In the Collected Maxims of the German writer, W. G. Sebald (1944 –2001), he is credited with offering this advice to writers: ‘Significant detail’ enlivens otherwise mundane situations. You need acute, merciless observation. Observation provides a foundation on which writers can build. It is, of course, not observation alone that makes Shakespeare or Dickens or Melville or Tolkien the great writers that they were, but keen observation underpins their work. Personally, I have spent a great deal of time with Dickens reading for fire references for a book I wrote on hearth cooking, The Magic of Fire (2002). Dickens is, in fact, one of the best sources of information on how people related to the fireplace and how they actually used it to cook. I took a train once through Scotland on a late summer evening. A volano-shaped mountain topped with orange stained clouds read Mount Doom of Tolkien’s Mordor. Moby Dick is an example of a novel built on observation. One way it tells its story is through a series of discreet observations — a meal of chowder in a busy inn, the nuances of the color white, the harvesting of ambergris — all tied together through the animating character of Ahab, a classic study in the obsessive self-destructive personality. With children whose literary foundation is heavily influenced by mass culture — Netflix videos — blockbuster movies — it is especially important to try to focus them on observation of the world of real people and real objects in order to provide them with a vocabulary that can animate their stories with a sense of real life. The art in literary writing is, in part, the art of finding the words to describe the physical world in a way that gives life and depth to the imaginary world of the story. As it is not easy to draw the room you are sitting in with a pencil, so it is also not easy to paint that room with words. I think the trick to succeeding with observation exercises is simply to get your students started. Let the depth of their observations — or more accurately put — the depth of their literary descriptions of what they see grow slowly by accretion. Color will come with time and practice. Please feel free to share your experiences teaching observational writing. Examples from your students are welcome.
Stone Soup Magazine for young readers, writers, and artists
Historic Photography by Kids
The Kodak box camera, first produced in the 1880s, became the iconic camera for the amateur photographer. The camera was as easy to use as our phone camera’s. Point and shoot. Even a child could do it. And even children did. Photograph by Anne Burrow, age 13, 1914 The best source of historic photographic images by children is in St. Nicholas Magazine (1871-1940). The first editor was Mary Mapes Dodge, author Hans Brinker and the Golden Skates, until her death in 1905. In the early 20th-century St. Nicholas Magazine innovated the publishing of writing and art by children. They were unquestionably the first major publication to take the creative work of children seriously. The title of this image, “A Lucky Snap-Shot” does not really live up to the image. Now that the issue of photography as art is long settled we can appreciate the image for the work of art that it is. For me, what is most striking is the intensity of the horses’ gaze. Ears and eyes on us. They look at us as sentient beings. The framing is remarkable. If you draw an X from corner to corner you will that the horses mouths just about exactly reset on that line. A very simple set of photographic experiments can be derived from this image. Print out the photo. Draw and X corner-to-corner. Have your child or students take photographs thinking about where the central image — the face — the dog — the flour — the building– is situated in relation to the actual center of the image. As with digital photography you can take as many images as you like without incurring cost you and your students can experiment with how the feel of the image changes with framing.
Taking a Stand Through Fiction
Let’s say you have a strong opinion about something you see happening in the world. You know it is wrong, and you want to speak out. The most direct way to make your point would be through a nonfiction article or essay. But you could also convey your message, perhaps even more powerfully, through fiction. In the May/June 2015 issue of Stone Soup, 12-year-old author Evelyn Chen did just that. Her story, The Voice of the Seal, deals with a serious worldwide problem. Every year hundreds of thousands of ocean animals get tangled up in abandoned fishing nets. Many of them suffer and die. In Evelyn’s story, two cousins, Cordelia and Georgia, are staying at the family beach house when they both have the same nightmare. They are in the ocean, trapped in a net, struggling for air, drowning. The girls wake up in the middle of the night. They hear a voice coming from the beach, calling their names. They don’t know what is happening, but they decide to follow the voice. What they find breaks their hearts. In the blackness of night, they make out a dark shape, thrashing in the water. They splash through the waves and discover . . . a seal, caught in a fishing net, desperately trying to get free. The girls look at each other. The seal looks at the girls. They know what they have to do. For several hours they steadily work at the net, pulling it apart little by little. They are cold and wet, but they don’t care. They don’t stop until the seal is free. The girls head home, exhausted but happy. Were you drawn into this story like I was? Cordelia and Georgia are described so well that we feel like we know them. We can picture the cozy bedroom in the beach house. Artist Teah Laupapa’s illustrations help bring the girls and their summer home to life. When they hear the voice, we hear it too. When they see the dark form struggling in the water, we see it too. We feel the injustice of the innocent seal’s battle with the abandoned net. Why did this terrible thing happen? How can we help? I found myself Googling “fishing nets kill seals” after I read the story. I wanted to know more. Try it! You’ll see that many organizations are working on this problem. Maybe your family would like to donate to one of them. Evelyn’s story is not a true story, but it is a powerful story, based on the truth. Through fiction, she shines a light on a worldwide problem. By focusing in on three characters, Cordelia, Georgia, and the seal, she personalizes the problem and helps us understand it. This is what great writing can do.
