May's Workshop Will Change How You Write About Your Life Forever
Lesson 1 of Quiet Writing: Crafting Stories from Everyday Moments with Andrea A. Firth
Personal essay expert Andrea A. Firth is here to teach us how to transform ordinary experiences into compelling essays and short stories through her four part workshop 'Quiet Writing: Crafting Stories from Everyday Moments'.
This is part 1:
Welcome!
I’m Andrea, a writer, editor, and huge fan of quiet writing, both reading it and creating it. And over the next four short weeks, I can guarantee you’ll become a big fan of it too.
Despite the workshop title, Quiet Writing, we are going to make some noise—on the page as we draft essays and stories inspired by everyday moments, and in the Comments section with questions, shares, and kudos. Plus, I’ll occasionally throw out questions in the lessons (the kind with no right or wrong answers) looking for your insights. Please, please drop your thoughts on those questions in the Comments as well. And do make noise in the Community Corner in response to the prompts and other good stuff from Shelby Stretton and Jo Gatford too.
Ok. Let’s go.
Today we’re going to explore what the term quiet writing means: what it is, what it isn’t, and how to find everyday moments that you can transform into compelling stories and essays that grab a reader’s attention and give them something to think about. We’ll use two essays and one short story as examples to guide us. The readings are linked here; read them now or as you move through the lesson.
The Winter Swimmer by Stephanie Niu, Smokelong Quarterly, 9/16/24
Charring Light by Karin Hedetniemi, Short Reads, 3/29/25. First published in Capsule Stories (Spring 2020)
Bugs Are Saving My (Writing) Life by Abigail Thomas, Brevity Blog, 7/20/20
About the readings: Each lesson includes three, short readings, both fiction and creative nonfiction, which are contemporary (published within the last few years) and flash length (<1,000 words).
Quiet writing isn’t necessarily short, but I find flash length pieces work best in our Substack Workshop format. Most of the essays were published in Brevity, Short Reads, and the Brevity Blog—all free, quality literary outlets. The short stories were all sourced from the online journal SmokeLong Quarterly, which is also free to access and has been publishing excellent, flash fiction for over 20 years. Smokelong also includes a brief interview with each author about their piece and process. (I think that added feature is so great—read that too!). I hope that this workshop on quiet writing will also foster your reading to support your writing practice as well.
How it works: In each lesson, I’ll share what I’ve learned about quiet writing. We’ll explore the readings and uncover the craft at work. And you will receive exercises to inspire and guide your own quiet writing.
The Goal: By the end of Lesson 4, you will have one (or more) quiet stories/essays completed or underway and the tools to write more.
Quiet Writing—what is it?
Quiet writing is a story or narrative that reads quiet but still carries the tension and conflict that is fundamental to good storytelling. The subtle, simple happenings and struggles of the everyday are what quiet writing is based on and what the writer mines to find meaning and understanding. Quiet writing draws readers in and make them think.
Quiet Writing:
Focuses on everyday moments.
Employs keen observation, astute details, and vivid imagery to demonstrate everyday life and show the nuances of the setting, character/narrator, and plot/narrative.
Incorporates introspection and reflection by tapping into the protagonist’s/narrator’s thoughts and emotions.
Maintains a steady, but often unhurried, pace with subtle action.
Expresses meaning in what’s left unsaid or off the page.
Includes varied syntax, rhythm, language, and voice.
Quiet Writing—what it isn’t.
Some people/characters live wild lives, face huge upheavals, or tackle death-defying adventures. While these can be engaging stories, that’s not quiet writing. Stormy scenes, aggressive dialogue, grand gestures, outrageous episodes and perilous plot twists, again while these might be part of an exciting read, these aren’t typically found in quiet writing.
However, this does not mean that quiet writing won’t sometimes be about trauma or difficult situations. What’s different about quiet writing when addressing heavier topics is the approach.
Quiet writing isn’t an anecdote either. It’s a complete story with a beginning, middle, and end, a narrative arc, and throughline.
And it’s not just beautiful writing with lovely language and elegant descriptions. That kind of writing can draw a reader in, but it will eventually lull them to sleep and leave them unsatisfied if the story doesn’t make them feel and understand something in a new way.
Quiet writing isn’t a genre, but a style and approach used in creative writing, both fiction and nonfiction. There may be other definitions of quiet writing out there and representative examples of the style may vary from reader to reader. We will read a range of examples over the next four weeks.
Do I need to be an introvert to write quiet?
No! To write quiet you need only to be the person and writer you are. Quiet writing is built upon everyday moments, which we all have, regardless of which side of the intro/extro version line we reside. The key to quiet writing is to uncover what’s exceptional, or revelatory, in that everyday moment, and the way to do that is to get inside your character’s or your own head and take your readers there with you.
Anchoring Your Story in Daily Rituals
If you haven’t yet, take a few moments to read the story The Winter Swimmer by Stephanie Niu.
Now let’s break it down in quiet writing terms.
The everyday event that centers the story is Liu’s morning swims in the sea.
