CAPSTONE FINISHED

started. For a variety of reasons our trip was
cut a week short, but that did not bother me
nearly as much as it had earlier in the
summer. I was losing my time on the lake,
but I was not losing the mysteries of nature
anymore. My family and I went out on a boat
to the middle of the lake again like we
usually did, and I started to wonder again.
Why has it been so windy this week? Why does
the sun make me feel so sleepy? When is the next
time I will be coming back here?

If you look back, you will notice that
Yoo abandons the beginning/middle/end
structure and begins his essay during the
time he is a sophomore in college and walks
us both backward and forward in time. The
reason this is effective is because of the
themes that he carries throughout and
because of the way he transitions between
them. Not only does the lake tie together the
story, the theme of curiosity also is well-
carried throughout.

Oftentimes when writers first begin to
explore creative nonfiction and start with the
reflective narrative, they make the mistake of
forgetting to tie the past to the present. Yoo
was able to put the past in conversation with
the present by relating the knack for
curiosity he found at Lake Skegemog with
how that carried over into his life even when

45

he wasn’t at his lake house. He does
something important in taking it a step
further by exploring how these memories at
the lake have an effect on his future. Without
doing these things, Yoo’s essay wouldn’t
have stakes and it wouldn’t have the level of
reflection and authenticity that makes
creative nonfiction valuable. Yoo sheds a
new light on how we think about curiosity,
as he explores whether curiosity really comes
from places or people. His exploration leads
him to find that Lake Skegemog may have
sparked his curiosity, but it was only igniting
what was already inside of him.

46

CHAPTER 4: ON THE
MATTER OF TELLING THE

TRUTH

Last summer, I learned that the truth
is subjective. I was typing away on my
laptop at my summer internship in a
courthouse when the ground beneath my
suede high heels violently shook. Had there
ever been an earthquake in my nineteen
years living in Michigan, I likely would have
attributed the violent vibrations to one. I
thought of a more realistic explanation and
assumed the building was collapsing due to
poor infrastructure. When I looked up from
my computer screen, to locate the nearest
window, past the two assistant prosecutors
and the lead detective who were directly in
my line of sight, I saw something far more
frightening than a toppling courthouse. I saw
a man that looked well over six feet and who
probably weighed close to three hundred
pounds running in my direction.

47

I know two versions of what
happened next: the version from the
statement I gave to the police minutes after
the incident and the video recording from
the courtroom surveillance cameras that I
watched the next day. From both versions,
you can gather that right before the foreman
of the jury read the verdict in the trial that
had been going on all week, the defendant
attacked or attempted to attack the male
assistant prosecutor before being tackled by
a detective. The details in between differ in
the two versions. In my statement to the
police, I told them that I believed the
defendant dropped whatever weapon he
was wielding before reaching the assistant
prosecutor. The video revealed that he had
the weapon in his hand until releasing it
when he was being held on the ground by
several armed officers. The size of his hand
obstructed the large, metal shiv so much that
I could not see what he was holding. I also
said in my statement the defendant swiped
his fist downward and the assistant
prosecutor stepped back making it so that his
fist only grazed down the front of his face.
The video revealed that he was tackled by
the lead detective right as he went to stab in
a downward motion from above the assistant
prosecutor’s skull, narrowly missing him.

When I wrote out my statement to the

48

police, while still at the scene of the crime,
just minutes after what had happened, I
believed that what I wrote was the truth.
And it is a version of the truth. I wrote down
on a yellow legal pad exactly what I saw. I
did not purposefully make anything up or
knowingly omit any details. Yet, when I
watch the surveillance video that was
broadcasted by nearly every major news
outlet, I can see that what happened is
different than what my eyes saw and my
brain comprehended it to be.

What is the truth? How do we find
the truth?

These are the fundamental questions
we have to ask ourselves before we start
writing creative nonfiction. The word
“creative” is not a license to stray from the
truth, rather an opportunity to understand
that the truth is not absolute. There are many
versions of the truth for any given story.

This is something many struggle with
wrapping their minds around when writing
creative nonfiction. They feel stuck when
they write about their childhood, especially
when a parent disagrees with their personal
account of what happened. I could hardly
recount exactly what unfolded minutes after
it happened, so how can we be expected to

49

truthfully write about events that took place
months or even years ago? My advice to you
is to use your common sense. That’s all you
really need to write truthful reflective
narratives. If someone disagrees with your
version of events, that’s okay, as long as
that’s truthfully how you remember it.
Reflective narratives are first person accounts
anyway, so the readers already assume that
this is your naturally biased version of
events, not the absolute truth.

The other difficulty writers often have
in writing reflective narratives is in knowing
where to draw the line in terms of creative
license when using scenic writing. If you
wore the same dress to church every Sunday
when you were four, it’s reasonable to
assume that would be able to describe the
ruffles on it. However, it is probably not so
likely that you would remember what your
dad wore when he picked you up from
school on a random Monday in the fourth
grade. Don’t just make up what he was
wearing because you think the description
would sound better. The power is in the
details you do remember, because there is a
reason you remember those specific details.
Challenge yourself to explore why you
remember certain things, but not others.

Dialogue in reflective narratives is
also a little tricky. You likely don’t remember

50

the exact words from anything that was said
more than five minutes ago. The purpose is
to ensure you aren’t making up dialogue or
misconstruing the meaning of what someone
said by changing their words. If the dialogue
serves an important purpose and you’re
confident you’re correctly representing the
message, then a missing word isn’t going to
have people up in arms.

In the essay below, authored by
myself, titled, “About a Crossroads,” the
time span is quite large not unlike in Yoo’s
“Like After Lake Skegemog.” The story
covers from the time I was ten-years-old to
this moment where I am twenty and is
centered around my experience growing up
doing physical therapy at a place called
Crossroads. As you read, keep in mind
whose version of the truth this story is. Make
note of the moments you find most authentic
and ask yourself why you feel that way?
What feelings does this essay evoke? Why do
you feel compelled by a story that you likely
cannot relate to?

