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- Reading responses must be AT LEAST 350 words.
- Include your full name at the end of your comments. Unnamed comments will be deleted.
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- Reading responses are due by 10pm on the day PRIOR to our discussion of the required reading.
I never considered a short story to be anywhere from 100 to 2,000 words. I just don’t find that amount of space enough to properly flesh out characters and develop sentiment for them. However when it came to writing our own personal creative non-fiction the limit made me really have to hone in on one very particular, very specific moment in time, and it only helped me more!
ReplyDeleteSetting is undoubtedly high on my list when it comes to writing as it is with Starkey. Where you want to take your reader is impacted so much when it comes to that. In addition, the fact that he mentions keeping flashbacks to a minimum, I could not agree more with that. While it may look good as a film adaptation, on the big screen, when you do flashbacks or flash-forwards, you run the risk of losing your reader. I personally like to tell things chronologically, not just for the sake of my audience, but for my own sake.
The three short stories Starkey utilized in the book were great in conveying how there are different structures. Donald Barthelme’s “The Baby” was a short story I found of particular interest. It explains the way characters are meant to be portrayed. Even as the baby in the story is viewed in a negative light he is given a chance to change and become obedient.
In the short story “Marzipan” by Robert Allen, the story was heavy on the dialogue. That to me is one thing I love playing with in my short fiction, for the most part anyway. To get the characters talking with one another and inadvertently inform the reader is genius.
Then of course there’s “Crossing the River Zbrucs” by Isacc Babel. It is filled with description which I personally love, and it’s something to be said of any writer who can take something like the craziness of war and turn it into something like that.
Overall, three excellent pieces of literature all with useful elements I truly hope to be able to incorporate into my own work somewhere in the near future.
-Lucas Zamora
The material in this chapter is primarily dealing with short-short story that is limited to at least 100 to 2,000 words. One form of a short story is fiction. Fiction is something that is made up and untrue. The goal is to reel in the reader’s attention without boring them. You want to engage the reader as much as possible, by creating a vivid picture in the reader’s head. Starkey explains that there are many elements in a short story such as plot, setting, dialogue, etc.
ReplyDeleteI found these three short-short fiction stories very interesting. The one that stood to me the most and what I really enjoyed was “Marzipan” by Roberta Allen. She was able to capture the reader’s attention right off the bat in the beginning of the story. I think she did a great job using a strong dialogue between the two characters. The flow of the writing was very concise and easy to read. The conservation that there having with one another was very appealing. He sparks interest in her and everything seems to be going so well. But as a reader, Allen completely shocks me when she mentions “My mother killed herself in 1978” (Starkey 108). It was pretty unexpected for me as a reader but at the same time I definitely enjoyed reading this piece. Her structure of this piece had great dialogue, she was able to hook the reader with a flashback.
In “Crossing the River Zbrucz “when I read this story, I thought it was very intense since it is dealing with such violence and death that the author portrays a dark atmosphere in a warzone. The author is able to capture the reader’s attention with imagery from the beginning. Even though this is a fiction story Babel leads up to a dark place of reality between man and war. As I read more into this, I felt it was a bit uncomfortable to read this piece but then astonishing at the same time that an author can put such great detail into a story of war. Consumed with violence and death lingering everywhere, the piece that connected with me as a reader “I want you to tell me where one could find another father like my father in all the world!” (Starkey 105) As he ended his piece, I felt like he connected with the reader emotionally. I wanted to know what happened after the woman told the soldier that.
In “The Baby”, this story was one of my least favorites; the baby’s character is portrayed as a bad child in the household despite the parent’s punishments. I mean that is what kids do, they think they can do whatever they want without getting in trouble for it. There are always consequences at the end. The author had me questioning the parent’s mentality towards their daughter. Was it right for them to punish her? In my head, what were they thinking? At the end, I thought it was a dramatic change that the father would rather smash car windows with his infant daughter than punish her.
Overall, from these short stories, I feel from this chapter it has helped me realized to better structure my stories and to be more descriptive for my future pieces of writing in this class.
