Genre & literal
I read something profound recently. Something that has stuck with me like a soft spoken secret that I feel i now must share. Lauren Groff’s “At the Round Earth’s Imagined Corners” is a profound work of art. In her short story, Groff said, “There was nothing but numbers, then. Later, there were numbers, the great ravishing machine in the laboratory into which he fed punched slips of paper, the motorcycle Jude rode because it roared like murder. He had been given a class to teach, but had it taken away after a month and was told that he was better suited for research. In his late twenties, there were drunk and silly girls he could seduce without saying a word, because they felt a kind of danger coiled in him, (Groff 89).”
To re-write this excerpt in my own words, I have included the following passage outlining the following as genre fiction:
“Tragedy struck so completely that he understood no language or spoken word, only numbers written on pages before him, logical solutions needing to take place, equations replaced the vacant feeling of numbness that had rooted itself deeply in his chest. Numbers and the swift defeat of highway’s black asphalt as Jude gallantly navigated his motorcycle, sleek as night.
“Jude, while you have a phenomenal sense of intellect, we all feel you are better suited for…research. Behind the scenes work. You understand that, right?” His boss’s words grinded his ears like worn sandpaper. It didn’t matter in the end. The girls were simple but they were usually drunk and allowed Jude the opportunity to hush the roaring thoughts of loss in his mind with their attention and warmth and intimacy. They flocked to him like birds, unaware of the danger writhing inside of him like the ghosts of the dead snakes his father spent years hunting and beheading.”
Some of the choices that I made in order to make the excerpt more genre fiction leaning was to provide a voice to the office head who told Jude he was better suited for research, as well as providing a wide insight into the grief and devastation that he must have been feeling after reuniting with his mother after such a tragic event only to lose her thereafter to an illness. I did this by drawing out how Jude must have been processing the grief, and connected the release of his position and riding his motorcycle and getting girls to like him to the loss that he was experiencing overall. I also worked to connect the work to Jude’s past by referencing the snake’s that Jude’s father killed, which was definitely a trauma that he experienced when he was working with his father, and would have caused him to have a haunted demeanor that people might want to understand more deeply.
I have many long-term goals that involve writing. I am currently working on a novel that has been a personal hobby but I have hopes of eventually publishing, along with poems that I have drafted into a short book’s worth as well. While I know that I have many areas to improve upon with my writing, it has always been one thing that has provided a consistent outlet and relief for me in the times I have needed it, along with allowing me to channel my creative thoughts into a story that I might someday have the chance to share with others.
I would love to experiment with different genres being such a young author, and am also hoping that this Blog can help focus my writing skills and process to be as strong and as efficient as possible. I am interested in learning about what realistic goals I might be able to make for myself in regards to publishing my work, and I would also appreciate feedback on my writing as a whole. I look forward to continuing my writing educational journey and working towards the rest of a beautiful lifelong journey.
Works Cited
Groff, Lauren. “At the Round Earth’s Imagined Corners.” Five Points, vol. 15, no. 1/2, Feb. 2012, pp. 81–97. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,shib&db=prf&AN=86915062&site=eds-live&scope=site. Accessed 8 Sep. 2024.
