Final Paper

Esthetics Essay

By Matt Carroll

           

This semester was very interesting because of the wide variety of stories we’ve read, the advice given in workshops, and the exercises done in class. There have been numerous tools I’ve learned that helped improve my writing.

 

Structure

            When looking back on my first story at the beginning of the semester Paying the Toll, I realized how underdeveloped it was. It lacked a proper structure that could help advance the story the way I meant it to. I thought one of the more interesting stories that helped me realize how important structure was Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. O’Brien had a different style than anything I’d read before. He used repetition to his advantage and everything he put in his story had a significant meaning. Every phrase either developed the story or foreshadowed something that was referred to later. Also, O’Brien is very good at writing something and then proving it like on page 478 “The things they carried were largely determined by necessity.” He later proved this by using the title line they carried and he would give an example of the function of the object in the soldier’s life.  

            When I wrote the story Memoir I had a few of those ideas in mind. It was the first time in class that I had a good story arch. I felt my structure was better than the previous stories I wrote. I determined that if I mentioned a briefcase in the first act of the story that it, much like a main character, needed to play an important role in the third act of the story. The difference between the first draft of Memoir and the second draft was my ability to create a functional world. Part of this is attention to detail and learning how to read as a critic.

 

Learning to Read

            I am a Psychology major, and in this section of academia I’ve read studies that are peer-reviewed articles on a topic with thick terminology. Writing can be very plain, technical, and straightforward. The best part of this class was the wide variety of stories that made me question structure and the intentions of the writer. Usually when I read something I take it at face value and I suspend my disbelief to enjoy the story. In this class I was able to question what the writer was doing and the universe the writer created.

            I think I didn’t really start doing this until we met the visiting writers. It was a great thing for my writing to meet these men because they talked about why they wrote their stories the way they did, as well as their intentions. I think the first time I truly starting reading and writing with a critical mindset was with Roald Dahl’s Taste. If I were to read this story with the mindset I had before meeting the writers I don’t think I would have enjoyed how well Dahl knew his material on wine tasting, the fine details that impressed me, as well as the little things he mentioned in the beginning of the story, such as the quiet server, that had a huge impact at the end of the story, like the server revealing the protagonist’s plot. Between the visiting writers and Taste I felt like I could sit down and read something, see the tiny clues the writer leaves in the first act, and use that in my own writing. In my revision of Memoir, the writing due the week of the Dahl reading, I felt like I really used this new revelation to my advantage. I mentioned the main characters forgetfulness, his wife away on business, and other small details about the briefcase that become major factors in the third act of the story. I felt like I could design a story better after that week of class.

 

Exercises in Class

            How Much Do You Know About Your Characters? Before I read that in class assignment I couldn’t recall my main character’s birthday or favorite color. I thought this was a great exercise and I really used it when I designed my characters in my main project Sunsets on the Far Side of the World. When writing about any of the characters in this story I felt like I had a good grasp on who they were, an intimate grasp that helped me relay to the reader what I tried to portray. In my story I mention that Edmond is the type of guy who can’t cut a loss. I then “Find the bruise and put my thumb on it,” which is something I really tried to use with most of my writing now. The “bruise” idea ties directly into some of the aforementioned ideas about using the little things in writing to reveal import things in the climax of your story arch.

            The second set of exercises on facial expression using comic book techniques was very interesting. I’m a comic book buff (Anything X-Men and Batman usually work for me) and it makes sense for a writer to be able to visualize what happened in a scene. To show an expression instead of revealing it is much more powerful. In my revision of Memoir I try to do this, and there were some parts of Sunsets on the Far Side of the World, where I felt I really grasped that idea. I plan on using the exercise we did in class later on in Sunsets: “They watched him step off the ship with eyes wide open and pupils dilated, mouths rounded like the barrel of a smoking gun, and foreheads wrinkled as their heads slightly tilted back to sit squarely on their tensed shoulders,” whereas before I would have simply wrote they were surprised to see him.

 

Most Influential Story

            My main project is Sunsets, and I think the most influential story read in this class was The Master of Monterey By Lawrence Coats. I started reading the book at the beginning of the year and I thought it was unfortunate it took me so long to read because of time constraints until I looked at the division of the book as short stories. After that I really savored the book.

            The reason why the book was so influential on my writing is because it takes something that is very real and believable and puts a twist of fantasy and fiction to it. That’s what I wanted to try and capture when I wrote Sunsets, I wanted a world with fantasy aspects to become believable. An example of this was the description of the unusually tall Commodore with a “question-mark shaped body.” Other examples included Hannibal Memory’s unusually obese body, or the description of Arcadia and her family history with the bull. I also liked the style Coates used in his writing.

