In fact, all her pieces fitted so snugly together it was like looking at a photograph not a puzzle. How did she do it? I could not see any pieces jammed together where they shouldn’t be. Her essays often stunned me into looking blankly into space. Not more than normal but I did manage to read a hefty pile of non-fiction books and essays.
But the tweet made me think twice about which pieces of the puzzle actually fitted and which ones just looked like they did. But personally, and this year made me understand more than ever, I find it easier to have some sort of framework. Did everyone do this? Is this lazy? Is this a trap? Was this a flawed structure? Wait, did I have to follow a structure at all? No, I don’t. According to Scientific American, the hotdog is…” Hot dogs were invented in 1693 by Steven Hotdog. I remember the taste, the scent, the summer. “ Creative nonfiction writers be like: I first ate a hotdog when I was six years old. Then, last summer, Jake Wolff, a Creative Writing Professor at the University of Central Florida tweeted something that made me go hot all over. This framework is useful and interesting. The word jigsaw comes from the actual saw that was used to cut out the puzzles in the late 1800’s. He gave it to children in the local school to help them with their geography education. He mounted one of his maps onto wood and then cut around the countries. The first jigsaw puzzle was created by a map engraver called John Spilsbury, in 1762. Although, this is not always the case.įor instance, for this essay, I could have written something like this:įor me, writing non-fiction is like a jigsaw puzzle. An arrow pointing in the right direction. It’s like having a strong sentence to start with. If the picture on the box is a detailed one, it’s easier. What kind of madness is this? (This is something else I have re-learnt – we all do things very differently.) My partner, perversely and possibly worryingly, starts in the centre and works out. I collect them all and start shaping the frame, and only then do I start to fill in the middle bits, the sky, the mountains, the tiny bits of nothing that actually act as glue to the whole picture. How does it all fit? Where should I start? Personally, I start with the edge pieces.
All the bits are floating around my head. When I am on the verge of starting it, I can’t sleep. And sometimes, you never know, you might find the whole puzzles for those other pieces and make new stories. It takes ages to take out the bits that don’t fit but it’s worth it. Sometimes, three puzzles were mixed up together in the box and sent to the charity shop. In fact, sometimes there is more than one story. But I know a story is in there somewhere. It’s a mess, it’s an uncoherent picture that does not tell a story. So many different coloured bits, so many odd shapes. I pour the pieces out onto the table and it looks unsurmountable. I have no idea if all the pieces are there when I start it, but I start it anyway.
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It makes reading it effortless but writing it so full of effort it’s sometimes easier to give up. I think I have seen the trick in non-fiction. It feels right, however, to stand back and look at what I have learnt. We all know what kind of year this has been and, of course, I am looking forward to a new one. I am writing this on New Year’s Eve which, for me, feels poignant and relevant but for you, the magic of it has already worn off.
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