Experiment #1 | website

Experiment 1

Proposal

I want to write about the life of my Grandfather because I feel like his story is unique to most people because of the things he went through and where he ended up. It is not every day that you meet a man who had to stow away in a barrel on a ship to go and find a job. I intend to write a piece similar to ones that can be found in Humans of New York. I think it would interesting to use that format, and make it a bit longer so I have enough space to tell more of a descriptive story rather than just a blurb about a specific time in his life.

I aim to write my piece as if it is being told by my Grandfather to make it feel as personal as possible, as well as help the readers connect to the piece. I watched an interview that my dad recorded in 2002 of his father talking about his life so that I can include specific details and add in words and phrases that my Grandfather would say. I think that by telling the story in this way, it will help add character to the story and make it more interesting.

Genre Analysis

The type of piece I aim to create for my first sample is a short excerpt summarizing my Grandfather’s life. If I continue this as my final project, I want to make a collection of short write-ups of people and the key points in their lives that made them who they are. These pieces would be written in the voice of the person telling the story.

A model that I think reflects what I would like to do for my first experiment is Humans of New York. Humans of New York is a photo blog that features everyday people that live in New York City. These people are interviewed and then a short piece is written on whatever story that person chose to tell. You can really see the values of the blog and what the goal is of it just by reading a few of these stories. I think it is nice how the stories are not made for profit, featuring celebrities, but instead gives the common people a voice that that might not otherwise have. I think it is important to be exposed to more real, human, content so we can make some sort of emotional attachment to the story and actually care about someone’s story or struggle rather than just hearing about it in mainstream news and forgetting it the second we change the channel. This will be a useful model to me because it will help me to learn how to give someone on the outside feeling and attachment to a story even if it does not apply to them. Since my experiment is going to be not just talking about my Grandfather, but telling the story as if it was him telling it, it is beneficial to me to read multiple stories from the Humans of New York and noting what these people tend to talk about and feel are most important. This will help me give a more human feel to the piece and not seem so much like I am simply reiterating what my Grandfather talks about in his interview.

The second piece that I am drawing inspiration from is the book that I used to write the essay for my Anthropology class called Exit Zero by Christine Walley in which the author tells a story about her life growing up in Southeast Chicago in order to teach the audience about deindustrialization and the impact it had on families. This same essay is where I got my idea for my experiments, teaching the reader about an issue or event and telling by talking about real life experiences. I think this is useful because unlike a short article, this books has many components, all of which I have read and I can decide what worked really well in terms of helping the reader to understand and connect with the issue of deindustrialization. An example of something that I think worked well in the book is when the author didn’t just tell her story, but used imagery and other senses to make the reader feel like they were actually there living her life and feeling what she felt. I am going to incorporate elements like this so that the story becomes more powerful.

With models like this, I hope to create a piece that makes readers be able to experience and feel the story, not just gain knowledge of basic information.

Mapping it Out

Starting with the write up about my Grandfather’s life and making sure to highlight important events and make it sounds like it is coming from him

After reading more short biographies of people and more Humans of New York, I will think of other stories and people I can write about.

3-5 individual stories

Some ideas to consider are writing about my Nana, my Grandfather’s wife, and my dad. If I choose people on my dad’s side of the family, the whole project would be a short and sweet way for people to be introduced to the Wilsons.

Sample

“I remember my mother putting coconut oil all over my body. She was a very loving and caring woman. She would say to me “I wish I would live to see you grow up.” Unfortunately, that did not happen. My mother Theodora Wilson caught a very bad cold after being out in the rain. She passed away around 1926 in Grenada. I was eight years old. It may be hard to imagine for most people to have the one person that loved you the most leave you before you could make many memories, but that is just how it was.

My siblings and I moved in with our grandparents who lived on a hill where you could see the sea water and the ships coming and going. I was the eldest of four and had to leave school at the age of twelve because there was no one to help in the household. I asked my grandfather to see if he could get me a job with my uncle so I could send money back to them. I was going to try and find work in Trinidad. I did not have any papers, so I had to hide myself in a drum and put a lot of stuff over the drum so that when we got to Trinidad, the officers didn’t see me. I met my Uncle Worsley when I got there. After living there for about six months, my uncle’s wife told him that I had to go. My uncle packed my grip and said goodbye without telling me where to go or how to get there.

When I finally reached my Aunt Alice, I got a job as a water carrier for the workers who built roads, making five cents an hour, but I wanted to see if I could get a better job. I went to Chaguanas, Trinidad to find a job. I then got a job cutting sugar cane, but I wasn’t making enough money, so I went to look for another job. At this time I was about sixteen.

I went to live with my cousin who she said she could feed me, but not house me because there was no room. There was a shed with big holes next to a road with traffic going up and down it. I ended up living in the shed. I walked five miles to San Fernando every day to find a job. I got a job loading trucks, and eventually at nineteen decided to get my license so I could become a driver. I made seven dollars a week driving day and night.

Being a man of all trades, I became interested in music and learned to play the guitar. I was the second person in all of Trinidad to own an amplifier. My hobby turned into something more and I eventually started a band called the Bob Wilson Orchestra. Over the years it got bigger and bigger and at one point we had sixteen pieces and were even on radio Trinidad.

I met a beautiful woman named Carmina, and we eventually got married and had three children. After the first two were born, we moved to Brooklyn, New York and later Queens where we have been living for over forty years. My children are policer officers, nurses, and engineers. It is funny to think that at one time I lived on the side of the road, and yet I still ended up being able to make a life for myself and my family.”

(Queens, New York)

Reflection

Writing the description of my Grandfather’s life as if it was him telling it was definitely a great experience. He passed away in early 2016, so doing this brought him back to life for me in a way. The way I went about writing my piece was by watching an interview my dad filmed in 2002 of his father discussing his life and different things that happened to him. It was refreshing for me because he started losing his memory a few years after that and eventually forgot who people were. This made me remember him as he was when I was younger, warm and humorous.I have never written a story before about a real person as if I was them. I think it helped me to learn how to make a story feel more human. Even though many people probably can’t relate to the description I wrote, I hope it is interesting enough that they were at least able to feel something while reading it.

I chose my Grandfather because I think that out of the people in my family, his story is most unique. He was the oldest living relative in my family and I think that people who have been around for longer have more stories to tell, as well as it is sometimes interesting to compare life 40 or 50 years ago to now. If I continue to use family members in my final project, I think I will lean towards people who have lived a long time.