Conceptual Writing: AutoSummarize

For “AutoSummarize," self-described media artist Jason Huff took the one hundred most downloaded out-of-copyright books (from Project Gutenberg, I assume) and reduced each of them to ten sentences using MS Word 2008’s AutoSummarize function. You can purchase the book or download a free PDF from Huff's website.

Appropriation in Art: Warhol's Brillo Boxes

One of the most iconic pieces Andy Warhol produced was a sculptural reproduction of the shipping carton for Brillo Soap Pads. The "Brillo Box" was part of an April 1964 solo show at New York's Stable Gallery. The show, an important event in Warhol's career, consisted of similar reproductions--cartons of Brillo pads, Heinz ketchup, Heinz Baked Beans, Del Monte peaches, Mott’s Apple Juice, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes--stacked in clusters around the gallery, effectively giving it the appearance of a warehouse or a supermarket loading dock. Warhol's pieces were not grocery cartons but reproductions of these cartons, hollow boxes made of silk-screened plywood.

Appropriations of commercial art--in other words, the "unauthorized use" of logos, labels, and the other tools of branding--were typical of Warhol throughout his career, and from the beginning they have had a puzzling, equivocal status. Were these celebrations of American consumption, comments on the art market, condemnations of the "culture industry" and the growing commericalization of American culture? Were they sincere or satiric? Because the Brillo Boxes and other pieces in this series were three-dimensional sculptures (most of Warhol's work was painting or silkscreen, in two dimensions) they have often been seen as a forceful statement of this questionable status: because they are hollow, and because they are reproductions of commercial imagery, the boxes seem to emphasize the "emptiness" of commercial culture, or of Pop Art, or of Warhol's art itself.

A number of contemporary writers have embraced Warhol's methods--if not, in most cases, his fascination with commerce--as tools for writing. Examples include Kenny Goldsmith's The Weather, which is a book-lenghth transcription of a year's worth of weather bulletins from 1010 WINS, New York's all-news radio station (and, incidentally, one of my favorite books) and various works by Robert Fitterman, whose Word Shop we discussed in class last semester.

In any case, Print Magazine has a terrific article on the designer of the actual Brillo cartons, James Harvey. Harvey was an Abstract Expressionist painter in the New York art scene, and he worked as a commerical artist to pay the rent. The article tells the story of what happened when Harvey attended Warhol's show and saw the Brillo Boxes, providing a useful glimpse of an important moment in the history of American art. With a little thought, it could yield insight into the questions around appropriation as an artistic strategy and the divisions between "expressive" artists or writers and those who approach their work as a "conceptual" activity.

Read it here: Print Magazine: "Shadow Boxer" by James Gaddy

Conceptual Blogging: The Seventeen Magazine Project

Jaime Keiles, an 18-year-old high school senior living in Pennsylvania, has a very interesting writing project. From 5/21 to 6/21--the date of her high school graduation--Jaime will be living "according to the gospel of Seventeen Magazine" and blogging about her efforts. As BoingBoing comments, "The result is a funny, witty observance of the discrepancy between what's being marketed as teen culture and what actually is--at least in her life."

For my part, I read this project as an example of how the techniques of conceptual art and performance have bled out into the culture and become ordinary, widely-accepted ways of thinking critically about the world--placing "conceptual writing" on a continuum with teen blogging. Jaime's blog is *not* conceptual writing in any sense, because it does not use the rules or constraints she has laid down in order to capture language primarily; however, it is documentation of what is effectively a piece of conceptual performance.

Here are the parameters of Jaime's work:

"The goal of this project is to simply explore a dying aspect of teenage culture. I will live my life according to the tips provided by the June/July issue of Seventeen magazine and Seventeen.com from today until the weekend of my high school graduation (June 21). Conveniently, this project will also span the Most Important and Magical Night of My Teenage Life (i.e. senior prom). I will use this blog to record my findings, and to provide commentary on teenage life/the adolescent experience.

Here are the rules of the project:

• I will read the entire June/July issue of Seventeen magazine from cover to cover.
  
• Every day I will utilize at least one "beauty tip" (hair/makeup/skincare/whathaveyou) and one fashion tip.
  
• I will follow all diet and exercise tips provided in the issue to a T.
  
