Writing • Eckleburg

May 8, 2017August 27, 2019

Writing Catharsis

In the Poetics, Aristotle, in defining tragedy, sees its objective as being “through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation [catharsis] of these emotions,” but he does not explain what “proper purgation” means. In his time it had both a medical and a religious signification. In medical terms catharsis referred to the discharge from the body of the excess of elements produced by a state of sickness and thus the return to bodily health. Viewed in this sense, catharsis is the process by which an unhealthy emotional state produced by an imbalance of feelings is corrected and emotional health restored. An ambiguity in the Greek wording makes it possible that what is purged is not the emotions but the complications of the plot. In religious terms, as expressed in several places by Plato, catharsis is the process of purification by which the soul collects its elements, brings itself together from all parts of the body, and can exist: “alone by itself, free from the body as from fetters.”

Whatever Aristotle means thereby, catharsis remains one of the great unsettled issues. That it implies a beneficial cathartic effect produced by witnessing a tragic action is clear; how it is produced is in question. Some believe that the spectators, by vicarious participation, learn through the fate of the tragic hero, that fear and pity are destructive and thereby learn to avoid them in their own lives (this interpretation is clearly didactic). Others believe that the spectator, being human and thus subject to disturbing emotions of fear and pity, has this imbalance rectified and these internal agitations stilled by having an opportunity vicariously to expend fear and pity on the hero…. (Handbook to Literature)

Catharsis Writing Exercise

How well does your most pinnacle scene in your focus work exact catharsis from your reader? Does the tension build then release in an effective way?

Choose a pinnacle scene from one of your favorite works written by another writer. This scene should echo your intended effect for your own scene.

Give both scenes to three trusted readers who have not yet read your work. Do not give the readers any information about the scene or the overall work. Let the readers read as if this scene is the entire work.

Ask the readers, on a scale from one to five, how tense they felt in the opening of each scene. (Keep in mind that even though the longer work will have built a gradual tension over time, the scene itself should echo this degree of tension by either aligning itself with the intended state of tension or challenging it.) Then ask the readers, on a scale from one to five, how relieved they felt at the close of the scene. Next, ask each reader to briefly describe a time in their own lives when they felt both tension then relief similar to the scene you’ve written.

Do your readers have trouble remembering a time when they felt something similar to your scene? Why? How might you further explore your scene to connect the readers more intimately to the tensions and catharses of your scene?

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Sources

The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present. Eric Kandel.

A Handbook to Literature. William Harmon.

“Cogito et Histoire de la Folie.” Jacques Derrida.

Cognitive Neuropsychology Section, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition.

Eats Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. Lynne Truss.

The Elements of Style. William Strunk.

New Oxford American Dictionary. Edited by Angus Stevenson and Christine A. Lindberg.

The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Martin Puchner, et al.

The Norton Introduction to Philosophy. Gideon Rosen and Alex Byrne.

Woe is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English. Patricia T. O’Conner

Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft. Janet Burroway, Elizabeth Stuckey-French & Ned Stuckey-French.

Writing the Other. Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward.

May 7, 2017August 27, 2019

Writing Body Narrative

A narrative based in the bodily experiences—physical, emotional and more—of a central subject (personal essay or poetry) or character (fiction). Body narrative is a growing trend in not only artistic venues but also medicinal. “Developed at Columbia University in 2000, ‘Narrative Medicine’ fortifies clinical practice with the ability to recognize, absorb, interpret, and be moved by stories of illness. We realize that the care of the sick unfolds in stories, and we recognize that the central event of health care is for a patient to give an account of self and a clinician to skillfully receive it.” (Columbia University Program of Narrative Medicine)

Narrative

A story, whether fictional or true and in prose or verse, related by a narrator or narrators (rather than acted out onstage, as in drama). A frame narrative is a narrative that recounts the telling of another narrative or story that thus ‘frames’ the inner or framed narrative. An example is Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,’ in which an anonymous third-person narrator recounts how an old sailor comes to tell a young wedding guest the story of his adventures at sea. (Norton).

Narrative Lengths

Novel — Over 70,000 words

Novella — 17,500 to 70,000 words

Novelette — 7,500 to 17,500 words

Short Story — 1,000 to 7,500 words

Short Short Story — Under 1,000 words

Microfiction — Generally, 500 words or less (Some editors will consider everything 1,000 words or less to be a short short story or flash fiction. Some editors will consider a microfiction to be 100 words or less. There is a great deal of variance between editors. If in doubt, simply ask the particular editor.)

