Context

Context: the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed. 
"Revelation, someone's learning something, is what transforms event into story."  -Tracy Kidder in Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction

Salvage, Salvation, Salve by Jennifer Lunden:
"For a long time, I felt like a victim of my own body. Struck by a debilitating case of chronic fatigue syndrome when I was just twenty, I was forced to resign from my job and eke by on welfare benefits, flat on my back in bed day after day, uncertain if I would ever recover. My journals from that time are a testament of my despair; in them, I wrote the same story over and over again: I am broken. I am broken. I am broken. After many years of this, I realized it was within my power to make another story about what was happening to me. I still don’t know for sure why I got sick. But I believe that what happened—at least, in part—was that my stories got frozen inside my body. As a child, when faced with hardship, I bore up. I behaved like I was fine. I thought that I was fine. It wasn’t until my body broke down that I learned I hadn’t been fine at all..."
(source: https://www.creativenonfiction.org/online-reading/salvage-salvation-salve)


Pieces by Aralia Giron

"It's a wonder how completely comfortable you can feel in a white walled room cluttered with rows of plastic chairs, posters depicting signs of depression, and screaming children. In fact, this is how I spent every Saturday morning for a few months. Therapy is not like the movies. The therapist doesn't bombard you with questions and there aren't comfy chairs to lie on while you recall the painful moments in life you've barely managed to endure. Instead, you are guided into a random room whose only objects of furniture are a long leather couch and a desk for her to sit at. She stares at you intently, a big smile plastered onto her bronze powdered face and waits for you to reveal all that you have been hiding within yourself. You swallow and look at the soles of your vans that are beginning to peel off, play with the tear in your sweater, and chew the inside of your cheek. She nods, her way of encouraging you to speak. Silence. And then you catch your breath, remembering your pending case file and all the emotions that surfaced with it."

What Worked: 

I think both stories were great examples of context because they contained a significant amount of information and the content lives in the particulars of the individuality of the writer, place, and time. Jennifer included a variety of vulnerable emotions/thoughts when revealing to the reader the illness that caused her to seek the comfort of writing. In my story, I too share with the reader a personal experience. 

What didn't work:

I feel like perhaps I failed in terms of allowing my encounter to blossom with specific implications. I feel that there wasn't enough information to make the reader feel like they know where I am going with the story and what the purpose of telling it is because the scene I write is vague in meaning.

Montage Writing

Montage Writing: "...segmented or collage writing...are separated one from the next in asterisks or white space. A montaged essay draws the reader and writer together in an interpretive duet." -Keep It Real Edited by Lee Gutkind

The Butterfly Effect by Jenniffer Lunden
"[Metamorphosis]

It was cold in Maine. Cold. And the snow was heaped in dirty piles on the side of the road. And the sidewalks were icy. And it got dark at 4:30 in the afternoon.

It was the dead of winter, and I wanted out, so I flew to California—to Pacific Grove, aka Butterfly Town, USA, to see the monarchs. It was a journey home, really, though I had never been there.

I grew up in a box-shaped house on a well-manicured lawn in the suburbs of a mid-sized Canadian city in Ontario. Across the road and abutting the river was a patch of city land, untended, wild, a field of tall grasses flecked with milkweed and Queen Anne’s lace. There, I discovered my first monarch caterpillar. I was 9 years old, and I had never seen anything like it. Boldly ringed in concentric stripes—black, yellow and white—it was stretched out on a milkweed leaf, eating. I plucked it off, held it in my hand, touched it with my fingers. Its skin was smooth, leathery. It did not roll up in a ball. It did not seem afraid. Docile. I broke off the milkweed near the top and carried my find home."

(https://www.creativenonfiction.org/online-reading/butterfly-effect)

Aralia Giron

"My daddy just called me, he says he's going to catch the next bus and visit me because he's sorry to have missed my birthday. He told me to wait for him, so I will. It's quite early but I'll hurry and prepare myself for his arrival, it's been a while. The red glow of the digital clock numbers stare back at me. 12:03 p.m. He will be here soon. 

I am seated by the window, waiting for him to park his bike by the gate. I'll run outside and give him a big hug when he does so. I'm so excited! 

He still hasn't arrived but I'm not worried, he did promise me after all. My aunt is complaining to my grandma, honestly, what if the poor man is caught in traffic? He didn't forget did he?

