My friend Beth is a writer. I’ve learned so much from her—from watching her work through her MFA program, from discussing writing with her, from reading books she recommends, from reading her work. Most recently, this: Wrangling an Elusive Essay Form: Mosaic.
Stained glass makes sense, the image my professor used to illustrate the mosaic essay. Like stained glass in a church, each paragraph or group of paragraphs a single scene, which viewed with all the other scenes, make sense alone but make the most impact only when the last scene clicks into place.
These are the sorts of things they teach you in grad school, I imagine. Different types of narrative forms, different literary devices, creative nonfiction forms, styles of essays. Like the mosaic essay form Beth describes.
So far so good, right? In the ’60s they made mosaic kits you could buy at the hobby shop. My parent dug them. We all made mosaics at the kitchen table (ashtrays and suchlike). I get what a mosaic is. This helps, but it doesn’t answer any questions, nor does it write a blog post. (You’ll just have to make do with what results.)
Naturally, Beth wrote her mosaic essay in the form of a list chronology, something she is particularly good at. I’m good at lists (you know: actual lists, not a literary accomplishment), so this form resonates with me. But I also need a visual.
I allowed my mind to wander, some. Isn’t there a mosaic-like thesaurus? I can’t tell you why this occurred to me, but it was a direct, immediate thought about something I saw months ago. And there is. It’s called the Visual Thesaurus, and it works (and sort of looks) like a mosaic. (I’m thinking about subscribing, even though I don’t have a problem with the “paper-bound book” the folks at Visual Thesaurus disparage.)
But the essay. You should read it. Then you should read the other mosaic essays Beth mentions. It was notable, for me, that she linked first to something by Eula Biss, whose book (On Immunity) I’d recently read and noted something unusual about but couldn’t quite put my finger on. (Although I liked it.) And now I “get” what I noticed but couldn’t define: with a topic like vaccination, there is no straightforward, linear approach. On Immunity is a very mosaic-like narrative; I see that now.
Read the rest too. Then consider how you might use this device in your own writing. Beth says,
The more I tried to comprehend the rules the more I realized that the key to mosaic is its suspension of the usual narrative rules. … I had other things to say.
It’s that “other things to say” that intrigues me. Even in fiction (which is what we often talk about here). In fiction, we want everything to be causally related, but I think a case can be made for a mosaic-like technique of storytelling. (Consider, for example, Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, a truly brilliant book that I’d emphatically describe as using a mosaic-like technique. Consider Olive Kitteridge. Consider the many interconnected short stories of Ellen Gilchrist, and how they come together to complete a larger story.)
What I admire most about Beth’s essay is how she went after it. Studied it from all angles.
Read it again.
Write.
Right.
Tweet: I get what a mosaic is. This description helps, but it doesn’t write a blog post.
Tweet: Mosaic: It’s that “other things to say” that intrigues me.
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