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I will be working on the basis of the small units, the event, the moment, the conversation, the monologue. — Nirav Christophe, Writing in the Raw
This week, the writing of my fellow students clarifies Christophe’s notion of “the moment.”
Honest writing explores the space and time of the moment before if moves on. There is a poetry in the words only because the writer has considered each event in detail with a steady and patient hand.
For Christophe, “you don’t describe experiences, but sensory impressions…. With an apple, we experience the colour, the smell and the taste individually.”
The forward progression of the story is forsaken because the characters act and respond. The character experiences the moment.
It is when the writer rushes to the next beat of action and foregoes the experience by telling, that the moments of true insight are lost.