This may not be of much use to dullards, but it is quite useful for those who want to excel in compositional skills.

My Self-Guide to Composition
© Mondo Fuego 04/17/2009


My goal in writing is to compose in a manner such that readers can lose themselves and become me while they are reading my composition ... so they can experience what I experienced, as if they had been living that part of my life.

In pursuit of that goal, I must first dwell on something that is of interest to my audience.

Second, I must present my experience and/or thoughts in a logical sequence. If it is an experience that I am relating, it should be presented more or less in chronological order. If I am expounding on ideas, then it should flow in a comfortable framework, one of the best being: 1) Tell the audience what I am going to say; 2) Present the details of what I am going to say; and, 3) Tell them what I said.

Third, I should write in a manner and style commensurate with my audience, avoiding occupation-related jargon and haughty, cryptic words. After all, I want my audience to understand what I am relating without having to pick up a dictionary.

Fourth, I want to make my presentation as visual, tactile and lyrical as possible. I want the audience to be able to see and feel what I did, and I want there to be the quintessential aesthetic quality of beauty in the composition ... the "wow" factor.

In order to achieve this goal, I try to jot down the loose details as quickly as possible so as not to forget anything. I may then let the notes sit a while, during which time my subconscious mind conjures up more relevant details which are subsequently added to the set of notes.

Next, I try to write sentences and paragraphs which document the various aspects of the experience or idea, focusing more on quantity than quality at this stage.

I then rearrange the sentences and paragraphs into a coherent pattern of flow.

Then, I begin the process of turning the raw wording into finely-phrased and carefully-polished gems of lyrical individual sentences which, in concert, form symphonic movement-like paragraphs. Every word is fussed over. Every sentence is analyzed for arrangement and flow, and function and fit within the paragraph.

When I have completed the above process, I put on my "Quality Control" hat and review the entire composition, sometimes adding relevant content at the proper place, sometimes deleting material which in no way enhances the presentation, eliminating redundancy and wordiness, and simplifying where possible without losing any elegance.

The last, and most important step: I try to forget about myself, my experiences and my ideas, and I try to become my audience. I read the composition several times, each time focusing on a different aspect of quality: syntax and grammar; word quality; am I hearing what was intended to be said by the author? ... in the manner in which the author intended to say it? ... do I feel the "wow" factor? During this stage, usually only a few words are changed here and there, but it makes all the difference in the effect. Hopefully, it turns what might otherwise be nice and ordinary into that which is stunningly beautiful.

Example:

Shared Experiences
© By: Mondo Fuego ~ 01/31/07

JuJu and I wanted to go on a Winter drive last Sunday ... it's the best time of the year to see Mother Earth because the trees are not in bloom and you can actually see the countryside. It was a nice sunny afternoon, about 34 degrees. We were going to see Dale Hollow Lake, Wolf Creek Dam (which is leaking and in danger of breaching and flooding a vast area all the way along the Cumberland River to Nashville), and Somerset, Kentucky, then on to Bowling Green to have dinner at a neat restaurant there, then back home on I-65 to Nashville ... a mere 400 mile Sunday outing.

We headed up to Dale Hollow Lake, about 120 miles ENE of Nashville, near Celina, Tennessee, using the backroads. It is very hilly there, with some beautiful switchbacks and s-curves, and there are miles and miles of beautiful lake coastland ... we are talking r-u-r-a-l. We were driving North on TN 53 out of Gainesboro, when the Sun suddenly disappeared, and the sky became like a Cézanne canvas painted all shades of gray with the characteristic squiggly diagonal lines, and it began snowing lightly, but with nothing sticking to the road … yet.

All of a sudden, about 10 miles outside Celina, we came to a place where there was literally a line across the road: to the South, no snow ... to the North, 1 to 2 inches of snow, and blizzard conditions ahead with limited visibility. A Tennessee State Trooper was heading south, followed by about 8 cars in succession ... it looked like Moses leading the Israelites out of Canaan, heading for the promised land. Remembering the recent story of James Kim in Oregon, we did an immediate 180 and got in line, taking TN 53 to TN 56 to Baxter, and regaining sunshine along the way. We then took US 70N down the Cumberland Plateau to Nashville instead of Interstate 40 because of the spectacular views. All along the way, the sky was clear to the South and West, but Cézanne’s canvas squall line about 15 miles to the North followed us ominously all the 85 remaining miles to Nashville. We had dinner in midtown Nashville, came home, watched a movie and talked about our adventures of the day. The weather news late in the evening confirmed that we had made the right decision in turning back before Celina ... Clay County really got socked in that afternoon and night. Nashville and Davidson County were spared.

Shared experiences are the building blocks of relationships.