About a Crossroads
Meredith Fox

The pediatric orthopedic surgery
clinic at Mott Children’s Hospital reminds
me more of a prison than a hospital. When

51

you walk down the hallway, the first room
you’ll pass is the place where they remove
casts and hardware from children’s bodies.
You can’t miss it, because there is sure to be a
kid screaming like she is being murdered, as
a barely-pubescent looking resident is trying
to pull a screw or a wire out of her. If you
dare look inside, you can see the pooling
blood seeping into the white sheet they lay
over the bed before they start removing the
hardware. If it is a long wire, sometimes they
have to strap the kid down or get a bunch of
other residents to help hold her down. If you
didn’t know you were in a hospital and that
these people were doctors, you might step
out of the elevator and think you’d
accidentally taken a time machine back to a
medieval torture chamber. If you keep
walking down the hallway, there are dozens
of patient rooms with barren white walls,
industrial like chairs and tiling, and children
suffering from sheer boredom as they wait
sometimes hours to see the doctor. In the
back, there’s a room where they make
orthotics, braces, and other unattractive
appliances that no child wants to have to
show up to school wearing. Here, children
are told to sit down and sit still, so they can
make molds of their limbs, which slowly
harden, imprisoning each child in a
fiberglass shell. It doesn’t matter which of

52

these rooms you walk into; in each one you
are bound to find a scared, sad, or confused
kid. I know this, because I was one of those
kids.

It was somewhere between watching
Carly Patterson win a gold medal for the
U.S.A at the 2004 Olympics and going to see
the release of the movie Stick It in 2006 with
my team that I decided I was going to be an
Olympic gymnast. My parent didn’t explain
to me that people who make it to the
Olympics start training as toddlers and that
only one in a million with that dream
actually achieves it; they told me I could be
an Olympic gymnast if I wanted to be one.
The doctor had warned my parents that a
child with such severe pes planus, hindfoot
valgus, and posterior tendon dysfunction
should not be in a sport like gymnastics, but
those words could have been in French as far
as I’m concerned. I did a quick Google
search, and decided that none of those things
would kill me, so I told my parents I wasn’t
in pain and that I wanted to do gymnastics.
That was good enough for them.

The endless muscle aches and deep
bone pain progressed just like I progressed
through the levels at Red Cedar Gymnastics.
As quickly as I moved from Level 3 to Level
4, the pain that could be treated with Tylenol
became pain that needed to be treated with

53

prescription narcotics. I went from practicing
for three hours a day to barely being able to
stand up for even an hour. The pain wasn’t
what slowed me down, though, it was my
limited mobility and declining coordination.
I’d lose my balance on a simple beam
dismount, or I’d land a back handspring only
to topple over like a Jenga tower. There was
nothing more I could do than agree to see the
doctor.

I had decided at a young age that I
wasn’t fond of doctors. This is because it was
rare to go to a doctor and have them give me
some pill or shot that would make whatever
problem I had better. It was always some
complicated solution that involved
something I didn’t want to do like wear a
cast or quit gymnastics. But, eventually, I
could barely stand up long enough to take a
shower, and I knew what I had to do.

I woke up from the first surgery that I
ever had believing this was merely a small
bump in the road and that I could train
double-time in the spring and still be on
track to be a gymnast. When the sedation
started to fade away, and the pain
medication dwindled down, I saw the
tattered, off white walls in my part of the
recovery room that was sectioned off by a
dingy light blue curtain. I heard the nurse
tell an intern to go get my parents because I

54

had woken up. I smelled the chemicals and
blood that floated through the air. I couldn’t
move my legs and my mouth was so
painfully dry, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I
thrashed around in hospital bed, but only
my upper-body would move. It felt like the
two halves of my body had been severed. I
lifted up the blankets to make sure my legs
were indeed still attached to my body, and
felt only mildly relieved to see them there,
covered in white casts that were slit open
down the sides.

In the weeks leading up to my
surgery, my mom had taken me to a hospital
supply store where I was fitted for a
wheelchair. I tried it out, popped a few
wheelies, and laughed. How hard could this
be? I thought to myself, and smiled. By the
time my casts were changed from white to
neon orange and yellow and the orderly
packed me up into my wheelchair, sending
me on my way with a bottle of pills, the
smile had been ripped off my face.

My return to middle school was so
painfully disastrous, I almost can’t explain it
without a slight chuckle from the listener. It
is likely a pity laugh, but a laugh
nonetheless. Less than ten minutes into
English, I dropped my pencil and couldn’t
find a way to pick it up. The day went on a
downward spiral of unfortunate events from

55

there. I dropped my lunch tray, got stuck in
the bathroom, rammed into several doors as
I unsuccessfully tried to open them, and
worst of all, rolled down some steps and
ejected myself from my wheelchair. When I
was lying on the cold, faux granite floor of
my filthy middle school, I didn’t even try to
get up. I saw no foreseeable way that I could
possibly get myself back into my wheelchair,
so I accepted defeat and waited for someone
to find me.

After the whole wheelchair ejection
incident, my parents and my doctor thought
it would be best if I got started at Crossroads
Physical Therapy and began building up my
strength and mobility. When I rolled into the
building, I saw colorful walls, exercise
equipment, and old people. I wasn’t hesitant
to voice my dissatisfaction that this was a
place for “grannies.” My mom left me there
against my wishes, and told me she’d return
in an hour. A blonde-haired, blue-eyed
young woman who chomped her gum like
she had a vendetta against it took me back
into a separate room to do an initial
evaluation. She introduced herself as Kara,
and I tried to guess in my head how old she
was. She was short, not much taller than I
remembered myself being back when I could
stand up, and she wore a lot of make-up. I
decided that she was twenty, which was

56

based on the fact that I thought my mom was
twenty-five.

Kara asked a lot of questions, and not
just about my feet; she needed to know
everything about me like what grade I was
in, if I had a lot of stairs at my house, and
how many hours I slept at night. She wasn’t
a doctor, so I didn’t immediately resent her.
She wore tight black pants, a tunic top, and
the kind of tennis shoes my grandma wears
because they have “good arch support”. But,
I was much more likely to pass judgement on
someone based on their intelligence then
their sensible footwear. After she took my
detailed history and did some strength
testing, she asked if I had any questions. I
grilled her about my condition, the surgery
I’d had, and my recovery time. Her voice
was steady, but calm and she competently
answered, seemingly surprised at my wit.

When I found myself back at Mott
Children’s Hospital in the cast and hardware
removal room, I thought I had finally won. I
never could remember the name of the
woman who put casts on and cut them off,
but I remember she wore bright red lipstick
and rode a motorcycle. She cut into the
yellow cast first, and I was so eager to walk
again, I almost jumped off the table before
she could cut off the orange one. When both
casts were off my legs and she wiped away

57

the blood around my surgical sites with cool
alcohol wipes, I noticed the scars that
stretched from my toes to heels. In any other
moment, I might have been horrified by the
permanent marks the surgeon had left on
me, but my excitement to walk again
distracted me from any such feeling.

