I am trying to focus more on applying what I notice in reading essays to my own writing. Here are a set of prospective exercises I’ve generated after re-reading selections from the Oxford Book of Essays with KC :

• Superposition. Providing differing points of view on the same thing/event/space to convey uncertainty/ambiguity. [cf. The Haunted Mind, Note 3, offers alternate PoVs: Is the sound of the bell from the dream or the world? Is the author is in the space of the dream or are the dream figments in the bedroom?]
• Minor Key Interlude. A description of a train of thought, or conversation, that in response to some happenstance moves into a minor – dark, distressing, depressing – mode, and then, through more happenstance or perhaps intentional effort, moves back out of it. Attend to the inflection points. [cf. The Haunted Mind, Note s 6 & 7, where hypnagogic turn dark when being swaddled in bedclothes evokes a corpse in a shroud, and then attention to everyday objects serves to vitiate that line of thought].
• Animated Trajectory through Three-space. Convey the sensation of a 3D environment by allusions to its structure; by agents moving through it; by objects falling and bouncing; by sound. [cf. The Acorn-Gatherer, Note 2, on the rooks moving about in the tree].
• Persuasion via vivid description and inserting oneself into the scene. Vividness, particularity and layering of detail makes a description more convincing, and then with the describer injects themselves into the scene as describes themselves in the act of seeing and feeling. [cf. The Clergyman (Beerbohm)]
• Zoom in from Safe Distant Anonymity to Too-Close Intimate Proximity. Zoom in on people interacting. Begin with a comfortable distant overview (e.g. momentary distant glimpses), and then zoom in to show the fine-structure of intimate and not-entirely-easy interaction, whether wanted or not (e.g. continuous up-close eye-contact). (cf. Insouciance.)

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