Writing Exercises #5-8: Inspired by Vivian Gornick’s The Situation and the Story

Here are some writing exercises taken from the back of The Situation and the Story. Please do at least one.

5 - Gornick writes, “…memoirists generally do better when they speak through the filter of that which passes for subjects well beyond themselves" (p.136). Write a brief personal narrative in which you approach some aspect of yourself by writing about a subject beyond yourself.

6 - Much of Gornick’s book is concerned with writing as self-discovery, or with the relation between who is speaking and what is being said. Write a short personal narrative about a moment of important self-insight or self-definition, a moment when you made a breakthrough in discovering or becoming who you are. Try to develop a narrative voice that both speaks about and embodies that insight .

7 - Write a brief personal essay about a familiar subject, marriage if appropriate, that attempts to reveal the mystery at the heart of the ordinary.

8- "What happens to the writer,” Gornick argues, "is not what matters; what matters is the large sense the writer is able to make of what happened" (p.91). Write about a small but important experience in your life and try to make that large sense of it that Gornick feels is required of strong nonfiction writing.