The red-lipsticked woman handed me
a pair of tall white socks and told me to put
them on, then walked out of the room. I
listened, but I wasn’t sure why I needed
these special socks. When she returned, she
had two big plastic bags with her and I could
see that there were two gray air casts
stamped with the bright yellow hospital logo
in them. I thought that they must have been
for someone else. She set them on the table
next to me, ripped the plastic off, undid the
Velcro on one of them, and handed it to me.
Nobody had explained to me that after being
non-weight bearing for six weeks, I would be
physically unable to stand when the casts
came off.

I swatted away the air casts and told
her I didn’t need them. I slid to the edge of
the table and put my two feet down onto the
step. I laid my hands flat on the table and
pushed down as I tried to stand up. As soon
as the majority of my weight shifted from my
hands to my feet, I collapsed like a slowly
deflating balloon. My mom rushed over to

58

help me, but I didn’t want her help and I
screamed at her to leave me alone while I
tried to stand myself up. I attached my arms,
which had gained significant strength from
spinning the wheels of a wheelchair for
weeks, to the edge of the table and pulled the
entirety of my body weight up. I was
standing. My legs shook like they were tree
branches being hit by tornado-speed winds.
Still holding onto the table for my dear life, I
put one foot in front on the other and slowly
let go of the table with one hand. I hit the
ground a lot harder from this fall, and I
tucked my wasting legs into my chest. I held
them as I cried. I waddled out of the hospital
that day with two bulky air casts on my legs
and the weight of disappointment bearing
down on my shoulders.

The next day, Kara congratulated me
on my slight upgrade, but when I didn’t
even so much as smile, she immediately
added that we’d be ditching them in no time.
I wanted to believe her, but everything hurt
and I could barely move. Even the simplest
exercises were enough that I couldn’t
restrain my tears. All I had to do was pick up
a marble with my toe and drop it into the
bucket and I couldn’t do it. While I miserably
worked through my exercises that week,
Kara quizzed me on math and geography—
two of my favorite subjects at the time. She

59

rewarded me with Laffy Taffies every time I
answered a question correctly, and by the
end of the week I was toting around a bag of
banana Laffy Taffies, because I had too many
to eat at once. Kara hated the yellow ones
anyway, so she was glad to give them away
to me.

At the end of each of the next several
weeks, Kara had me try to stand up without
the air casts. I spent a lot of time on the
rough brown carpet of the otherwise brightly
colored building, but I was determined not
to cry. After a particularly painful fall, Kara
offered me a piece of gum and I finally
understood why she ferociously chewed the
gum the way she did, and I felt a lot better as
a sunk my teeth into it repeatedly. She
decided we were going to do a lot of table
and machine exercises until I built up so
much strength that there would be no way I
wouldn’t be able to stand. The exercises
required so much exertion that sometimes I
felt like I was going to pass out from the
sheer amount of force I had to put forth.
Sometimes when I was fading, Kara would
sit next to me and do the exercises too. I
wanted to do them better and faster than her.
I had something to prove—to her or to
myself, I’m not really sure.

The air casts came off eventually. I
never imagined after mastering a double

60

back handspring back tuck that learning to
walk would be the most difficult thing I’d
ever do. I learned to walk at eleven the way a
toddler learns to walk—wobbling, while
holding on to various apparatuses or people
that I could use to function like a walker. I
wondered if it was this hard the first time.
After I progressed from the walker stage, I
walked on flat ground like I was on a
tightrope— arms out, desperately trying to
balance myself. With each step across the
carpet, people were cheering for me. When I
started to get tired, I paused and closed my
eyes, and imagined the cheers were when I
landed a dismount at a gymnastics meet. I
opened my eyes to keep going, but even my
outstretched arms weren’t enough to keep
my balance. Kara helped me up, and I leaned
against her as she guided me into my next
step.

“Montgomery,” she said.
“Alabama,” I said. I took a step.
“Boise,” she said.
“Idaho,” I said. I fell.
“Saint Paul.”
“Minnesota.” I pulled myself back up.
“Harrisburg.”
“Pennsylvania.” I took another step.
“Bismarck.”
“North Dakota.”
“Cheyanne.”

61

“Wyoming.” I took my final step and
collapsed into the wall across the building
from where I started. I slid down the wall
like drips of a melting popsicle until I
reached a resting point on the ground I’d
become quite familiar with. Kara walked
over with the whole bin of Laffy Taffies and I
took six for the six state capitals I answered
correctly.

It wasn’t that long after taking my
first steps that I decided to give up. It didn’t
happen gradually. There weren’t a bunch of
setbacks that slowly ate away at me until I
was finally defeated. I decided in one
moment, after hearing one sentence, that I
was throwing in the towel. I burst through
the door of Crossroads and I sat down on a
table, refusing to do any of my exercises.
Kara tried to get me to do stool scoots, which
were my favorite. I pretended to oblige, but
instead of sitting on the stool and using my
legs like I was supposed to, I lay flat on my
stomach on the stool, lowered it as close to
the ground as it would go, and used my
hands pushing against the ground to steer it
into as many people and things as I could,
knocking over whatever was in my way.
Kara took the stool away and set me on a
table with the soapy marbles laying on a
towel and a bucket sitting next to them.
Instead of picking them up one at a time

62

with my toes, I placed each of my feet and
the two sides of the pile and pushed together
all the marbles between the soles of my feet,
trapping them, and lifting them up to dump
into the bucket all at once.

After a series of similar stunts, I
finally told Kara the news. I was going to
have to fly out to Seattle to have two more
surgeries. She didn’t look all that surprised.

“That’s the capital of Washington,
right?” she asked.

I rolled my eyes. “No, Olympia is,” I
muttered. She probably already knew that,
though.

“I’m never going to be as good at the
capitals as you,” she said. She reached out
her hand, offering me a Laffy Taffy, but I
couldn’t stomach one.

“Read the joke,” I said.
“What’s green and has 10,000
wheels?” she asked.
I could almost always predict the
answers to these jokes, but today I shook my
head, because I was stumped.
“Grass. I lied about the wheels,” she
said. A lie. It seemed so fitting.

