Welcome to Inside Out, a weekly newsletter about nonfiction writing.
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Sentence of the week
“Four legs good, two legs bad.” ― George Orwell, Animal Farm
Long reads of the week
What Bobby McIlvaine Left Behind, by Jennifer Senior for The Atlantic
La Cancion de la Nena, by Vanessa Angélica Villarreal for Oxford American
Writing resources
💻 How to Write ‘Funny Anger’ (Not ‘Angry Anger’), by Alice H. Lahoda
📚 The Truth of the Matter: Art and Craft in Creative Nonfiction, by Dinty Moore
💻 Writing Character-Driven Short Stories — Yiyun Li’s impressive short story class
Deep dive: The 5 R’s of Creative Nonfiction
This simple but inspiring article is an insightful glimpse into the mind of creative nonfiction heavyweight, Lee Gutkind. Here’s a short summary using Gutkind’s own words, but I encourage you to read the whole thing.
#1: Real life. The “immersion” aspect of the writing experience. As a writing teacher, I design assignments that have a real-life aspect: I force my students out into their communities for an hour, a day, or even a week so that they see and understand that the foundation of good writing emerges from personal experience.
#2: Reflection. A writer’s feelings and responses about a subject are permitted and encouraged, as long as what they think is written to embrace the reader in a variety of ways.
#3: Research. Even the most personal essay is usually full of substantive detail about a subject that affects or concerns a writer and the people about whom he or she is writing. Read the books and essays of the most renowned nonfiction writers in this century and you will read about a writer engaged in a quest for information and discovery.
#4: Reading. Not only must writers read the research material unearthed in the library, but they also must read the work of the masters of their profession.
#5: Writing. (Or ‘riting.) Writers will often “create” in two phases. Usually, there is an inspirational explosion, a time when writers allow instinct and feeling to guide their fingers as they create paragraphs, pages, and even entire chapters of books or complete essays. The second part of the writing experience – the “craft” part, which comes into play after your basic essay is written – is equally important – and a hundred times more difficult.
There’s so much more wisdom in this piece about writing scenes, constructing narrative and building meaning, so don’t stop here!
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