Brooke's Discussion of Innovation

Innovation in Brevity is a difficult concept. Brevity, the online journal of short nonfiction essays of 500-750 words in length is littered with essays pushing the conventions of grammar, organization, and chronology. Thus, finding something that hadn’t been done, but still fit within the constraints of the journal itself, proved a challenge. For my innovation piece, I had to go beyond pushing the confines of grammar and organization.

I chose to create and abstract piece, using two real documents to provide the tension for my innovation piece, “Union.” The documents I chose to use were my wedding party list, to be handed out to guests as they arrive, in a first and second draft. Through use of these drafts, I highlighted how the mother of the groom had been excluded from the wedding upon final revision. Reasons for the mother being excluded are not important to the piece itself. Rather, I have tried to demonstrate a key issue that rose up in the wedding by using unconventional sources.

Brevity does not contain a piece using real documents to completely tell a personal narrative. Typically authors write a unified essay to some degree. I have broken the conventions of the journal by providing a real narrative, brought to the reader by outside sources, left completely intact and in their original form. (I was disinclined to actually scan them, as scanning the documents might push the confines of Brevity too far, even for innovation’s sake.)

As is typical with Brevity, the piece is very short, and follows an event from my (the author’s) life. However, typical Brevity pieces rely on delicately woven metaphor and accurate pacing to establish tension. I have bypassed this. Instead, I have chosen a straightforward method, using the real documents to add another layer of complexity. The intention of the piece, like all Brevity pieces, is to invoke thought. Hopefully I have succeeded in wrapping the piece in an aura of mystery while surpassing the conventions typically established by Brevity.

I have chosen to completely eliminate any material not actually written on the two drafts. Thus, I have purposefully left the reader guessing, while simultaneously breaking conventions of Brevity by excluding any sort of internalization of feelings, emotions, or memories. The tension in the essay derives from the fact that the mother has done something to illicit her not being invited to the wedding, but the reader is never really allowed to know what.

In using these documents and setting them up without any sort of external explanation, I have hopefully crafted a piece that the reader can recognize and make sense of. My intention with this innovative Brevity piece is to illustrate an event in my life in a unique, unconventional way.