Niu packs the story with perceptive, sensory details that give the us a rich picture of Liu and the setting.
Liu wears his trunks under his work coat, totes a can of fresh water for rinsing, and has never tasted starfish (although he easily could).
The setting: fishmongers display urchins bubbling and stingrays drying in the sun; there’s a narrow path to the lighthouse; a woman grills starfish.
We are drawn into a naturalistic setting by an uncomplicated man and his simple daily pleasure.
Ok—where’s the tension, the conflict?
Niu layers in small tensions.
The sea water is cold, 15° C/59º F, which hurts at first, but Liu likes the sensation of cold around his feet, which feels like “prickly socks.”
Liu’s wife worries about his winter swimming, but her warnings (in dialogue) are ignored and offset with Liu listening to the hum of fishing boats when he is underwater.
The sea cucumbers have disappeared from the bay; Liu fondly remembers their delicious crunch.
Cold water, a wife’s worry, the disappearance of sea cucumbers are small frictions, which lead to the story’s primary conflict: Liu’s wife and daughter don’t like to swim in the sea and prefer the treatment their bodies get at the bathhouse. Liu finds the bathhouse unnecessary and swims instead.
A conflict with low to no stakes—the women want the bathhouse; Liu wants the sea. But remember this is quiet writing, so what’s the point?
Next, Niu provides us with a gorgeous image and simile as Liu contemplates—
In this sea, the cold is constantly touching his entire body with its million tiny hands. If the sea had hands, Liu thinks, they would look like the giant starfish on the woman’s grill. Prickled with endless gold legs within the smoke.
And Niu continues inside Liu’s head.
Each day…Liu feels as if his whole body has been replaced with tight, new skin. He imagines this is what it feels like to be kissed.
Niu’s quiet writing delivers the story through fresh and distinct description, details and imagery along with Liu’s thoughts and emotions.
What is the deeper meaning conveyed here? What is the story of Liu’s winter swims about?
There is no one right or wrong answer to these questions. The craft at work here at the close is the interiority Liu displays. Niu has invited the reader to step into the story, inside Liu’s mind, to see the starfish, to feel how the salt and sea tightens his skin, and to imagine it, as he does, like being kissed.
Niu leaves the reader room to interpret both the relevance and meaning of the starfish image and Liu’s reflection. You might find that this takes you even deeper and to other connections and meaning. And that’s great—that’s what quiet writing does—it draws us in and makes us think.
Loss and Memory Through Sensory Touchstones
Now let’s take a look at Karin Hedetniemi’s essay “Charring Light.”
The everyday moment: the unnamed, first-person narrator sits perched on a second-floor windowsill watching the rain (with all her senses), as her partner, Jim, moves about the house with the dog in tow, quoting song, reciting poetry, and settling on the porch bench to smoke his pipe.
Keen observation and sensory details:
The essay opens with a humid rain; the rhythm of dripping summer leaves and the sight of tiny twigs flowing; the narrator is soothed and comforted. And we, the readers, are too.
In the next three paragraphs, in three separate scenes, we follow Jim through the eyes and ears of his partner as he embraces the simple joys of his life (a song, a poem, a pipe). Hedetniemi includes many unique, specific details:
“Mad dogs and Englishmen” (a lyric), a surprise “report” at the printer, a pizza pie declared a thing of beauty, dialogue like “Din! Din! Din!,” jangling tags and clicking nails on wooden steps, a hand-carved pipe from Scotland, soft tendrils of smoke, woolen sleeves. (And there are more!)
We get drawn into the couple’s orbit by these descriptive scenes, as we come to understand Jim’s quirkiness and charm and the pleasure it brings his partner.
Ok—where’s the tension, the conflict?
In the last paragraph, the narrator tells us: I didn’t understand [the tree branches’] ghostly dance, what they were trying to show me—…
Up to this point the essay has had no overt tension, but here we move beyond the narrator’s observations and go inside her head, to how she feels.
And then in the next six words of that same sentence, …show me—that one night, after Jim was gone…, the conflict is revealed. The fact is stated without tears or anguish. Jim’s departure, that difficult event, isn’t shown in scene, which is often the case with quiet writing, and Hedetniemi chose to withhold that information until the end.
Then what Hedetniemi shows the reader is an intimate moment in the aftermath where she returns to the essay’s sensory details, which serve as touchstones back to an earlier time—the wool sweater, the sweet smell of tobacco, the glinting moon, the pup’s presence.
But wait, maybe there is a moment of tension long before we learn about the loss of Jim. Go back to the beginning: The expectant feeling of the past few hours resolved itself with a late, humid rain. That’s the first line of this essay. The first thing the narrator says before she is “soothed” and “comforted” by the rain, before she shares her sweet sketch of Jim. The essay opens with this bit of foreshadowing, an expectant feeling, a slight frisson. Was she feeling hopeful, anxious, on tenterhooks? We don’t know, but with that one sentence placed at the start, Niu quietly lays the groundwork for what’s to come. Great craft!
What’s the takeaway? What’s the deeper meaning here?
A meditation on loss, grief, a relationship, joy, simple pleasures, love.