• I will participate in every activity recommended by the magazine (i.e. host a fright night, score your hottest summer hookup ever, be confident in a bikini, etc.)
  
• I will apply for every single "freebie" offered by the magazine, every day.
  
• I will consume all media recommended by the magazine at least once. (books/movies/music)
  
• I will hang all provided pictures/posters of "hot guys" in my living environment.
  

Hopefully in following these rules I will be given the opportunity to shed some light on the modern teenage experience. On this blog, I will document my project, as well as offer commentary on media and teenage culture."

Read it here: The Seventeen Magazine Project

Bryant Park Chapbook

The chapbook of our Bryant Park project is available in a box placed by my office door, M109-E. I will leave the box there until the end of exams, Wednesday 6/16.

I tried to come up with a title that was descriptive of the project, and finally settled on "On The Passage of Certain Figures Through A Limited Space and Time," which I think captures it precisely. The phrase was inspired by the title of Guy Debord's 1959 film "Sur le passage de quelques personnes à travers une assez courte unité de temps" (roughly, "on the passage of some people through a brief span of time"). Debord was an important avant garde filmmaker and social/political theorist of the 1960s -- his work is complex, but definitely worth exploring.

I've also made the PDF file for the chapbook available here. To produce your own copy, simply print the pages double-sided, stack them in order, fold them along the 11" axis, and sew or staple along the fold. However, you should still pick up one of the copies I had printed, since they have a color cover and the printer has trimmed all the edges for a cleaner, easier-to-read book.

It was great working with all of you this semester!

"I Am Sitting in a Room": Video Feedback Project

Process-oriented writing has come up a few times in class -- for example, using Google Translate to move a text back and forth between languages several times in order to observe the changes that are produced. This video project, which takes the idea of process-oriented art to an extreme, was made by uploading, saving and re-uploading the same video to YouTube 1000 times. During this process, the artist -- his physical appearance, the visual details of his video-making style, the content of his message -- gradually disappeared, to be replaced by the distortions imposed by the process itself. (If you watch the video, you'll find links to the other stages of the project on YouTube, so you can see it at different stages.) In other words, this project is not "about" the author and his message; instead, it sets out to explore the medium of online video, allowing the viewer to experience this medium rather than ignore it (which we usually do when we watch videos, paying attention only to what they show and not to what they are).

Waiting for Bieber

Check out Waiting for Bieber, a "real-time feed of Justin Bieber's fans trying to get him to follow them on Twitter." By isolating and cataloging this fan language, the designer, Mike Lacher, has effectively constructed a piece of conceptual writing. I could read this for hours!

Bryant Park Chapbook

I've decided to make a little collaborative publication based on our writing this semester, so that we have something to remember the workshop by. The chapbook will be based on our last Perecian description activity, Bryant Park. Here's what you need to do:

1. Revise your Bryant Park piece according to my feedback. Hand it in as a regular revision so that you get credit for it.

2. In addition, email me by Friday 5/28 with: two descriptions of people (the original assignment called for three, so choose your best two!) and the description of a pigeon.

3. I'll edit the book, choosing which descriptions are included. Everyone in the class will get to contribute at least one description of a person. I'll take the descriptions of pigeons and scatter them throughout.

4. This is a collaborative book, so instead of putting the authors' names on individual pieces, I'll just list all of the contributors' names on the back of the book. That way we're all "the author" of a single work, instead of each being the author of a short section.

I'll have these books printed and bring them to class before the end of the term.

Extra Credit: Rob's Word Shop

The poet Rob Fitterman is running a "word shop" on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11am-2pm, at the Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery in Manhattan). Rob will be selling words and letters at the shop. He'll consult with you about what words or letters you want to buy, and then he'll negotiate a price with you. (The prices are very, very low -- less than a dollar.)

I will give you extra credit if you visit Rob's Word Shop and buy a word or a letter, then write a short paragraph about the experience for me.

Some guidelines:

1. You can go to the shop and request a specific word or letter, but it might also be fun to ask Rob to recommend a word -- just like when you go to an unfamiliar restaurant, you might ask your waiter to recommend a dish based on your likes and dislikes. For example, you could give Rob some abstract qualities ("bright," "feels good in the mouth," "a good word to shout") or personal preferences ("I love the sound of the letters m, n, and c, but I think the vowel a sounds nasal and irritating") or some other kind of request ("I want to buy a word that rhymes with your middle name") and ask him to give you a word or a range of choices.

