another one about montage

My last post was about montage, and how I wasn’t quite sure if I was doing it correctly. I never thought that I would have had an epiphany and want to write my project three essay in this new (to my world) form of writing: montage. We were in class kind of clarifying again what montage was, and one of my class mates gave the example of sitting on a bench in New York City and having each excerpt of the montage be a different perception of what is seen. Dr. Morris then elaborated on that thought and started to talk about the subway. She gave the example of a person sitting on the subway. One of their excerpts could be what the person next to you is doing and what they look and smell like. Another could be the vision of a person walking on the subway and describing the packages that they’re caring. Another could be a description of the blur of lights that are seen while traveling on the subway. And finally, one could be the experience of traveling under the city and a description of all of the happenings going on in the city above.

This example that Dr. Morris gave completely inspired me on what to write my third creative nonfiction essay about. My topic for the semester is travel, and I figured that traveling on a subway is something that millions of people do every day. I was excited that I had finally been inspired to write my third essay, but I was worried about the montage aspect f the writing. I think I am intimidated by montage, because of the fear of it not being successful or doing the montage wrong. I know that you learn by trial and error, but it is just an intimidating thing to conquer.

I am playing with the idea of instead of using the subway, I thought about using the Kutztown University shuttle bus that travels through campus. I could ride the shuttle bus for a couple of the loops around campus and take in my surroundings, which will help to draw off of my own experiences and make the essay true to the word nonfiction. I could describe the setting around me as I ride the shuttle, I could describe the movements of the shuttle and the mass amounts of people that get on and off in packs, I could write about the people that I experience on the ride: what they look like, smell like, are they happy or sad, if they are people interacting with each other and if so what are they talking about. I think that if done correctly I could write a really powerful creative nonfiction essay. What worries me is that I will have too much detail in each excerpt, and my writing will be longer than a traditional montage would be. What also worries me was the point. What is the problem that I would face and try to bring to light? I don’t know what point I will be trying to prove by writing this essay.