Learning to walk for a third time is
harder than the first and the second time. My
bones were withering away, my muscles
wasting. Kara did her usual strength tests on

63

me, and told me my strength would be
considered excellent— if I were ninety. From
then on, I was referred to as the twelve-year-
old trapped in the body of a ninety-year-old.
I was loud, I was witty, I was spirited, but
none of that could mask the fact that my
body looked and functioned like feeble-old
woman. I barely weighed sixty pounds, and I
felt like I was getting shorter.

I had cleaned out my locker at Red
Cedar Gymnastics by now, and I knew I was
never going back. After the final surgery, the
doctor told me I was going to have a long
road ahead if I ever wanted to walk again
without a cane or a walker. I thought he was
kidding, or at least I hoped he was, because I
wouldn’t be caught dead going to school
with a cane or a walker. I did my follow up
care at Mott Children’s Hospital in my home
state of Michigan to avoid having to fly back
to Seattle.

I found myself back in the waiting
room of the pediatric orthopedic clinic,
surrounded by kids who looked a lot
younger than me. Many of them looked
anxious, but not me, I was a veteran. There
was nothing they could do to me here that
hadn’t been done to me. At least that’s what I
thought.

The nurse called my name, and led me
back to the cast and hardware removal room.

64

She sawed off both my casts, which were
lime green and hot pink this time, and I
screamed. She reassured me that she was
done with the loud saw, but that wasn’t why
I was screaming. The ends of thick metal
wires were poking out from just below my
pinky toes. The sight made me want to
vomit. When a seasoned doctor gloved up to
remove my wires and a nervous resident
stood over his shoulder, I wondered why he
was removing my wires himself. I shut my
eyes. When the doctor tugged on the first
three-centimeter wire lodged between the
bones between my heel and toes, the pain I
felt was one that I would likely have
nightmares about for the rest of my life. He
set the bloody wire on the paper covered
table and walked to the other side of the
table. I had another foot; we were only
halfway done.

Kara told me Crossroads was a lot
quieter in the ten weeks I was gone having
my surgery in Seattle and waiting eagerly to
get my casts off again. I think it was her way
of telling me that she missed me. The
director of the clinic, Kai, didn’t share Kara’s
excitement to see me. You can tell just by
looking at him that Kai is the serious type.
His thin, black wire glasses frame his face in
a way that he looks unnatural when he
doesn’t wear them. He would only wear t-

65

shirts on Fridays and he’d tuck them into his
blue jeans—something I didn’t know people
under fifty did. Everything about his
appearance and mannerisms practically
screamed, “I don’t want an eleven-year-old
wreaking havoc on my serious business.”
Luckily for him, I was twelve now.

“I want to get back to soccer,” I said to
Kara. The doctor thought my days of sports
were over, and I agreed with him about
gymnastics, but I decided I could learn to
play soccer again. Kara grabbed a sad
looking black and white soccer ball out of the
ball bin and tossed it in my direction. She
threw it too high and too far to the right, but
from my seated position on the exam table,
somehow I still managed to outstretch my
arms and catch the ball. I had leaned far
enough to lose my balance. The ball hit the
table first absorbing the weight of my fall,
and I followed shortly after.

“Ten out of ten. Great form.” Kara
chuckled. It didn’t feel as good as when I
received a perfect ten on my bar routine, but
I still basked in the praise.

“I think I’ll be a goalie,” I said. I had
played the position before, but never on a
full-time basis.

Kara incorporated the soccer ball into
as many of my exercises as she could. I
squeezed it between my knees on the total

66

gym and held it above my head when I
squatted on the bosu ball. My favorite,
though, was when we got to play the game.
We only played on Fridays when Kai took
off early and there weren’t a lot of other
patients crowding the area. We each stood
on a thin piece of foam that was flat on the
top and rounded on the bottom, so that
when you stood on it, one foot in front of the
other, it rocked back and forth. It was
difficult not to fall off. We tossed the under-
pumped soccer ball back and forth, trying to
make the other person lose their balance
while trying to catch it. It took ankle strength
and a whole lot of focus to stay on, and we
counted who fell off more times. Kara always
won. We decided, since she didn’t have
anything wrong with her legs, it wasn’t a fair
challenge. She agreed to stand on one foot
while I stood on two form then on. I started
to win sometimes. I was a lot better at
catching the ball than I was at throwing it. I
knocked a ceiling tile out of place, caused a
few coffees and water bottles to spill, and I
might have hit another patient once, but
everyone lived and nothing was
permanently broken.

I played in my first soccer game
twelve weeks after the surgery in Seattle,
something that was so unheard of the
surgeon who operated on me didn’t believe

67

it when I told him. I played goalkeeper in a
tournament in Chicago and we made it all
the way to the finals. To say I was in
excruciating pain would be the
understatement of a lifetime, but, still, I did
it. I decided I didn’t need physical therapy
anymore.

I was back at a crossroads of my
physical and mental strength as I struggled
to keep up with other high school students. It
was a lot more walking between classes, and
the high school sports teams practice or play
every single day. Kara welcomed me back
and we talked as if no time had passed at all.

“You haven’t changed much, have
you?” she asked. After a week of getting
back into the routine of physical therapy, it
was like I never left. I was still way too loud
for a space where old people were stretching
and too opinionated for my own good. Kara
flipped through the channels on the TV they
now had above the treadmill and I made a
gagging sound every time a right-wing news
channel flashed across the screen.

Periodically, I’d stop coming to
physical therapy when I began to get better
and thought I didn’t need it anymore. I
always ended up back at Crossroads,
though. By the time I was in my last year of
high school, I was no longer the trouble

68

maker at physical therapy, but my
mischievous ways still manifested in other
parts of my live. I told Kara stories while I
did my exercises. She said now that she was
old, she liked being able to live vicariously
through me. I liked having someone
interested in hearing about my late-night
weekend excursions and ploys to skip my
boring classes. Even Kai sometimes stopped
to listen to my stories; I think he was just
glad to hear I was causing trouble
somewhere other than his business.