2. Don't be afraid to haggle! If Rob's price seems too high, negotiate a lower price. If you think the word is too cheap, offer to pay more.

3. Ask Rob about his project. Why is he doing this? What are the ideas behind this project? What kind of experience is he trying to provide? Is this art? Is it writing? Is he going to do something with all the words people buy, and if so, what?

Don't be shy. Rob is very friendly, and he will be delighted if you come to participate in his project.

Translation Event, 5/12

Below you'll find the announcement for the translation event I mentioned in class. We'll be working in small groups to translate a short poem by the US Poet Laureate, in preparation for her visit to the college this fall. As the announcement says, we already have some English and foreign-language speakers signed up, but we need more help!

English-only speakers are welcome!

People who speak another language but have limited English skills are welcome!

This is a special form of translation that is very collaborative and conversational, so there's no pressure to be an expert in English or any other language. Because it's so collaborative, it will also be a good opportunity to meet other students and faculty! As I stated in class, I will offer extra credit to anyone who attends the session and works in one of the translation groups.

This is also a unique opportunity: I learned this form of translation during a visit to Centre de Poésie et Traduction, just outside of Paris. It has been performed in the US only a few times, to my knowledge -- all of them involving the French inventors of the form. Not many people know about it, but it is highly interesting and a lot of fun.

The event will take place next Wednesday (5/12) at 2:15 in E-103, and I think it's going to be very exciting. I hope some of you can make it! Please email me to RSVP in advance, so we can be sure to order enough refreshments. (You'll find my email address on the front of the course pack.)

--

Announcement: Translation Event 5/12 at 2:15 Room E-103

The Creative Writing Committee of the English Department will be holding an event, "Collective Translation at LaGuardia," on Wednesday May 12 during club hours. Please come to E-103, Rosemarie's Room (the large conference room) at 2:15 and be ready to have serious. intellectual. fun.

Staff, students, faculty, and administrators are ALL WELCOME!

You do *not* need to be an expert in a language. The idea of collective translation is that we need people with different levels of language skill, in as many languages as possible. That's all. We need English speakers (I, for example, ONLY know English and I am running this event!); we need people with moderate knowledge of some other language (ANY language you know, or used to know, or are just getting to know, etc.); and we need people with expert knowledge in any language. Participants will work in groups according to which language they work with, and each group will attempt to translate the same short American poem into their language.

So far we have signed up:

French

German

Chinese

American Sign Language

But what about Spanish? Spanish is one of the most prevalent languages at LaGuardia!

And how about Arabic, Farsi, Korean, Japanese, Zulu, Hausa, Hindi, or any of the other 160 languages spoken at LaGuardia?

And what about people who only know English? Am I going to be the only one? Do not be afraid "English only" people...you have a friend!

Whatever your interest, if you are coming please RSVP so I can order enough food for us.

& feel free to email me with any questions.

Yours,
Kristen Gallagher
English Department

Landschaft Mit Haus

Check out this excellent series of paintings by Maria Zaikina. I think these pieces demonstrate the potential of serial art based on minor variations; also, I appreciate their brite flatness and their refusal of more "expressive" modes. It's interesting to reflect on what the literary equivalent of this kind of work would be.

3 + 1: New York Public Library and Bryant Park

This assignment asks you to expand your descriptive writing by producing vast amounts of organized detail. The goal is to make your writing "thicker" -- to "blow it up," in photographic terms -- by writing intensive, close studies of single subjects. Here are the guidelines:

1. You must stay on the block that holds the New York Public Library. You can travel anywhere on the block, but you cannot cross the street. Treat the block as an island surrounded by deep water.

2. You must stay on the block for at least an hour.

3. In total, you should make notes on 4 subjects: three people and one pigeon.

4. In order to produce a sufficient quantity of detail, you should also try to generate "complete" descriptions of your subjects, capturing every nuance of their appearance, their dress, their actions. Try to produce as much notation as you can -- more than seems possible -- for each one. However, this is also a "stealth assignment": you need to find ways of positioning yourself to observe and write that do not involve staring openly at the people you are studying or disturbing them in any way. (You can stare at the pigeon, of course.)

