Week 8 Blog

This week we explored more with writing in different point of views with short stories and imitating them as well. We read Fireworks and Burnt Toast this week and then had to write our own imitating it. I took a line that was about a chocolate lab and wrote about how it was reunited with it's old owner. On Monday we did a class activity where we wrote a short story about something that has happened to us recently and then re-write it three more times. Once we finished writing the originally story, we were asked to over read it and eliminate words that we commonly use, then write a second version with different sayings we wouldn't normally use. Once we did that we had to write in third person and the fourth story we had to write in point of view of the other character we used in our story. It was very interesting writing in all those forms of point of view because I never would have realized all the thought that actually goes into it when writing in another point of view. The most challenging thing about this activity was writing different from how we usually write. Keeping it appealing and interesting using details is something I need to work on.

In today's class we read some short stories from IR and looked more at the characterization of the story. We had to determine whether it was direct or indirect details describing the character and what we could make of the character from what we read in a short paragraph. I really liked this activity because it helped me understand more what specific and vague details are and whether it makes the story indirect or direct. On page 59 of IR they use some really descriptive details but it's written as indirect because it's in second person, not really saying who this boy is or what he really wants. For example it says "Your mother, horrified, covered your ears and muttered something in Vietnamese, but you pushed her hands away and asked Mr. McCurdy if the body stayed crouched or kneeling afterwards, or if the whooish of the blood made it kick back like a garden hose." This lets us decided if the boy is scared like his mother or if he's interested in seeing what's really going on by using very descriptive details. Reading these stories were different and enjoyable looking at all the details, deciding on indirect and direct point of view.

In all I need to work on keeping my stories that I imitate interesting and stick along the lines of making the stories indirect. Our assignment for this weekend is to pick our favorite short story and break it down into a essay describing what it is and what we can learn from it. I think this should be easier from what we've been asked to imitate because we get to choose our favorite one from anything. Also, when thinking about characterization I need to remember to use both strategies, leaning towards indirect, make sure I show who the character is, using subtle and odd traits. I can somewhat does this but need to remember to show complexity when writing which can help me keep it interesting.