Compare and Contrast CNF Exercise- Lindsay Euans

Comparing John Long's "The Only Rule That Counts" and from Four Genres in Brief, "The Mute Sense" by Diane Ackerman, these two authors and stories took a different take on the idea of memory in writing creative nonfiction. Long recalls a specific time in his life and goes in detail about a specific person that goes along with those memories and experiences, whereas Ackerman writes a much shorter recollection of different ways that the sense of smell connects us humans back to places, people, and the general importance smell can have on a person. She did not address a specific place or person in great detail like Long did, but rather encapsulated multiple scenarios in which smell comes into memory.

John Long in his piece, "The Only Rule That Counts" utilizes the technique of writing himself into the creative nonfiction. Although his story focused much on Jeff from their time back at Yosemite in the 70s and later the letter from Jeff in 2000, he goes on to say how he was affected by not responding to Jeff's letter before Jeff unfortunately passed in the 9/11 attacks. He stated, "That I did not immediately write him back is something I will regret till the day I die" (Long). Although it was more about Jeff and their experiences, his own opinions and attitudes towards what happened were also important to how he was affected by Jeff in his life. Another technique he utilized was in ethics and edicts. I assume he changed "Jeff's" name to avoid breaching on someone's personal information because he starts off the essay with, " "Jeff" and I climbed on and off for several summers in Yosemite back in the 1970s" (Long). To me the quotes around Jeff indicate he used a mock name for the story of an actual person and event in his life, often a technique used by other writers as well.

Diane Ackerman in her piece "The Mute Sense" on the other hand used techniques like summarizing. She did not dwell too much on what she individually brought up, rather instead having little overviews of multiple different events. She wrote events like, "...conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the Poconos", "... hours of passion on a moonlit beach in Florida", "...people of all cultures have always been obsessed with smell", "...our early ancestors strolled among the fruits of the earth with noses vigilant and precise" (Ackerman). She used these short summaries to allow the reader to see the images and think of how smell has affected each of us in different ways rather than just her own personal experience.