Please describe the prospective subject of your literary journalism piece.
Keep in mind Henry James' criteria for judging a piece of writing: 1) What is the writer trying to achieve? 2) Did the writer achieve it? 3) Was it worth achieving? The last is also perhaps the most important.
Answer each of the categories in turn. For #2, answer "how" you're going to achieve it -- that is, your ideas for reporting and structuring the piece, what scenes it will include.
Try to be as specific as possible throughout.
Your response is due by 4 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 24.
17 comments:
I am considering writing about a time when a 16 year old friend of mine used a dating site to make a date with someone who our friends and I found very suspicious.
1) A very common problem with our society is younger people taking advantage of our progressive lack of supervision. This story displays my mindset while trying to convince my friend that they may be making a bad decision and the horror I felt when I failed to do so.
2) I'm going to incorporate scenes that mainly consist of younger people hanging out together beyond the scope of their parents. The theme of conversation will revolve around the online friend and the tension will be depicted as viewing him as an apparition in the room whenever there is a computer or device communicating with him. Ultimately, the situation is resolved by an adult in a way that depicts them as being able to handle some of the intangible problems in our lives.
3) I think that people who read this may have mixed reactions. A lot of parents think their child would never do something so silly, but this is often because they see their child as blissfully unaware of the troubles in their environment. This story should attempt to dispel that dismissal and hopefully inspire parents and children to communicate better.
1. I want to write from the perspective of a camper at a sleepaway camp as an 100 event relay race is about to begin and take place. I want to show the emotions and thoughts that this camper is feeling as the events unfold.
2. Telling the story from the campers point of view will allow the reader to see all of the emotions and thoughts that are being felt. When it's the campers event all eyes will be on him, so he will surely be feeling a lot of things and will extremely nervous. I would like to show what is being seen by the camper as he sits and watches the event unfold prior to his turn in the race and then his emotions after he has finally gone.
3. This is worth it because I attended a sleepaway camp for 12 summers and I think it would be interesting to show all of the emotions that take place over a race that lasts one hour.
The story will begin at breakfast on the day of the event when the camper finds out what particular event he will be doing later that afternoon. After this the camper will then go to two activities with his bunk, basketball and soccer.
Once the activities are over, he will seek out where his event for the afternoon will take place and he will practice. During lunch he won't be hungry because he's too nervous for his event.
After lunch the event will start and the reader will be able to see all of thoughts the camper has as he's waiting for his event to come up. The camper will do his event, and then he will watch the rest of the race.
The story will end with the camper 10 years later when he was chosen to be the leader of his team, where he has to organize the event for every member of his team.
I want to write about being a child of divorce. 50% of marriages end in divorce, and because of that, divorce is a topic that I think is pretty glazed over in society. But every divorce has its own reasons for occurring and is traumatic in its own way, and always affects the children involved regardless of what age they are. My own experience occurred in a middle-class household, so that is the viewpoint I will write from.
I plan to structure my piece like Joan Didion’s “Los Angeles Notebook” and address different situations I have personally been in dealing with divorce/separation, though I’ll be sure to choose relatable anecdotes. I’ve since narrowed down my scenes to a few different ones. The main one is the day my mother told me about the issues and the cause of them, when we were going on a car ride to pick apples at an orchard. I remember wanting to get to the orchard and literally run away from the car, almost like from a dramatic scene from a film, because I was so angry. But instead I sat in the car and consoled her, and later regretted that decision. Image can be a very important thing to people experiencing divorce, making sure the family still looks nice and clean and happy. I think even in that moment of shock, I wasn’t able to fully let loose and embrace my emotions. I wouldn’t let myself express the chaos of that was going on in my mind, and that initial scene set the tone for the next year of divorce/separation messiness my family experienced, and how we all live now.
Another scene is going to be sitting around my room at college with my friends, casually talking about our family lives, and realizing three of the four of us are from divorced families. I want to contrast the emotional, descriptive first scene with a somewhat dryer, straightforward second scene that acknowledges how common a thing divorce is nowadays.
I want the point of this piece to be for readers to understand a little bit of the devastation that comes with such divorce, now so normalized. I want children who come from divorced families to identify with it and children who consider their parents to be blissfully married to gain some perspective. If that is what readers come away with, then it was worth achieving.
I am considering writing about flying solo internationally- specifically a trip back from India. I could write about the actual India trip, but I was never alone during it, and my experience was guided by that of my family. But the experience flying back was alone and all my own, and there's certainly a story to be told.
