Writing around the egg

As I’ve finally gotten underway with working on my writing (nearly six thousand words in the past two days!), I’ve found myself encountering a really interesting predicament: the shape of words, sentences, and stories, and my investment therein. After attending a poetry reading on Thursday evening, I was struck by the fact that I tend to write more like a poet than a "typical" prose author. That is to say, my focus is often on how words interact rather with each other rather than the plot structure of a fully-formed narrative. 

This may not make a lot of sense, which is fine, because it doesn’t make much sense to me either. Let me attempt to explain by using a simple example (and hang on, because this may get confusing): 

“I am not in the light, but I am close enough to feel its warmth…” 

(from “Cocktail Hour” by Beth Nugent). 

There is a really delightful symmetry to this line. The repetition of “I am” instates the place of the narrator, framing the story from their perspective. The wordplay of “not” and “close”, where “not” is a definitive “no”, contrasted with the use of “close” as in to be “physically close” rather than to "close the door", is charming. But the really pleasant piece of symmetry in this line is in the words: “light” and “warmth”. 

“Light” is a surprisingly sharp word: front heavy, with a high middle and tall end, it evokes some semblance of etherealness. “Warmth”, by contrast, is rounded and smooth. They mean similar things, but the sharpness of “light” makes it seem distant and cold. “Light” is something to look at, but not to touch – “warmth” is something to obtain. We speak "warmth" roundly, with lenition; "light" is fricative, abrasive. And, beautifully, symmetrically, aesthetically pleasingly, they’re both rounded out by the same “th” ending (albeit in inverse). 

The shape of the words, however, does so much more than simply evoke feeling. It also says a lot about the narrator and therefore shapes how we read the story. 

How much about the narrator do you need to know to understand what this line is trying to convey? How much can you pull away from it without knowing anything else? 

Removing it from any sort of context gives us an interesting chance to really break apart why it works so well both within and without context: “… but I am close enough…” evokes longing, a desire to reach that light that the narrator lacks. Because they aren’t in the light, we can presume they’re looking in on a scene – the scene itself doesn’t matter – and perceive themselves as an outsider. Combined with the desire to “feel [the] warmth…”, they become a full character, with a relatable desire (belonging) and equally relatable fears (being locked out – of a house, of a relationship, of an opportunity). 

What’s incredible about this line is that you don’t need the full story. You can pull a story from a sentence – half of a sentence, even. The shape of the words is pleasing, their symmetry is masterful, and the rise and fall of the letters within the words creates a sense of wavering timidity. 

Of course, I could be reading entirely into this. I do write “fully formed narratives”, with characters and plots and drama. I just find myself channelling the inner poet – analysing every word. For example, why would Nugent choose the word “close” and not “near”? Manipulating the sentence to include “near” makes the second clause far sharper: 

“I am not in the light, but I am near enough to feel its warmth…” 

“Near enough” becomes sharp. Near, like sneer. Longing gives way to pure physicality. The narrator is no longer longing for closeness; they possess nearness. Removing “near” revokes the rounded symmetry of the sentence and gives it an entirely new meaning. 

Am I overthinking this? Absolutely. But I’ve also come to regard writing as similar to an exercise I did my freshman year of high school, in a foundation-level visual arts class. We were tasked with drawing an egg, which seemed doable enough until I was faced with a dark room and a light shining directly on an egg. 

Suddenly, the egg became a hellish beast. I would touch the charcoal to the paper and it would smudge, ruining all of my work. All of my attempts to shade directly on the egg, drawing the outlines, made it appear muddled and out of focus. It wasn’t until I figured out that you draw around the egg to give it form that it began to even resemble something. You draw the darkness around it; you give shape to the void. You can’t draw an egg as an outline, because it lacks dimension; you can’t brute force the egg into existence. You have to coax it, gently, into being.

Admittedly, unlike drawing an egg with charcoal, you can erase words. However, the principle remains the same. If Nugent had tried to brute force that sentence into existence, like my first attempts at drawing the egg, it might have looked something like this: 

“I stand outside the window of my house, staring longingly at my family inside and wishing that they were as perfect in there as they appeared from out here.” 

This is purely speculative – I’m not in any way claiming to know how Nugent may or may not have written. However, two things become immediately obvious with this approach. First, it becomes much longer: fifteen words become twenty-nine, nearly doubling in length. This is because of the second issue, which is context. In losing the shape of the sentence, it becomes a formless beast, rambling and desperate for context. Let’s remove some context, whittling it down further: 

“I stand outside and wish that it was as perfect in there as it appears from out here.” 

And now, the sentence is simply ugly. Eighteen words isn’t bad by any stretch – an addition of three words – and yet it feels far longer. This is because there isn’t any symmetry anymore, either in terms of words (“light” and “warmth”) or repetition (“I am”, “I am”). 

One of my biggest issues is handholding in fiction. How much is too much? How little is too little? This reworked sentence is technically correct, and is fine. It’s just OK. It takes the hand of the reader and leads them, gently, to a conclusion: the narrator expresses their wishes deliberately and takes the reader from Point A to Point B. 

“I am not in the light, but I am close enough to feel its warmth…” 

In the original, there is no direct handholding outside of context. It’s open for interpretation. Nugent shows instead of telling. And that’s the beauty of drawing around the egg: you don’t have to state the thing, you can simply express it. 

That being said, writing paralysis is very real, and fretting over every single word is pretty much impossible. As much as I try to write around the egg, I often find myself resorting to hand holding. Metaphor and allegory are exhausting, symmetry and alliteration are paralysing, and I should be sleeping instead of worrying about whether I put too many avian-related words into my most recent piece of writing.