It's getting dark now, my aunt is trying to pry me away from my post. I tell her to let me go because if I go eat now then I won't be able to hug my daddy when he gets here. 

It's time to go to bed now. I pretend I'm not crying when my aunt comes in to check on me. Someday, I tell myself, someday I'll be able to see him more often, someday...

*****

My father just called me, he says he's going to catch the bus and visit me because he couldn't make it to my birthday party. He told me to wait for him, so I will. It's quite early but I'll try to hurry. It's been a while. The bright glow of my cell phone stares back at me. 12:30. I will be there soon.

I find him seated by the window of the starbucks cafe, waiting for me patiently. I'll go through the side entrance and surprise him. I promised him I would come today.  I promised him that this time I wouldn't forget to make time in my busy schedule to see him, even if it meant taking the bus myself.

What worked:

Both stories follow the format of the montage writing technique, separated by blank spaces or asterisks for each new scene introduced. In a way, both pieces are written like snapshots, conveying a different image per mini paragraph that when pieced together, formulate one big story.

What Didn't work:

In the "Butterfly Effect" the author does establish a new scene by incorporating blank space between each paragraph, however, I felt as a reader my understanding was slighted because she strayed a bit from tradition and broke one moment down into sub-scenes.

Point Of View

Point of View: Is important because it dictates what the narrator knows which is essential groundwork for creative nonfiction pieces. Virginia Wolf says, 

We perch on a platform for viewing the past, why not invite a multiplicity of spectators to join us there?" What this means is that by incorporating multiple points of view an author can flesh out the variant perspectives that exist between characters.

Excerpts on POV from Creative Writing Demystified
1st Person: I took Mama home that very day. I couldn't stand to think of her naked and wandering through the halls after shock treatment like the patient I'd seen wandering the halls before the doctors could close the door to their office,
2nd person: You look past the doctors' open office door and see a naked middle aged woman screaming in the hallway. You see she' only wearing her glasses and they're askew from the way she's flailing her arms... You bolt for the waiting room, grab your mother's coat and then her arm.
3rd person (limited): Sally sat in the doctors' office at a small conference table... She rehearsed her departing lines as they spoke about shock treatment having come a long way in the last five years. And then she heard a sudden scream from the hallway. A woman stood outside the office door, completely naked, arms flailing, glasses askew on her face.
3rd person (omniscient): ...Sally could see out into the hallway. The doctors didn't like this arrangement, they didn't feel in control. And for a good reason. Sally was already thinking of her departure. She would get up... and run to her mother, who sat a few yards away in a grey and pink upholstered waiting room chair.
Multiple POV: Sally: I am not staying in this place one more second... I'm afraid they'll do everything in their power to make us feel weak, to make us feel we have to stay here.
Mother: Depression hurts. That's what the ads say. It does... What do they give you in here anyway that makes everything hurt more?

(source: Bender, Sheila. "Point of View." Creative Writing Demystified. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 
2011. 168-69. Print.)

You and I by Aralia Giron
1st Person: I crouch beside the weeping mess before me and wrap my arms around her being, in attempt to absorb every shiver that runs through her. She finally gazes up at me, stray strands of her red hair stuck in the gloss on her lips. The black liquid she paints over her lids streams down her pale face, highlighting every tear she sheds. "I promise, I won't go back." She says to me, the final person who hasn't given up on her. I want to believe her but I know better to place my trust in a compulsive liar. 
2nd person: You have just returned from picking your half-sister up from a street corner in the middle of the night in a place she wasn't supposed to be. As soon as you're out of the car, she sits down on the sidewalk and begins to tell you of all she's endured. Wordlessly, you crouch beside her, offering her the only comfort she so desires, an embrace.
3rd person (limited): Aralia kneels beside her weeping half-sister, who has found a place to sit on the curb outside their aunt's house. Ashley beings to explain her reasons for being out in the street again. Aralia watches her closely as she twists her matted, dirty red hair around her index finger, a clear indicator that she is lying. Instead of walking away, Aralia crouches beside her and hugs her.
3rd person (omniscient): Ashley could sense her sister's reluctance as soon as they stepped out of the car, so she sat on the curb knowing very well Aralia would't have a choice but to linger. Aralia was right to feel every bit of reluctance considering her sister's history of disappearing when life became complicated. Ashley did not fare well with problem solving, she needed to distract herself from the problem at hand. Which is why Aralia gravitated toward Ashley in the presence of despair.
Multiple pov: Aralia: I shouldn't keep doing this to myself. I already know that she's leaning on me because no on else will comfort her. She always does this to me, disappears for a while without a word and expects me to pick up the pieces when she's the one who shattered them in the first place. 
Ashley: I can't feel sorry for leaving. None of this was my fault. It's not like I had a choice anyways. My family is just so crazy. They're the problem. They're the reason I'm losing it. My sister looks like she's debating whether she should stay or leave. She won't leave, I can see it in her eyes, she's already forgiven me even if she is trying to convince herself that it's not in her best interests. 