5. Try to break down single actions into small steps. Don't just write, "He licks his ice cream cone." Expand: "He raises his his right arm, bending it at the elbow and raising the ice cream cone in a sweeping motion across his chest, toward his mouth. As he does so, the sleeve of his jacket pulls against his elbow, expanding slightly at the cuff to reveal a trace of the white shirt underneath. His lips part slightly as the cone approaches his mouth. He does not look at the cone. The ice cream is as white as his sleeve, the cone a pale gold color. Suddenly his mouth opens and he bites the ice cream, quickly taking the cone away and turning his head." Be specific, even maddeningly specific.

6. Try to see details as minutely as possible. Don't just write, "She carries a purse." Expand: "She carries a large, shapeless purse on her right shoulder -- bronze-colored with gold buckles and studs. It has two long straps, one of which is firmly on her shoulder, her right arm passed through it so that the bag is under her arm. She clutches the strap tightly in her hand. The other strap, however, has fallen off her shoulder and hangs against her upper arm a few inches above the elbow." Be specific to the point of seeming unreasonable, stupid, crazy.

7. No interior states! Don't make notes about what you think the person you're describing thinks or feels. Don't make notes about what you think or feel about the person you're describing. You are a neutral recording device, no more biased than a digital camera or an audio recording device -- but just as exhaustive.

8. No figurative language! No one is "tall and skinny as a stork" or "squat like a toad" -- no one is "like" anything!

9. Take your notes and draft an organized piece of descriptive writing for Monday's workshop. Write each description in a separate paragraph, for a total of four paragraphs. This kind of writing is difficult to organize: that's also part of the challenge of this assignment. If you simply copy out what's in your notes in the order you witnessed it, your piece will probably be quite boring. You have to revise, reorganize, strategize about how to create small moments of drama in the arrangement of your sentences or the order of the details you include. Because your description will so minute, small contrasts (for example, between the two purse straps in #6) and minor resemblances (for example, between the shirt and the ice cream in #5) will be important in giving structure and drama to your piece. Word choice ("clutches," not "holds") will be crucial.

**

If you missed our field trip and need to make up this assignment with an independent trip to this location, I suggest you go at a time when it will be busy and crowded. This is midtown and there's a park: that means lunch time or immediately after work (5:30 or 6pm) are optimal; weekend afternoons are also good. You'll see very different sorts of people, and see them in different proportions, depending on what time you go: tourists, office workers, Parks Dept. employees, homeless people, schoolchildren, people who are visiting the library to do research.

Be sure to visit the bust of Gertrude Stein in the park, just behind the library.

Field Work this Monday (4/19)

This Monday, we'll use our techniques of Perecian description to tackle another public space: the block that houses the New York Public Library and Bryant Park. The class will meet promptly at 6pm on the steps of the New York Public Library, 5th Ave and 42nd St. After we meet for attendance, we'll break up and make notes for descriptive writing on this block until 7pm, when we'll meet again and I'll dismiss the class.

Also, remember that the revised drafts of Assignment #e: Grand Central are due that day.

Writing the Crowd: Grand Central

based on George Perec's "The Street"

1. Observe the crowd with some concern for system. Take your time -- at least an hour.

2. Note down what you can see, anything worthy of note that is going on. Do you know how to see what is worthy of note? Is there anything that strikes you? If nothing strikes you, perhaps you don't yet know how to see.

3. Set about it more slowly, almost stupidly. Force yourself to write what is of no interest, what is most obvious, most common.

4. Force yourself to see more flatly. Take off your glasses. This often helps.

5. Describe the movement of the crowd. What moves them? What drives them together? What separates them? Are they strolling, rushed, from in town, out of town? Who seems to be from in town and who from out of town? What makes you so sure?

6. Don't say, don't write "etc." Make an effort to exhaustively describe the subject in painstaking, almost ridiculous detail. List every miniscule detail your mind can capture. Be obsessive. Remember, in this task "stupid" is an asset. You must engage the tediousness of describing everything as if you were an anthropologist from another planet. Exhaust the topic down to the most obvious details. Even if that seems grotesque or pointless or boring while you are actually doing it, the detail will produce good writing and please your reader -- just as it does in Perec.

7. Detect a rhythm. Do people arrive in clumps? in groups? as individuals? Count the people. List every pair of shoes that passes you. Note their faces, their expressions, their activities.