1)I want to achieve a contrast between the beginning and the end of the journey. India and New York City are night and day, and being alone in both are harrowing experiences for different reasons- but share some interesting common elements... including a taxi driver who came from not far away from the region I left.
2) My main challenge will be condensing the 27-hour-total journey into one story. I could almost write a story for each airport: Mumbai, London, and New York. Instead, I want to structure the piece using these three places as an outline, with the plane rides in between acting as bridges from one setting to the next.
3)Most people in the United States of America haven't actually ever left the country, or even traveled out of the country alone. Travel is often seen as dangerous, difficult, with many obstacles. That couldn't be farther from the truth. In reality, observing the people around you on a long journey like this is one of the biggest insights into how people really are and what it feels like to be truly responsible for yourself I have ever had. I saw just as much on the plane and in the airport as I did walking the streets of Pune. It's an experience I really hope I could give to readers: and maybe tell a story of the people I saw along the way.
1. I would like to write a story about a high school girl living in an abusive home, with alcoholic parents. I am deciding between two styles, with her thoughts narrating the story. My first thought is to begin when she is arriving home from school one day. It will show her typical afternoon - with her parents already drunk - and how they become gradually more violent towards each other and her. Her step-father will verbally abuse her, and then his last scene will be when he hits the mother. The story will end with her falling asleep, making excuses for her parents and denying the abuse that she is experiencing. My second thought is to style it with multiple excerpts, like Didion’s “Los Angeles Notebook”. It could represent multiple instances in her life, where she normalizes abuse with various people. It will include the excerpt from above, a scene with her boyfriend and one with just her mother. I am unsure which style would be more effective.
2. Either style, one long story or multiple excerpts, will be told from the girl’s point of view with her thoughts depicting the scene. The readers will identify with the girl, and be able to relate to her abuse in one way or another. The ending is the most important, because that is when she will deny that she is being abused and accept is as normal. The audience will not criticize the girl, but rather understand her. This girl is my best friend, so I am aware of her thought process and can accurately depict it.
3. I am hoping my piece will convey the thought process of people who have been abused, which is very worth it. Many normalize their abuse and deny that they are being abused. A person who has grown up in an abusive household carries the lifestyle throughout her life and often is drawn to people who are abusive as well. This is why the excerpts may be more effective, to demonstrate how she has chosen an abusive relationship now.
1. My story is going to be about my experience working at a golf course on the east end of Long Island. The theme will lay within the relationships I formed with the people I work for and with, and what those characters and relationships tell about our perception as a nation of the illegal immigrant culture in contrast to our perception of the white, upper class niche of society.
2. I’m aiming to structure this piece a lot like “An Experiment in Misery,” in that it will be a collection of a few short stories that aid in creating the overall point of the story, and illustrate how my perception changes throughout my time working at the course. I’m not sure what particular stories I’m going to include yet, but I know my beginning story will be my first day of working there, and how I walked into the kitchen being greeted by loud Spanish music and fast Spanish talking. I automatically felt very uncomfortable and very defensive, and uneasy at the fact that communication between these workers and myself seemed limited. I also want to add aspects of other stories that stand out in my mind, including my one on one talks with workers where they told me about their families back in Guatemala, how they obtain fake drivers licenses and documents, and debates I would have with them over illegal immigration. I think telling these stories will allow the reader to relate and understand these people more, and provide a contrast to the stories I tell about the golfers that I actually work for, who are the living example of “money doesn’t buy class.”
3. I think this story is an important one to tell because with immigration such a talked about issue in the media these days, all many people know is just what laws are attempting to be passed or how this increased immigration will affect the country. Many people have never spoke to one of these people, and believe their culture and values are in disarray, when in actuality, that is a sometimes better description of the people they are working to serve, especially in places like a golf course.
I want to write of a world where nothing is private, and everything is expected to be divulged immediately.
1) It seems as though with each passing year privacy continues to degrade. Very subtle, but nonetheless. With this story, I want to show how destructive it will be to ignore that degradation in favor of advanced technology.
