Rebellious Writing-- Creativity's Door

Oh man, I could write an entire dissertation on this.  Maybe.  In any case, the questions strike deep chords regarding opinion and feelings I have on the detriment of rules in creating good writing.  Here's toasting to 500 words (we'll see how this goes.)  Cheers!

I was taught few formal writing rules as a child.  My mother, a savvy woman with a knack for words, home-schooled my five siblings and me.  She was not a big proponent of one-size-fits-all curriculum; our writing education was practically and experientially based.  Thank-you letters were mandatory, and the opportunity was taken to teach the difference in voice, punctuation, spelling, etc.  My family wrote a yearly Christmas letter, and through that I learned the basis of outlines and narrative.  Occasionally I submitted pieces to our local newspaper, The Valley Journal, developing a sense of news writing as I strove to write mine similar to stories they ran.  As kids, the things we had yet to write were not pre-bound by any rigorous rules; it was only that which we had written that was critiqued, edited, and encouraged.  We also read—a lot.  I learned styles and voice from classic literature, and practiced it with my prolific journaling.  In high school my mother purchased me White and Strunk’s Elements of Style, the only rule book a writer needs, in my opinion.  I graduated high school a year early, and jumped into college at sweet seventeen.  

To me, rules were instrumental.  They represented the preservation of formality and etiquette, and to know them well was to present oneself well.  Structure and form did not dictate my writing process, but were friendly heuristics.  This unconscious mindset was cemented by my first “official” English teacher, freshman year of college.  Kamiah was her name, and she started each class period by having us free write.  She was incredibly encouraging of creativity, and stressed it first and foremost over rules.  The relationship between writing and following rules was once hardly existent in my mind, and is now intentional.  As I progressed through college, I found my obsessive and perfectionist habits damaging to my creativity.  Any strict adherence to a preset form nearly paralyzed me in writing.  I wrote on writer's block (link to my piece), and restricting curriculum, sometimes in unusual formats or nontraditional form.  It seems there are the rules we follow for coherence, (the progression of one thought to another, spelling words correctly, etc.), and the rules we follow because we are told (the three paragraph essay, always using third-person voice, etc.)  As writers, we walk a fine line--- rules are essential to understanding and coherence, but also can be debilitating to creativity.  Finding that sweet spot in the middle, knowing which structures aid and which hinder, is the quest of every writer.

On associations of rules and voice, the situation changes genre to genre.  I have found most English classes as supportive of creativity, but the business class I took last semester demanded succinctness and straightforwardness;"plain" writing, to me.  Less style, more “say it like it is.”  Ugh.  There are few feelings worse than being docked points for presenting something creatively.  Is there a point where creativity (by this I mean unorthodox methods, non-traditional form, etc.) detracts from effective communication?  I would dare to say no, when the creativity is done well.  What the word “well” means is another debate altogether.

And, I hit 515 words.  Adhering to the rule of word length has never been my forte.  To touch on the last questions, regarding personal opinion in writing, their respective scenes, and that which distinguishes them, no piece is devoid of personal opinion.  True objectivity is a myth.  Some genres, like news writing, ask for the author to create the appearance of non-bias interpretation, but the truth is that the author makes judgment calls each time she writes a sentence.  The distinguishing factor in these genres, the amount to which the writer is allowed to incorporate more personality, it seems, is measured against the extent to which the public wants to decide for themselves.  Society is allowed (and expected) to have an opinion on news; therefore we want it presented opinion-less, so we are free to formulate our own response without bias.  Perhaps we believe when pursuing knowledge, opinion must be absent so as to not infringe on our own thought development.  But knowledge is, and always will be, a collective which incorporates both opinion and fact.   

One last thing that has changed pre- and post- college. I learned the traditional “he” as a third-person pronoun.  With the current push for gender equality, that has been demonized as a formal rule.   It never bothered me.  I’m a female writer who kicks ass; masculine pronouns or not.  

Breathe easy; it's shorter than usual.

            Kamoya and Uncle Tungsten: two fantastically weird men.  One has an affinity for ancient bone fragments and the other lusts over metal.  In any other situation these infatuations are neurotic—a prescription for the crazy-house.  Yet, the genre of science allows for these peculiar people to exist, and even thrive, unstigmatized (I love the “add word” function of spellcheck).  The field of science allows the unusual to find their niche, to turn their quirky obsessions into a discipline of discovery.  At the end of both profiles, we find ourselves attracted to these scientists.  We appreciate the fanaticism, the odd perspectives, the passionate perseverance, and a fervent devotion to, well, really old bones.  The epitome of the science profile, it seems, is showing "strange" as beautiful.  Sacks and Leakey/Lewin did a fantastic job of this.  I see a few especially effective techniques:

1.      

