firstcontact21's Full Review: Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola - Tell It Slant: W...
Introduction...
"Tell all the Truth but tell it Slant -
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind -"
This poem by Emily Dickinson serves as means into the topics covered by Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola's 2005 book, Tell it Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonfiction, an in-depth and strong resource for the writer who wants to explore the art and craft of creative nonfiction.
There are two editions of Tell it Slant available. The first edition is the edition featured on Epinions.com, which retails for about $50 Canadian. This edition features an Anthology section at the end of the book and it includes a number of essays by more than 30 authors such as Margaret Atwood, Annie Dillard and Charles Simic. It was published in 2004 and it does have a companion website for users of the book:
http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0072512784/
The site also includes additional essays, work by students and exercises.
The second edition of Tell It Slant, published in 2005 excludes the Anthology section and has new chapters on writing the Spiritual Autobiography and on Writing Groups, and the sections have been reorganized to improve the flow of the work. Overall, publishing this new edition is probably a good thing, as it allows people to access the primary content of the book at a relatively inexpensive price. It would also allow instructors to use this text alongside other, more expansive creative nonfiction anthologies. In the end though, it does seem curious that an updated Anthology edition was not released in conjunction with this new edition. Nevertheless, this copy retails for about $20 Canadian, and is the edition I am reviewing here today.
My edition of Tell it Slant is broken into three distinct parts:
Part 1: Unearthing Your Material
Part 2: The Forms of Creative Nonfiction
Part 3: Honing Your Craft
With various chapters in each part exploring specific themes and ideas surrounding the craft of creative nonfiction. All chapters, as written by either Miller or Paola, are structured as segmented essays dealing with various topics related to the creative nonfiction genre. Each chapter opens with a vignette by the author, focussing on a specific aspect of their life as expressed through the creative nonfiction genre. Each vignette serves as an overarching illustration of the chapter’s topic, which the authors refer back to often.
There discussions are colloquial, and they illustrate their ideas with relevant examples and quotes by a variety of authors, many of which are at the forefront of today’s literary creative nonfiction genre. But what helps take Tell it Slant one step ahead of other creative writing texts is the inclusion of a number of relevant “try it” exercises that help aspiring writers understand the principles that were explored.
On the parts that make up the whole...
Part 1: Unearthing Your Material...
In Chapter 1: The Body of Memory, Brenda Miller explores the idea of memory. For Miller, memory serves as a key starting point in crafting creative nonfiction, for we all draw upon the depths of our memories in creating works of creative nonfiction. Specifically, she explores and discusses the following types of memory: the earliest memory; metaphorical memory; muscle memory; as well as the five senses of memory (including smell, taste, hearing, touch and sight).
In Chapter 2: Writing the Family, Brenda Miller again leads a discussion into writing about your family. Miller dives into the ideas of how to situate yourself in relation to your family and how to balance the obstacle course that is the danger of offending those you love, stating "Family, is always an enormous subject, and as writers, we must find a way to handle this subject with both aplomb and discretion. If your family history is particularly charged, it will be even more essential for you to find smaller details - the miniscule anecdotes - that will lead the way into a successful essay. This is not to say that you can't or won't take on the big issues. But they must arrive on the page less as issues and more as scenes, images, and metaphors that will evoke a strong response from the reader" (Miller 20). She also discusses another important topic, that of giving yourself, as a nonfiction writer, permission to speak - "While drafting your essay, you must instinctively drown out the voices that tell you not to write" (Miller 21).
In Chapter 3: 'Taking Place': Writing the Physical World, Suzanne Paola discusses the idea of looking more closely at the world around us as a way of informing our writing. She introduces the idea of Place as Character as a way of setting scenes and also discusses writing about home, nature and the environment. She also discusses travel writing, noting how "In the context of travel, "place" begins to seem not so much the land itself, but everything associated with the land: its people, animals, food, music, religion - all the things that make up life itself... You must situate yourself as both participant and observer, always ready for the unexpected, but armed with the many lenses that enable you to interpret this world for your readers in a way they've never heard before" (Paola 33).
With Chapter 4: Writing the Spiritual Autobiography, Brenda Miller introduces the tradition of the spiritual autobiography, a "form (that) keeps adapting to fit whatever culture and society demand of it... from devotional narratives to science writing that finds spiritual fodder in the cells of the human body... these narratives tend to focus on moments of insight that lead the narrator in a new direction. By their very nature, many spiritual autobiographies appear to mimic or echo classic 'conversion' stories found in religious texts: the protagonist is lost and then found, and the narratives hinge on precise moments of 'turning,' either away or toward points of reference identified as God, Allah, Yahweh, the Great Spirit and so on (Miller 40). Miller also notes that "Spirituality does not necessarily need to be contained in religions or places of worship (41), suggesting that it can also be found in other areas, such as nature, so long as the idea of discovery is adhered to. She further discusses the quest narrative (similar to the hero's journey), and discusses how to keep spiritual writing fresh and original. Finally she asks writers to consider the question of What is your "Koan?" (41) - those puzzles or riddles that can lead to spiritual enlightenment.
In Chapter 5: Gathering the Threads of History, Suzanne Paola goes deeper into the threads of memory, examining how we view "Our Historical, Universal Selves" (Paola 48) by looking "...at what it means to exist and be human..." (48). She further notes how "It's important for you as a writer, particularly a nonfiction writer, to think through what is different and important in your world, and what historical events formed the canvas for the fine brushstrokes of your own life... Understanding what shapes how you perceive the world - and how you are perceived - is critical to using your own experiences to create strong nonfiction (50).