2) The setting would be as close to present day as possible. The first scene would consist of the narrator walking down a city street, hearing things we would consider personal: "My alcoholism is killing me!" for example (but I probably won't use that.) People would have to give up their fingerprint to enter various buildings, etc. Everyone is wearing the same wardrobe: black jeans, oxford shoes, and a white t-shirt for the men, and a black pencil skirt, stiletto heels and a white shirt for women. On the t-shirts are listed the person's name, age, sex, DOB, e-mail address, phone number, and any other information. People must wear these shirts at all times, even though there is little resistance to it. The shirts are seen as the most comfortable thing in the world. The following scene will show someone breaking from this lifestyle, or someone foreign to it getting offended by personal invasion, and their subsequent shunning by those trying to pry. He will be painted as an outcast and an idiot. Then, the third scene will focus on the technology. Every aspect of technology will require someone to give their personal information or fingerprint, from the soda machine to the bike rack. The entire story will end with no change, but complacency from the narrator, which will carry the entire story.
3) With each passing year it seems that more personal information is required for almost anything. Privacy is a right that everyone today respects and admires. But what if at some point, we end up forsaking privacy? If I have to give my birthday one year to watch a movie, and then my gender and address the next, is that the end of it? Or will I be expected to go even farther? If my phone is tethered to a GPS satellite, and it collects my fingerprint on a data card, how much privacy do I really have?
I'm pretty much keeping the same idea as before. It might morph into something else by the end of the process.
[1. I want my piece to focus on the low value placed on human life in a hypercapitalist environment. My goal is to write an incredibly melancholy piece that accurately shows the reader how easily it is to treat people like animals in modern society. I believe some of my experiences dealing with this devaluation in low-wage employment can convince the reader that they’ve either been a mindless asshole in the past or still are one to this day. I plan on using more than just work experiences (family, friends, public experiences, etc.) to show how all encompassing this devaluation of man has become.
2. I plan on structuring the piece in a journal entry format similar to Didion’s “Los Angeles Notebook.” All of the reporting will be self-interviewing since the scenes are all from memory. Like “Los Angeles Notebook,” I want it to come off as seemingly random situations that all blend together into a common theme, as described above.
3. I think achieving my goal would be worth it—whether that will happen is a different story. If done correctly, exposing people’s misplaced values and showing their potential for cruelty and thoughtlessness might make people think about their actions more and reflect on their attitudes toward their fellow person. Or it might just depress readers into a state of cynicism… hopefully the former comes true.]
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Some scenes I'm considering using:
1. I was grabbing the stray shopping carts with a coworker after the stored closed in the winter. A Jeep slowed down by me and the driver asked me if I knew that it was cold outside, then called me a faggot and sped off.
2. One particular incident at the member services desk left a coworker in tears and they had to go home. A lady pretty much flipped shit on her because she couldn’t accept her return. The lady had also spit on the employee.
3. I got spit on as well. It was a separate job, and it’s a somewhat brief story. It would have a similar premise to number 2.
4. A memory I remember vividly involved an animal instead of a human. The animal, a medium-sized blonde lab, was left in a car with the windows rolled up in the parking lot while the family was inside enjoying the rides and attractions. It was about 80 degrees out.
5. While the people driving took advantage of their position to act like assholes, I took advantage of mine to make more than minimum wage. If the driver didn’t want to pay the $10 for close parking they’d be forced off to a remote parking lot a considerable distance away without a shuttle. I would let a handful of people in for $5 each day. Beer money. Everyone’s a winner. I viewed the people as dollars; they viewed me as a monetary roadblock.
6. There are various instances in which I’ve overheard people say some disturbing things to others or their own family. Racism, homophobia, sexism… I’m having trouble in deciding which one to pick. I think the group of racists in the supermarket is a viable idea.
1) I want to write about my brother's experience at a psychiatric hospital as told to me. Specifically, I'd focus on the variety of interactions he had with different people during his stay, starting with our parents reaction, treatment by the mental health professionals and conversations with other patients.
2) Each scene would have one party reacting to a subject or event in one way juxtaposed by another party reacting completely different. The juxtaposition will be used to show how the mentally ill are seen by people who are unable to understand the thoughts and life views a mentally ill person suffers through and how by empathizing with other patients one is able to overcome feelings of isolation and loneliness that society's standards have resulted in. Many of the scenes will be short conversations relating to a theme of identity.
3) I think that many people would be interested in getting a view inside such a serious topic as mental illness. The piece focuses on how the mentally ill are viewed from the outside, so hopefully a perspective from the other side of the proverbial fence will help change people's prejudices on mental illness. Exactly how, I'm not yet sure but ideally to the point where people realize that mental illness is a disease like any other and to treat someone suffering from it like a "crazy" or second class citizen is horribly wrong. My brother said after leaving the hospital that the patients he had met were some of the most brilliant and insightful people he had ever known, and I want to show that in this piece.