8. Read what is written in/on the people: their bags, their clothes. Does anyone carry a sign? What kind of signs can you read throughout the place? Can you observe any relation between the signs and the movement of the crowd? How does the writing relate to the purpose of the building? What about advertising? Graffiti? Stickers? Are there any codes or tags that suggest larger, unseen systems?

9. Note the fashion trends. Are heels too high this season? How does this impact the movement of the crowd?

10. Note the loops and circuits that exist within the crowd. Why does that security guard walk by that trash can every ten minutes? Who chose his route?

11. Carry on until the place and the people in it seem entirely strange, as if you were an alien from outer space observing this culture for the first time. Reconsider #1-10 from the perspective of an anthropologist from Mars, sent to understand the lives of earthlings.

12. Keep writing until you cannot go on any longer, until your hand feels like it's going to fall off.

13. Return to your piece the next day. Organize it into paragraphs and, if you like, into sections. Fix the grammar, punctuation, and so forth. While you edit your piece, eliminate the parts that seem superfluous or that distract from the most important observations and movements.

Field Work this Wednesday (4/7)

This Wednesday, we'll use our techniques of Perecian description to tackle a complicated public space: Grand Central Station. The class will meet promptly at 6pm in front of Kenneth Cole at 107 E. 42nd St. After we meet for attendance, we'll break up and make notes for descriptive writing in Grand Central Station until 7pm, when we'll meet again and I'll dismiss the class.

In preparation, please read the very brief written assignment, "Writing the Crowd: Grand Central," which you'll find in the coursepack just after Perec's "The Street."

Also, remember that the revised drafts of Assignment #2: The Street are due that day.

Techniques of Perecian Description

This is a partial list of techniques that class members have noted as we've been trying to figure out how to write like Perec. We'll keep working on this list over the next few weeks, so if anyone in the class has a suggestion for a new technique or thinks we should revise one of the items on the list, feel free to bring it up in class.

I think it's interesting that our list mixes items that explain how Perec frames a descriptive point of view (for example #s 1, 5, 6) and items that explain how Perec uses language in his descriptions (for example #s 8, 9, 10) and items that speculate about his writing process (for example #s 13 and 14). Of course all of these things are worth considering as you work.

1. Write about surfaces, not "interiority." In other words, write about what you can observe outwardly, not about what you or others think and feel inside.

2. Make carefully-chosen observations and let the reader draw her own conclusions.

3. Make lists, but not random lists: ordered lists, thematic lists, chronological lists, lists that record the arrangement of objects in space or arrange them by size or color or smell or shape; rhythmic lists that alternate long and short phrases, big "million dollar" words and tiny, simple words. By giving an order to the elements of your description or by establishing a rhythm, you can create variation or surprise when that order or rhythm changes. Play with your lists.

4. Pay attention to the language and not just the "content": the words you are writing and not just what you are writing "about." Make aesthetic decisions. Singular or plural nouns? Past-tense verbs or "ing" verbs? Try changing what you have already written to see what difference the changes make.

5. Focus on sensory details: sight, touch, taste, smell and hearing. Try to describe things in a way that allows the reader to experience the scene actively and directly, instead of "talking at" the reader.

6. Focus on the functionality of objects and the ways people relate to them. Consider the uses an object is designed for and the uses to which it is actually put -- and the differences between them, which can be quite funny.

7. Focus on the dimension of time. Consider the passage of time (minute by minute, day by day, season by season) and its effect on the objects of your description. Consider the routine uses of an object: who usually does what with it and when.

8. Use an absurd number of synonyms. Say the same thing in a number of different ways. Use all of the words for a thing instead of choosing between them. Consider how the subtle differences between synonyms change the description of an object or the tone of a passage, and adjust your description to take advantage of those differences.

9. Use parentheses to explain things (or to make them more complicated). Use parentheses to keep the sentence moving (by quickly providing extra information) or to interrupt the sentence (with a long aside: for example, the word "parenthesis" (plural "parentheses") refers both to a punctuation mark and to any clarification that interrupts the flow of the sentence, which means that you can have parentheses without parentheses) and distract the reader.