From its title, Chapter 6: Writing the Arts, seems as if it would belong in Part 2: The Forms of Creative Nonfiction as opposed to Part 1: Unearthing Your Material, but Brenda Miller's discussion on writing about culture ultimately serves as a metaphor for digging deeper into creative nonfiction writing. "Through a close observation of particular paintings, sculptures, or photographs, you can reveal your own take on the world or find metaphors in line with your obsessions" (Miller 54). The chapter lays out a number of subtopics, including writing about the visual arts, the moving image arts, music and literature.
In Chapter 7: Writing the Larger World, Brenda Miller discusses how "A good creative nonfiction writer will be attuned to the things of the world that beckon for examination" (62). She discusses how, when writing about science, a writer can take a layperson's or an expert's approach to the writing, depending upon how a writer wants to convey information. She also tackles the topic of sports writing, and finally ends in an interesting discussion on "The Essay of Ideas (67), which serves as a conclusion to not only Chapter 7, but to Part 1 as well - noting how "The good essay of ideas will be a mix of argument and reflection - knowledge and experience - so that in the end the reader has gained some insight into both the ideas and the mind behind them" (68).
Part 2: The Forms of Creative Nonfiction...
Chapter 8: The Particular Challenges of Creative Nonfiction opens Part 2 with a fascinating discussion by Brenda Miller about finding one's voice (or slant), noting that "Through a careful attention to form, you will be able to create art out of your own experience. Understanding how we are structuring our experience forces us to be concrete and vivid... By experiencing it, the reader begins to care about it, because your experience has now become his own" (74). She discusses the first person narrator and the pact that narrator creates with the reader and she examines how essayists like Joan Didion, E.B. White, Margaret Atwood and Bernard Cooper have done just that. She also revisits the ideas behind memory and more importantly, she discusses The Permutations of 'Truth': Fact Versus Fiction, asking "Just how much emphasis do we put on 'creative' and how much on 'nonfiction'" (81)? With this discussion comes more insights into memory and imagination and she also discusses the differences between emotional truth, factual truth and revenge writing. This is probably one of the most important discussions of the book, and is very relevant to today's creative nonfiction genre when you have writers like James Frey who have admitted to presenting false realities and experiences.
With Chapter 9: The Personal Essay, Suzanne Paola presents a concise discussion on what a personal essay is. She covers the forms of personal essays, from memoir to new journalism to the meditative essay as well as the sketch or portrait essay. Finally, she presents a number of ways to incorporate humour into an essay, including incongruity, the twist, irritations, exaggeration, understatement and self-deprecation.
In Chapter 10: The Lyric Essay, Brenda Miller discusses what a lyric essay is by asking how the two terms "lyric" and "essay" fit together. Miller suggests that "Lyric implies a poetic sensibility concerned more with language, imagery, sound and rhythm over the more linear demands of narrative. Essay, on the other hand, implies a more logical frame of mind, one concerned with a well-wrought story, or a finely tuned argument, over the demands of language. When we put the two together, we come up with a hybrid form that allows for the best of both genres" (106). Miller also identifies the four main forms of lyric essay - the prose poem or flash nonfiction; collage; the braided essay and the hermit crab essay.
With Chapter 11: The Basics of Personal Reportage Suzanne Paola looks into researching what we are writing about by discussing how one can effectively use both primary and secondary sources from interviewing to the library and the internet. The discussion on interviewing was somewhat weak, but when one considers that Miller and Paola also recommend readers look at the work of writers like William Zinsser who does a great job of discussing interviewing techniques in his book On Writing Well, Miller and Paola probably didn't have to spend that much time on topics that are already covered well.
Part 3: Honing Your Craft...
With Chapter 12: The Basics of Good Writing in Any Form Suzanne Paola discusses scene versus exposition, specificity and detail, point of view, image and metaphor, rhythm as well as how to develop characters and dialogue in creative nonfiction.
In Chapter 13: The Writing Process and Revision Brenda Miller introduces us to both old and new ideas concerning the drafting process, global revisions and line editing. She also considers ways in which to consider the role of the audience, although to me, the main audience for a writer should always be themselves. She also provides a nice introduction into quick fixes for stronger prose, such as purging unnecessary adjectives and adverbs.
With Chapter 14: The Writing Group Suzanne Paola gives a sound overview of the dos and don'ts of peer editing. The whole chapter serves as a wonderful checklist for writers at any level to use as a reference when doing peer evaluations.
With Chapter 15: Last Words Miller and Paola conclude with a discussion on passion - how it can be gained and how it can be lost from time to time.
And finally, Miller and Paola have provided a nice bibliography, giving readers a great starting point for reading more about the creative nonfiction genre. I think this list could have been more useful had it been expanded and included at the end of each chapter - as Heather Robertson did with her book, Writing From Life: A Guide for Writing True Stories. This list could also include both short and long works. I'm also curious to know why there doesn't seem to be an updated anthology edition available to compliment this updated release.
Conclusion...
Overall, I'm very pleased I picked up Tell It Slant: Writing and Shaping Creative Nonficiton. It provides for a frank and open discussion on many important topics related to the genre. The exercises included at the end of each chapter are also a nice bonus, allowing both aspiring and seasoned authors many starting points for getting into the ideas that were discussed. It provides a great companion piece to William Zinsser's On Writing Well as well as Robert L. Root Jr & Michael Steinberg's The Fourth Genre: Contemporary Writers of / on Creative Nonfiction.
Grade: A-
(c) March 1, 2006, Steven H. Lee
Edition Details of My Copy...
Format: Paperback (ISBN: 0071444947)
Date Published: 2005 (McGraw-Hill) 195 pages
Creative nonfiction is the fastest-growing segment in the writing market. Yet, the majority of writing guides are geared toward poetry and fiction wri...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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