I will probably write my story about the experience two friends and I had while traveling through San Francisco, particularly on Haight and Ashbury. The amount of counter culture and all encompassing lifestyles of the "Haight Kids" (a group of homeless kids that live on the street and surrounding park) was shocking and made us feel very out of place.
1. These kids are viewed by most locals and tourists as low life bums with no ambitions, but I realized that many of them were there by choice because of abusive families or other troubles. I want to portray their side of the story which goes beyond their up front attitude and off-putting appearance.
2. I will write a scene in which my friends and I are walking down the street and ask for directions from a bum. The main conflict will revolve around her continued perseverance in asking us for twenty dollars and conveying to us that she is just as good as we are if not better. We in turn think we started a conversation with a crazy lady and try to leave. Similar to "The Death Of Rodriguez," I want to contrast the pestering bum, who society sees as a nuisance but who is actually valid in her rants, to my friends and I, three middle class adults who try to brush her off.
3. I believe this is a story worth telling because people tend to judge someone too quickly based on appearances and differences in class and cultures. I want to try and shed some light on some of these injustices.
I would like to write about a train ride on the subway I that I have taken my entire life. I would transition between a present day ride and weave in stories from the past. It is an above ground train that goes from Ridgewood, Queens through Bushwick and Williamsburg over the Williamsburg Bridge to the Lower East Side. I would like to address the changes that I have seen over the past ten years on this ride as well as include dialogue that I hear on the present day ride. The purpose of this piece would be to showcase a "slice of life" on this train as well as illustrate the change that the area has gone through over the years.
1) I would like to write about the dynamics of customers in a Goodwill store, as I was a part-time employee during the summer. In doing so, I hope to achieve, not necessarily a critique, but social observation of what is perceived as the “lower class,” or families and people living off of welfare and unemployment checks, even the homeless, trying to buy close with what little money they have. The piece will be an objective view of the people stereotyped by others to be “scum,” or the ones to blame for the poor economy. It will detail those who both attempt to take advantage of the “good will” aspect of the store in order to get the most for their money and those who seem to make an effort.
2) Scenes of parents struggling with children, misogynistic customers, would-be thieves and high school drop-outs make up the microcosmic world of a Goodwill store, seen through the voyeuristic eyes of an employee. Snippets of the supposedly lower class life that goes through the store will make up my piece in a Joan Didion-esque style, jumping from one scene to the next, from a woman asking for designer handbags to a man listing reasons as to why women shouldn't be working. There will be little intervention and intrusion from myself as a character. For example, I plan to begin with a scene yelling for a manager, arguing with the cashier that a shirt she had picked out was not a shirt, but a dress, which were at the moment on sale. From there, I will move to the dynamics of the employees and their reactions to the types of customers at the store.
3) The purpose of the piece, what makes it worth achieving, comes from detailing the plights of such “welfare” families and individuals, and outlining the two sides of the “lower class” customers who shop at Goodwill. Many people in America see the financially stressed as, essentially, worthless individuals who do not help themselves. What I plan to do is shine light on the other side of the situation, which would be the mothers embarrassed to do their back-to-school shopping at Goodwill and the people who genuinely have no other choice.
I really don't have any idea what to write about. I have some ideas of things that might be considered acceptable, but I really have no interest in writing them. One idea, that's kind of interesting, it to write about each of my run-in's with the law, and how I got out of trouble, before culminating in my court date. I'd split the pice up into chunks like the piece that had a nervous breakdown.
I could also write about my one court date specifically, and write about what was going through my mind--all the big build up--leading up to being called to the bench and finding out that the DA had already decided what to give me before even meeting me, and that nothing I said or did would have changed his mind.
The second story I thought about writing was a day at work. I work at Inquiring minds bookstore. And describing my various interactions with all the different customers. I'd also choose one specific day where a bird was "trapped" in the store, and I spent most of my time chasing it with a brook, bag, and box only for it to walk out all on its own a few hours later. I'd split it up into block of time, wherein each sets a different stage of my bird-hunt, and involves a new customer coming in to help and be a total ass, while also trying to use the time to write a short story in-between customer.