10. Use repetition as an ordering device: "A bedroom is a room which.... A dining-room is a room which.... A kitchen is a room which" etc. The person who provided this example notes that the repetition of the word "room" with the indefinite article "a" makes it sound like all rooms are interchangeable: "it doesn't matter what is inside the room because it is still going to be a room." The kinds of room that make up our households are defined at least in part by what we put in them -- like the guy I knew in college who saved on rent by making his bedroom in a large coat closet. See Technique #6.

11. Play with punctuation. Use it, avoid it, overuse it, and see what effects this has on the rhythm of the piece.

12. Write some sections in prose and other sections in "almost poem-like" lists.

13. Write "on the fly," adjusting as you go to take advantage of the possibilities that come up as you write. Don't get locked into a preconceived idea of what you are doing ("I'm going to describe everything on this shelf and then I'll be done") or what you are writing about. Write to figure out what you are writing about.

14. Revise your work! "There's no way Perec wrote this stuff on the first try." Change something. Change everything. Change it again. Go back to your earlier changes. Change them some more.

15. Make use of surprising and unexpected adjectives.

16. Ruminate!

17. Include definitions in the text -- but thoughtful definitions, not just stuff that's copied out of the dictionary. Explain the nuances of a word for time to time. See technique #8.

18. Focus your attention on a scene by asking yourself questions about it.

19. Think of yourself as a "guide" to a particular place, object, or activity. Write as if you're explaining it to someone who doesn't understand the simplest things about it -- like an "anthropologist from mars" or a small child. Uncover the obvious. See the things you've ignored that have been right in front of your eyes the whole time.

20. Include an absurd amount of detail. Describe every facet of an object, every step of an action, every move someone makes.

21. Use the particular to describe the general.

22. Compare things to discover what makes them the particular things they are. How is a loveseat different from a couch? How is a living room chair different from a dining room chair? How is a couch different from a living room chair? See technique #19.

ONE FINAL NOTE: A handful of people wrote "be original" in their list of techniques. I didn't include that on the list because it describes a state of being, not a technique. Telling a writer that she should "be original" without giving her any guidance about how to do that is like telling an athlete to "be a winner" without helping them to train. See technique #19.

Perec Page

Here is a great page for anyone who happens to read French: Georges Perec / interroger l'habituel. The name of the site means "to question the habitual" -- it comes from one of Perec's own titles, and it's a remarkably good description of his work.

Perec Images + Info

Sometimes it's nice to know a little about who you're reading, so I'll provide a few photos and a little bit of information about Georges Perec here. First, a link to Paul Auster's excellent review/introduction to Perec's life and work, published in the New York Times when the English translation of Life: A User's Manual was first published. I think Auster has it exactly right here: "Perec had an uncanny gift for articulating the nuances of the material world, and in his hands even a worm-eaten table can become an object of fascination." And here: "To read Georges Perec one must be ready to abandon oneself to a spirit of play."

And here are a few images...

Photo of Georges Perec with his cat:



French postage stamp, obviously based on an image from the same photo shoot:



The stamp may be counterfeit.

Descriptive Writing + Sensory Detail

"Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking”
-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

As expected, some people in the class were stuggling with the idea of "sensory detail." We're going to talk about this issue a lot more in the coming weeks, but I might as well try to define it here. Basically, "sensory details" in descriptive writing are details that appeal to the five senses: sight, sound, smell, touch, taste. The trick of descriptive writing is to use language in a way that activates your reader's senses, allowing the reader to "experience" what is being described instead of just telling her about it. For example, say you were to write this:

The station was old and crowded.

This sentence provides some information, but it's relatively "low resolution." As a reader, I know that we're in a station -- some kind of public place where people come and go. But what kind of station? Police, bus, subway -- I'm not sure. I know that the station is "old," but I don't know quite what that means. Is it a well-preserved 100-year-old building, full of marble and polished wood? Or is it a creepy, decrepit place with peeling paint and a leaky ceiling? Again, I'm not sure. I know that the station is "crowded," but I couldn't say whether that means that all of the seats are taken or people are standing shoulder to shoulder, unable to move.

Now look at this sentence:

People from all over the city crowd the platform -- ragged hipsters and hip-hop wannabees, Wall St. executives in fine Italian suits, old men in dark work clothes and guard uniforms, their slack bodies leaning on the rusted pillars and soot-covered white tiles as they wait for the train home.

