title: On the Fringe: Exploring the relationship between Mountaineer, Writer, Storyteller
Creators: name: Dignan, Anthony
Publisher: name: Griffith University
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: mountaineering
subject: edgework
subject: creative non-fiction
subject: memoir
subject: climbing psychology

description: My dissertation, On the fringe: Exploring the relationship between Mountaineer, Writer, Storyteller, uses broad historical events, personal experience and academic research to produce a creative work and an exegesis. Against the background of how rock climbing and mountaineering have developed over more than a century, and a growing body of stories told about alpine explorations, the submission investigates processes of writing about mountaineering. The creative component is a narrative drawn from my own life - a work of creative nonfiction which applies an episodic story structure and a dual time-frame to what is essentially my memoir. In the exegesis, I interweave key elements of three climbers' stories as a means of navigating the central research question: What drives a climber and how can a climber's story best be told? This question subtends to three sub-questions related to my creative writing process: - What do the competitive natures of Freda Du Faur, George Ingle Finch and Tonyd contribute to the narrative, and how are they best to be handled? - What is the significance of risk mitigation to telling the story, and how can it be utilised to help a narrative unfold? - Is there a kindred connection between climbers and writers, and what insights into writing a memoir might this provide to a writer who is also a climber? My project builds on established accounts by Dawson (2001), Irwin (2000), Davis (2012) and Wainwright (2015), and argues for a methodological approach that reflects and explores the alpinist mindset to create new climber stories. The researcher I found most useful to the project was the climbing psychologist Malcolm Bass, especially his statement about the three key psychological systems involved in climbing and mountaineering: It engages three of our major psychological systems ... our drive, threat, and attachment systems are all in play. (Bass, 2019) These systems not only define the practice of mountain-climbing, they also described the focus of my thinking in the practice of writing my memoir. Drive, threat and attachments were, in fact, the three major themes I worked continually to express in action, characterisation and plot development as the work progressed. Also significant to my exploration was Stephen Lyng's (1990) research on the type of obsessive behaviour known as 'edgework'. This project started many years ago as a boy's own adventure; exploring and learning how to survive in different mountain ranges. My way of telling stories is aimed at entertaining the reader while also reflecting on the risks that took me to the edge of death - and the wisdom gained. Writing about climbing has given me a new perspective on my own maintenance; my reckless past having left me with chronic injuries and pain management requiring continual visits to the physiotherapist. Overall, my work explores the importance of standing alone and leading from the front, solo if necessary, so long as you have the competence and correct skill set to survive. In this project I give back what it took so long for me to understand.