the one about fiction versus nonfiction

At approximately 7:30 this evening, I will submit my last and largest paper of the semester (a project referenced in this post) and thereby have completed all my work for the semester. This will also mean I only need to write a thesis to get my MA.

"Only" write a thesis. Ha.

Writing and revising this paper got me to thinking about how I write, especially with reference to the distinctions between fiction and nonfiction.

When I write fiction, I give entirely too much information up front. I've been writing a novel on and off since high school (aka: a long time ago), and when I workshopped the beginning of it last summer, my instructor informed me that I don't need to put every single fact in the opening chapter / paragraph /sentence / word. I am familiar with the concepts of allusion and foreshadowing, but apparently I don't use them in my writing. I basically say, "Hey! This is important! She is sad because of THIS. Think about that? Remember how she's sad? That's going to affect EVERYTHING. Pay attention!"

This is compared to my nonfiction, critical writing. In which I catch my speed and the paper goes ka-pow about two pages before it ends. And professors think perhaps it should start where it ends. And are kind of right. 

I can revise fiction until the end of time. In fact, sometimes I revise more than I write because writing fiction is hard. Plotting doesn't come easily, and narration sometimes drivels off into inanity. Not unlike my critical work. I'd rather do all manner of unpleasant things instead of revising critical work. But Husband is a no-holds-barred editor these days--since I have recently become able to handle his constructive, useful criticism without yelling at him that he has no idea what I'm trying to say so he should stop trying to tell me how to say it--and informed me that my most recent paper, although working better towards getting to the point earlier, still lagged in the beginning. 

You see, I finish a paper and I say, "WHEEE! I'm done! Where's the wine?" I revise for typos, things spell-check misses, and to clarify word choice. I am excellent at the sentence level. I have great difficulty distancing myself from the text and understanding that time spent getting to the point needs to, well, get to the point. This does not mean starting the paper from scratch. It means tightening language in earlier paragraphs and adding sentences that directly point to the thesis (and later, the conclusion). And generally realizing that not everything I think made it onto the page, even though I can read it between the lines.

For example, I wrote about disabled siblings in disability films serving as foils for their non-disabled siblings. And spent a good page defining the disability, which the film didn't name, without referencing how the unnaming related to the foiling. You follow? Without that referent, the entire section is rendered useless, however interesting it might sound.

Whereas if I were writing fiction, I'd have said a million times how important that was to the point the story intended to make. I'd beat you over the head with it. 

Thus, I need to switch my head-beating techniques between my fictional and non-fictional writing. I've got the skills, I'm just using them incorrectly, as per usual.