As I think I’ve mentioned before, I am taking Advanced Expository Writing this quarter and Anne Lamott’s writings seem very similar to the “creative” nonfiction we have been reading. Even her first sentence in Thirst draws you in because you know she is about to be honest and vulnerable about a somewhat taboo topic.
I love her use of short, choppy sentences because I like to use them and I think they have a lot of power. I think I may tend to overuse them though, because Lamott uses them sparingly, and they pack more of a punch. She asks rhetorical questions, mentions well known pop culture (Peanuts comic), and includes humor, like understatements, to make her pieces feel conversational. I felt like I was reading a letter from a friend, not a stark, professional essay. Establishing that level of comfort and rapport with your reader seems like such a difficult, but necessary part of writing, both for creative nonfiction and the types of articles we are writing for this class. Our audience is not strict professor types looking for perfect grammar and big words. Our readers want to connect with us through our conversational tone. They want to relate to us through our honesty in experiences and opinions. And they want to trust the words we say as real and researched.
Though Lamott uses more…“colorful” language than we would include in our articles for Adventist magazines, I appreciated that she included a few to show her personality and sense of humor and honesty in her thoughts and feelings about the situation she is describing. I trusted and related to her, especially in The Aunties, because I believe all girls have felt at some point that a part of their bodies is inadequate and compared it to others. She doesn’t try to wrap up in the ending as perfect like so many “spiritual lesson” stories tend to do, like a lifelong problem or insecurity being fixed in one day. She realizes why these doubts occur, but they don’t completely disappear. I loved the words and phrases Lamott made up, like “Butt Mind,” “fatitude,” and calling her thighs “elderly aunties.” These conversational phrases allowed me to connect with her as more of a friend than just a reader. I thoroughly enjoyed these pieces and hope to someday be able to write with the honesty and friendly tone Lamott effortlessly combines.
-Katie Huffman
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