Bring Back The Skeleton
by Nonfiction Editor Hayley Carpenter
Image: “Eve and the Snake” by Edward Michael Supranowicz
I (usually) love teaching my very own little sections of First-Year Writing here at UNH. Even before I was at the whiteboard circling and drawing lines between students’ discussion points—flapping my arms like unto a wild swan in the process—I was engaged in what I romantically recall as an apprenticeship at my alma mater. Said alma mater would call it an Instructional-Assistantship-That-We-Cut-Funding-For, but I digress.
I begin each semester teaching Personal Narrative. The prompt is simple: Write 5-8 (full) pages about an impactful change in your life. To add to the ease of teaching, I have my English degree and romantically recalled apprenticeship under my belt, I’m a current nonfiction MFA student, and I’m the Nonfiction Editor here at Barnstorm.
And still, this unit gets confusing.
Let’s talk about it because I believe the Hayley-endorsed takeaway can apply to any writer. You’re writing something—pretend it’s a Personal Narrative for Ms. Carpenter’s First-Year Writing course. Maybe you’re writing about the time you realized human justice is irreparably flawed after being forced to regrade your so-called friend’s spelling test in front of the entire fourth grade class. You’ve got something juicy! You’re writing it down, you’re on page four, time to get a snack… a drink… you sit at your desk. What did you write?
Garbage! You’ll need a foreign language dictionary to interpret it. You love that story, and you’ve twisted the poor thing into a convoluted knot.
Writing—and teaching writing—is sometimes mindbendingly difficult because we know too much. In our heads, we can know exactly what to say and how we want to say it, but the practice of giving it life on the page—or in the classroom—gets tricky because we have to articulate very personal meanings to people who don’t have the same information.
Enter The Skeleton. We all know The Skeleton, actually. We’re talking extremely basic organization here. I rely on it in my class to keep my goals straight and because I find that order and creativity are reluctant lovers. When I introduce The Skeleton (yes, that’s exactly how it’s presented in Ms. Carpenter’s course), I have my students identify integral elements in their most basic form: What is the topic? Who is the exact audience? What is the change? What is the relevant before and after? What is your audience supposed to get from this? They’re noting topic and audience, and they’re also considering conflict, climax, and resolution through these questions from which the rest of the essay is built.
I teach this at the beginning of the unit, but in my own writing life, I go back to the concept periodically throughout the drafting process. First, write. Let the monster free. And then, after grabbing that drink and snack, realizing nothing I said made any sense, tear the monster’s skin apart and return to the barest of bones. What is the topic I want to be writing about? Who am I writing this to? What is the intended conflict? What must I do to get the audience there?
Without being able to put our intentions into digestible terms, we lose the plot and audience along the way. Even more tragic (and perhaps ironic), we lose the magic of the complex story birthed in our minds.
When in doubt, return to the basics! Bring back The Skeleton!
Just as I will sit in my quiet office and remind myself of what I’m trying to teach and how to target a specific group of students, remember to pause and take time to recenter yourself in what the piece is supposed to be. Chances are, you’ll find yourself newly refreshed, rejuvenated, and inspired.
Hayley Carpenter is a second-year nonfiction MFA student and Teaching Assistant at the University of New Hampshire. A lover of gothic novels, her personal work—nonfiction and fiction—is inspired by Victorian language, themes, and motifs. Florence + the Machine is her favorite band and she recently acquired The Sims 2, which was exciting.
Edward Michael Supranowicz is the grandson of Irish and Lithuanian/Russian/Ukrainian immigrants. He grew up on a small farm in Appalachia. He has a grad background in painting and printmaking. Some of his artwork has recently or will soon appear in Fish Food, Streetlight, Another Chicago Magazine, Door Is A Jar, The Phoenix, and The Harvard Advocate. Edward is also a published poet who has had over 700 poems published and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize multiple times.