What do you think?
And oh yeah—here’s a couple of those no-right-or-wrong-answer-what-do-you-think questions. Respond in the Comments.
What about the owl? Meaning, metaphor, more?
And the title, “Charring Light,” how does that resonate with you?
Nature as a Mirror for Self-Discovery
The third reading for Lesson 1, “Bugs Are Saving My (Writing) Life” by Abigail Thomas, is a craft essay, and it gets meta. Thomas, a master of quiet writing, shows us how to get unstuck in our writing by using close observation to identify everyday moments.
Take some time to read the essay. Now let’s break it down.
Thomas establishes the tension and conflict that drives her first-person essay right away in the second sentence: “Here we are in the middle of a pandemic, I haven’t left the house in five months and can’t write a word.” She feels isolated (tension) and has writer’s block (conflict).
So, she turns teacher on herself and says, “Write about what you notice when you’re stuck, I tell my students. Write about what you notice and see what happens.” Sounds like quiet writing, right? Then she goes on, “Nothing happens here except bugs. Oh my god, I think. I’ll write about the bugs!”—which she does.
Her everyday moments: Thomas writes about the large, black ant that traverses the living room floor, the pale brown ants that invade the jug of maple syrup, the dead paper wasps that she hoards, and ultimately about the lightning bug that has a remarkable revival. Everyday moments on a theme.
What draws the reader in?
Thomas’ observations and details, plus she’s funny. She describes the ant that walks back and forth across the floor repeatedly as having “his own Groundhog Day.” Her grandsons are horrified by ants in the syrup, but Thomas digs right in to her French toast and theirs.
As she shoves the “too perfect, too tiny to be rubbish” wasps behind the bedside table, she goes off on a tangent describing the ephermera she’s collected in it over the years. More details. More description. And more characterization. From this list, we learn much more about Thomas.
She goes off on another tangent as she researches the paper wasps. Their self-made nests look “like beautiful mishappen rainbows” she tells us and follows with, “I am kind of in love.” We see her emotion, how she feels. She also notes that despite their passive nature, wasps will defend their nests. “Well, who wouldn’t?” she says in response. Again, we are brought into her mindset and learn how she feels about the importance of home.
Who doesn’t enjoy a bit of meandering in an essay, but Thomas’ tangents serve a purpose. As she roams, the narrative continues to quietly unfold.
At the close, Thomas tells the story of one more bug, the lightning bug stuck to her sofa, seemingly dead, that disappears and then reappears blinking outside her window.
True. Imagined. Metaphor. Maybe all three?
What is Thomas writing about in her craft essay?
Take aways?
How to keenly observe your surroundings. How to find everyday moments to start an essay. How to write your way out of writer’s block. How to write a quiet essay.
Deeper meaning?
A reflection on the wonder and beauty of the natural world through the lens of the bugs in her home. What she fears (loss of her writing identity) and what she doesn’t (wasps in the house) and why this is reasonable. Where to find hope.
Access all of Andrea’s upcoming lessons for $10/mo
Exercises
Each reading has a deeper meaning or understanding embedded within its quietness. I’ve pointed to where and how each reading gets there, but there’s more to uncover. Maybe you’ve found something else, something different. That’s all good. Let’s learn from each other. Tell us in the Comments, what other take aways and deeper meaning you find in the readings.
Let’s get to writing. We read stories about morning swims in the sea, a view from a window, and the bugs in an old woman’s house.
Make a list of your own everyday moments, encounters or events. Real or imagined. Fiction or nonfiction. (Fiction writers feel free to pull from your own life and share it with a character.) At this point, don’t worry about what your everyday moments mean and how each might connect to something else. Get the basic ideas down. And go ahead—share a moment with us or your whole list in the Comments.
Now, take one of your everyday moments and write. Be straightforward to start—in the first sentence, simply state what it is, e.g., Every morning Liu goes to the wharf to swim. Or I sat on the windowsill, inhaling the fresh damp air…
Go on to describe the moment further—find the sensory details, build out the scene, invite the reader into the setting and simple moment. You aren’t writing the entire essay or story yet, just get that everyday inspiration down on the page. Move on to the next everyday moment on your list and do the same, and so on.Read through what others have posted and give a shout out or positive feedback.
Feel free to ask me anything in the Comments. I will reply, promise!
This is SO my jam. I'm always collecting everyday moments and observations and sensory snippets and love how you've shaped all of these into jumping off points for a story.
Particularly enjoyed the bug discovery journey in 'Bugs Are Saving My Life' and that last line:
"Last night I saw bright blinks amongst the geraniums that climb up my front window. On, off, on, off. There you are, I thought. Oh good, there you are."
(What is it about last lines?)
I really should finish the whole lesson before commenting here, but "The Winter Swimmer" just made my head explode and I have to say it:
That last line: "He imagines this is what it feels like to be kissed." All I can think is: "Wait. WHAT? He has a wife! He has a daughter! How can he not know what it feels like to be kissed?"
This, of course, is what makes the line brilliant. WOW.