The braided essay is a sub-genre of creative nonfiction that derives its name from the multiple so-called “threads” that are woven together to create a cohesive and continuous storyline. The way in which authors approach the braided essay format is often tailored to their unique preferences A braided segmented essay weaves together different styles of writing on a common theme and separates them by pauses of blank space. For example, a braided segmented essay on pet ownership might begin with an amusing anecdote about a dog followed by a pause, then move to an interview with a veterinarian followed by another pause, then present a poem about a goldfish followed by another The braided essay isn’t a new form. In fact, I think nearly every essay uses a kind of braiding—a New Yorker story about Bill Clinton’s fundraising skills, for example, toggles to scenes from his Arkansas childhood. But radical braiding is a foundation of creative nonfiction
Braided Essays – Nicole Walker
This is the written version of the workshop I presented at the Chuckanut Writers Conference on June 21, My first novels were historical romances and I currently write mystery novels with my friend, Curt Colbert.
Both have certain constraints. For romances: two star-crossed lovers and a set of societal conventions they must flout. For mysteries: a murder, suspects and a confrontation with the killer. Yet within those structures, there is enormous room for creativity and innovation. As a teacher, Braided essay focus on classes about craft and one of my favorite classes to braided essay is a class called Shapes of Stories, braided essay.
I introduce the writers in the class to five basic structures—the classic story arc, collage, braid, frame and circle—and ask them to braided essay writing an essay or short fiction or poem using each shape. My goal is to have them experience how the structure shapes the piece or suggests the story and I think the best way to learn this is to try it. For the class at the Chuckanut Writers Conference, I focused on the braid, braided essay.
Brenda brings a loaf of challah bread, the braided bread served at Sabbath in Jewish homes, to class when she talks about the braided essay:. The braided challah is a fitting symbol for an essay form closely allied with collage: the braided essay.
In this form, you fragment your essay into separate strands that repeat and continue, braided essay. You must keep your eye on the single strands that come in and out of focus…, braided essay. The poet describes the decline of her old dog, and then the dwindling of her elderly father, and the braid allows us to see the similarities between the two, and the different braided essay the narrator relates to the impending loss.
There is one line in the poem that is not tethered on one side of the braid or the other so we can enjoy the ambiguity and mystery. Fiction writers usually use the braid form to present the viewpoint of two different characters, for instance, most elegantly in Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier.
The novel tells the story of a Civil War deserter, Inman, who is trying to get home to braided essay sweetheart. On the way he faces countless obstacles: starvation, marauders, braided essay, bounty hunters, braided essay. The chapters alternate from his point of view, then hers.
Chapters often end at a high point the cliffhanger ending when the character is in desperate circumstances. This technique creates suspense, driving the story forward. And we expect, as we do with any braid, that the two separate strands are going to come together at the end. They do in Cold Mountainbut in a surprising way. Although no one could ever confine Charles Dickens to the strict pattern of a braid, the start of Bleak House has a braid-like structure. We are introduced in the first braided essay to the fog of London and the legal fog of the Chancery lawsuit Jarndyce vs Jarndyce.
The second chapter takes us to Lincolnshire and the melancholy estate of the Lord and Lady Dedlock, braided essay. And the third chapter, braided essay, with a surprising shift into first person, introduces Esther Summerson, who is seen, in the first interlacing of the braids, to be a ward of a Mr Jarndyce.
Still the braid implies, as turns out to be true, that there is some connection between Esther and the Dedlocks and Jarndyce vs. The shift between first and third person in Bleak House reminds me of the shift between first and third person employed by bell hooks in her memoirs, Bone Black and Wounds of Passion.
She braids together a first person passage with a third person reflection on the same experience. She says this about her use of third braided essay. The inclusion of the third person narrator who has both critical insight and an almost psychoanalytical power that enables critical reflection on events described is an act of mediation. When we rewrite the past, braided essay, looking back with our current understanding, a mediation is always taking place, braided essay.
I give that mediation a voice rather than mask this aspect of any retrospective braided essay on our lives. She interwove stories about her parents and about her life in Spain but felt she had not discovered the right structure for her book until she dreamed one night abut the lifesaving classes she had taken as a child.
She wrote out the dream and at first inserted it as an additional chapter, but it seemed out of place, until she broke it up into smaller pieces and inserted it between the other stories. Then she discovered amazing resonances with the material she already had written, plus, of course, an evocative metaphor tying together the other two strands of her memoir.
The braid is also an effective technique for non-fiction. Both strands of a braid must carry equal weight and intensity for the format to work well. If one strand is not as interesting, the reader will only read it if they perceive it to be essential to understanding the other strand. In my mind, Sin in the Second City by Karen Abbott is a much more braided essay use of the braid. Abbott writes about the Everleigh sisters, two well-bred Southern women, who opened up a braided essay brothel in Chicago in and weaves their story together with an account of the religious crusaders and purity leaguers and community leaders who tried braided essay shut them down.
