Harnessing emotion during the writing and revision process is revolutionizing. Emotional cues inform the writing process, like when it is time to start, stop or do a number of things in between, according to the Alice Brand quote on page 2 of Ballenger's piece. I always feel anxious about revision and now I know why: It demands decisions. I am awful at making decisions! In all seriousness, I like the idea that coming to what one has to say is a process, and the first draft is only the beginning or initial question. It can cause anxiety because it is a promise of intense emotional labor, a labor that goes unseen with the finished product. It also is a promise to be vulnerable, which is difficult for people in general because the world teaches us to “protect ourselves” by putting up barriers. Passionate writers who care about their work experience “intimacy linked to feelings of vulnerability” (Ballenger, 1). That is a difficult process but ultimately worth it, because only through vulnerability can we really be seen and connect. I view writing as a conversation, one where the writer is learning about themselves and the reader experiences a sense of connection to the writer, willing to step into their emotions and experiences.
Myers' metanoic revision, "actively turning toward 'missed opportunities' with the goal of seeing and creating new ways to navigate content..." reminds me of writing creative nonfiction (387). The best way to revise creative nonfiction is to write towards the tension to find the true story, the thing you have come to say. Since we are writing stories about true situations in creative nonfiction, the deeper insight is often a metanoic moment. For example, I recently wrote a creative nonfiction piece about the regret of losing a friend. According to Myers, regret and disappointment are elements of metanoia, "These feelings serve as the starting point or catalyst..." (386). The initial piece was strongest in the moments of guilt and regret, but there was something missing. When I revised it multiple times for a portfolio, I wrote toward the tension and discovered what I truly had to say. It was a missed opportunity in the sense I lost a friendship but it helped me realize the lesson that surrounds it: In some situations it is best to let go of the person but love can live on in memory.
Hi Addie,
ReplyDeleteI really like the way you wrote about finding the story in creative nonfiction as "writing towards the tension." I hadn't thought to connect this to metanoia. What I understand you to be saying is that regret is one way of naming those tensions that might drive a work of creative nonfiction, and this regret can be turned into opportunity. The example you offer of the essay on losing a friend seems to imply that. Am I reading you right?
Hi Addie, thanks for your post. I think you're right about needing to write towards the tension to find the story, but I also think it is the tension which makes a story read-worthy or interesting to the reader. We want a juicy detail or some kind of entertainment (for lack of a better term) to ponder and take us away. I'm thinking along the lines of how raising the stakes can make fiction great, I think looking for the places in our stories, or writing about stories where the stakes are raised is often a great place to start when thinking about what to write or even in revising - something left out (an emotion, detail etc) may be remembered.
ReplyDeleteJeff, I totally agree tension is important in any piece of writing and it definitely makes writing interesting when it begins and ends in those moments.
ReplyDeleteDr Ballenger, your understanding of my comment is mostly right, what I understand as Myers' metanoic revision helped inform my revision process for a specific CNF piece I wrote. Metanoia is the "internal turning" that makes movement down different paths (surrounding kairos) possible, the vulnerable emotional process where one pauses to feel regret and reflects to new ways of thinking and feeling (394). I do believe regret is one way of naming the tension in my CNF piece because the piece itself was originally about the regret of loosing my friend with passive undertones it was actually her fault. During my revision process, I realized that is not the story I wanted to tell. I think Dr. Myers has a good point on page 396 and 397 that we can't be stuck in the feelings of guilt and in fact metanoic revision helps us resee the emotional responses "inviting us to call into question the stories we tell, or fail to tell, through or about our emotions" (396). I like the concept of metanoic revision constantly being in flux, about thinking and rethinking our preconceptions and each revision is situated in a different time of the overarching process. I realize now there were so many other factors to the story and I had not worked out everything I wanted to say with myself. I first had to experience the "internal turn" to come to what I actually had to say. I am still revising the piece and in spirit of metanoia, what I have come to say will possibly change every time I revise the piece.