A lot had changed about Crossroads
over the years I spent there. From the
physical location to the wall colors to the
exercise equipment, as I graduated high
school and prepared to leave Crossroads for
good, almost nothing seemed the same.
There was even a new physical therapist,
Ryan, who was the only person at
Crossroads who was ever able to level with
my attitude. Kara was the only familiarity
left in the place and even she was different.
She wasn’t the young, wide-eyed, fast-
talking woman who greeted my reluctant
ten-year-old self nearly eight years ago. Her
hair was chopped shorter, her wardrobe
substituted to fit the persona of a mother, her
energy drained by the time I came in after
school. It seemed natural that I would now
leave for college and say goodbye to

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Crossroads. I wasn’t one for showing
emotion, so I wrote the nice things I couldn’t
say down on a notecard and gave it to Kara
on my way out the door. Ryan joked that he
hoped he never saw me again for the good of
both of us. I stood for a brief moment outside
the building and said a quick goodbye to the
place that I spent a good amount of my
childhood within.

When I inevitably returned to
Crossroads, not even eight months after I
thought I had said my final goodbye, I had
learned that Kara was the one who had left
this time. She had switched jobs to spend
more time with her kids. I never thought
Kara would make it out of Crossroads for
good before me. She was the one who liked it
there. She was the one who wanted to be
there. An unfamiliar silence fell over
Crossroads the first day I worked with Ryan
instead of Kara. I had no jokes to tell, no
trivia questions to ask, no stories I felt like
telling him. I hurried through my exercises
exerting minimal effort, and stared at the
side of the island counter that used to be
Kara’s. Ryan noticed my detachment and
tried to be as much like Kara as he could. We
played the same games and he read the jokes
of Laffy Taffy wrappers, but I found myself
slipping back into the child that I was the
first time I ever walked into Crossroads.

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Obstinate, defiant, mischievous. When I
stood on one foot and bounced the medicine
ball into the trampoline, I exerted way too
much force on purpose to send the ball flying
into the ceiling. I knocked things over on
purpose.

Ryan was trying to help me, he really
was, but each time I pushed open the door to
Crossroads, his face reminded me Kara was
gone. It felt like the end of an era, and I
didn’t get the closure I thought I needed. I
eventually warmed up to Ryan just as I did
with Kara all those years ago, but it still
wasn’t the same. Kara probably had
hundreds, maybe even thousands, of
patients over the years, but each time I came
back to Crossroads, I always had her. She
was there when I couldn’t walk, when I took
my first steps, when I kicked a soccer ball
again for the first time, and when I ran by
myself not hooked up to the harness. She
was there when the kids at school bullied
me, when I graduated from middle school,
and when I got accepted to college.

I went to one final appointment with
Ryan a week before leaving for college. It
was a Friday afternoon and I knew Kai
wouldn’t be there, so I brought Jell-O shots
to celebrate. I told Ryan stories from long
before his time at Crossroads about the
people who had his job before him, about

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what the building used to look like, about
what Kara was like before she had kids, and
even though I knew something was missing,
I felt at peace with the place that had
watched me grow up. I ran out the door that
day at a speed that nobody ever thought
would be possible for me, and jumped in my
car. I turned the music up as loud as it would
go and sped out of parking lot, knowing
there would be no next time for Kara to tell
me to turn down my music and slow down
in the parking lot. On the drive home, I could
still hear my thoughts over the blaring radio,
and I realized that Kara never knew how
much of an impact she had on me. I was just
another patient to her and she was just doing
her job how she had always done it.

Notice that I use dialogue very
sparingly and only when it is essential to the
story. For example, the scene where I learn to
walk again utilizes simple dialogue where
with each step, my physical therapist quizzes
me on a state capital. The larger context here
is about the relationship I was building with
Kara and how as I struggled to feel confident
about walking, she shifted my focus onto
other things that I was confident about. The
only way to convey this information to the
readers was to build scenes with the
dialogue that was going on at the time. This

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allows readers to see what Kara was like as I
struggled.

Another important aspect on the
matter of telling the truth that this essay
demonstrates is the acknowledgement of
how other characters might have viewed
certain situations. For example, in “About a
Crossroads,” I stop to acknowledge that Kai
was probably pretty fed up with my ten-
year-old self treating his business like a
playground. Without acknowledging Kai’s
perspective and validating why he probably
felt that way, it would seem too much like I
was seeking sympathy from the readers
because this mean man didn’t understand
why I acted out with all I had been through.

Telling the truth in creative nonfiction
is absolutely about your own perspective,
but that does not mean you can ignore
everyone else’s. Sometimes this requires
stepping outside your own perspective and
thinking about how others may have viewed
a situation and acknowledging that in your
writing.

This essay is what your reflective
narrative should look like at a more
advanced stage. The level of reflection that
this essay has uncovers many levels of truth.
The prose and literary elements are well
developed, but they do not overshadow the
story and the reflection. There is a clear

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theme, but also many sub-themes, because
when you explore something you are curious
about, it can never be boiled down to one
thing that you learned. The surface story is
about my time at physical therapy with my
physical therapist, Kara. The deeper levels of
truth emerge from my exploration into the
relationships with the place and the person.

There’s something compelling about
Kara as a character, and as the reader you
likely are trying to figure out what it is. The
reason it isn’t spelled out for you is because I
was trying to figure out the same thing as I
wrote. Other themes are there like
overcoming adversity, growing up, and
changing dreams, but they all keep coming
back to this central idea of how did my
relationship with Kara affect all of these
things? This allowed for a well-developed
essay, showing an advanced stage of
reflection.

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Chapter 5:
Character Building

The reflective narrative is almost
exclusively centered around the author and
his or her reflection, development, and
growth. The readers are most interested in
you as a dynamic character. In creative
nonfiction, writers often make the mistake of
skipping over the character building because
the people in the story aren’t invented
characters, they’re real people. However, it is
essential that you build yourself and the
other people in your story the same way you
would if you were writing fiction. The only
difference is that you aren’t making up any
of the characteristics that you describe or
demonstrate within your story.

Look back at my essay, “About a
Crossroads” and consider how I build myself
as a character, Kara as a character. Think of
the initial description I give of the first time I

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ever saw and interacted with Kara. Three
lines in particular do a lot of work by telling
you a lot about the two of us without making
broad statements about our characteristics.

“When I rolled into the building, I saw
colorful walls, exercise equipment, and old
people. I wasn’t hesitant to voice my
dissatisfaction that this was a place for
“grannies.”

→ What does this line tell you about me?
How would you describe me after reading
this line?

“A blonde-haired, blue-eyed young woman
who chomped her gum like she had a
vendetta against it took me back into a
separate room to do an initial evaluation.”

→ What is the visual image you see? Why is
this better than saying: Kara is young and
has blonde hair, blue eyes? She was chewing
gum as she did my evaluation?

