Setting Scenes in Nonfiction

One of the section that we were assigned to read that particularly helped me when writing my profile essay, was Adam Hochchild's "Reconstructing Scenes." He spoke about atmosphere and how reader need to experience the scene through sounds, smells and even textures of important objects. As a creative writer, I am well aware of how a scene needs to be accurately depicted in order for your reader to understand where they are, who is there, what are they seeing, hearing, tasting and what moment in time is being shown. With non fiction, especially this profile assignment, scenes can be forgotten because we are focusing on the facts about the person you interviewed. Hochchild's chapter reminded me that emotion, dialogue, atmosphere and accuracy all need to be included in a non fiction piece to keep it original, authentic and entertaining for the reader.

Pre Book Club Thoughts

My group will be reading "Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption," by Laura Hillenbrand. I thought I hadn't heard of this story until I looked it up. I have this strange obsession with watching movie trailers and I check IMBD.com ever so often to see what new movies are coming out. I had completely forgotten about "Unbroken," the trailer I had watched a few weeks ago that seemed like something I wanted to watch. I love action and war movies, especially when they focus on character development. The plot drew me to this film and I looked forward to its up coming release. Now, I will be reading the book before watching the movie, which as an English major, is an unspoken rule that must be followed. You can not see the movie first!
This novel sounds very interesting and I am looking forward to reading a work of non fiction. I have yet to read a non fiction war story, since most of the war or historical novels I pick up are fiction.  However, it is always good to read genres you are not use to, so I am glad we will be doing having a book club for this class.
Here is the trailer, in case anyone is interested!

Zepp’s Last Stand

Ed Zepp in Madeleine Blais' Pulitzer Prize winning article, "Zepp's Last Stand" is a create person to write an article about. He is quirky, distinct and determined to fix the problem he boarded a train for. Blais wrote with a profluence that gave the article a feel of fiction instead of an informative piece. I liked the lines of dialogue she chose to include because it really gave me a sense for what kind of person Zepp was. And since this is a profile or a portrait, well that is the whole point.
The subject matter did not interest me, but I can see why we read this for class. It gave me more of a perception on how to write a profile, using dialogue, character traits and information to fill in the blanks and create a lasting article. I think it would be very interesting to follow someone on a journey, taking notes on their comments, thoughts and actions and then combining it all together like this.

Mrs. Kelly's Monster

"Terrifying Journey through Tunnels of the Brain" by Jon Franklin was an intense read. The details Franklin researched and discovered through interview (I'm assuming) were extremely vivid, descriptive and informative. I am not really one for operating stories and I found myself cringing at some of the jargon used in this piece. But at the same time, I was completely engaged and genuinely interesting in Mrs. Kelly's fate. I love how the article ends, leaving you on the edge of your seat, craving more. But I really wish we knew what happened to poor Mrs. Kelly! But, I appreciate the writer's choice to end the article when he believed it would be the most powerful.
I would have liked some more information about Mrs. Kelly, however, that Franklin did not provide. I suppose it was more about Dr. Ducker after all. I am not about to critique and pick apart a Pulitzer Prize winning article, because clearly I have no right to do that. However, this is a blog and opinions must be established. I am still trying to figure out what kind of extensive interview Franklin held with Dr. Ducker to get all that information. He must have got a serious education in brain science to write all that he did. But I suppose that is one of the perks of being a journalist. You find out thinks that you never even knew you were interested in.

Possible Profiling Ideas

This is going to be very vague because I am having difficulty thinking of who I would like to profile. I am considering a few professors but I want to think of a subject matter to write about before figuring out who I would like to interview, just to make sure they will work for this project. I am also considering one or two authors that I am very fond of, and that might potentially email me back. I'll have to start working this immediately, so that they have plenty of time to reply or reject me. My third option, is a friend. I know we are suppose to stay away from friends and family, but he has a few interesting stories, as he is in the army and was deployed last year. If I can think of something really specific to talk to him about, it might end up being a very informative or entertaining profile.