-Andrea Espericueta
So far I have come to the understanding by reading Starkey’s view about fiction is that it can be similar to creative non-fiction but there are some areas where you can leave stuff in and out. Most importantly a work of fiction means the story is fake and not based on any real events. A non-fiction story is a true story about something that actually happened. There is different ways that can draw a reader into my story, which are by having characters in my short story, a good use of dialogue, a setting where the reader can creatively imagine it. Also there are different ways to portray this fiction story. By point of view, tone, and style I think it all depends on the type of information the author will add. After reading more about what a fiction short piece can be, I learned that it can vary from 100 to 2,000 it all depends on how good of a writer the author can be in grasping the reader onto their story.
ReplyDeleteOne of the fiction short stories I read was “The baby” by Donald Barthelme. I feel like after seeing its title I was anxious in reading it. First I thought to myself it could have been about an exactly baby and many thoughts ran through my mind from just seeing the word “baby”. After reading this piece I liked it because the author didn’t go much into what he was talking about just the fact of the baby ripping pages. I kept thinking to myself how a child could constantly rip pages and get hours in time out and continuously do it. I can say that I enjoyed this short piece because he had me wondering, thinking about something that could not be so true. I would think that when I write my fiction short piece, it would be of the most random idea. It can possibly make the reader confused, like how Barthelme had me or give an impression of wondering what would happen next. Hopefully, it will be great but with the information Starkey added I believe it would be a fun short story to write about.
-Aliza Longoria
From the very beginning I felt that fiction was probably going to be the hardest thing for me to write. Just thinking back to the first day of class I recall feeling nervous especially the idea of writing something false. I don’t think I am very creative much less imaginative and the thought of writing a short story with such limited amount of space to work with really frightens me. One of the first sentences that called my attention as I read Starkey was that a “short-short story” is made of a limited 100 to 2000 words. As I continued reading I was very intrigued by the idea and the methods Starkey provided that help write a short-short story I found it a pleasant reading as it spoke about elements structure and design, point of view dialogue and even characters.
ReplyDeleteThe stories included in the reading this week were all very interesting. I found that the first one “Crossing the River Zbrucz” was kind of a difficult read but I was able to enjoy the story and understand where it was taking place due the detailed area in which the story took place. Second I found it strange but rather enjoyable to learn that the author being Jewish choose to write the story in the point of view of a German soldier. For me that’s a very intelligent way to tell a story. “The Baby” sounds a little terrifying even if the first thing that comes to mind is an actual sweet child. One really creative element I found while reading the story, and is something I can do was the different views he gave. For example, he was not the only one whose feelings we got to see, we got to see the feelings his wife had as well. The ending was splendid, creative writing talks about captivating your audience from beginning to end and this was a great example when at the end the story is changed completely and the dad goes from being “annoyed” to “[sitting] happily on the floor, side by side, tearing pages…”
The most important lesson I take from Starkey in this reading is that fiction is fake and you can tell it how you want, it doesn’t have to be true and therefore I should consider changing be afraid of fiction writing and become excited about experimenting in this new area. He says to write, any good time is a good time.
- Mayra Lopez
Short Short fiction is different from creative nonfiction in that it is expository rather exploratory. Creative nonfiction contained jumpcuts and other techniques the writer used to probe into one’s personal story; short short fiction, while may contain traces of reflection and thoughts, is heavily focused on the structure of the story, its development, and most importantly its execution. As it is summarized by Starkey, “snap, quick turning, surprise: the point is that readers must be left in a different place from where they began (Starkey 102).” It is done so by the various components discussed in the chapter which were: character, setting, plot, and dialogue. The execution of the short short story is about how the conflict of the piece is introduced till its resolution, or denouement (Starkey 113). According to the text, “once you have begun, you will want to make the central conflict immediately present (Starkey 112).” However, from the selection of fiction shared, I believe that once again it remains to the authority of the writer.
ReplyDeleteIn “Crossing the River Zbrucz” by Isaac Babel the conflict establish is occurring in the border region where one side is withdrawing. Conflict in terms of the protagonist (which can be debated as the daughter of the dead man and not the soldier) are not presented till he arrives where he is quartered in. It is visible in the dialogue used: “Clean up this mess!...How can you live like this (Starkey 106)?”
In “Marzipan” by Roberta Allen, the young man meets the girl consuming marzipan and both engage in cute innocent flirting. While some may identify the encounter as conflict driving, I claim it is part of the rising action (Starkey 113). In Marzipan, the conflict is directly located at the moment of climax when the young man shares the death of his mother’s death.
