This week we finished talking about Tocqueville and peer editing our poetry. We then read some more of Goldberg's book Writing Down the Bones and have begun to read a packet of short fiction stories. I really like Goldberg's book and have since started to use some of her techniques when it comes to my own writing. I also really really enjoyed reading the packet of short fiction stories. I was not expecting to enjoy them as much as I did in fact.
In Writing Down The Bones, a section in particular that I liked was called "Don't Tell, but show" on page 75. It talks a lot about how when we have emotions, we don't talk about them as much as we express them. Expressing emotions is like describing how you feel without ever saying what the emotion is. Just like how you can sometimes tell someone is upset based on their body language. I love this concept. It helps writing because it teaches you to color your words and really dive deep into making detailed observations, and therefore detailed writing. Details in writing is what gives it its color. I used this technique to try and word how I felt one day without actually saying emotional words. For example "Her brow clenched into the jaw as tears rolled down her hot cheeks." To me this means there is anger and sadness being expressed without ever having to say 'anger' or 'sadness'. Another section I really liked is called "Big Concentration". It talks a lot about how thought is fluid, and so is the universe. We are always moving forward in time, and our thoughts are always digressing to the bigger picture. When you write, it can sometimes become easy to be single-minded and not acknowledge your surroundings. She suggests that in our writing we should add little details about the surroundings to remind the reader that the universe is fluid. It also speaks to a more colorful piece of writing. Her suggestion of bringing up the color of the sky in your piece really resonated with me. I love that image, but I love even more the idea of adding it into a piece about something completely different. I like tiny detail in writing, it catches me and keeps me reading.
The short stories packet is so amazing. I wasn't that excited to read it to be quite honest, but when I read the first story my jaw nearly dropped. I never really thought about the fact that stories can be that short and that captivating at the same time. I always think of short stories as a lot longer than a paragraph. The fact that a small paragraph can be a full story gave me hope! I really liked the first story. It instantly captured my attention because of the images that it evoked. It was really poetic and romantic. I could picture everything it talked about. I truthfully liked every single story in this packet. The other story in particular that extra caught my attention is called "Morning News". This was about a man who got bad news from his doctor about how long he had left to live, and his reflection about what he was going to do when he got home to his wife. I thought it was really sad but had a really humorous end that really illustrated the way life goes sometimes. I got so many feelings from this story. The last story that I want to talk about is called "the letter from home" and is kind of a bunch of tasks listed out in a very descriptive manner. The author lists out literally everything that happens. I thought this was a really cool abstract way to write a story and thought about adopting something similar for my own writing. These stories over all are one of my favorite pieces we have read so far in class. I can't wait to read them over and over and really gather some more thoughts. I don't feel like I have fully digested them yet. Next week I am sure I will have another opinion.
No comments:
Post a Comment