pronoun. You can.

Writing Activity

• With all of these ideas fresh in your brain, we are going to write drafts of your Research Proposal introductions...

• What are the 2-3 most "defining" characteristics of your culture? Choose 1 of the 5 general prompts, and write a draft of your RP intro:

1. Is physical appearance hugely important to our understanding? If so, perhaps you might introduce your subject-culture by giving the "typical" physical description of someone in the culture. Be playful, be accurate, don't settle on just adjectives.
2. Is the subject-culture's ideology (religious, gender, political, ethnic, food, etc.) most important to their identity? If so, an effective way to introduce your culture to your audience might be to give a brief list of the culture's key beliefs -- like Martin Luther when he introduced Protestantism with his list of 95 grievances against the Catholic church, circa 1517!.
3. Dialogue. Providing a couple of key phrases used by participants in your culture, and then clarify the relevance of those phrases. What is so interesting in what the culture is saying? (Do the words signify empowerment; are they filled with patriarchal privilege; are they influenced, and stealing, from popular culture figures?)
4. A major behavior. Describe the behavior. Who is involved? Pose questions to what you find fascinating about culture.
5. LANDSCAPE. Where does your culture live? Give a physical description of the place in which your culture spends a majority of its time.

Now, these are just starter prompts that give us some room to focus on certain areas to focus our description of culture. Your own introductions will be revised and more fully developed.

Homework:

• Bring back the writing activity, as we continue talking about writing Research Proposals.
• Read Lygia Navarro's "Tropical Depression from the Winter 2009 issue of the Virginia Quarterly Review. This is a very long reading! That said, focus on the beginning and how Navarro describes Cuba. What are some of her arresting images that help you understand what it is like to live in Cuba, and in what ways does her focus on the landscape affect our tonal understanding of Cuba?

No Class Meeting on 2/19: Out of Class Assignment

Today’s assignment (2/19), which gets you out of the classroom and into field work, is to work on a couple of very important aspects of quality writing so that you will be able to make quality analysis:

1) Focus on smaller details of an object (people, in our case) that are often overlooked

2) Attempting to provide an image*(or images) to your audience rather than simply telling your audience how to feel by using bias language.

* As writers, we are after trying to recreate what we saw as if we are the cameras recording a scene. We want to capture the color, the language, and even the way a character might shrug their shoulder when asked a question, or turn their head and roll their eyes when one of the group members mentions being tired.

More specifically, your assignment for class participation today is to attend a large tourist spot – Shedd Aquarium, the Art Institute, etc. – where you can see a large amount of people interacting with each other and within small groups. The Shedd is free today, Friday (2/19), and the Art Institute is free all February. There are other places, too, as we discussed in class, that you may go!

Normally, I tell you not to be a voyeur, but today is different. In order to sharpen your descriptive language abilities, you have to be able to stare people down…without being awkward or threatening, of course.

Specific Assignment at Your Site:

Descriptive value in writing relies much more on providing the specific details of people rather than relying solely on judgmental, summary phrases, often through OVERUSE of adjectives and adverbs (funny, angrily, great, huge). The key is to spend more time on our descriptions; pay attention to the small details that make up our judgments. Descriptive value allows your reader to see more of what you see – as if you are the camera. So, going to a larger tourist spot, you are to practice this kind of writing by doing the following:

- Pick at least one person, or a small group of people, and start noting down as much as you can about physical appearance of those observed – clothing to height to hair color to jewelry to describing their body language and where they are sitting, and how they are sitting. Also, describe their body movement and facial expressions – all those parts of their action that we interpret as their behavior!

- Can you, in words, provide for your audience the kind of description that will allow us to see what you saw, as if we were looking at a photo when we read your prose?

Descriptive value in writing is often overlooked, so this assignment is highly necessary to field work for your projects. Analysis becomes much clearer and easier when you pay the closest attention to your subject. The more you can show your audience what your subject looks like, the more likely they will understand your ideas.

Due for Wednesday, 2/24: Bring in your best observation of a person or small group, so that we may discuss “the next step,” which is to use the observation to start making analysis. This may be written out, and not typed.