Creating a First-Person Narrative Out of a Nonfiction Article

     After reading a book called The Invisible Thread, I decided that this memoir, about a white woman who befriended a hungry child begging outside her New York apartment building, would make a very interesting writing prompt. The woman, Laura Schroff, bought lunch for the boy, Maurice, and after talking with this appreciative, earnest, abused child, she promised to keep him from going hungry. In addition to taking him out for lunch once a week for years, she even packed him lunches for school, which she left with her doorman for Maurice to pick up every day. I read a description of the book to my students from ages 10 to 14, and offered six different prompts from which they could choose. An assignment that called for an exploration of narrative voice would offer a way to not only enrich writing skills and imagination, but also to elicit compassion from my students. My students created stories from the boy's point-of-view, from the woman's point-of-view, and from her doorman's point-of-view (the doorman delivered packed lunches to the hungry boy). Some chose the prompt about two kids during school lunch time, one with daily lunches who notices another who never has lunches. And the last prompt was to write a poem about this story of compassion.

     Featured below is one of the remarkable pieces I've collected in response to this prompt. This story was written by an eighth grader, F.H., and he displays proudly his recently developed skill with the third-person omniscient voice. The details, too, add such richness to the scene, such as: "They froze, as if having a staring contest"--one of my favorite similes. Here are "then and now" photos of the real people who have become the characters of my student's story, which appears below them.

TRUST : A New Thing  

     Mother was having another ‘business meeting’ with the local drug gangs again. Maurice knew well enough what that really meant, but nonetheless, he had to leave the house early for school. Not that it was an issue. The old house smelled of drugs enough to make police dogs at school sniff and bark at him. Maurice’s feet took him out of the ghettos and into the nicer area of town. There were big glass skyscrapers and fancy people in their fancy suits. This was the best place to be able to find money – there was enough dropped on the ground.  Just a few feet away, he noticed an annoyed- looking woman whose face read: “Taxi. Where is the taxi?” She would do. He walked up to her and pulled on the sleeve of her coat. They froze, as if having a staring contest. But Maurice’s stomach couldn’t hold it any longer. Not daring to break eye contact, Maurice told her. “I’m hungry.”

     Suddenly, the woman seemed to realize what he was doing here. Her eyes searched the road, and she pointed her finger to her prey. She walked off in her gesture’s direction. Maurice turned, unsure if he should follow. When he didn’t, she turned, and asked him, “Do you want a cheeseburger?” He felt a rush of excitement, and he nodded, unable to find his tongue. 

     The stranger bought him a cheeseburger, and a shake, and a whole serving of fries. It wasn’t exactly a traditional breakfast, but, Maurice felt gratitude towards the woman. Just as he was about to finish his fries, he realized that they could help later. He put the fries into the paper bag, now empty, and placed it carefully in his backpack. “They’ll get cold, you know.” Maurice felt his cheeks turn pink, the way it would if his hand had been caught in the cookie jar. Not that they could afford cookies.

     “I’m uh, you know, saving them for – for lunch.” He seemed to force those last words out, and the woman, still nameless to him, studied him with a perplexed face. Her eyes drilled into his face.

      “Do you want me to pack you lunch for tomorrow?” 

      

      Maurice was shocked. “You don’t need to do that, ma’am.” Maurice was scared, questioning where this pity had come from. He knew that she was trying to help, but Maurice knew not to trust people so easily. But the lady was not listening. She was writing something on the back of the receipt, and she handed to him her address.

      “I’ll leave early tomorrow, so you’ll just go to this building”-- she pointed her pen to the address –-“and get your lunch from my doorman.” She got up before Maurice could object. “C’mon. I’ll walk you to school. It’s over there, right?" Maurice nodded, and followed her out the building, dazed. Neither of them spoke, Maurice knowing she didn't want to ask him personal questions. Onlookers seemed to watch them with craning necks--an African American kid dressed like he came out of the homeless shelter, and a white woman in a work suit with two briefcases. Yet it was the police officers that scared Maurice. They halted and narrowed their eyes, but the lady kept on walking. They had reached the school. 

     “By the way, I’m Laura.” The woman looked at her watch and jumped. 

     But just before she could walk off, Maurice told her, "I'm Maurice." She waved at him, and Maurice waved back. Maybe he could trust her. 

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College Essays

I just finished coaching and editing two college application essays, on very different topics, for different schools, by very different writers. But they had one thing in common: false starts. Many writers warm up on paper without realizing it, only beginning their essays after a paragraph or so of warm-up material. To submit such a rough piece would be tantamount to a composer actually recording the band's warm-up session as the opening to a song--not advisable for keeping an audience engaged!

My trick to redirecting both students correlates with the age-old literary technique known (in Latin) as EN MEDIA RES ("in the middle of things"), which I learned about in high school English class. At the end of both students' first paragraphs shone their perfect opening lines. Once I slashed out the bulk of each opening paragraph, and pointed out the golden lines, the students enjoyed an "aha" moment and rewrote their essays with the new opening lines. I suggested the addition of specific examples in both cases, to replace or augment general statements. I explained to both aspiring college students that the key to standing out among the applicants is to offer vivid examples that create memorable essays.

