Treasure Chest of Thoughts

Katherine Howe, author of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, has changed the way I will forevermore begin a discussion with my students about the purpose of writing.

Haven’t read this novel?  Please check our my review of this latest release here…and plan some time into your busy schedule to read this book! 

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF WRITING?

In this novel, Connie Goodwin begins the research process to discover more information about Deliverance Dane, a thus -far unknown witch during the time of the Salem Witch Trials.  Throughout her journey, Connie meets other family members of Deliverance, one in particular being Prudence who keeps a journal…barely, but a journal.

Connie paged deeper into the journal, finding several entries of an almost identical content.  She sifted through the stultifying repetition, trying to read between the lines to uncover details that Prudence would not have thought to state explicitly….Connie could feel frustrated that this distant daughter of taciturn Puritans would not have had the cultural knowledge necessary to reflect in print on her inner life.

Yes, Prudence’s lack of elaboration proves most frustrating for main character Connie, for her job is much harder because, basically, Prudence is just too closed-mouthed!

Here she held in her hands a daily log of the entire second half of another woman’s life, and Connie felt like she knew her even less.  Prudence’s cold practicality, her obstinate refusal to reveal her feelings, no matter how culturally proscribed, created in Connie a whistling void of incomprehension.  She wanted to throw the journal across the room, to bunch its fragile pages up in her hands and rip them into shreds, to shake Prudence out of her reserve.  But Prudence sat removed from her [Connie's] frustration, insulated by a two-hundred-year-wall.

Did you catch that hidden agenda for every writer?  Do you sense Connie’s great wish for Prudence to write more…and more?  Yes…write!  Details and lots of them.

Details is what makes the difference between an interesting and a boring blog, story, letter…whatever the genre of choice might be.  You see, I have felt Connie’s frustration after reading a set of students’ paper , especially those who skimmed on the details, those who did not paint that picture with vivid words.

Yes, I will book talk this novel to all my classes, for it truly is a very interesting read, especially eleventh graders upon having read The Crucible.  Yes, I will introduce Connie and her frustration with Prudence, in hopes that one more light bulb might go off as a student finally begins to understand the importance of descriptive details.   Yes, I will use these same excerpts to point out how Katherine Howe fulfils this purpose of writing by including so many details…vivid details that appeal to the reader’s senses.

Yes, I have discovered writing’s physick purpose.