Vignette

A vignette (pronounced vin-yet) is a short description of a person, place, or thing.  It is a lot like a written snapshot of something – while there are many details represented, the focus is so close up that we don’t see the whole picture of who this person or what this thing is.  Even though this style of writing sits on the edge between fiction and poetry, descriptions in a vignette are often more emotional and less straightforward than those found in fiction.

Writing a Vignette

1. Think about a person close to you, yourself at a certain point in time, or an event that stands out to you from somebody’s life or from your own life.  You can also create a fictional character or think about a fictional character from a book or movie that you find interesting.

2. Once you have found a person, place, or thing to write about, try to think of one object, location, or characteristic that is associated with your subject.  For example, if you were thinking about your best friend from childhood, you might choose your favorite place to play.

3. Brainstorm a list of things that are connected to the object, location, or characteristic that you selected in step 2.  For example, the place that you used to play might remind you of pretending to be pirates and sword fighting with sticks.  It might also remind you of getting in trouble for staying out too late, or breaking your arm when you fell out of a tree.  It could even remind you of something that didn’t happen, or something that you can’t quite remember clearly.  Making up events or things is perfectly fine.

4. Once you have a list of real and imagined connections, you’re ready to start writing out the thoughts, feelings, and details for the pieces that seem most interesting for you.  Typically, a vignette is written out in sentence form rather than in lines like a poem. 

In a vignette, it’s often interesting to write about how something felt rather than how something actually happened.  If you’re writing about falling out of a tree and breaking your arm, you might only write about how it felt and not even mention that you are describing a broken arm. 

It’s also interesting to write about events as you recall them or invent them, rather than in the order that they actually happened.  Writing like this give the effect of being in a dream or being right inside a person’s head.

Example of a Vignette:

“My Name”
from The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color. It is the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing.

It was my great-grandmother's name and now it is mine. She was a horse woman too, born like me in the Chinese year of the horse--which is supposed to be bad luck if you're born female-but I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese, like the Mexicans, don't like their women strong.
My great-grandmother. I would've liked to have known her, a wild, horse of a woman, so wild she wouldn't marry. Until my great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier. That's the way he did it.

And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn't be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don't want to inherit her place by the window.

At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. But in Spanish my name is made out of a softer something, like silver, not quite as thick as sister's name Magdalena--which is uglier than mine. Magdalena who at least- -can come home and become Nenny. But I am always Esperanza. would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. Esperanza as Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. Yes. Something like Zeze the X will do. [3]