*As you can see, various points of view offer bits of intimate details. Through observations made by a variant perspectives the context becomes more apparent to the reader, feelings are revealed, and the reader is able to gain a better understanding of the thoughts and personality each character possesses.

Writing Persona

Persona: Is the voice created for something or someone very different than the writer. In first person, the voice can be a historical figure, a person in society, an appliance, or an animal. It's worldview can be comparative to that of a teenager, detective, inmate, celebrity so as long as the persona is what the author can't attribute herself. This type of writing develops skills for creating and/or developing character.

How Could A Mother? by Bruce Holland Roger's
"When was it that your daughter—when was it that Josie started to cry? What was your state of mind when you punished her? What were you thinking when she wouldn't stop crying? Did your boyfriend say anything about Josie's crying? What did he say? ...Do you have any thoughts about the question no one can answer? Not the one everyone asks, but the one only a mother who has felt her own hands shake with a rage that is bigger than she is can ask?"

A Time for Change by Aralia Giron
"My smile is a mask slowly chipping away and soon I shall have nothing left to hide behind.
Would it not be a pleasure to realize that I have more rights than you bargained for? 
Yes, 
I am held prisoner, caged by the way of your whim.
And your words are what bind me so,
But,
I care not for these political inclinations or that the world is run by men.
I will continue to shout, "Let me vote."

What Did and Didn't Work:

"How could a mother" is told in the perspective of someone who is in higher authority, the speaker is definitely questioning the mother's actions toward her daughter who was falsely accused for committing some sort of act of debauchery. Rodger's persona is not his own, the perceptions reflected through this piece of prose suggest the speaker is someone who upholds justice either a detective, police officer, or judge. Through the variant questions asked throughout the story, the personality of the characters are revealed. However, the author fails to elaborate through the use of dialogue which is another important aspect in creating a persona. 

In "A Time for Change" I decided to speak in the voice of a historical figure, women before the suffrage. Through my brief but metaphorical details, I reveal the nature of the character being depicted. A woman who is preparing the confidence to rebel against her husband and stand up for the rights she has been deprived of. Although I am able to effectively create a character, her actions are not so far from my own. Instead of putting myself into the perspective of an unfamiliar subject, I decided to write about a topic that I deal with on a daily basis, except on a much lower degree.

Slant

Slant: The perspective in which subject is approached. There are 8 main types and they are as follows- Adrenaline (fear, anger, excitement), Amazement (unusual), Brand New (innovation, cutting edge), Detailed (well canvased), Funny (altered by addition of humor), Newsy (academic/technical), Promise (the reader has a need and the author has a solution), Unexpected (unusual viewpoint).

Sensualiterature by Brian Doyle
"One of the things that we do not talk about when we talk about writing is the sound and scent and sensuality of it, the scratching and hammering and tapping, the pitter of pencils and the scribble and scrawl of pens, the quiet mumble of the electric typewriter like an old pharmacist humming, the infinitesimal skitter of forefingers on keyboards; and the curl and furl of paper, the worn and friendly feeling of pocket-notebooks, the shards and scraps on which we have started essays and stories and poems..." 

Source: https://www.creativenonfiction.org/online-reading/sensualiterature

Orchestra Seeks Young Passionate Prodigy Musicians by Aralia Giron

...CYMO is a Los Angeles Philharmonic premier youth orchestra dedicated to preserving symphonic music for future generations through its young musicians. Therefore, it offers annual events for orchestra members such as public performances at Disneyland and Bridges Hall of Music at Pomona College.

