Honors Prompt #3

Elizabeth Gilbert’s writing methods are like breath of fresh air. They are like a comic relief of the so-called trauma each individual is destined to go through. They are like hammers and drills and wrenches, screwdrivers and scrapers and staple guns, and nuts and bolts and measuring tapes, saws, and pliers and pipes and powered polishers.  They are like a family of personalities and a family of brilliant scholars and doctors and lawyers and chefs. And like a pallet of watercolors painting each page with a new soul and a new characteristic, a new dream and a new message, and a new (and improved) story to tell. Figuratively speaking, each appliance or family member or watercolor or soul is a tool: “aka” a writing technique that supposedly is used to make things more interesting  (perhaps, without great intention, less) for purposes of not completely boring the reader to death. However when a good writer uses these tools or methods correctly, like Elizabeth Gilbert does, a story is transformed from being written, to being told. Let me explain further. Excusing the obvious uses of personification and similes and the in body conversations, (which, just for your information, are used so beautifully by Elizabeth Gilbert, I want to cry) the one tool that seems now in retrospect, a completely and unbelievably underrated and simple concept is this: Casualty. With the goal to speak to her readers, Gilbert has used this idea of casualty to portray her messages through her stories. The tone behind each word in this text gives the reader, in this case me, a genuine focus. Her focus is to single me out as an individual and speak to me as if she and I are sitting in coffee shop like two old friends, telling her story with intense emotion and intense intention to poke the hell out of me until I find in my self something to relate too. Some relatable spark that will then force me to not only sympathize to Gilbert but to myself and my own broken alter ego and conscience. I believe that this is the key to unlocking a reader’s attention. When a writer can make each chapter, each sentence, and each fragment and word relatable, a reader is naturally drawn to it. The honest truth is that we are rarely able to admit to our own vulnerabilities and insecurities; so reading about somebody else’s is just easier. That is why this novel is a best seller. It is that simple. We want to read about other people’s struggles to vicariously through the text, re assure our own. People read this because Gilbert is not talking to her readers; she is talking to each one of us, individually. So I will steel this. I am going to steal the technique of casualty and call it my own. Well because, that’s how writers become writers, we steal.