      Use an engaging cohesive device.  Beginning all your sentences with “the” may unify a piece of writing, but does it draw the reader in? Unlikely.  Excerpts from field journals, however, do.  This ingenious narration allows us to experience the raw, unfiltered nature of field work.  We are minute by minute engaged with the scientists, feeling their reactions to Kamoya’s apparent weirdness.  It makes the discovery much more powerful, because we were aligned with the other researchers—we doubted Kamoya.  Had Leakey/Lewin set it up as a story about a researcher’s big discovery, imagine the anticlimactic moment upon reading it’s just a tiny ancient bone.  Sacks does this as well, placing us in the mindset of childhood wonder, as he describes his uncle, the metal-worker.    

Anthropomorphization at its finest.

 Anthropomorphize—use human characterizations to describe non-human things, like elements.  Sacks describes wolfram, “like a hungry animal, it ‘stole’ the tin…its sharp, animal quality, its evocation of a ravening, mystical wolf… (pg. 218).”  This is especially smart, because it also uses that childlike tone employed throughout his article, acting as a cohesive device.  Like our initial reading of Levi’s recounting of the atom’s journey, relating as a human to non-human things creates familiarity in dealing with the unfamiliar.

     Lastly, remembering a profile is namely about the subject.  The image of Uncle Tungsten’s blackened hands, and his office full of odds and ends of mismatched pieces of metal did wonders for allowing me to know the man. Although the scientists made incredible discoveries, these were presented in light of their personalities.  We came to know the research, which could potentially be bland, through their fascinating characters.  They were placed in their respective environments; I saw Kamoya sitting alone on the rocky gully with his sieve and field notebook, filtering handful after handful of sand and stones.  In doing so, his bone discoveries weren’t simply bones—they represented the fruit of devotion, sweat, and painted a beautiful allegory of piecing together humanity.

Am I the only one who now wants a piece of tungsten metal?

Theorem and Tight Dresses

            Dew drops collected on spider webs, untouched powder weighing down tree boughs, Bozeman sunsets which glow like boiling liquid gold—none can argue against the beauty in these scientific occurrences.  Yet the Pythagorean Theorem, which to a scientist wears a fitted black dress, pearls, nude heels, and dark curly hair, appears to general society as a² + b² = c².  If we investigate the theory, we may arrive in awe at its simplicity and infallibility, but will it be beautiful?  My answer is: it can be.

            Scientists have a knack for seeing the gorgeousness in their practice, not unlike a musician hears melodies in busy city streets or a poet is inspired by a child’s simple conversation.  Kepler called mathematics the “…archetype of the beautiful.” As science writers, we fill the invaluable role of the go-between.  It is given that the researcher is fascinated by their topic and finds exquisiteness in their discovery; our job is to translate that to the public. 

“Thanks Anjeli, that was extraordinarily helpful” (said no one.)  

Okay, so what does this look like in practice?  After reading three badass (in the most beautiful badass way) articles by Sagan, Chandrasekhar, and Wolpert, that described complex scientific ideas in gorgeous ways that held my attention like a friend sharing an amazing experience, I look at my science news brief, and say: 

“I’ve got bad news, kid.  I’m about to destroy you.”

Me sneaking up on my draft.
(A friend drew this of me today, referencing my dark humor.  It seemed applicable.)

            The strongest impression left on me by the pieces read, represented both in their manner and material, was the beauty in simplicity.  If “the simple is the seal of the true,” then our writing will be best understood and most attractive when we combat using complicated words, smarty-pants lingo, or extraneous explanation; when we assume the role of a writer first, scientist second.  Not that we should lack knowledge in our subjects, but that we remember for whom we write: the public.  Or, in Deborah Blum’s mind, “…an elderly woman with curlers in hair, half-dozing over the paper.”  Which is why my news brief needs a hard scrubbing—it’s too fancily written for my liking.  The vocabulary used is heavily Latinate (ones that describe big ideas and concepts) rather than Germanic (words which are sensual and talk about the concrete.)  My piece needs to speak to the senses more, to the cosmos within us that long to be explored—to the space-traveler, alien-hunter in all of us.