Since its founding in 1989, CYMO has made some groundbreaking accomplishments, including the organization’s 2002 participation in a prestigious National Youth Orchestra Festival in Sarasota, Florida. Along with presenting major symphonic works, CYMO has also collaborated with respected performers from orchestras such as the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, The Juilliard School and Pacific Symphony. For more information, visit cymo.org or email rjscymo@aol.com."

(Note: This is an excerpt from the claremont courier article that I wrote a while back.)

Why This is a Great Example of Slant:

Brian Doyle

-Sensualiterature is definitely a well canvased piece of prose, the way the author approaches his subject (aspects of writing) in a detailed way, allows the experience he is describing (utilizing the tools of creation)  to resonate with the reader in a vivid, profound manner. 

Aralia Giron

-My submission stands along the lines of the newsy form of slant. Although it is not exactly academic or technical, it an online publication that embodies the immediate media qualifications.

Voice

Voice: In creative nonfiction, it is essential that an author's voice swells and ebbs, it is an imprint of their personality and gives insight to their perceptions. The writer has a distinctive slant on things which are the thoughts and feelings implied through their work.
"The five sense are the writer's special effects..." -Your Life is a Book by Brenda Peterson

Ice Cream by Susanna Kaysen
The floor of the ice cream parlor bothered me. It was black-and-white checkerboard tile...I always felt ichy in the ice cream parlor... A new boy was dishing out cones. We approached him in a phalanx. 'We want ice cream cones.' said one of the nurses.
'Okay,' he said. He had a friendly, pimply face. It took a long time to decide what flavors we wanted. It always did.
'Peppermint stick,' said the Martian's girlfriend.
'It's just called 'peppermint'," said Georgina.
'Peppermint dick."
'Honestly." Georgina was revving up for a complaint...
'You gonna want nuts on these?" the new boy asked. We looked at one another: Should we say it? The nurses held their breath....

Writer by Aralia Giron
I coveted the complexity of her words, the way they unraveled in my mind and transformed themselves into the vivid images they depicted. Every sentence was carefully pieced together, intricate patterns of verses woven together in order to form a craft that was entirely unique to her personality. She peered over the crowd of family members gathered around her and smiled at me. Oh, how little and incompetent I was whereas she possessed the grace and beauty maturity had to offer. Nevertheless, I grinned back and watched her bask in the attention her piece had attracted. One day, I would be where she was standing. Someday, I would become a notable writer.

What worked:
Suanna Kaysen
-The author writes in an informal manner which is relative to her personal recounting. For instance, she chooses specific inappropriate terms and innuendos in the featured dialogue to describe the mentality of her characters.
-Through this narrative we are able to infer considering her diction that she is recounting this moment through the eyes of a younger, immature version of herself.

Aralia Giron
-Through my narrative, which uses metaphors and reveals my emotions throughout the progression of the story, the reader is able to sense my yearning. My wanting to become greater than what my age offered. To measure up to someone whom I looked up to.

What didn't work:
Suanna Kaysen
-The author could have given a bit more insight to her situation and added a clue as to why she decided to recall this specific memory. Although one can say the ice cream was her symbolism of her youth, was there a deeper meaning that held true to this specific moment in times she wanted to recapture?

Aralia Giron
-I feel that as far as my voice is concerned, the maturity of my words are not on the same wavelength as the childlike perception the story originates from.

Soft News

Soft News: This sub-genre within the realm of journalism does more than inform the reader, it evokes reaction and elicits human emotion. It takes a longer time introducing elements through anecdotes, quotations, and description.

Claremont Courier Example:

https://www.claremont-courier.com/mobile/article/t14970-cef

My Attempt:

https://www.claremont-courier.com/mobile/article/t12642-team-jazzy-fundraiser

What Worked:
Sarah Torribio
-Sarah does a wonderful job setting up the context of the article and utilizes a combination of literary devices to capture the reader's attention.
-This article definitely elicits human emotion because it offers the subject's personal back-story to a specific event as well as a bit of background.

Aralia Giron
-My article draws the reader in by developing upon the personal back-story of my subject, in doing so, it does more than inform but rather stirs some sort of emotion.

What Didn't Work:
Sarah Torribio
-This piece of "soft news" doesn't include any shocking statements which is often common in this form of writing

Aralia Giron
-My article fails to shape the occurrences featured into a lead that symbolizes the story as a whole.