            In the future I would love for my writing to be similar in style to John Cheever’s. Good-bye, My Brother had a great writing style I will use as inspiration in my future writings. His writing was elegant, understandable, and revealed character through the character’s actions. An example of this was the separated sibling, Lawrence, watching everyone play backgammon. Cheever showed the family tensions through one night of backgammon and he also revealed something about each character and their tie to the family in these actions.

 

Workshops

            I thought the workshops were a great tool to improve my writing. In the span of the semester I had four opportunities to have my writing workshopped. This was a valuable tool for the class because style problems, punctuation, grammar, and other errors were pointed out. The most valuable part of the workshops was the gentle-constructive criticisms that helped me pay attention to the small details of a story. As Lawrence Coates mentioned in his presentation: research and the details of writing help portray the story the way you want.

            The biggest lesson I learned from these workshops are to “Keep your thumb on the bruise” when you write, story arch, and personally I learned how bad grammar and punctuation can really impact (badly) what your readers think of your writing. Everyone in the class was so kind at pointing out the errors, and they were really helpful, but it made me realize that to be a good writer you have to be a student of English theory, criticism, and the technical parts of writing the language. 

critical response #9

I liked “Phone Tag” that Max wrote. I really liked the style in which part of the story was written. It was clever to tell a good chunk of the story through a character checking his voicemail messages after work and waiting for the elevator. I thought the character development of Chuck could have been better and the plot explained better. From the first part of the story I thought that Chuck was a quiet and passive guy who then later ends up playing an elaborate prank on the narrator. It seemed out of character but maybe if later on Chuck’s different personalities are discussed it could make the prank and his actions before that seem more realistic. The plot seemed to jump from one scenario about a peaceful man at work to that of a man who carries a gun and empties his briefcase so as not to be identified if his body is found at the scene before jumping into a taxi to go kill the man that he believes has kidnapped his family. This explaining would make the story a lot stronger. But I like the voice the narrator has throughout the story. It was fun to read and it kept me on my toes.

Critical Response to Elephants in Our Bedroom

Critical response to Michael Czyzniejewski’s

Elephants in Our Bedroom

           

The author (I’ll refer to Michael Czyzniejewski as the author because it’s such a long last name) uses many useful tools in his collection of short stories that I can use in my own writing. The author uses symbolism and foreshadowing in his writing. A great example of this is the title story Elephants in Our Bedroom.

In the beginning the author notes the elephant he received and placed in his bedroom, but then he describes the main character of the story and his wife. The man buys a dog and then his wife forces him to get rid of it. In the end the elephant is the tension between the man and his wife. The author uses many tools in this story. One is foreshadowing in the beginning of the story about the elephant that is brought up in the end. A second tool is metaphor. “I play games with the elephant when my wife is in the room, hoping she’ll take notice, say something, something to initiate dialogue” (Czyzniejewski, 43). The metaphor, or symbolism, is the actions of the man with the elephant. He is acting out to get the attention of his wife, but it’s impossible. Another great tool the author uses is what I like to call the “Snowball effect,” and by this I mean the momentum be builds in his stories.

The author begins the story in a normal fashion. It seems like a normal story about a man who buys a dog and then is forced to get rid of it. The story turns into hyperbole about a man who has an elephant in his bedroom to capture his wife’s attention. The opening story has a similar format in Wind. In this story, about a man watching his child and the child gets hurt, the author establishes a somewhat normal, but that world is changed as the background of the man is described with his absurd family. Once again the author uses a technique where he mentions something in the beginning that isn’t resolved until the end.

Prison Romance was a really interesting story. This was a little more serious than some of the other stories. I felt it was ambiguous and didn’t really have a true ending, but I thought it worked as a short story. It captured what a restricted, or long distance, relationship sometimes feels like. I felt like this was an experimental story, and it showed me as a beginning writer that a story can capture one feeling and you can lack a complete story arch if you do it right. IT’s like we talk about in class, know what the rules are and if you’re able to break them and get away with it, then it’s a great story. Prison Romance is a great example of this.

Sleeping Through Starvation had a very good comical part to it. “In the office, I ask my doctor what he thinks, his index and middle finger in my ass. . . One ape in a lab in Korea puts the round peg in the round hole. . . .” (Czyzniejewski,158). I thought this was a great line in the story. This story is similar to the others in the book because the author established something in the beginning, the man going to the doctor, then diverts the reader’s attention to something else, his child, then reverts to the beginning story mysteriously. 

