The Writers’ Nook is a place where we, as a group, can provide a safe and positive environment in which to encourage one another and hone our own writing skills.
The 2021 CBC Nonfiction Competition is now open for submissions until February 28, 2021. With that in mind, our Theme for this meeting will be discussing techniques for writing captivating nonfiction.
Members will receive a copy of the handout for this meeting by email. The Handout outlines our Theme for this January 13th meeting, and poses a Challenge for the next meeting on January 27th.
THE CHALLENGE
Write a nonfictional piece.
In Need of a Hug nonfiction by Ernie Briginshaw
Ten Ways to see a Cat nonfiction by Dulcie Enns
Unrepentant nonfiction by Karen Bissenden
Love Scenes nonfiction by Joyce Adrian Sotski
Nature’s Precious Gift nonfiction by Shirley Bigelow DeKelver
Survival of the Fittest nonfiction by Phillis Jeffrey
Ernie: Painful, personal and relevant to the present. A good question… how can anxiety and boredom exist concurrently? You take us on a journey through some challenges in your personal life that are adversely affected by the external world. I struggle with the concept of plot when this is emotional piece that the reader follows from when it began to hope for the future. This isn’t a criticism. it’s a question I was always ask. Journalism pieces, well written like this, follow a similar triangle of info. Perhaps you know what I mean. Your final line adds humour to the identifiable fact that we all miss the hugs.
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Ernie: Your story was personal and touching, and I related closely with your anxieties and stress. With your soul mate fighting cancer during these difficult times, you have emerged as a stronger and more caring person. It took courage to write your story, well done.
Karen: I chuckled while reading your childhood memory, not the punishment rendered, of course, but the cockiness of the two Karen’s. The origami game, one I played often when I was young, brought back personal memories, and I followed you both down the hallway to the principal’s office, your awareness of the strap hanging on the wall, and what ensued next.
Your descriptions of your characters were particularly well done, and I could picture them in my mind. I didn’t particularly like Mrs. Shepherd, but she was a formidable teacher.
Ernie: Your nonfiction piece is well written and I think that each and every one of us finds something in there that we can relate to.
My suggestion for a different take on it would be — give me more to feel. For example, I realize that your life turned back to normal for obvious reasons when your wife’s chemotherapy sessions ended, but how did it make you feel? What was your visceral response? Can you describe it? I’d like to get a sense of that. And when you and your sister ‘got to say a prayer’ with your mother, I feel like there is something more. Can you find a way to give me an indication of the importance of that act to her, or to you.
You mention so many things, so matter of factly. When you were afraid that your son had the virus, or when you have that anxious feeling that seems to haunt you, all the hopes and the fears. You have included so many opportunities to pull at people’s heartstrings. We know you have deep feelings, would you consider trying to express them in such a way that your reader’s heart quivers just a little more and they feel them too — and see how it goes?
Push the envelope I think is what I am trying to say. Just a thought.
Joyce, thanks for your feedback. I’ve already edited it twice more since I submitted it and I’ll probably edit it a few more times, taking your suggestions into account.
Dulcie: What a beautiful poem; as you know I loved my cat too. I still have trouble seeing a poem as nonfiction but I truely believe it can be. This is. And it’s a very creative way to speak that which is real. Again I wonder if CBC would agree that it’s nonfiction for their Competition. Are you going to test it and see?
Karen: I loved so many of your descriptive phrases; you have a wonderful way of using words. I only gave it a cursory read but I felt that the words, “I was turned around…” at the top of page two could use a little tweak. And when I finished the piece I was struck by a new question, “Don’t you think ‘nonfiction’ should have some kind of commentary in it? not just a story?” It would be perfectly appropriate to discuss the pros and cons of this type of punishment, the lasting impression on the children, or even if the deed required punishment. I think this question is valid and I may need to do a little more research on the topic of nonfiction. What do you think?
Shirley: A beautifully heartwarming story, and the photograph is priceless. Your photography is another way of speaking. If you were planning to submit this I may suggest a few slight edits. For example, I often wonder about commas; sometimes they seem to interfere by making a sentence choppy as much as they assist; as in this sentence:
Thankful she was not injured, we quickly unpacked, and exhausted, went to bed. OR
Thankful she was not injured we quickly unpacked and exhausted, went to bed.
Only a minor subjective comment.
I love your final sentence… ‘perhaps they have stayed and we have returned.’
Phillis: This is wonderful: Observant, interesting, thoughtful and compassionate. I enjoy the way you write and how you carry us through your thought process. You don’t waste words but you use enough to give us an accurate picture of what you are seeing visually, and in your heart.
I like that you made the font bigger than normal to make it easier to read. When you enlarge the font it’s good to increase the leading too, which is the space between lines.
Did you know that the ideal line length, for readability, is somewhere between two and two-and-a-half times the number of characters in the alphabet? There are 26 letters in the alphabet in which case ideal means 52 to 65 characters in a line, which is exactly what you did. And try to never make it less than one length (26) or more than triple (78). In newspaper columns you can barely get away with half (13) characters.
Just a little info from my typography past.
Dulcie: I loved your submission, but I would consider it a poem and not as non-fiction.
Karen: Your submission reminded me of the one time I got sent to the Principal’s office so I thought you did a good job of recreating that image. (I talked my way out of getting the strap.) I would suggest dropping the last two paragraphs on the first page and add your own opinion at the end as to whether you think using the strap was an effective deterrent for bad behaviour.
Joyce: I found writing love scenes one of the most difficult scenes to write. When I wrote a love scene near the start of “Goliath”, I was embarrassed because I knew my mother and my kids would be reading it. They all said it was okay, provided they pretended it was written by someone else. My only advice is that there isn’t just one way to write a love scene. They are all different, because the characters and the situations are different. For the one I wrote in Goliath, I tried to portray how nervous and unsure the guy was. In terms of writing love/sex scenes, I find Sandra Brown and Nora Roberts pretty good at it.
Shirley: I really liked your submission, particularly the ending.
Phillis: I liked both of your submissions, but I think both of them need to be expanded into longer pieces. For the first one, I’d like to see some examples and hear your opinion, not just Darwin’s.
Ernie: I am hoping that some of our members decide to share examples of good love scenes with us. It’s the old adage about ‘show don’t tell’. I, for one, am planning to take photographs of a few pages in a couple of books in which I felt that the love scenes were tasteful and well-written. I’ll email them to whomever is interested.
Ernie and Phillis: Interesting! My initial reaction to the piece was that it was all one piece, with a subheading of ‘Road Trip’ which provided an example of the opening paragraph. But with Ernie’s comment in mind, yes what do crows do that speaks of compassion? If it was all one piece, then perhaps the Road Trip heading could be removed and the last two sentences of the opening paragraph (beginning with “He goes so far…”) could be moved into a third paragraph to provide an ending. That would make a more appropriate single written piece.
Thanks Joyce. I’m beginning to get the idea of nonfiction and how it should feel on the page. I enjoyed the assignment and I appreciate your feedback.
Thanks for the feedback Ernie. I actually meant it to be all one piece with the opening about Survival of the Fittest or Survival of the Kindest being an opening statement to my story about the Crow. I was hoping it would create a debate as to whether or not the crow’s family might bring him food in winter to help him survive and prove the theory of Survival of the Kindest or if Survival of the Fittest would reign supreme and the crow would die when the easy pickings ran out 🤔
Phillis, insightful and an interesting twist to your submission. I think your “crow” story should be expanded, they are amazing birds, extremely intelligent, and definitely fall into the Survival of the Fittest category. Good job