An Exercise in Compression
RK Taylor
Like many creative writing educators, I teach (and think in) the components of craft. These components serve as heuristics for writers to develop their own work, and they provide teachers with a framework for designing lesson plans. Still, approaching the pedagogy of creative writing with a specific set of terms can, from the point of view of the student, yield an educational experience that lacks nuance and intellectual rigor.
Before college, students are trained to memorize and identify certain literary terms. Some students assume this set of terminology will continue to exist in their college classroom, predicting the words the professor will use in a craft-based conversation. Though these terms are the building blocks for a sophisticated understanding of language, students may become less engaged with seemingly redundant material. The issue presents, not because the components of craft are inherently problematic, but because educators prioritize certain elements and fail to reach beyond the accepted norms.
The literary community has incidentally created three tiers of craft terminology. The most common terms are those that all students know: character, setting, plot, conflict, etc. In the second tier, there are those that students recall after the requisite querying: figurative language, detail, voice, etc. The third tier comprises elements like chronology, irony, syntax—elements that are seldom, if ever, mentioned by students without blatant prompting. Though the latter terms are important to one’s understanding of craft, teachers rarely dedicate an entire lesson to developing a more thorough understanding of their role.
Of the often neglected components of craft, I find compression is among the most important.
Fiction and creative nonfiction have grown shorter by popular demand. A combination of shortened attention spans and time constraints has developed a body of short, short literature with a plethora of different brandings. Micro, hint, flash, sudden. All are linked by two threads. First, each is constrained by an arbitrary word limit. Second, and much more important, they all demonstrate the beauty of compression.
By compression I am referring to the art of creating a full experience in a limited piece. There are several buzzwords and phrases that help to give rise to a well-compressed piece: minimalism, specificity, attention to detail, subtext. Although each of these can be impressively demonstrated, their union is not a complete rendering of compression. Fundamentally, compression requires the writer to confront the elegance in constrained creativity.
This isn’t to say that longer stories lack compression. When writing long-form, whether a novel or a memoir, compression is still vital. Considering compression helps the writer to focus on important scenes by having them attend to the aspects of narrative that most matter in a given situation. Perhaps when the writer considers whether it is more im