There are a few things I can take from this book of short stories. The first is that foreshadowing and symbolism, much like the Coats’ story, is very important and a great tool to keep a reader’s attention. It teases the reader to bring something in at the beginning, go away from it for awhile, and then refer back to it in the end. Also, like in Sleeping Through Starvation, sometimes not explaining the joke, or leaving it open ended, is more powerful than outright saying it.

I really liked the author’s stories. They touched on real life problems and situations and put a humorous touch on them without demeaning the problems. It was a fun book to read and very well written. I also thought the author’s use of very short sentences and “run-on” sentences helped capture what the story was about. The stories read like someone who was sitting down with a friend and explaining what happened. 

Critical Response 5: Kady Oliker

Response to Allyson’s Long story
Overall I enjoyed this story because I could relate to it being in college. We’ve all had those nights where fast food sounds absolutely amazing at two in the morning. My only problem with this story was where it begins. I think there is too much back story going on with the three characters. I’m not saying to completely cut out the back stories because they are key in understanding why these people are the way they are. I’m just saying that you should intertwine the stories into the story more than just blatantly putting them at the beginning. I think you should actually start the story in the car. That’s the one scene that really caught and held my attention. The first time you wrote this, I liked it but I wanted to know about the whole car situation. I was really excited when I got to read it again, but the car scene seemed the same and I want to know more.
I also think that the ending could be a little more discrete. Even if you want to teach your reader a moral, don’t make it so obvious; it sort of reminds me of a childhood book that ends with “and the moral of the story is…” Overall I really enjoyed your characters. I feel like you really got to know them and got inside their heads; but it might be kind of cool to get into the head of the driver to put in what kinds of things that he has stashed in his car. Maybe some kind of weapon because he’s a very untrusting person?

Critical Response 7:Kady Oliker

Response to Christina Ledesma's long story.

I really enjoyed reading Unexpected by Christina. i felt like i was almost in the hospital and in the car with the girl. The description was very life like. I loved the part in the story when the girl is getting ready to enter the clinic and she looks at the Rosary hanging from her mirror and rips it off. I feel like she could emphasise a little bit more on this just because it is such a profound moment and revelation in the story. I also really liked how every paragraph started with "you were unexpected," it made it feel like a poem to me and I really enjoyed reading it that way.
Another part that really caught and held my attention was the very end when you think she is going to go through with the abortion. I thought she acutally would, and the beginning took on a whole new meaning to me because I thought that this was her second child. But then at the very last second, the story twists and you realize she doesn't go through with it and I thought that was written very very well. Overall I really enjoyed reading this story, it captivated me the entire time I was reading it.

Response to Christina Ledesma’s “Long Story”

Very effectively written. I never questioned the world that the author created, never had trouble suspending my disbelief, even though a lot of details like names of people and places had been obscured or buried in the text, I still felt like the story was about very real people in a very real world. Small details and humor (don’t get food from trucks with kitchens) fleshed out the story without becoming it’s focus. All of this helped me to feel for the narrator during the last scene, and have an emotional investment in the story. Really, the only thing that has me conflicted about the story is the last couple of sentences. It’s abrupt, and I feel like I’m falling off of a bit of a cliff at the end, but on the other hand, I’m not sure where else there would be to go with the story, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing to be left wanting to read more. On a smaller not, the last two sentences shift from addressing the baby directly to referring to it in the third person. It might give a little more punch to the end if the narrator addresses her child directly, as she had done before.

Response to Kelly Hanken’s “The Wolf In Trouble, Pt. 1”

The vampire-related areas of the story are very well thought-out, with a lot of detail, and an entire social structure that follows a logic within the story that I can easily buying into. In a lot of other areas, the story feels a bit vague, and while I think all of the plot-point and the action of the story is very compelling and makes for interesting reading, I’m having trouble getting an image of the world in which this is happening. I know that it’s taking place in a city with a college and a party scene at night (for some reason I think of Europe, I don’t know why), but I don’t know what city, or even what country/continent. This could be a good device for the story (the vampires could be in any town, on any continent, maybe right next door), but right now it’s too vague, and I’m having trouble believing in the town as a real place.

I also wonder how the story might be different if it were told from the 3^rd person instead of the 1^st. Right now, as a reader, I’m privileged to all of the thoughts in the protagonist’s head, and I get dropped into the story with an understanding of all the relationships and rituals of this vampire world, which doesn’t leave a lot of mystery. On the other hand, if I was seeing the scene at the bar as a casual observer, I’d have a lot more questions about what was going on, and be a lot more frightened by the strange behavior from the protagonist and his posse as he tried to pickup a girl at a club.