“She was short, not much taller than I
remembered myself being back when I
could stand up, and she wore a lot of make-
up. I decided that she was twenty, which
was based on the fact that I thought my
mom was twenty-five.”

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→ What purpose does mentioning how I
concluded her age serve? Why do I mention
her height?

In addition to these characterizing
moments, how I use small defining moments
to characterize our relationship. One good
example of a relationship defining moment is
when I tell Kara I have to go back to Seattle
for surgery and she asks if that is the capital
of Washington. If you told someone you
were going to Seattle, it is very unlikely their
response would be “That’s the capital of
Washington, right?” which is why this line of
dialogue is purposeful and important to
include. It is such a specific response based,
only predictable based on what you already
know about the relationship between Kara
and I. It is also very believable that I would
remember such a line because it’s something
that only Kara would say.

It can be argued that the readers are
actually more interested in the people than
the story. Humans want to make
connections, and that is one of the reasons
that I think a lot of people read. Even
fictional characters, we often find ourselves
relating to. For example, take Catcher in the
Rye, what is it about the way J.D. Salinger
built the narrator, Holden Caulfield, that

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makes him such a compelling and authentic
character? A character that isn’t even real,
yet feels so real that you can mention his
name and most of the room knows who you
are referring to. Character building in
creative nonfiction is not unlike in fiction,
except you don’t have to invent anything.
Instead, you are more of a detective or an
analyst, taking a person who is actually a
part of your life and trying to think of
moments that can define them to your
audience. Readers don’t want you to state
that your brother is really weird, they want
you to give them scenes of your brother
doing really weird things, so that slowly they
can start to reach this conclusion on their
own.

When I am writing a creative
nonfiction piece, I always make a list of the
“players.” To understand what I mean by
that, recall my essay “About a Crossroads”
from the previous chapter. Now, most often,
my initial list of the players only includes the
“starters.” As the story unfolds onto paper,
some minor characters might start to pop up
that aren’t on my list and that’s okay. But,
when you write out a one line summary
essentially answering, “what’s this story
about?” you should immediately know who
the starters are for this player list. My one
line summary of “About a Crossroads” was

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something like “I had extensive surgeries on
my legs and had to go to physical therapy
often where I formed a relationship with
Kara.” The one line summary is long before
you know the meaning of the event or
events, it is simply a sentence on what you’re
going to be writing about. From even just
that line, two players are immediately
obvious: Kara and me. I could choose to
include some other characters in the story—
my parents, the doctor, Kai etc. but I didn’t
really need to in this case. I knew the story
was going to be centered around Kara and
me, so those were the characters who would
need to really be built.

After making the list, the next step is
to start jotting down a list of things that
define your characters. Try to be as specific
as possible. For example, my list should not
say Kara is fidgety and funny. Instead, it
should say something like Kara chews
through a pack of gum a day and Kara
collects Laffy Taffy rapper jokes. These are
two things specific to Kara that can tell us
something about her. The more difficult part
is building yourself as a character. I only
know the side of Kara I saw at physical
therapy, but I know every side of myself. I
could tell you hundreds of things that
characterize me, but what I want on this list
is characterizing details that are relevant to

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the story. For the context of this story, the
reader would be pretty uninterested to know
that, even in the middle of winter, I can only
sleep in shorts. It’s a specific detail about me,
but not something you need to know about
me to understand this story. Instead, you’re
more interested in the type of person I am in
relation to how I handled the challenge of
having to learn to walk again and how I
interacted with the people who helped me to
do this. Some characterizing things to write
on the players list under myself might be
that I was the type of ten-year-old to ask a
doctor where they attended medical school
or that the first time I ever bought makeup, it
was blue eye-shadow because that was the
color Kara wore.

Another difficulty many writers have
in building themselves as characters, is the
natural tendency we have to shield
ourselves. We are hesitant to show the
readers the moments when we made
mistakes or did something shameful. The
readers crave these moments, though,
because they want to see that you are a real
person just like them. Real people, they
aren’t perfect. If you omit everything about
you that isn’t great, then the reader is going
to feel like they can’t connect with you as a
character or begin to question the veracity of
your story. In my story, “About a

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Crossroads”, I let out some thoughts that I
had and things that I did that were not
intended to portray me in a positive light. I
acknowledged the things that I did to cause
trouble at Crossroads and, also, to show the
reader that I didn’t always have a positive
attitude toward physical therapy or the
people who were trying to help me.

In Monica Smolinski’s essay,
“Mountains Between Me and the Crowd”,
pay attention to how she makes the readers
feel like they know her and her friend
Maggie. If you had to describe each of them
in your own words, what would you say?

Mountains Between Me and the Crowd
Monica M. Smolinski

“You see those caves over there?”
Maggie asked me. I squinted to make out
vague shadows in the rock formations
partially hidden by the waves. “We’re gonna
go explore ‘em.” And with that, we resumed
our trudge through the sand, me following
Maggie’s lead as per usual. We walked until
our bare feet hit solid rock, and from there
we began to climb. At first, the rocks were
slanted just enough to allow us to find solid
footing and walk deliberately across them.
Maggie, being a seasoned UP expert,

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effortlessly found small foot holdings in the
craggy rock; I did my best to mirror her
actions so as to not slip and skid down the
rocky formation all the way into the deep
blue below. The face of the cliff became
gradually steeper, until we could no longer
manually scale the rock shore. Maggie and I
stopped our clambering and stood facing the
waves we had gotten exponentially closer to
since leaving the shore. She turned to me, a
wide grin on her face, and said,

“All right, Mona. It’s time to jump.”
So, I did.

While this was my first experience
with leaping off the cliffs of Michigan’s
Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Maggie
and I were no strangers to tromping around
in the great outdoors. From our humble
beginnings with our backyard explorations—
the woods behind our houses becoming the
wilderness that first engendered our
adventurous souls—our friendship (and
curiosity for the world around us) eventually
evolved into longer and more rigorous bouts
of outdoor exploration. At first, getting out
into nature was a means of having fun,
cheaper than the classic adolescent pastimes
such as going to the mall or seeing a movie
(and more exciting no less). But then, as life
grew into the inevitable steamroller of school
stress and societal pressures, nature became

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our escape. For me, my introverted soul
finds solace in the simplicity of nature. My
clothing style (or lack thereof) is irrelevant
amidst the trees and dirt; nature doesn’t care
if I don’t know what to say, if I can’t think of
witty remarks and quippy Facebook statuses,
or if I don’t have plans on a Friday night.
Nature exists for nature—made not to
impress, not to reach any sort of standard.
Just to be. It’s this unabashed quality of
nature that brings out the same in me. This
sense of freedom, along with the goodness of
Maggie’s friendship, creates a love and
appreciation for earthly exploration that
urges me back outdoors again and again.

