My Education Manager: Writing a Vignette

Vignette

Definition:

In A Handbook to Literature. 3rd. ed. C. Hugh Holman defines the term vignette as

[a] sketch or essay or brief narrative characterized by great precision and delicate accuracy of composition. The term is borrowed from that used for unbordered but delicate decorative designs for a book, and it implies writing with comparable grace and economy. It may be a separate whole or a portion of a larger work. The term is also applied to very brief short-short stories, less than five hundred words in length. (551)

Description:

‘Vignettes are the literary equivalent of a snapshot [photograph].’ ~Wikipedia

When you think of what to include in a vignette, think of capturing the single image/moment caught by a photograph. You are capturing that exact, precise moment … and nothing else! You are not developing a plot, rather delving into a brief moment in time.

Characteristics of Vignettes:

1. ‘Show Not Tell’

Example:

Tellingà The room was vacant.
Showingà The door opened with a resounding echo that seemed to fill the house. Cob webs once attached flowed freely in the air as the open door brought light to a well worn floor. The light gave notice to the peeling paint on the walls and to the silhouettes once covered by pictures. The new air gave life to a stuffiness that entrapped the room. Faded and torn white sheets covered once new furniture now drowning in dust.

2. Metaphor

Definition: Comparison of two things, not using like or as

Example: Charles is such a pig!

3. Simile

Definition: Comparison of two things, using like or as

Example: His temper was as explosive as a volcano.

4. Personification

Definition: giving human traits (qualities, feelings, action, or characteristics) to non-living objects (things, colors, qualities, or ideas)

Example: The large rock refused to budge.

5. Alliteration

Definition: repetition of the initial consonant; usually at least twice

Example: The rats rummaged through the raisins ravenously.

6. Repetition

Definition: repeating a word or phrase for emphasis

7. Sensory Details

Definition: sight, sound, smell, taste, touch

Example: (sound) The music was very loud at the rock concert last night. à My ears are still ringing today because the music was very loud at the rock concert last night.

8. ‘Show Not Tell’ with Figurative Language

Example:

Telling: It was foggy.

Showing:
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
- excerpt from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot

Requirements for each of your vignettes:

1. ALWAYS ‘Show Not Tell’ by using Sensory Details.

2. You must use at least three of the following characteristics in each of your vignettes:

Simile Personification Repetition

Metaphor Alliteration

3. Length: ½ - 1 page, single spaced

4. Title (cannot be the assignment name)

Sample Vignette, ‘Hairs’ by Sandra Cisneros:

Everybody in our family has different hair. My Papa’s hair is like a broom, all up in the air. And me, my hair is lazy. It never obeys barrettes or bands. Carlos’ hair is thick and straight. He doesn’t need to comb it. Nenny’s hair is slippery – slides out of your hand. And Kiki, who is the youngest, has hair like fur.

But my mother’s hair, my mother’s hair, like little rosettes, like little candy circles all curly and pretty because she pinned it in pincurls all day, sweet to put your nose into when she is holding you, holding you and your feel safe, is the warm smell of bread before you bake it, is the smell when she makes room for you on her side of the bed still warm with her skin, and you sleep near her, the rain outside falling and Papa snoring. The snoring, the rain, and Mama’s hair that smells like bread.

Simile: _________________________________________________________________

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Metaphor: ______________________________________________________________

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Personification: __________________________________________________________

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Alliteration: _____________________________________________________________

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Repetition: ______________________________________________________________

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‘Show Not Tell’/Sensory Details: ____________________________________________

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Sample Vignette, ‘Chanclas’ by Sandra Cisneros:

It’s me – Mama, Mama said. I open and she’s there with bags and big boxes. The new clothes and, yes, she’s got the socks and a new slip with a little rose on it and a pink-and-white striped dress. What about the shoes? I forgot. Too late now. I’m tired. Whew!

Six-thirty already and my little cousin’s baptism is over. All day waiting, the door locked, don’t open up for nobody, and I don’t till Mama gets back and buys everything except the shoes.

Now Uncle Nacho is coming in his car, and we have to hurry to get to Precious Blood Church quick because that’s where the baptism party is, in the basement rented for today for dancing and tamales and everyone’s kids running all over the place.

Mama dances, laughs, dances. All of a sudden, Mama is sick. I fan her hot face with a paper plate. Too many tamales, but Uncle Nacho says too many this and tilts his thumb to his lips.

Everyone laughing except me, because I’m wearing the new dress, pink and white stripes, and new underclothes and new socks and the old saddle shoes I wear to school, brown and white, the kind I get every September because they last long and they do. My feet scuffed and round, and the heels all crooked that look dumb with this dress, so I just sit.

Meanwhile that boy who is my cousin by first communion or something asks me to dance and I can’t. Just stuff my feet under the metal folding chair stamped Precious Blood and pick on a wad of brown gum that’s stuck beneath the seat. I shake my head no. My feet are growing bigger and bigger.

Then Uncle Nacho is pulling and pulling my arm and it doesn’t matter how new the dress Mama bought is because my feet are ugly until my uncle who is a liar says, You are the prettiest girl here, will you dance, but I believe him, and yes, we are dancing, my Uncle Nacho and me, only I don’t want to at first. My feet swell big and heavy like plungers, but I drag them across the linoleum floor straight center where Uncle wants to show off the new dance we learned. And Uncle spins me, and my skinny arms bend the way he taught me, and my mother watches, and my little cousins watch, and the boy who is my cousin by fir communion watches, and everyone says, wow, who are those two who dance like in the movies, until I forget that I am wearing only ordinary shows, brown and white, the kind my mother buys each year for school.

And all I hear is the clapping when the music stops. My uncle and me bow and he walks me back in my thick shows to my mother who is proud to be my mother. All night the boy who is a man watches me dance. He watched me dance.