Eight Essential Elements for Art (and Life)
Photo by Ellen Blum Barish
There’s no sure-fire formula to teach writing. I don’t think there’s a prescription for teaching any kind of artistic endeavor because creative process is as unique as people are.
We do best when we feel safe to create without interruption or critique. Safe and also, inspired, which together allow us to be open to receive and express what we want to say.
That said, when I work with writers, I do rely on a rubric that offers some guidelines that help create safe and inspirational spaces.
I call them Ellen’s Eight Essential Elements.
Each component applies to personal narrative after the first draft is down. It’s designed as a checklist. When a writer is in conversation with these elements – checking each to see how much, how little or if they want to use that element - they enable a piece to become the best version of itself.
At the sentence level – the micro level - there’s detail, scene, language and pacing.
For the big picture - the macro level - there’s storyline, structure, voice and theme.
In the months ahead, I’ll be exploring how these elements can be relied on for personal narrative. But also, how they exemplify principles for living a meaningful life.
I know. That’s a lot to ask. But, let me give you a taste of what I mean.
Take detail.
In a sentence, it’s the details that pop. Consider this example from Dinty W. Moore:
Do you see the difference between
My mother walked quickly into the room and she sure seemed angry about something and
Mom charged in, ignoring the closed bedroom door, stood so close I could feel the heat coming off her body, could smell her morning coffee.
In the second version, instead of the reader being told that mom was angry, we can feel it because of small details like “charging through the closed bedroom” and “smelling the coffee on her breath.”
Details are true of other art forms, as well.
Consider the photograph above. The colors catch the eye but it’s the palm tree that pulls us in.
On the photo below, if we put a finger over the red jacketed skier, there’s less story, yes?
Photo by Ellen Blum Barish
The same is true if we covered the swirly tendril at the end of the orchid.
Photo by Ellen Blum Barish
Without these small details, the photographs have less impact.
As for how detail applies to a meaningful life, I’ll just quote Ernest Hemingway who can pack a sentence:
“Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.”
Stay close as I’ll be diving into the remaining seven elements in the coming months.
Coming Up
“When Everything Changed: Writing Your Marker Story,” Story Studio Chicago (online), Tuesday, April 29, 6:30 pm - 8:30 pm.