Elyssa East also does a marvelous job of braiding together two stories in her book Dogtown: Death and Enchantment in a New England Ghost Town, about a mysterious and abandoned settlement in Massachusetts that was the site of a murder in She braids together the story of that murder and the search for the killer with her own investigations into the history of the place and the many rumors that swirled around it throughout centuries.
A braid is also an interesting way braided essay move between the past and the present, in braided essay a memoir or a novel. When is a braid not a braid? In a braid, the parallel stories move forward in time in a chronological way.
This brings up one of the interesting distinctions between a braid and a collage, braided essay. In a collage, vignettes are usually assembled out of order. But then he settles in for the story and the book proceeds, as a good braid does, moving forward chronologically in time, but with so many strands that the resulting braid is as complex as the topic, yet addictively easy to follow. What makes the difference between a braid and a subplot? Another good question, braided essay.
Most novels have subplots, which are used to give depth or contrast to the main plot. And most subplots move forward chronologically along with the main story. But these subtleties do point out that the braid braided essay simply a handy way to talk about a structure.
Nor is it set in stone. A braid can be a notion you try and discard, letting your story develop its own structure. Or it can dissolve into multiple subplots as in Bleak House, braided essay. Braids also are a natural way to create suspense. Any time you are dealing with a complicated story with many elements, thinking of it as a braid may help you sort it out. As I worked on my notes for this workshop, I realized that my essay could be broken into three strands, each with its own forward momentum:.
My friend, Dan Loewenstein, suggested that the way to approach that topic would be to break it down into three parts:. When you write a braided essay, the fragmentation allows you, braided essay, almost forces you, braided essay, not to approach this material head on but to search for a more circuitous way into it. You must expand your peripheral vision, focusing on images that at first se4emed oblique to the stories.
The braided form also allows a way for research and outside voices to intertwine with your own voice and experience. Structures should resonate with the content of a story. Another way to learn the form is to try it out. These were suggestions from the class. Some of these might be braids. Some of these might not. Feel free to do that on your own. After the class, I also remembered that The Source by James Michener uses a braid format, in that there is a contemporary story of archaeologists uncovering artifacts at a tell and intervening chapters that tell the story of the lives of the people who lived there over centuries.
I think, however, braided essay, that it goes backwards in time, rather than forwards since the oldest artifacts would be uncovered last. I mentioned Harold Robbins in the class. Chapters told from the point of view of Johnny Edge wish I had thought of that character name! Obviously the thread that connects them is death, but she manages, as she goes along, to wring out every bit of resonance, braided essay, possible in image and language.
Please comment if you have questions, corrections or other suggestions for great examples of braided pieces. Photo credits: The Challah bread came from TheFreshBread, braided essay. com and the braided wheat blessing was made by Sarah Paul. She has braided essay on Etsy called ValkyrieOfOdin.
Enjoyed your latest newsletter. Thanks for the summary of braid and collage structure. I am working on a novel which I am trying to get a handle braided essay, but it keeps shifting underneath my pen.
I am working with Ms P, braided essay. Long on it, but I am thinking that your novel writing class, may be a way of keeping me focused. I stumbled on this blog post today looking for information about braiding memoir. What a great find and thank you so much for this detailed description, terrific examples, and a way forward, braided essay.
I do think my memoir would benefit from this technique. So, again, thank you for the post! I am working on a query to an agent and am not sure how I can explain my braided memoir. The braid is a particular experience I had in The Philippines during the Gulf War. The main story is how I dealt with mental illness by having adventures that although scary were good ways to deal with my anxiety. Do I say. parallel narrative or braided narrative in the query in this instance? Thank braided essay. Great question.
I might use parallel braided essay if one strand of the braid is progressing in a different time frame than the other strand of the braid. But either term would be correct and would be understood by an agent.
Braided Video Essay
, time: 4:31The Writing Addict: How to Write a Braided Essay
The braided challah is a fitting symbol for an essay form closely allied with collage: the braided essay. In this form, you fragment your essay into separate strands that repeat and continue. There’s more of a sense of weaving about it, of interruption and continuation, like the braiding of bread, or of hair A braided segmented essay weaves together different styles of writing on a common theme and separates them by pauses of blank space. For example, a braided segmented essay on pet ownership might begin with an amusing anecdote about a dog followed by a pause, then move to an interview with a veterinarian followed by another pause, then present a poem about a goldfish followed by another Aug 01, · As well as the writer’s own voice, a braided essay can use an external voice to provide details the writer may not have known at the time. The purpose of the outside voice is to shadow the writer’s voice, according to Brenda Miller in Tell It Slant. *** Inside the braid could be a mini-collage, or a list, or a hermit crab
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