Blog Entries
November 5, 2014
Understanding the importance of ethics in writing The next section on reading is on ethics. As a writer it is important to write a true story so readers will respect you and believe your writing is a true account of events that has occurred. The reading discusses writing true and how the writer should reveal their story and tell it how it is rather than change details. Ethics of writing deals with truth, exaggeration, elaborating, and collapsing time. When it comes to writing you must be aware of what the law says which is different from the ethics. When writing you always need to be cautious of a potential lawsuit resulting if something they write that defames someone's character if it is untrue. Ethics will be an important factor to keep in mind when working on the feature pieces. Though my topic will be on celiac disease, I do not want to misinform readers about the disease or mess up any information in interviews. This will take away from my credit as a writer, and could hard readers and people involved in my written work. September 19, 2014
Mrs. Kelly's Monster Jon Franklin's article was interesting to read. The language he used to write the story kept my interest all the way through. The "terrifying journey through the tunnels of the brain" cam alive with his words. Mrs. Kelly's monster turned out to be a malformation of vessels in her brain that she has lived with for 57 years. The article talks about her surgery procedure of having the 'monster' removed. The way Franklin described it, you can feel Mrs. Kelly's pain as she lived with this monster while raising her children and living her everyday life, and you could feel her fear throughout the surgery. She had to make a difficult decision either to live with the monster or have it removed... Within the article there are bolded quotes that really help them stick out to you as a reader that allows you to related and sympathizes with Mrs. Kelly to feel her emotions. One is "I'm scared to death... but there isn't a day that goes by that I'm not in pain, and I'm tired of it. I can't bear the pain. I wouldn't want to live this like much longer." This quote allows the reader to fear with her, and if you have ever known someone who has gone through a surgery or have gone through one yourself, you will have an easier time reflecting her emotions with yours. By having this quotes stand out, it makes it easier for the reader to fully grasp the full emotion of the story with a quick glance of the page. |
November 21, 2014
Book club: Writing style of Unbroken Concluding the reading of Unbroken and reflecting upon the writing style it made a shift from a profile style to writing about place as Louis had traveled to throughout the war. The book began with a strong start as it started out with a back story of Louis before the war and uses interview to build characters and events. From the beginning Louis' character had developed and it was clear to see that he had a strong future ahead for survival. When the book made the shift to talking about places, it seemed that's when the facts became a prominent aspect of the reading. At this point the story had lost the personal element and I often found myself questioning the truth of events like when Louis had to dodge bombers and fight off the Sharks at the same time. It is a possibility that both of these events had occurred simultaneously but to come out from both of them unharmed seemed a bit much. With Louis as the only survivor, questioning the truth of the events is easy to do. How do we know truth from exaggeration? I feel that the background of being an Olympian helped to find the truth in these events. The average person made not be able to overcome those events and maybe that is the reasoning for Louis being the only one to survive. At the end of the book I was able to connected back to Louis as a character when the author included photos of Louis. Being able to see Louis in life in the photos made a connection of empathy for what he had overcome in the war and make it to the point of survival. The book is going to be a movie so I would be interested to see how the movie tells the story and what is omitted and included to tell the story in film version. While the book seemed to hit upon details that seemed like facts and could have been omitted I feel that the book would have lost a quality if they had been left out. September 29, 2014
Helpful Readings for Drafting From today's readings I would say the most helpful to me in constructing my draft would be the sections on character and voice. In writing this profile essay I think the greatest challenge will be presenting the character of someone in the style of my voice. These sections were great because they discussed the element of character, and how to put the reader in their mind. Doing this in my own voice will be a challenge in itself because I want the reader to be able to connect with the person (character) I am writing about but writing about them in my voice, my words, and from my point of view while trying to stay true to who they are. I believe these two sections are the most helpful for me and I think that after this reading I have a better idea of how I want to draft my essay. |