It was this one such urge that found
me plunging into fifty-degree lake water,
nothing but a lifejacket and a brain-full of
endorphins between me and the crashing
waves of Lake Superior. Like so many of my
previous cathartic outdoor excursions,
Maggie was my inspiration and facilitator for
this trip: she had arrived at my house at 6
a.m., when we piled into her “Soccer Mom
GO!” van and proceeded to drive nine hours
north to the quaint Upper Peninsula (UP)
town of Big Bay, the site of Maggie’s family
camp. Driven by our sheer sense of
adventure (and Maggie’s trusty minivan), we
set out on our quest, no-bake cookies and our
classic “road-trip music mix” fueling our

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journey. As we began our drive, greyscale
cities were soon replaced with rolling farm
hills, rolling farm hills with magnificent
pines and spruces. The chaos of four-lane
highways fell away to back-country routes,
each mile farther north bringing us closer to
the simplicity we were both searching for.
With Ben Rector and NEEDTOBREATHE as
our backseat drivers, we passed the time
harmonizing or talking about everything and
nothing, occasionally letting a comfortable
silence pass over us as we watched our
surroundings blur past. At one point, as we
crossed the Mackinac Bridge, Maggie took to
her usual self-reflection.

“I might just be dreaming too hard
right now, Mona,” she said, eyes following
the Lake Michigan coast (and using her
nickname for me that’s become so natural it’s
almost unnerving to hear her call me
“Monica”), “but I might just never go south
of the bridge again, you know? I’d find a job
near Big Bay, live at camp, wear flannel
shirts and Chacos all the time, and just
experience all the good I can up here.”

The call of Mama Superior had
grabbed hold of Maggie, and her
imagination was contagious. She had even
used her famous catch-phrase “Experience
the Good,” so there was no mistaking how
serious she was being. Now, this was not the

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first time Maggie had expressed her
ambitious (and slightly outlandish) plans to
me. She was always thinking, always
pondering the next way to “experience the
good” and “make every second count”
(another of her classic catch-phrases). And
that was part of her allure: she dreamt big,
lived big, and her positive outlook on life
was infectious. To make matters
exponentially better, I’ve never met anyone
with as strong and comfortable a presence as
Maggie. We could be hiking our favorite
trails in Townsend Park, looking for the
perfect trees to pitch our hammocks, or we
could be sitting on Maggie’s back porch,
summer breeze bringing warm air that
would rustle our Kings in the Corner game.
During times like these, we wouldn’t say
much, but that was the point; in those
moments, silence broken by the occasional
singing-along to Neil Young radio, we
learned more about each other than any
empty conversation could have done. It’s not
often you find someone you’re able to sit in
comfortable silence with. Even rarer is
finding someone willing to join you in
trekking miles into the wilderness to get lost
in the right direction, so long as good music
blares and peanut-butter-and-honey
sandwiches abound.

“I do know, Mags,” I replied, “what a

85

life that would be. If it was that easy, I’d
probably join you.” At the time of this road
trip, Maggie and I were recent high school
graduates. Just a few short weeks away from
moving out of our childhood homes and
becoming full-fledged college freshman, it’s
no wonder we were dreaming of lives sans
the expectations of our impending reality
check. While we both knew we couldn’t drop
everything to become full-time Yoopers, our
imaginations spiraled regardless; as is
common with best friends, we fed off each
other’s hopeful energy, envisioning a life for
ourselves that wasn’t confined to the strict,
predictable pattern of life.

“Like Christopher McCandless,
right?” I continued, referencing Jon
Krakauer’s Into the Wild, “Get rid of
everything but the essentials, live off the
land, nothing but you and nature.”

“Absolutely,” Maggie said, “Just so
long as you avoid Alaska and wild berries.”
Needless to say, Krakauer’s survivalist story
of McCandless had sparked something
within our adventurous souls. We didn’t
expect to wind up in the middle of a wild
frontier—after viewing the book’s film
adaptation with my mother, she pled with
me: “Just promise me, Monica, that no
matter where your life takes you, you won’t
end up in a bus in the Alaskan wilderness.”

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Nonetheless, we were captivated by
McCandless’ vehement rejection of the
occasionally shallow façade that veils a
reality comprised of saying the right things,
making the best impressions, and achieving
the highest accolades. And for the time
being, as we drove deeper and deeper into
Yooper territory, we understood, stronger
than ever, the desire to live independently
from society’s ever-demanding quotas.

My tendency to eschew the forced
pleasantries and exhaustive repetition of
mass socialization wasn’t always this strong.
My avoidance came gradually over the
years, like acquiring an aversion to visiting
the dentist after one too many painful
cavities. And, similar to the necessity of
practicing proper oral hygiene, I accept that
human interaction is an integral part of
growth and development. While this essay
might beg to differ, I’m not a complete
misanthrope. There are times, with the right
select few people and in a nice, intimate
environment, that I love the company of
others. My list of those who warm my heart
(with my family and Maggie at the top, duh),
is small but mighty, growing each day
thanks to the great wide world of U of M’s
campus. And though I’m naturally reticent
and prone to solitude, I do value the messy,
chaotic, unpredictable beauty that can come

87

from human interaction. There are other
times, however, when making
uncomfortable small talk, feigning interest in
the popular topics of conversation, or being
at the whim of another’s emotions can feel
like pulling teeth.

“Yeah, Jake, wow those Nikes are sick.
But I shop at Salvation Army, so a ninety-
dollar pair of shoes isn’t really on my level.”

“Yes, I’m a sophomore who has yet to
declare a major. But no, Todd, that doesn’t
mean that I’m just ‘taking it easy’ right now.”

“Grace, I really am happy for you and
your boyfriend, but could I maybe just drink
my coffee without having to hear about your
sex life? Thanks.”

“You’re going out tonight? Cool, have
fun. My plans? There’s this movie playing at
the Michigan Theater that I might go see.
Who with? Oh, just me…. Wait, please stop
looking at me like I just told you my dog
died.”