Both stories however, contradict the advice provided which states “once you have begun, you will want to make the central conflict immediately apparent (Starkey 112).” I should not “The Baby” by Donald Barthelme does follow the convention provided as it the main conflict of the child tearing pages from the book, the main conflict, is provided within the first sentences of the story.
To remediate this literary anarchy, I resort to Hemingway’s iceberg theory of character. It was defined by Kim Edwards as “the idea..that what’s unstated must nonetheless exist clearly in the author’s mind for a character to have sufficient depth (Starkey 120).” “Marzipan” and “Crossing the River Zbrucz” did have the sufficient depth mentioned by, but it was accomplished by not making the central conflict “immediately apparent.” Instead they resorted to minor conflicts that alluded to the central conflict.
-Alejandro
AKA El Corazón
The story “Crossing the River Zbrucz” was interesting. First of all, I am really interested in history and this part of history intrigues me reading about Jews and what they went through with the Germans, and anything that consists of the Holocaust. This story was detailed very grimly. I think it was detailed this way because the soldier was the speaker. Everything was in his point of view. Like when he compared the sun to a severed head; he compares these things because that is what he is reminded of. Towards the end of this story I had to read the end a couple of times to figure out that her “papa” was dead besides the soldier. “The baby” was a very strange and annoying thing to read. Annoying in the sense that this father was such a bad parent! How could you leave a baby in a room by herself for so long? A baby cannot understand the rules that a child can. I thought it was unbearable to read until the part where he said that it was okay to rip out pages of books and then to find out they were smashing in windshields. I assume he thought that ripping pages from books and smashing in windshields were at an equivalence? The story “Marizapan” started off intriguing. It quickly drew me in as to what intentions this man had. I felt like he was going to kill the girls but towards the middle of the story I was interested in the stories he was telling the girls. At the end, when he reveals his personal story it made me feel sad for him because he felt like he needed to make up funny or weird stories? Once he was out of stories, it seems like he went into a daze and did not know what else to say. I felt like the author used “in media res” when he starts to describe how the man blanks out. Overall, these stories were interesting but strange. Their plots were all interesting in the sense of how the stories ended. I felt every one of these stories ended either grimly or I was just confused. The techniques that were shown in this book helped me to develop my next stories. It showed me to integrate the plot, characters, descriptions, and how to use Freytag’s pyramid.
ReplyDelete- Cassandra Martinez
As with all writing no matter if its creative nonfiction or a short story to even an essay there are structures and parameters to follow in order to obtain a greater flow of writing in any genre of storytelling. In this case the introduction to short story telling is an interesting case in itself because you have the power to go from beginning to end in a matter of few pages or even just a page. It a depends how to tell the story but also what you want the story to tell. I found it interesting that when you are aware of every instance in the story the term for this type of writing is omniscient, that it’s very difficult not for a reader to follow but to stay engage into the writing. As much as you are the pilot of your writing its very difficult for a reader not to be shocked and awed when there is no way of doing that in this form. You should always be in charge of where your story is headed but you as a writer should even shock and awe yourself as the story is developing. Its very simple to go through the check list of an outline to make sure that your in the right direction but filling up those simple questions as who are the characters, how they can be appealing to the readers are little questions that become tough. You can write about anything in short stories, but the trick is to chronologically put your characters and situations so its more pleasing to read. What gets me thinking is that as different as these stories are fiction inspiration has to come from somewhere. Does the inspiration for this kind of fiction mask a deeper emotion of what these writers are writing. It says that with fiction you should let your characters out of their cage and let them do and be whoever they want to be. That is very true because that is the only way you’re going to get any emotions from them and reactions from the readers. But at what point does fiction connect with nonfiction, is fiction a way of letting out your inner most emotions no matter how raw and disturbing it maybe and calling it fiction is a way of putting this out so they don’t put attention on themselves. If that’s a way to really get out true emotions by fiction than it’s a far deeper tone to a story than just fiction.
ReplyDelete-Victor Vasquez
I greatly admire Starkey s systematic ability to present information. Throughout the read I pictured and built on as many aspects that I could. He touched upon and elaborated on elements of creative writing that I think about and experience but didn't know the exact name for. The information exists in my mind but is more readily available and applicable after reading this. I must confess that I realize how much I accept what I read and don't question. Not whether its true or false, but because I believe I think purely as a reader rather than a writer. I can only speak for myself and not for other readers or writers. When I read, I try to immerse myself in the story and use my vivid imagination to enhance the text and vise versa. I am sure writers do this as well but I believe they are more critical. They isolate details and take apart a story to find the authors thoughts and techniques or lack of. There is a parallel of this in music. Composers write music for an audience. Inevitably among listeners there are other composers. They are well versed in the science and study of Harmony and can enjoy a piece but will also take it apart and understand its structure, form, and intent. I think I will ask more questions when I read these short stories.
