For those in my fiction class: This is the piece I'm working on for my portfolio.
The story deals, in part, with the protagonist's return to a place significant to her childhood. Because much of this story is based on real life experiences (more than anything I've ever written), it was helpful to return to this place to secure the images in my mind. But the trip did more than this; the story deals with how the protagonist's interactions with this physical place changes throughout different times in her life. So it felt incredibly surreal and self-reflective for me to actually go out and return to this place, as though I was acting out the story... I've never performed a story in this way before.
I had written a first draft before driving out to the Treaty 4 area, but once I explored the hills, and came across many of its spatial aspects that I had forgotten were there, it became necessary to alter the story. I had forgotten about a cemetery that overlooks the town, or the precise layout of the hills. The story also deals with memories, subjectivity, and first experiences of grief. It felt eerie to encounter the rusted truck atop one of the hills at the edge of a grain field, more than ten years after my first encounter with it. I feel grateful for the experience to encounter this world again... not only for the story, but for my own understanding of the past.
As I make revisions now, I feel an increasing gap between what is "real" and what I am fabricating to suit the form and art of the world I am creating. It feels like I have begun with raw memories, but I am carving these to create something spatial, and something meaningful that resonates with readers who don't share the protagonist's specific experiences.
I am looking forward to workshopping the story later in the semester. In the mean time, I would like to share some photographs from this trip.
I am also wondering: has anyone else has intentionally "acted out" a story in order to understand its characters or themes?
the hills:
the abandoned car:
plants growing through its shell:
another angle:
field:
the cemetery:
entranceway at the top of a hill
growth:
hills:
I "acted out" the first poem I wrote for my Honours project! I haven't done that for a story yet though.
ReplyDeleteCool! I think I want to do it more often... (when possible!)
ReplyDeleteOh, good old Fort Qu'Appelle. I love going to the Off Broadway Bistro.
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