Beyond chronological storytelling
Inspired by Abigail Thomas' reflections on writing, intermingled with mine
Writing in chronological order is, theoretically, reserved for reporters. For other writing - fiction, even nonfiction - recounting events in sequence might make for a boring read. At least, that’s what Abigail Thomas said.
I’m bored by chronology. I don’t even believe in chronology. Time is too weird. It contracts, then it shoots forward (or back), it dawdles, stops still, and then suddenly we’re twenty years down the road. Whole decades evaporate. (Abigail Thomas)
I wonder if mysteries may be deemed an exception. Unearthing clues until we come upon the whodunit is, after all, a chronological method of writing, isn’t it? But Abigail Tomas does not writer mysteries (to my knowledge); rather, she is a memoirist. Or an essayist. In any event, she does not like to recount events in chronological order. She views it as a “relentless march of events” leading to “a predetermined end, emphasizing the finite nature of time”.
Her opinion struck me as enlightening. I always thought reporting chronological events is the most logical method of telling a story, either your own or one you make up in fiction. I hadn’t considered another, less sequenced way could be as effective, or might even be preferred.
I don’t always write in chronological order, but I like starting out that way. What I mean is I always attempt to sort the mental clutter in my brain into a chronological sequence. I do this by categorizing each segment of the event I'm writing into a beginning, an elaborately extensive middle, and a conclusion.
Does this make it boring? Abigail Thomas thinks so.
I can't remember in which book Abigail Thomas mentioned this chronological abhorrence. I think it’s in her book Still Life at Eighty which is the first book of hers I read. Her voice and style impressed me so much, I kept notes in an adjacent app to allow for quick copy and paste from one online version to another. I love technology in part because of this ability, to be able to copy a meaningful phrase and paste it into a personal app where later, after the book is read and digested, I can consult some of these impactful phrases and ponder alternate meanings.
Before I finished Still Life, I loaded some of her other books into my library app. I also discovered she has a substack (@AbigailThomas) which is simultaneously surprising and unsurprising.
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Women authors of a certain age
Abigail Thomas is not the only eighty-plus year-old author I love to read. I have virtually met several other retired-and-beyond writer ladies though my blogging community and will, no doubt, discover more. Rachel McAlpine (@rachelmcalpine), a former fellow blogger-friend, comes to mind…
I am drawn to the Boomer ladies, truth be told, particularly the ones who pen their thoughts online. Let’s celebrate these ladies! They have wisdom to share, stories to tell, humour to dispatch and if they’re grumpy, there’s bound to be a lesson to learn from their complaints.
There is something about 80-year old Abigail, this talented elderly New Yorker who resides in Woodstock, which appeals and excites me, propelling me to keep writing myself (not that I ever stopped, I just don't publish all my drivel). Maybe it's her essay style which tells her life story in snippets as her memory dictates. Or maybe it's her no-nonsense voice of reason which emanates from every sentence, reminiscent of wisdom gained from life experience. Or maybe it's because she has a beagle named Harry and is an adopter of stray dogs in need of love.
I have a beagle, his name is Tucker and he is one of several interruptions I tolerate during my writing sessions.
Abigail’s love for dogs is part of her appeal, but so is the image she portrays of herself, sitting in her chair surrounded by furry companions, observing the passing seasons of nature and life through her window. This idleness, particularly during the lockdown periods, appears to have fuelled her stories which now entertain her readers (like me).
Abigail mentioned the pandemic years but didn't dwell there. In fact, her life during and after those isolating times appear mingled in their similarities. The only difference was the lack of choice: during lockdown you couldn't just get up and go someplace. After lockdown, you still don't get up to go someplace, but you can if you want to.
So she sits in her chair and reflects, all the while observing her dogs, or mice, or spiders, or stink bugs.
I distinctly remember one passage where she adopted a stink bug as her own. “He's my stink bug,” she declared.
In the last few chapters of her Still Life book she talked about writing, and what it means to her. The following passages are her thoughts on the subject, co-mingled with mine.
Fiction or nonfiction
I’ve always been curious about why one chooses fiction for one story and non- fiction for another. For me it's pretty simple-some stories need to be served straight up. That's nonfiction. Others need more architecture, that's fiction. It's a decision best left to the gut. (Abigail Thomas)
I have written both fiction and nonfiction. Some of the fiction I self-published I feel ambiguous about now, in hindsight. There's an implied insecurity I struggle with which probably comes (came?) with the initial inexperience of writing for an audience.
When I first published content online twenty-plus years ago, my go-to was always to ask, or tell, others about my projects, taking their opinions at face value, not realizing how this act of deferment took my power (and confidence) away.
I don't do this (as much) now. I have learned to keep my trap shut and just write and publish on my own timeline.
But it wasn't always like this. I remember my launch into the nefarious erotic romance sector. I could only write as my pseudonym, thereby allowing myself a liberty deemed inappropriate by those I met in the school yard or at the rink. My alter ego was fun and free, but only for a few hours each week. I still love her, my nom-de-plume Cassandra Lincoln, but for now, she's on sabbatical.
That other writing life, the free-spirited illicit side, has diffused and evaporated. Most of my erotic flash fiction and my book have been removed from my various platforms.
Why?
Because that was then, and this is now. Scandolous erotic romance is not currently a preoccupation I dabble in. Nonfiction has taken its place. And Abigail Thomas, for one among others, has inspired me to pursue this genre further.
