Discussion of characterization, Lee Martin's "Sorry," and workshop for SFUADcnf.com class

1. Characterization in Creative
Nonfiction
As seen through Lee Martin’s Sorry

2. Lopate’s Essay
 POINT OF VIEW is the first choice made when
establishing your narrative voice/character:
First person singular: I
Second Person: You
Third Person: He, She, They

3. THE “I” IN MEMOIR
 “I” is not sufficient to establish who the
character/storyteller is
 It does establish a sense of intimacy. We’re closer
to the character when first person is used.
 This is why “I” is not sufficient for building oneself
into a character; the same techniques needed in
fiction and for other characters is also required for
the “I” you are writing to represent yourself

4. Character
 E.M. Forster created the famous fictional
distinction between “flat” and “round” characters;
other distinctions have been drawn between
transparent and opaque. Both refer to the idea of
simple versus complex characters.
 Lopate argues it doesn’t matter if it’s nonfiction or
fiction; the characters in your writing need to be
knowable, and that includes the narrator.

5. Oneself as a Character
 Need to have or acquire some distance
 “You need to be able to see yourself fro the ceiling:
to know, for instance, how you are coming
across…” (p. 18)
 Honest writing isn’t served by being dishonest:
whether it’s being too humble or too braggartly.
 Authenticity in building yourself as a character
requires honest assessment

6. Assessment
 Lopate argues one should start by assessing your
habits, quirks, mannerisms. What makes you
different, special?
 The challenge is to stand out, not to depict oneself
as being the same as everyone else
 The challenge isn’t to make stuff up, but to
dramatize what is already there that makes you
singular

7. Self in Conflict
 Standard types of dramatic conflict:
 Person vs. person
 Person vs. nature
 Person vs. self
 Person vs. technology
 The point is that memoir requires the facing of
conflict and dealing with conflict in the same way
that fiction requires it.

8. Honesty and generosity
 Lopate’s view is that some worry they are either
“too weird” or “too ordinary” to write honestly about
themselves.
 Both “extremes are rooted in shame, and both
reflect a lack of wordliness.”
 The job of the writer is to hone in on the details
and specifics of life itself and transform them into
something interesting and authentic

9. Beyond Quirks
 Creating oneself as a character extends to
considering one’s history, which can include:
gender, religion, social class, geography etc.
 Establishing what matters and not making
assumptions about what people know.
 Have a desire to entertain your readers. This
requires not necessarily hating or loving yourself,
but being curious; being willing to explore yourself
 Write yourself in action, not as a passive onlooker;
just as in fiction

10. Sorry by Lee Martin
Major characters:
Lee, the narrator
Katrina, his neighbor
Lee’s father
Lee’s mother

11. Lee, the narrator
 “There were barbed-wire fences to climb over or
crawl through , and I was always afraid I would
snag myself on one of the sharp barbs.” (p. 343)
 “I was like my mother, timid and not meant for the
rough ways of farm life.”
 “In my own home, my father whipped me at the
least provocation.” (p. 344)
 “Leave her alone,” I said. I shoved at Dan’s
shoulder, momentarily knocking him off balance.”
(p. 347)

12. Katrina
 “I preferred to let Katrina come for me and then
accompany me through the fields.” (p. 343)”
 “…Katrina…was the source of so much that
pleased me: the warmth of her hand, the soft fuzz
of her angora sweater, the airy billow of her
empress sleeves.”
 “You hurt him.” Katrina was drumming her fists into
my back…”You’re awful,” she said.

13. Narrator’s Father, Roy
 “He wore prosthetic hooks, their steel as cold and
as hard as the regret that shadowed his life.” (p.
344)
 ”He always treated the hired men well, paid them
whatever they asked, and insisted that they stay
for a meal.” (p. 345)”
 “That’s my boy,” he would say, and despite all the
trouble between us, there would be an affectionate
lilt to to his voice… (p. 348)
 “You do like I say.” My father’s voice was angry
now. “Or do you want me to blister your ass?”

14. Indirect Characterization
 “How desperately he must have wanted to be one
of them, a whole man, free fro those hooks and the
stumps of his arms that he slipped into the hooks’
hard plastic holsters.” (p. 345)
 “What made me especially sad was the knowledge
that inside my father was exactly that kind of
man—decisive, resourceful, courageous—and had
he only had hands he would have been better able
to demonstrate those qualities.” (p. 349)

15. Lee’s Mother
 “Goodness,” my mother said once. “The Jents will
think there’s murder going on.” (p. 344)
 “My mother was as much help as she could be—
driving grain trucks, greasing machinery, doctoring
cattle and hogs…” (p. 344)
 “She had stood by, silent, while my father had
whipped me…she had always seemed so helpless
in my father’s house. All she could do was endure
and trust to God.” (p. 352)

16. Direct and Indirect
Characterization
 Mack Jent:
p. 350: “It gave me an odd feeling to think of Mack
Jent farming our ground because I knew that my
father didn’t completely approve of his way of
doing things.” (p. 350)
“He teased me about being afraid of their dog, or
having to double with Katrina when we rode her
horse.”

17. Sensory Detail & Theme
 In this essay, Martin explores the theme of regret. He
is raised in an atmosphere of violence and remorse.
He is himself timid—drawn to softness and
gentleness, and afraid of violence and chaos.
 His father’s hooks versus Katrina’s soft clothes and
warm hands
 His fear of Katrina’s dog, the nipping terrier:
“All I knew that day in the basement was that Katrina
didn’t like what Dan was doing to her any more than I
liked their terrier nipping at my ankles.”
“To me, he was like their terrier dog—tightly wound and
tenacious, full of growl and snap.” (p. 351)

18. Contrast
 Katrina is gentle, but when Lee defends her against
her brother, she becomes angry. She doesn’t like his
violence
 Lee is fascinated by his father’s workers manners in
his house: “I was always surprised at how shy the
hired men were at our table, how humble, how
hesitant…” (p. 345)
 Martin’s memoir is as much about his father as it is
about his own reckoning with the inner complexities
of himself and his father: “Hello, Katrina,” I said, and I
felt something open inside of me, a door back to the
boyy I had been, timid and afraid.”