        

These were my favorite tidbits from the Field Guide reading:

• Use the AB/BC/CD method of connecting sentences.  Seriously, try it out.  It’s a fantastic way to start the flow of writing when sentences seem to be coming from your mind and fingers at the speed of your Grandmother driving through a school zone.
•  Eliminate clutter.  Find and destroy those deletable phrases and words that operate as excess decorations on a mantle.  Too much, and the brain’s ready to be done reading.  If you can’t delete an extraneous word without losing understandability, re-write the sentence.
• Lastly, each paragraph should be one idea.  My paragraphs have an appetite for taking on two or three ideas—why they need the knife about now.  Develop one clear idea, with the most important sentence at the end.

Sagan said this: “I know personally, both from having science explained to me and from my attempts to explain it to others, how gratifying it is when we get it, when obscure terms suddenly take on meaning, when we grasp what all the fuss is about, when deep wonders are revealed.”  This is our job, friends. 

As Understood through Creativity

            Like a novice musician joining a rehearsal for the New York Philharmonic, I feel privilege in writing these posts.  I am joining a conversation held by some of the brightest minds in the fields of rhetoric and science, and being read. Quite exciting.

My feelings on writing alongside Fisher, Graves, and Thomas.  Hope I'm not too badly outta' key.  

             I begin with Fisher, because I feel the other two authours integrate well into his discussion.  Having read this piece before, I was excited to garnersomething new from it: “Recounting and accounting for are, in addition, the bases for all advisory discourse. Regardless of the form they may assume, recounting and accounting for a stories we tell ourselves and each other to establish a meaningful life-world.  The character of narrator(s), the conflicts, the resolutions, and the style will vary, but each mode of recounting and accounting for is but a way of relating “truth” about the human condition (Fisher, 381).”  My thought is this—does the flexible, changing, unpredictable, and continually-being-discovered character of the natural world benefit from, if not demand, a more flexible approach in its discussion?  That is, does the narrative approach afford a more creative and open-ended look at science, which is in fact, a continual process of discovery?  Fisher suggests that the manner in which one writes is an argument in itself, alongside the material presented.  In this case, it’s exciting to look at science as one large story unfolding to which we are privy, and write about it in a reflecting manner.  As the man wrote, “…the narrative paradigm…does not so much deny what has gone before as it subsumes it (Fisher, 376).”   He touches on this idea that the nature of narrative is descriptive, compared to the "rational world paradigm's" interpretive nature.  Science writing as narration falls under criticism for bias, in that it presents emotional or subjective facts.  However, considering the fact that narrative is based on description, where “rational writing” is based on interpretation, the opposite case could be made.  If the reader is free to infer their own meaning, as they are from narrative rather than concrete “rational” writing, is that not less “bias?” Hmmm.  One more thought.  We discuss the fact that science writing can push those who are not elite in the subject to the margins, and exclude many from entering the conversation.  However, Fisher notes that “Narration…does not presume intellectual contact only.”  Narration has a welcoming nature. 

            Sorry, Thomas and Graves.  I promise to get you some airtime, too.  “7 Wonders” provides an apt example of narration communicating both in method and in material.  His essay details not only seven fascinating subjects in contemporary science, but also through the manner of the story itself, presents how evolving science continually adds to that which is “wonderful.”  Fisher would be proud. 

            Okay, Graves.  You put forth the idea that language is as much an element of discovery and learning, as it is an element of communicating.  I’m going to skirt your discussion on reality as construed by rhetoric and therefore bound to human interpretation (namely, because I have too few words left to discuss that behemoth of an idea), and instead appreciate an insight you offered—we cannot believe everything we think we know.  Counterintuitive as it may seem, our understandings (particularly of science) are often based off of a rhetorical understanding through the interpretation of another scientist or researcher.  But, to bounce back to what Hancock said, we needn't be afraid to create new words.  We need to boldly charge into science writing, not afraid to develop new ways of communication.  It would seem, the surprising, fascinating, past-defying, and groundbreaking nature of science demands no less.

I'm allowed to write extra posts, right?

What made us so upset in class today?

At some point in the discussion, each of us felt annoyed, irritated, perplexed, or upset.  As English majors, we have developed egos.  We see ourselves as elite, the learned, the enlighteners and illuminatis of our generation.  We stay in tune with the times, we look below the surface level, we analyze, and we engage in conversations beyond our years.  So, when a question comes up such as (ultimately) “what is truth?” we are confounded.   And we hate it. Our fragile egos are brought down by a simple scribble on the white board, and we’re stumped—no longer having the upper hand.