It always comes down to memorable words, doesn't it?

“D.A.D.” and “M.O.M.”: Memorable Guides To Improve ALL Forms of Writing

Truly memorable fiction usually includes description, action, and dialogue (what I call the D.A.D. technique of creating vivid word pictures). Remember D.A.D. as a kind of checklist for your writing--even if you have only one character (the D for Dialogue could translate to a person talking to him/herself). Examine your favorite stories and novels—the ones that created virtual movies that still play in your mind when you recall them—and you’ll see the important role of D.A.D.

As for nonfiction, vivid writing has as much importance as it does in fiction, and the D.A.D. technique will liven up essays, reports, and articles, too. You may be saying to yourself, “Sure, I understand how I can use description and action in creative nonfiction…but dialogue?” Simply remember to include words “spoken” by others—QUOTATIONS—to illustrate your points. And when revising your nonfiction and checking for the D.A.D. elements, look for quotation marks to ensure that you’ve painted a vivid nonfiction word picture. Using my D.A.D. technique in everything you write will immediately improve your written works, whether you write fiction, poetry, or nonfiction.

Now, along with D.A.D. comes M.O.M. (I don't discriminate when I make up mnemonic devices!): The M.O.M. technique will enable you to revise and edit your work for maximum impact by focusing on Mood, Order, and Matter. Let me explain. Mood refers to the tone of a piece of writing. Your word choices affect how your reader perceives the images or imaginary world you’ve created. How you choose your D.A.D. elements will determine the mood of your work, and you may have to alter the descriptions, actions, and/or dialogues to fit the mood you hope to convey. For example, to set a mysterious mood, you might describe a garden as “shrouded in mist”; and a man’s action as “shifting his eyes back and forth as he tiptoed through the garden”; and that man’s dialogue lines might read: “Where on earth could he have hidden?” Similarly, those basic elements would change for a scary story. For instance, the garden might feature a description of “a hedge of twisted junipers, contorted like writhing, green monsters;” and you might show the man’s actions as: “he sweated profusely as he darted between rows of thorny stems and spider-like tendrils”; and his dialogue lines might say: “This can’t be real—heaven help me, it can’t!” One word alone can alter a piece’s mood. A boy who "trudges," rather than "walks" shows us his unhappy mood; whereas a boy who "skips," rather than "moves," shows us a childish joy. Experiment with verbs that can change the mood of a sentence, not to mention the image of your character. Thus, Mood, the first element of the M.O.M. technique, both enriches and depends upon D.A.D.

In nonfiction, think of Mood as the tone you set using either formal or informal words. In an essay written to persuade the reader of your personal opinion about something, it is sometimes appropriate to “talk” directly to the reader and use contractions (like “it’s” instead of “it is”), rather than very formal wording. In a report of information, in which you present only facts, and no opinion, the Mood, or tone, must remain “objective,” like a factual newspaper article. Order refers to the order in which you supply information to the reader. If your story, for instance, grows from a specific setting—such as a creepy old mansion—and you want to introduce the characters slowly, as they enter the mansion, building the reader’s suspense, then you must first rely most heavily on the element of Description. You might decide to change that order if you prefer to speed up the plot and engage your reader in action from the first line, rather than risk boring him with a lengthy description of the mansion. The order in which you present your story’s D.A.D. elements will determine how you affect your reader—whether you offer subtle hints about the plot in advance, perhaps even revealing the end scene at the start, and then keeping the reader guessing all along about how that ending will occur; or you might supply intriguing tidbits of description or deceptive dialogue to keep the reader wondering about the character’s true personality. Notice the order of the story elements when you read the works of other writers. Experiment with changing the order of elements as you polish your own stories, poems, and—yes—your nonfiction reports and essays. In nonfiction, the order of your points, and your summation of those points in the end, determines whether your reader comes away from your piece feeling well-informed or confused, convinced or bored. Matter, the final element of M.O.M., means two things: first, I mean “matter” as the “substance” or “stuff” you wrote about; and second, I mean “matter” as “having a definite purpose.” Thus, the Matter consists of all those details that absolutely must appear on the page in order for the reader to understand the meaning of the entire piece. If you add unnecessary artistic details that don’t matter to the reader’s understanding, then you decrease the power of the Matter and confuse the reader. Deciding which matter matters is what we do in the final editing stage of our writing process, in which we delete superfluous words that slow down, or distract from, the work’s purpose. The Matter, Order, and Mood all influence each other in your writing.

Remind yourself to heed D.A.D. and M.O.M. whenever you write, and you will progress as a writer—I guarantee it. (You will also learn to appreciate, as a reader, the effective use of these techniques by your favorite authors.) Yes, embrace your “parental guides,” D.A.D., who helps you grow as a writer, and M.O.M., who helps you grow stronger through revision and editing. Thus, remembering D.A.D. and M.O.M. while writing will create writings worth remembering!