19. Sorry
 The essay is named after the game Lee is playing with
Katrina and her brother (p. 346)
 The narrator feels cozy and dry and happy until Dan starts
bothering Katrina. But Dan is not a real threat, in fact he’s
smaller than Lee.
 Lee hurts Dan and then:
 “I felt such an emptiness inside, similar to the sinking
sensation I got riding in a car that crested a hill to fast and
dipped down the other side…I wondered whether this
emptiness was what my father felt after he had whipped
me, sorry that he had let his temper get the better of him,
sorry that he had gone too far, sorry that the world he
thought he had a hold on had slipped out from under him.”
(p. 348)

20. Lee in Action
 The reader has sympathy for the narrator because
we know that he is beaten by his father
 But we also see him in action: expressing his own
anger against someone smaller than him
 We see him trying to help his father
 We see him seeking out the comfort of Katrina
 As Lopate says, “There is something off-putting
about a nonfiction story in which the I is infinitely
more sinned against than sinning.”

21. We also learn…
 Where the narrator is from: the ambiance of his
upbringing and how that influences him
 His parents and their relationship to the world
 The role the natural world plays in the narrator’s
life
Man vs. nature
Man vs. man
Man vs. self

22. Exercise
 Write for 15 minutes about how someone in your
life sees you.
 This can be someone you are close to
 This can be someone you’re not close to
 The goal is to write how you believe you are
perceived by another person
 You might start with: “_____________ thinks I’m
___________ because__________________.

23. Reading Quiz
 We have read a significant amount of the craft
explanations that will guide your work this semester.
 This quiz is designed to see how well you understand
and can apply these concepts to the creative
nonfiction essays we’ve read.
 I will be looking for your understanding and ability to
synthesize and use citation in these questions
 We will continue to have regular critical in-class
assignments such as these
 You have half an hour to complete these four
questions.

24. Workshop Groups
 Workshop 1: Allison, Todd, Lauryn
 Workshop 2: Jack, Chelsea, Jessica C, Izzy
 Workshop 3: David G, Ariel, Kore e, Kelsey
 Workshop 4: Nona, Jess, Luciano, Willow

25. Workshop Protocol
 Today, exchange manuscripts and discuss with
one another what you wrote about, the challenges
you faced and any questions you have in particular
about your work that you’d like others to read for
 This week: fill out the critique sheets for each
member of your group for next week’s workshop
 Make sure Julia has a copy of your manuscript as
well, and make sure next week to bring in a copy
of critique for each writer and one for Julia, as
these are graded.

26. Critique Sheets
 You must fill out a critique sheet for each member
of your workshop. You can download extras on the
class website. These must be either typed or very
legibly written. A copy of each critique must be
turned in to Julia, and will be graded.
 Critique sheets are designed to provide helpful
feedback to each writer, and to demonstrate your
own ability to apply craft technique principles to
specific pieces of writing.

27. Critique criteria
 Sensory detail
 Characterization
 Scene versus Summary
 Reflection and Interpretation
 Other comments and observations about the work

28. Critique
 Critique should be specific and use examples in
the text to back up your feedback.
Don’t: This piece has good sensory detail
Do: On page 3 when the narrator describes the red
and blue quilt on her bed, the description works
well with the theme of patriotism in the piece, but is
visually vague and could use more description.

29. Critique
 Characterization
Don’t: The mother is very clear
Do: The scene in which the narrator overhears her
mother crying in the bathroom on p. 4 shows that
her mother is more vulnerable than she lets on and
is a good example of direct characterization
through action.

30. Scene and Summary
 Don’t: This piece has a lot of scenes and not much
summary
 Do: The most important moment in this piece is
when the brother realizes his sister is in trouble
and should be rendered as a scene because it is a
critical moment in the overall narrative. It worked
well, though, to summarize the narrator’s
childhood because it provides good background
for his actions later.

31. Reflection/Interpretation
 Don’t: This piece seems like it’s about love
 Do: This piece is asking the question about
whether you can love someone who will never love
you back and that theme could be strengthened by
developing the metaphor of the uncle’s garden
where no matter how hard he tries his daffodils
always end up dying.

32. Other
 Read closely for examples of diction and poetics,
for places in the text that you can observe either
successful writing or areas for improvement
 Don’t: This is good
 Do: The use of simile throughout the piece, as for
example on pages 6,8 and 11, help show that the
narrator is looking for adult role models. You could
tighten up the description of her dog on page 3,
maybe by losing the paragraph that begins: “His
tail wagged and wagged for hours.”

33. Workshop Protocol
FIVE GOLDEN RULES
1. Please read each workshop piece at least twice. Reserve the second reading for marking
notes and filling out critique sheets.
2. The workshop focus is on the work itself, not the readers’ reaction to the work. For this reason,
restrict subjective praise or criticism.
3. Each member of the class is expected to offer observations and questions about the piece,
and to provide a written critique, using the provided critique sheets. Be specific.
4. The author should use the workshop time to listen to the observations about the piece. Each
author will have the opportunity to ask any unaddressed questions about the piece.
5. The goal of workshop is to provide each author with feedback that can be used to strengthen
the work for the craft elements of creative nonfiction. While grammatical and spelling errors
need to be addressed by the author, they are not the prime focus of the workshop process.