Chasing Narrative Arc—One Writer’s Path to Totality

By Andrea A. Firth

As we drive to the airport to catch an early flight, I see a sliver of moon, the waning crescent, in the morning sky. I look at the weather app on my phone and report the five-day forecast for our destination: “Hot and sunny for two days, clouds over the weekend, and on Monday a 45% chance of rain starting at noon.”

“Doesn’t sound like eclipse watching weather,” says my husband.

The classic, chronological construction of a story has five elements: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution. The narrative arc follows the trajectory of an upside checkmark with an on ramp and off ramp. A personal essay can follow this path.

We are flying from the Bay Area to Austin to join thousands of visitors heading to the path of totality—to see the Moon totally block the Sun. Totality will happen on Monday, April 8^th at 1:37 pm and last one minute and 44 seconds. How did we become eclipse chasers? Well, my husband has a bucket list, things he wants to do before it’s too late. See a Formula 1 race. Ride in a hot-air balloon. Watch a rocket launch. I’m not sure that I need or want a bucket list. But I’ve never experienced a total solar eclipse and decide that the first item on my list will be to see, hear, and feel totality.

Narratives start with exposition to introduce the characters and setting or drop the reader directly into the story, aka starting in medias res. In personal essay, I want the beginning to hook my reader, create tension, and establish what the essay is about, what will be explored.

We spend two days in the Texas Hill Country. It’s sunny, hot, and humid. We hike up a massive pink granite dome called Enchanted Rock and wander the quaint town of Wimberley. I check my weather app obsessively. The forecast stays stuck on clouds and rain. On Saturday, we drive back to Austin with the windshield wipers on; the state is under complete cloud cover. I Google alternate return flights to see if we can connect through Indianapolis and catch the eclipse there. The timing won’t work. I’m beginning to regret this chase and wonder how I’ll feel if my first bucket list item is a flop.

Rising action. Build narrative tension. Keep the reader reading.

I picked Austin for our eclipse adventure because of Maria Popova and The Universe in Verse, an annual literary festival that celebrates science through poetry and prose. This year, it coincides with the eclipse. The stellar lineup of readers includes the poets Marie Howe and Ellen Bass, the writers Roxane Gay and Rebecca Solnit, among others.

When I enter the Moody Amphitheater in Waterloo Park on Sunday evening, the sky is overcast but my weather anxiety has disappeared. I can barely contain my excitement for the literary rockstars I’m about to hear. Between readers, Popova narrates the evening. She tells us the last solar eclipse that passed over Austin was in 1397; the next one will be in 2343. Monday will be a once-in-a-lifetime event. I feel the pressure to witness the eclipse heighten. Popova describes how the Moon is slipping away from the Earth. Eclipses are moving toward extinction. I’m sad and frightened when I think about this future even though it will take billions of years.

Climax is the highest point of tension in your story. In an essay it’s when the personal experience intersects with the theme explored, the question asked.

Monday, we return to Waterloo Park to watch the sky, now pale blue and streaked with wispy, white clouds. The band Vampire Weekend has been scheduled to play during the solar eclipse. I think there must be a metaphor in that pairing, but I haven’t quite pinpointed it.

We see the “first bite” when the Moon darkens the edge of Sun’s disk and watch for an hour as it gradually expands. The band stops playing as Totality approaches and the city goes quiet. The sky turns dark blue, the temperature drops, and the Moon covers the Sun leaving a tiny halo of fuzzy white light. I hear a collective gasp and then hooting from the audience in the amphitheater. I feel unsettled and satisfied, sad and hopeful. It feels like both an ending and a beginning.

Falling action.

The clouds congregate. We do not see the Moon pass the rest of the way across the Sun. Darkness lifts, the band plays on, and we head to the airport. I think back on the day. I saw, heard, and felt totality—I’m sure. And it pushed me to think about the end–what I need and want to get done before it all disappears, before I disappear. But I’m left unsure about how I feel about having a bucket list.

Resolution isn’t always complete or tidy. I’ve read that the ending of an essay should leave the door open for the writer to look through.

Maybe there’s more to this experience, more to be discovered. The next total solar eclipse viewable in the U.S. will be in 2045. The path of totality will cross north of San Francisco, a short drive from our home. I’ll be 83 years old and hope to experience totality again, if I haven’t already kicked the…

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Andrea A. Firth is an editor for the Brevity Blog. She’s leading a six-week course, The Essay Workshop, in May and June. Details here.