I think it would be interesting because people will see all the excitement that could really occur while working at a little independent bookstore.
As for the court date story line, I think the reasoning behind it would be that people judge you solely based on being a young college student. Both would definitely had comedic--sometimes sarcastic portions, but with serious implications that until it's written remain undiscovered.
1.) I want to write about few months leading up to when my dad was diagnosed as manic depressive, which we later found to be one of his longest manic episodes.
2.) The scenes I'd like to use include the night of my dad's grandfather's funeral. My dad gave a eulogy and it was the first time I saw him cry.
Another scene is a few months later, we were on a road trip to visit the doctor who took care of a friend if my dad's in his later stages of brain cancer and bring him an order of lumber (that was the company he co-ran at the time.) At one point we were driving through a small town at like 65 mph in a 30 and my dad was blasting "You're So Vain" (his unofficial theme song).
Another scene I thought about using was the lull during that summer when my dad, my older sister and I spent the fourth of July watching fireworks together, talking and smoking and sharing stories. It felt like one of the few times I got to talk to my dad as a person and I remember him saying that he was always afraid he wouldn't do right by us, that he would become like his own father.
Finally, I think I'd want to use the scene when my dad broke the news about his arrest, driving through Riverdale as he explains, or tries to explain, what happened to him that past year. In particular, he described his illness this way: "I knew the difference between right and wrong, I knew what was happening; it just felt like I couldn't care."
3.) I want to give a realistic account of someone with bipolar that doesn't infantilize or romanticize him. I want to try to be honest and faithful to the feelings of his family (myself included) and the aftermath of his diagnosis.
My story is about the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, the people who live there, and the condition of the neighborhood — still devastated from hurricane Katrina and the ensuing levee breaches eight years ago. I spent a month in New Orleans as a volunteer, rebuilding and gutting homes.
1)I want to make obvious the disarray of the neighborhood, report on the surroundings: that in the 9th ward there isn't a hospital, police precinct, fire department, school or grocery store. It's desolate, and the people there go without the institutions that traditionally hold together a community.
In this setting, i want to convey the tension between people who have lived in the neighborhood for much of their life, and the volunteers who stay in the organization's house. Even long term volunteers who have lived on El Dorado street for years recognize that they are looked at differently by long term residents. The struggle between volunteers and long term residents is a result of cultural, racial, and class differences.
2)I have a series of scenes that i'm considering piecing together around a theme. First, a long term volunteer, Darren, who is also born and raised in the ninth ward — the only volunteer that is native to this community he's rebuilding. The opening scene: Darren spent a week on the Claiborne bridge after he remained in his home when Katrina hit. The two bridges are a point of reference because in my time there, i saw them represent so many divides. Physically it separates the poorest neighborhood from the rest of the city.
I want to show the bridge from the different perspectives:
-A French volunteer as he sits on the city bus for 20 minutes (which happened regularly) at the edge of the canal in Bywater, waiting to get back to the 9th while the bridge is up as a barge passes through.
-Darren, a man in his mid 40s, born and raised in New Orleans, who spent a week on the bridge after Katrina, but is still hesitant about crossing the bridge out of the 9th, and hardly ever spends time in any other part of Orleans parish.
-Tim, a long term white volunteer, around the same age as Daren. He goes to J.J's Bar in neighboring Bywater (across the canal) nearly every day after work. But he refuses to cross the bridge by foot back into the 9th (even though he's lived there since 2009) for fear of getting robbed at gunpoint again.
3)This is an important story to tell. People aren't aware that parts of New Orleans are still devastated, or don't care to know. In July, more than one volunteer from Europe told me that they were held up at the airport before leaving for their trip because security wanted to question them further on why they were flying to the United States. Rebuilding in response to Katrina hardly seemed believable. There are still homes abandoned, half of them still have X search and rescue codes displayed on doors, grass that's grown to the top of roofs. This is normal in the Ninth Ward. It's been excepted that the Ninth Ward is the slowest recovering neighborhood in New Orleans. It's become forgotten by most, even within the city. There are more less a hundred people every year from out of the city, out of the state and even country who come to visit New Orleans, live there and volunteer. But they don't have a strong relationship to the people they've come to help or a connection to the storm, an understanding why they're working. There isn't the same urgency in volunteering that there might have been 8 years ago. The house of (mostly) white volunteers in a historically predominant black neighborhood that is suffering is the source of uneasiness and tension.
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