Here we have a relatively "high resolution" sentence. As a reader, I know that we're in the subway by the time I reach the word "platform." I know that a lot of people are waiting for the train, and I have an active sense of their presence because the verb "crowd" makes them seem like they are doing something (even if that something is just pressing against each other and leaning on the vertical surfaces of the station), as opposed to the adjective "crowded" in the previous example, which doesn't imply action or an actor. I have a very developed sense of who is present and the range of differences they represent, but I also get the feeling (in "slack," "leaning") that they share the deep tiredness most people feel at the end of the workday. (Which also means I have a sense of what time of day it is.) And I have a detailed sense ("rusted," "soot-covered") that the station is very old and poorly maintained.

Some of these things I know simply because the writer has shown them to me (for example, that there are a lot of people on the platform). Others I know because I'm able to infer them from the details I've been shown (for example, that it must be between 5 and 7 o'clock in the evening). However, the writer has "told" me very little of what she thinks I should learn from the scene -- because when the scene is described well, she doesn't have to tell me. For example, the writer doesn't have to tell me that these people are tired: I can "see" it. She doesn't have to tell me that the station is old: I can "see" it. And so on.

Here's one last sentence:

The precinct is full tonight, huge bull-necked cops pushing their way through a slow herd of sweating bodies that fills the lobby from the sergeant's desk to the cracked glass of the front doors.

Now this may not be the finest sentence ever written, but it is certainly "high resolution." As a reader, I know where I am from the second word (in the US, the word "precinct" is used almost exclusively in connection with police stations) and, if not then, certainly when I reach the word "cops." I can feel how crowded the station is, and because the setting has been specified, I have some idea of who is in the crowd. I can feel the heat and discomfort of the crowd ("sweating"), probably because there are so many "bodies" in the room. I have a sense of the attitude and disposition of the crowd ("herd" suggests passivity and patience, but also stupor from the heat). I have a sense of how the people in the crowd are being treated ("herd" also suggests that they are being acted on, rather than acting of their own free will), and I have sense of who has power in this situation, since only the police are described as moving freely through the space. I haven't been told about these things -- nowhere in these lines does it say, for instance, that the police are controlling the crowd or that the people in the crowd are tired from the heat. Instead, the sentence is written in a way that lets me "experience" the scene using my five senses and draw my own conclusions from the experience.

The most effective descriptive writing tends to be "high resolution": it allows the reader to imagine the scene as if he were experiencing it and to understand what's going on in the scene by thinking about the details he's been given. The writer doesn't tell the reader what to think. Instead she guides the reader's imagination through careful selection of details and word choice, and she guides the reader's attention through the order in which those words are placed and those details are revealed.

First Day Exercise

We started off the semester last night with an in-class "descriptive immersion" assignment, which I've posted below. We only had time to hear from a few people during the workshop period, but I was encouraged by the sensory details that drove some of the work presented. I was also pleased to find that a handful of people in the class were willing to discuss what they heard and provide critical feedback. These two things -- descriptive detail and critical feedback -- are going to be our focus for the first part of the semester.

First Day Exercise

Look around the room: observe the people around you, very closely. Get up and walk around the room, keep looking. Keep looking until you notice some small, unique detail about one of your classmates—a gesture, a feature, a facial expression, an element of dress, a belonging—that tells you something about that person. Not an overall impression, but a singular detail. Not something that interests you (cool shoes, nice sweater) but something that tells you about the individual person you’re observing. Not something obvious (that t-shirt means he listens to the Wu Tang Clan) but something subtle, something quiet—something no one else will notice. All writing is detective work.

Take a few notes. If you are focusing on someone’s clothing or belongings, pay special attention to patterns of use and wear—the features that make an object different than the same object would be if it were owned by someone else. Note the size, shape, color, and placement of objects, their newness or oldness, and the precise details that let you know whether they’re new or old. Look again. If you are focusing about someone’s facial expression or gestures, try to describe them as they are—don’t write what you think they mean. (“She looks grouchy” is a judgment, not a detail. What about her looks grouchy?) Don’t write anything about what you think anything means.

Now write down what you’ve seen in two or three sentences, choosing your words carefully and using them as precisely as you can. Try to write in a way that will let your reader “see” exactly what you’ve seen. Remember, the “meaning” of a piece of writing is what happens when the reader reads—it’s not what the writer meant to say, but what is on the page.

Be prepared to share your work with the class.