There’s no shortage of cringe-worthy
experiences I’ve had with my peers; the
college atmosphere isn’t exactly conducive to
an introvert such as myself. With my lack of
social finesse, is it any wonder I’d choose the
wide-open wilderness over a crowded room
of strangers-disguised-as-acquaintances? It’s
no secret that my personality is a bit
eccentric, and, to be fair, I acknowledge that I

88

might be a bit difficult to understand. Some
folks might find my show of affection
(usually a fist-bump or finger guns) a bit
ambiguous, my silence occasionally makes
people uncomfortable, and my intensely
sarcastic sense of humor is tough to interpret.
But outside, with the earth, none of that
matters. Mother Nature is a supportive, yet
stern, entity. She gives what she gives,
unapologetically, and asks only for your
respect, demands only your truest self. And,
if you’re lucky and willing to explore, she’ll
gift you with a sense of peace and
accomplishment.

During our time in and around Lake
Superior, Maggie and I stumbled upon a
small gem that was only accessible via a
small cave. We scrambled through the
uneven surface of the cave to reach the other
side, and were met with our destination: a
cove, beautifully carved out of the rock like
the elegant shape of a crescent moon. The
water lapping at the sandstone’s edge was
crystal clear, making it possible to see the
color striations in the rock, even at a few feet
below the surface. From there, the water
became slightly deeper, its color increasing
in intensity: the clear-blue of the water mixed
with the sandy hue of the rocks, creating an
emerald, stained-glass appearance. As the
water became deeper still, emerald melded

89

into turquoise; soon a hue, as intense as the
beginning of a dusk night sky, indicated the
deepest depths of the water. The calm
stillness and clarity of the cove’s water
mirrored the intense consciousness I felt—
something I lose sight of while constantly
being bombarded with the din of life. I took a
deep breath of northern air and thought this
is what it is to be content. Standing there, with
the knee-deep lake water numbing my
extremities, it was impossible to do anything
but be present in the moment I had found
myself in. No useless sounds, no
preconceived notions, no fake emotion. Just
me, Maggie, and the earth.

What I’ve learned, thanks to my
uncanny ability to observe and over-analyze
the world (natural or otherwise), is that it’s
possible to bring a bit of that freedom of
nature into my everyday life. While I can’t be
a no-holds-barred wilderness woman in class
or at a party, that care-free girl is still alive
and well—just a bit buried under layers of
complacency and social acceptability. So, I’ve
come to an understanding with myself: I’ll
make time to feed my introversion healthy
doses of earthly seclusion, and in return, my
introversion will take the occasional back
seat when I’m offered a chance to further my
socialization skills.

My strategy was put to the test

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recently, when I was invited to attend a
house party with a couple of my roommates.
They had invited me to events before, but it
was clear that my lack of enthusiasm was
always a bit off-putting. I knew they would
see right through another one of my half-
hearted excuses, so I agreed to go with them
(much to their surprise). And, much to my
own surprise, I ended up having a good
time. Loud music and dim lighting was the
perfect combination to showcase my
awkward dancing without threat of too
much scrutiny; the sea of faceless party goers
was occasionally broken with people I
thoroughly enjoyed, thus increasing my
comfort level; the provided party libations
that flowed liberally from large coolers kept
my social anxiety at bay.

There came a moment during the
evening, however, when my inner introvert
needed a break. Squeezing my way through
the throngs of a stranger’s kitchen, I
retreated from the organized chaos and
found the fire escape (a bit dramatic, I know,
but I just needed some space, alright?).
Climbing through the open window and out
onto the steps, I took my first breath of air
that wasn’t tinged with the staleness of
confinement. Luckily, I had chosen to flee
just as the clouds were shifting, and I was
able to catch a quick glimpse of clear night

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sky. Base thumping behind me and the wide-
open night sky above me, I felt a sort of
balance between the girl at the party and the
girl on the cliffs. After taking in a few more
deep breaths, and sending Maggie some
silent good vibes, I climbed back in through
the window and rejoined the wildness of the
crowd.

Smolinski’s essay opens with what I
call productive dialogue. Productive
dialogue serves the purpose of telling us
something about the speaker and moving the
story along. Sometimes writers tend to want
to include entire conversations when they
choose to include a scene of dialogue, but
this is unnecessary and not productive. Most
conversations start the same way with some
sort of generic “Hi, how are you?” so that
should be grazed over. To be clear, you
should not omit parts of conversations in a
way that would be misleading or
misrepresentative of what your character
said. Rather, you should cut out the parts of
the conversation that do not add anything
and that we almost can already expect what
was said. Smolinski opens with:

“You see those caves over there?” Maggie
asked me. I squinted to make out vague
shadows in the rock formations partially

92

hidden by the waves. “We’re gonna go
explore ‘em.”

From this opening, the audience is already
getting a sense of what type of people
Maggie and the writer are; they are
adventurous. The dialogue is also very
purposeful in that it sets up the story. We
know that they are going to explore caves.
We also get a good sense from the first
paragraph that the writer is a little bit of a
follower. She gives us several cues that she
follows Maggie’s lead.

I did my best to mirror her actions so as to
not slip and skid down the rocky formation
all the way into the deep blue below

She turned to me, a wide grin on her face,
and said, “All right, Mona. It’s time to
jump.” So, I did.

Notice how the writer avoids making
statements about what type of person she is
or what her relationship with her friend is
like. Instead, she uses dialogue and reflection
to allow us to see for ourselves. Smolinski
capitalizes on sentences that do a lot of work.
She finds a way to tell the audiences as much
as she can about herself, Maggie, and their
journey.

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Driven by our sheer sense of adventure
(and Maggie’s trusty minivan), we set out
on our quest, no-bake cookies and our
classic “road trip music mix” fueling our
journey.

We can imagine what this car ride was like.
We can see them cruising down the road
eating cookies and listening to music, and we
get a very specific image of two best friends
going on a road trip. It isn’t a generic image,
though, which should be avoided; it is
specific. In one sentence, we feel like we are
getting to know the characters. Once we
understand the characters, we can
understand what the story is really about.
We start to understand why the writer feels
so connected to nature. This would have
been much more difficult to understand had
we not gotten to know the writer throughout
the essay, because it is specific things about
her character that drive her curiosity about
why she is more comfortable in the
wilderness.

Another way to help readers
understand your character is by showing
who you are through actions you have taken.
In “The Dirt We Carry” by Jessica Todsen, a
lot can be learned about the writer in specific

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