Here’s what I think about science.  We pursue it, not as a destination or a final singular answer, but for everything beautiful and fragmented we'll discover along the way.  For every partial answer, and every incomplete realization that (we hope) points to something bigger.  We hate our limitation and the fact that we will never know it all, but if we are to pursue science without going mad, we must accept our finiteness.  And enjoy the process for the richness and self-discovery it offers.  We chase the unattainable, knowing that our continual journey into the unknowable will profit us.  It will answer questions, ask hundreds more, discover the incredible and unthinkable, and allow us to simultaneously seek ourselves. 

“Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” 
 —the Apostle Paul

Brevity, Beta Decay, and the Inseperability of Emotion and Science

Good call, Professor Downs, in both the selection of texts and the encouragement to keep posts around 500 words.  Hancock is inspirational, exuberantly curious, fun, and encouraging.  Polanyi is sober, disciplined, slightly ominous, and writes with intellectual depth.  Both tap deep veins in the practices of science and writing, but do so with nearly opposite tones.  It’s as if Hancock is saying, “Science writing is great!  You ready?!”  Meanwhile Polanyi mutters, quite discernibly, “Necessarily you will encounter some conflict—look closely at it and be prepared.”  Fantastic.

We stand at the doorfront of a semester-long conversation; one I cannot wait to begin.  We are (mostly) English majors, so we impulsively comment on the writing style, how the authors presented their material, and so forth.  But!  We are entering a new mindset as science writers.  Many of the same values and attributes in writing will carry over, but we must also adapt some new ones.  This post follows Hancock’s advice to explore that which seems out of place—advice I did not expect to receive.  It’s my favourite tidbits savoured in the meaty readings.

“We learn at all times, not only when we plan to.  Therefore, hold your junk reading to a minimum—junk meaning anything you do not want your own thinking and writing to echo, because it will (Hancock, pg. 6).”

So, pursue not only scientific areas of interest, but also scientific writing styles.  Find the authors who write in a way that turns your interest on, propelling you through the pages.  Study their methods—what forces are used here to engage?  What route did their research follow?  I believe it is not so much in one empirically “best” way to write scientifically (Polanyi would surely agree), but in finding the style that sends a tingle through your fingers, and fires off those connecting neurons.  Maybe you’re a storyteller, maybe you’re a poet.  Maybe you are a big-picture artist, or perhaps you dwell in the beauty of details.  As Hancock says, “Tthe reader is smart (pg.12).”  Didn’t her excerpts of Feynman excite you?  Although I know next to nothing about beta decay (okay, I know absolutely nothing), his irrepressible tone was clear through his words.  It’s a freeing idea to not invest time researching a matter unless it provokes you to do so, unless it sparks a fire of curiosity in your mind.

Two other favourite encouragements she offered: “…never eat lunch alone (pg. 18) and “describe the mundane moments (pg. 10).”  I wonder what details would surface if, during my people-watching sessions (which are actually procrastination of the homework at hand), I wrote not about that which stood out from the crowd, but that which was ordinary?  If I peeked at normality and practiced describing it extraordinarily?  It seems, this would be a good skill to acquire as a science writer.  Much of science writing revolves around creating a context.  “This is the situation in which this discovery took place.”  So, we must practice not losing the writer along the road of setting the scene, before they have reached the destination.

Ack!  520 words already!  Professor Downs said brevity would be a challenge in this class, and here it is, showing its annoying face already.  I cannot finish without commenting on Polanyi’s compelling piece.  He wrote of the inseparability of emotion and science.   That profession is driven by passion, and what do we do when our passion, our framework of understanding, contradicts with another.  Polanyi touches on the balance between morality (which essentially is spirituality, faith), and science.  A debate certainly unanswered, and certainly prominent in science writing.  I took this from him: when we discover something new, it’s likely because we took a believing, hoping, leap of faith to bridge some crevice for which science had no answer.  So, now we have this new found thing—but the others are stuck on our bridge of faith, and its validity.  Our passion is both our strength and the thing they will call out as “subjective reasoning.”  We must be prepared to defend and persuade, to notice our structure of thinking, our process of learning, and defend that as inquisitively and adamantly as our discovery.  Science writing is certainly not without voice or heart.  We research, experiment with, and test not only a topic, but our own nature.