(The) Writer's Mind: Notes for Writing Reflection Part 1
What becomes available while revising toward this second draft of the lyric is the opportunity to "see" the conflicting values (the opposing controlling values) at play in the scene, which then permits new possibilities for interpretation beyond the familiar ways (what I call "topics") of interpretation always ready to insinuate themselves. In other words, you might begin to see ways in which the character-narrator is listening for and projecting:
This is the "creative" part of "creative nonfiction," and it requires you to take advantage of the narrative present in which you are addressing an addressee about the particularities of an event that happened at a previous time.
The trick is to "see" a topic present and operative within a particular moment in the scene, one filled with conflict. Look at the relationship between those conflicting elements (the characters acting in the event) and determine the values struggling for dominance therein. Use that moment in the scene as a "trigger" to move out into a "reflective" moment in the narrative present, where the character-narrator diegetically reflects and "thinks through" wider dimensions of that same value struggle. |
An Example
Here is an example from a past student. Note how the writer begins with scene, moves out to a reflective moment, and then returns to the scene. You will also see echoes of the Complaint Narrative here. [my notes in brackets]:
[note that while this appears as scene, there is a strong element of exposition--the narrator writes as if she knows HOW the receptionist IS, when in fact it is the character narrator's projections, which slowly shall move into a full blown complaint: full justification of the narrator's "rightness" in response to a projected threat "seen" in the receptionist.]
[Here comes the reflective moment--the full-blown "being right" topic in technicolor]
[and yet, despite this, the narrator chose to come to the tanning salon--further conflict left unspoken. Meanwhile, the narrative turns back to the scene, away from the present reflection]
There are numerous possibilities for reflective interludes that ideally will organically fuse with the particularities of the scene that provide triggers for reflection. This may mean cutting out aspects of the scene that are no longer "salient" to the wider reflective essay you are writing.
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