types of oppositions, including: (1) the whole idea, tone, or attitude we wish to convey versus the individual parts; (2) the past time period in which the traumatic experience occurred versus the current time period; (3) the need to focus on negative experiences versus the impulse not to sound completely negative; and (4) the experiences we wish to show in our writing (i.e., sensory images and details objectively conveyed) versus the meaning we want to tell or summarize, via using generalizations and adjectives. In such writing, we also engage in analysis (breaking wholes into parts) and synthesis (forming wholes from parts). These simultaneous mental actions create tension or “critical thinking,” as well as creative thinking (John-Steiner 1997; DeSalvo 1999).
Thinking, then, resides deep in the heart of composing through trauma. In the people you’ll meet in the chapters ahead, you’ll see them courageously engage in a host of specific thinking strategies, such as making decisions about identity, motivation, audience awareness, genre, rhetoric, and imagery. You’ll also see how these writers wrangle with how they are alike and how they differ from other people, as they try to fit themselves into their radically altered realities brought on by their trauma. You’ll see these writers grapple with all types of “oppositions” or tensions, as they try to gain some resolution on more level ground.
In doing all of these things, they tap into their inner stream of consciousness—witnessing it, focusing it, and suspending it. It’s important to clarify that this type of thinking is indeed “higher-order” thinking—maybe the highest of all types of thinking, because logical deduction and induction become merged with reason, emotion, and spirituality. In the combustible heat of writing through serious and immediate trauma, all of these big guns fire at the same time. Have no doubt: Expressive language, fluency, and thinking are the first pillars of composing through trauma. Of course, anything as complex and unwieldy as this needs other support beams, a few of which I’ll take up now.
Shape and Structure
Composing through trauma works because it’s flexible enough to thrive without structure, as well as to be shaped (later) into any genre. Shape and structure greatly help everyone: They contain meaning in recognizable vessels, helping readers to understand the whole message. Shape and structure also provide some familiarity, safety, and confidence for writers. Even though a piece may not be intended for anyone else to read, a defined shape can increase the writer’s feelings of wholeness wrought from fragmentation or chaos.
However, you can seldom begin with a form or a shape in mind when writing about trauma. Fluency must come first, or else you have nothing to mold into a shape or assemble into a structure. It really is as simple as that. If you begin with a structure or a form in mind, then everything you do is tailored to fit within your pre-fab mold. This approach will stunt or smother your ideas and thinking before they have a chance to grow and bloom. In many ways, then, the point of composing through trauma is to avoid structure and form, as long as possible, because structures tend to force us into tidy little boxes of closure—“the right answer” or “the point.” While forms can help readers understand our meaning, they do not necessarily help us discover our own meaning, unless, of course, we are satisfied with our discovered meaning and somehow want to mold it into a more definite shape.
It is also true that we often perceive a lack of organization (and thinking, purpose, and even sanity) unless a writing has a clear thesis at the beginning, followed by a few paragraphs of evidence and a conclusion paragraph. Discourse can be organized in many different ways, and just because a message does not conform to this particular, deductive sequence doesn’t mean it was composed by a willy-nilly writer. It only means the reader was trained to see one pattern in a world of infinite design possibilities. Consider the following piece by Jake.
I will tell you about the fear, and what I did about it.
In my dream, there is an owl flying around the restaurant, circling above our heads, or maybe just mine. I can’t tell if I’m alone or not. When I say to the owl, “Get out,” a voice dripping with sarcasm and hate repeats my words from off screen. Suddenly I know, in that instant and positive way that knowledge arrives in dreams, that it’s the devil and he’s in the bathroom. Then there is a couple, standing, arms linked, younger than I am. Their faces are familiar. “How do I know you?” I ask them. The girl answers me, and though she is directly in front of me, her words are miles, even dimensions, away. It sounds like she says, “We told you this would happen,” and the boy gives her a warning look, like I’m not supposed to know. “Know what?” I ask. Another instant flash of dream knowledge arrives—I have, in fact, seen them before, and they are both dead. This startles me into consciousness.
I hear myself breathing, gasping, gulping. I try to open my eyes but I can’t. I try to turn over, but I feel heavy, or that I am held down. I try to move an arm, a foot, a finger, an eyelid, anything. It’s all shut down. I’m still struggling for air. I become somewhat detached from my panic and think, “What the hell is happening?” Then I’m back to panicking again. Alarms are going off in my head. Panic. I should be able to move. PANIC! I don’t know how long it lasts—twenty seconds? Three minutes? Half an hour? I summon up all the strength I imagine that I’ve got and prepare to rock myself into movement. Have you ever had a door shut on you, and when you try to open it, realize that someone is holding it closed? So you get a running start to blast the door open, but the person holding it has let go, anticipating what you are about to do, and you almost kill yourself trying to get out? I nearly fall out of the bed trying to turn over, but I am mobile.
A mixture of fear and confusion swirls in my chest as I turn on my lamp and grope for my glasses. Where is it? My nightstand is a clutter of magazines and notebooks, scrap paper and empty glasses. Fumbling, sweeping, my hands are bricks. One thought repeats itself, “I know it’s here, I know it’s here,” trying to keep obvious questions from forming. I know it’s here, but it is buried beneath more and more temporal matter. There. I locate that familiar reptilian red skin on the bottom shelf, gathering dust. I seize it, the Holy Bible. It falls open wherever it will, and I tear into it like a sinner on fire. Looking for some kind of soothing communication from the Almighty, I flutter the fragile, onion skin pages until I come across Isaiah 54:6, which reads, “‘For a brief moment, I abandoned you, but with deep compassion I will bring you back. In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,’ says the LORD your redeemer.” A modicum of comfort drips into my shaking skin, an IV divine. Maybe there is meaning behind this. Is this event some kind of wake-up call from God? Has my recent behavior disturbed Him? Do I need to get myself right?
When this happened I was 17, and I assumed that I had had a physical visitation from some being, benign or malign, I wasn’t sure which. This was the beginning of a sometimes terrifying, sometimes amusing, always educational journey in which I learned much about “cloth-like dolls,” night terrors, the grays, fugue states & waking dreams, God, the Devil, and me. (Course Document 2003)
Most of us would say that this piece has no discernible shape or structure. We’re not sure what the point is. Is it about Jake’s fear of dreams? His regret and/or return to formal religion or belief in God? His fear of a “visit” from aliens? (“Grays” are described on the Internet as aliens responsible for abductions of humans and cattle slaughters. Of course, the Grays are also described as a short-lived rock band and a professional, independent baseball team.) The point here is that this piece has no point. It doesn’t need to, because it’s exploratory. If Jake had begun with a clear point or thesis, then we would know that he had already made up his mind; that he had already discovered his “truth,” and he only wanted to communicate it to us. But, if you don’t understand your trauma, if you can’t make any sense out of it, then you have to “write your way there.” Exploration, then, is the first rule of writing through trauma.
Nonetheless, there is form in Jake’s piece. First, it’s a narrative; it tells a story. Stories are an ancient, durable form of entertainment; they transcend all barriers of race, class, gender, environment, and age. Narratives