Narrative Forms

Novel: a long work of fiction, typically published (or at least publishable) as a standalone book; though most novels are written in prose, those written as poetry are called verse novels. A novel (as opposed to a short story) conventionally has a complex plot and, often, at least one subplot, as well as a fully realized setting and a relatively large number of characters. One important novelistic subgenre is the epistolary novel—a novel composed entirely of letters written by its characters. Another is the bildungsroman.novellaa work of prose fiction that falls somewhere in between a short story and a novel in terms of length, scope, and complexity.

Novella: it can be, and has been, published either as a book in its own right or as part of a book that includes other works. Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis is an example.

[Novelette: Shorter than a novella, longer than a short story.]

Short Story: a relatively short work of prose fiction that, according to Edgar Allan Poe, can be read in a single sitting of two hours or less and works to create “a single effect.” Two types of short story are the initiation story and the short short story. (Also sometimes called microfiction, a short short story is, as its name suggests, a short story that is especially brief; examples include Linda Brewer’s “20/20” and Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl.”)

[Short Short Story: a short story that is approximately 1,000 words or less. Often, expositional attributes are cut or shortened.]

[Microfiction: a short story that is approximately less than 500 words. Often expositional attributes are cut or shortened. Time lapses will be briefer and the reader will be asked to invest far more imaginative response. Micro fictions are often close to poetry and can sometimes be interchangeable with prose poetry.]

Body Narrative Writing Exercise

Think of a time when you were most ill. This illness could be bodily, emotional or both. Write a personal essay in first person pov about the experiences of this illness. This account might be realism or even surrealism, such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s autobiographical short story, “The Yellow Wallpaper.”

Submit Your Work for Individualized Feedback

Sources

The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present. Eric Kandel.

A Handbook to Literature. William Harmon.

“Cogito et Histoire de la Folie.” Jacques Derrida.

Cognitive Neuropsychology Section, Laboratory of Brain and Cognition.

Eats Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. Lynne Truss.

The Elements of Style. William Strunk.

New Oxford American Dictionary. Edited by Angus Stevenson and Christine A. Lindberg.

The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Martin Puchner, et al.

The Norton Introduction to Philosophy. Gideon Rosen and Alex Byrne.

Woe is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English. Patricia T. O’Conner

Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft. Janet Burroway, Elizabeth Stuckey-French & Ned Stuckey-French.

Writing the Other. Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward.

May 6, 2017August 27, 2019

Writing Beholder’s Share

The beholder’s share is the viewer’s relation to art. Suggested by Eric Kandel as an important element in the study of artistic forms and cognitive perception.

Some people are concerned that a reductionist analysis will diminish our fascination with art, that it will trivialize art and deprive it of its special force, thereby reducing the beholder’s share to an ordinary brain function. I argue to the contrary, that by encouraging a dialogue between science and art and by encouraging a focus on one mental process at a time, reductionism can expand our vision and give us new insights into the nature and creation of art. These new insights will enable us to perceive unexpected aspects of art that derive from the relationships between biological and psychological phenomena. (Age of Insight)

Beholder’s Share Writing Exercise

Choose a pinnacle scene within the work you are most focused upon at this time. Give this scene to three different and trusted readers who have not read the work in its entirety. Ask each reader to read then respond to the scene. Do not tell them what their response should be. Give them no additional instruction. Do not prep them or give an overview of the work. Let each reader respond as s/he will only to that scene.

When you receive the responses, put your ego aside. We’re not interested in whether or not each reader “liked” the scene, rather, we are interested in similarities and differences between their responses. You are now a scientist exploring feedback on an experiment. Try to put yourself in this scientific mindset.

In the responses you’ve received, is there anything unexpected? Good or not so good? If, yes, let’s focus on that a moment. This unexpected reaction to the scene is a gift. This is a moment when you can step outside your scene as the writer and consider the scene as a reader. What this reader brings to the scene is the “Beholder’s Share,” and now that you have this insight, you can begin to consider this scene from the beholder’s position. How might you use this unexpected response to the scene as a way to deepen and broaden it’s affects? Might there be a way to explore this response in other places within the work?

For instance: perhaps, in this scene, you expected the reader to feel empathy for the protagonist, when in fact, there was none or very little. On the surface, this might appear to be a negative craft effect; however, it might not. If the protagonist is not as empathetic as you intended, what might this mean? Is your protagonist really an antagonist in disguise? Is your protagonist meant to be written as an antihero rather than a hero character? Are their opportunities to more fully explore the protagonist’s history, a vulnerable and human moment that might connect the reader more fully?