Processing or distilling in writing
Abigail Thomas describes nonfiction as easy. She writes it down as it comes into her mind via her periphery. “I am distilling, not decorating,” she says.
Yes exactly, I think. Distilling! I do that too when I write. Although I have used the word processing myself.
The two words imply something related, but their original etymology stems from science.
Processing refers to the various steps involved in preparing a substance for further treatment or use. You process cucumbers into pickles, strawberries into jam.
Distilling meanwhile refers to a separation technique which uses heating and cooling to isolate components. In the context of whisky making, distilling is the process of separating and concentrating alcohol from a fermented liquid.
In writing, processing and distilling may have the same end-result.
Take a glimpse at my writing process:
I mull over or ruminate the event I called up from memory, analyze it to death, form a conclusion, categorize it and finally file it neurologically somewhere in my grey matter. Then I type that result into a screen at which point I might alter it again.
In other words, when I process that event, I hack it apart and inspect each piece individually.
Were I to distill that event, I would watch it diffuse from an emotional volatility to a lesser intensity. This is done by overthinking and sometimes irrational justifying.
The risk with this type of diffusing is an embellished, or perhaps a fabricated version of the original event which may conceive more volatility and intensity, thereby giving the entire thing new meaning.
Which is probably the reason why I began writing on public platforms in the first place. Once it’s in print or live on a screen, I can ease away from it. Let it live in someone elses head for a while.
Fix what's broken
I'm not sure writing is our way of fixing what's broken, although that's often a by-product of writing. (Abigail Thomas)
In some way, I began my writing journey in order to process past events, especially unresolved or unsavoury ones. Some of those events came out in my fiction short story analogy called Hindsight, which wasn't exactly fiction as I based it loosely on my own coming-of-age experiences.
So did writing Hindsight fix my brokenness?
The answer is complicated, in part because the past isn't an event I can simply shut the door on, or bury in a deep hole, despite what I said above. After all, the book and its stories contains my perception of the truth and remains out there, online, available. The point, or maybe the internal propulsion which led me to writing about those events in the first place, is that it allowed me to create a buffering distance which essentially - eventually - removed its emotional intensity.
The buffer between the original event and the written story removed the sting of pain.
I look back at those events now and I no longer feel insecure or rejected or confused. They were simply events that happened with people who no longer have any effect or influence on my life today. I can recall the memories at will and feel nothing of substance.
Mission accomplished.
Grim determination
There is nothing more deadening to creativity than the grim determination to write a story. (Abigail Thomas)
I have experience with grim determination. When I’m in grim determination mode, every word I write is useless. The worst passages I've ever written were written under scheduled, forced, disciplined, duressed circumstances fed by my grim determination.
Writing for me, regardless whether it's fiction or nonfiction, is typically conceived deep in my solar plexus (or more inelegantly, my gut) where all my feelings reside. I reject the disciplined approach to writing on a schedule - been there, done that - because it didn’t/doesn’t work. Rejecting the “right way to write” as dictated by the professional writing community (schedules, plans) made me feel inadequate and somehow below par toward the words appearing on my screen.
Why can’t I be like disciplined writers, I asked myself many times. But looking at my words written under grim determination duress reinforced Abigail’s statement.
My words on the screen looked stale and hollow.
Frankly, it made me want to toss my laptop out the window.
And yet, by not adhering to the disciplined writers’ status quo, I found myself feeling unworthy of recognition and especially compensation.
Are my forced words, fed by grim determination, worthy of recognition and compensation?
I cannot force creativity. I won’t force creativity.
And yet, this is my struggle. I can’t allow myself, my family or my dog to starve to death. Is there a fine line between disciplined writing and grim determination that prevents the deadening of creativity?
Which leads me to the next struggle:
How can you sustain a life of creative writing when everything is based on external, beyond-your-control circumstances being just right?
Futility in control of external circumstances
For my natural creativity to flourish in terms of acceptable prose fit for public consumption, I need external circumstances to adhere to my expectations.
For me, this meant an obsessive compulsion for solitude, absolute silence, a lack of clutter. Only then was I able to internalize and embellish any thought as needed - as much or as little as I wanted - to string together words into passages. These are essential components for my writing. Without them, I fail.
I thrive only under the complete absence of (other writers') rules.
There is little consolation knowing everyone struggles with privacy in some capacity or another. Well, perhaps those multi-billionaires are an exception, but what do I know about obscene amounts of money. Most of us don't own multiple mansions with a selection of rooms to choose from whenever privacy is desired.
What I do know is that we all live in a world filled with interruptions.
Unfortunately it isn't practical to demand that life stop propelling forward just because we are in the process of birthing a brilliant sentence. I tried, and failed, at making my space quiet, which is unsurprising given I sat at the dining table in the middle of the open concept while family and dogs puttered around me.
Unfortunately it isn't practical to demand that life stop propelling forward just because we are in the process of birthing a brilliant sentence.
Even the potential of interruptions factored into this equation. The potential of an interruption is, for me, an equal misdemeanour to an actual interruption.
But this was my struggle and not one I came across much in Abigail Thomas’ books. Her focus was to write, and to teach writing. Upon reflection, her answer to whatever struggle you imagine yourself suffering is brilliantly simple. She said:
Don’t try so hard. Just start.
She wrote: “My problem was trying too hard and giving up too quickly. My problem was I thought you had to know what you were doing. Nonsense. You just have to start.”
I think this is brilliant advice.
Other books by Abigail Thomas
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Claudette, Writer of Words etc