There are a couple of pieces in the reading for this week that have changed the way that I
think about story writing forever. I feel like these two sections on
“structure” and “quality” were much more helpful to me in my
writing than was Franklin's entire book Writing for
Story.
In the “structure” section, it was a short little piece called
“Narrative Distance” by Jack Hart that really conveyed the
importance of putting the reader in the shoes of the story's
protagonist. Many of the pieces echoed the notion that it is
important to make readers feel sympathy for the main character early
in the story and Hart gives us the tools to do this. In his little
blurb, he essentially rewrites the same sentence three times, but
each time he zooms in the camera a little bit more to make the
perspective more personal. I found that when I read the version of
the sentence that was the most focused, it spoke to me much more than
a disinterested narration from across the room. It was in this moment
that I realized I needed to apply these same techniques to my own
story. I had previously included dialog by Lillie and given
descriptions of her, but I don't think I had truly let them get
inside of her head. I decided to use my interview with her boyfriend,
Chris, to try and figure out more about this person who he himself
called “mysterious.” He told me about a few instances when he has
been with her and people make comments about her hair and the
emotional reactions that she has. This is something that she has
never mentioned to me directly and it was great to get a new
perspective. I incorporated some of Chris' dialog into my revised
version of the story and I hope that it is working to improve the
piece as a whole.
The
piece that stuck out to me the most in the “Building Quality”
section was “Sequencing: Text as Line” by Tom French. Throughout
his entry, he uses writing examples from David Finkel to show what
makes good story writing. I was previously familiar with David
Finkel, since I read his book The
Good Soldiers
(about US soldiers in the Middle East) during the summer before my
sophomore year. To this day, it remains one of my favorite
journalistic books because he makes the scenes come alive to the
reader. Example after example, French showed how Finkel chooses
seemingly small aspects of a larger conflicts and puts them at the
center of his story. He puts value on the small details and believes
that these things can speak volumes when places within a larger
context (a war, an economic downturn, etc). In my revised draft, I
have tried to hone in on descriptiveness in the hopes that the story
comes more to life. Having said that, I think I need to go further
for the final draft. I want to select a scene from her life and
describe it so that the reader can get an idea of where she comes
from and how that has shaped her worldview. I am looking forward to
the last revision and this week's reading have helped me a lot to
re-envision my piece.
I found Hart's section interesting as well and thought it was something I need to work to apply to my own writing more. The refocusing of the sentences was great to compare how to attract and inform your readers fully. I hope to include some more of these elements as I continue revising.
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