How to interleave a story with context and introspection?
Is it possible to interleave a story with some context and with the first persons thoughts and feelings without distracting, confusing or boring the reader?
Content wise, i think the essay-ish piece i’m trying to write improves when all three levels are present. The immediate story, is pretty fast paced and describes the birth of my son as it happened. Without the context, it is just one story. A discussion of health statistics and some incidents that received media attention provides a wider context to my story. Adding thoughts and feelings i had at the time serves to make the story more immersive.
Form wise, interleaving the three levels just feels clunky. 96
Should context be clustered around the beginning and end of the story, so as not to derail the flow? What about the emotional part, introspection also ’halts’ the storyline? Should i do short cycles of events-introspection-context?
The story i have so far is a bit too raw (in more ways than one) and too long to share here, so as a proxy example take this short text about railway travel:
I ran down the platform dodging annoyed looking commuters, stumbling without falling at least four times. Why, why had i thought it would be a good idea to wear flip-flops? Sure it was hot, but now i was almost missing the train because i could not properly sprint and what if the whistle came before i reached the doors? Could i risk jumping in? I’d just as easily end up under the train, not on it.
Made it! Panting and sweating i found a window seat. I had to make it, really. The service i was on only runs every two hours. Iterations of optimalization to the train schedule meant that now urban areas have ultra frequent connections while the further one travels from the overpopulated cities, the scarcer the transport. A realistic and predictable policy that nevertheless further erodes the already crumbling public and other services in more remote areas.
I think it works here, but will several iterations of this also work? 96