ReplyDeleteReading "Crossing the River Zbrucz" was difficult, I did not process every word in the first reading. After the second time I realized taking time to picture and understand every sentence was absolutely necessary. On doing so, the read manifested itself in my imagination. Now, I make sure to look up unfamiliar words. I like that the story ends open ended. What would have the Russian soldiers response have been? Would he feel empathy towards the Jewish woman, or dismiss her question?
"The Baby" was entertaining. I was engaged in the read from the beginning with the conflict between the baby and the father of the child. The end leaves me with the impression that the father is somehow proud of the destructive qualities his child seems to share with him.
The last read "Marzipan" caught me off guard. The change of mood from flirtatious and charming to awkward and creepy was such a drastic and effective transition that moved to story along. I hope to use mood to this effect in my writing.
- Abran Garcia
I enjoyed the breakdown of the concepts of a short story and I agree that a short story is more of a challenge than a novel in that every little part counts. Every word and sentence has to work toward building characters, setting, mood, tone, style, and everything else that makes a story a story. I do like that it’s restrictive nature makes it easier to focus on what it is that you want to write. Personally, I tend to have trouble with being given too much liberty, as I would be in writing a novel, especially a Stephen King or Tolkien sized piece.
ReplyDeleteOf the sample works provided, “Crossing the River Zbrucz” was my favorite in that it provided a snippet of war experiences. No words were wasted as they all served a purpose. I do wish, however, that the last exclamation by the pregnant woman would have been different. It did make me feel for her as it emphasized how noble and selfless her father was, but I expected something more striking. My least favorite was definitely “The Baby.” I did not find it interesting or humorous and quite frankly, I felt I wasted my time by reading it. I’m not being hash on it out of sensitivity, I just saw no point to the story. In contrast to the idea of short stories having no room for waste, I thought this entire story was a waste. I found no redeeming quality in it aside from the fact that it was grammatically correct. “Marzipan” was average to me. It was slightly interesting but I found the man’s confession about his mother’s suicide just too out-of-left-field, if you will, and like it was done just to give the reader something ‘shocking.’ Granted, that is likely exactly what the author was doing, but it was too blatant for my liking. That being said, I did like the functionality of its words, much like “Crossing the River Zbrucz.” I would have like to see an example of a short story with a good amount of dialogue, slightly more than “Marzipan” as I think that would be helpful considering dialogue was sparse in the first two.
Jessica Rodriguez
I had never heard of the short-short story before reading this and found the three model stories given at the beginning of the reading quite enjoyable. And although I understood Babel’s Crossing the River Sbrucz, I think, and appreciated Alen’s Marzipan, it was Bartheime’s The Baby that I enjoyed the most, causing me to laugh out loud upon reaching the conclusion. Which brings up a topic recently discussed in class: conclusion that contains what one student called “a moral”.
ReplyDeleteThere was a lot of disagreement if moral was the right word and ultimately I think we decided that wasn’t really the right word, but for the stories we were discussing, there was always some kind of plot twist at the very end that left us, the reader, wondering. It’s certainly a good ploy at causing resonance and the three pieces we read for this reading response contained such plot twists, or climaxes, or relief, right there at the very end. For Babel, it was the realization that he had been sleeping next to a dead man whose final pleas for shielding his family from his death were unfounded. Allen’s protagonist melts into self-conscious awkwardness at a party by a self-inflicting gunshot to his conversation. And Batheleme ends his facetious piece by disregarding the child’s punishment for untoward behavior and instead joins her in even worse shenanigans. All three compositions ended with what seems to be a necessary ending device that gives the short-short story its merit.
Beyond the three model stories we are given a healthy dose of advice regarding the hallmarks of any fictional narrative which in some ways is tweaked for the short-short story and a couple of things Starkey wrote jumped out at me. Starkey writes, “I advised you to write toward clarity and to revise toward strangeness,” (139) and says that this can be applied to the short-short story as well. I totally agree since what the author may envision as some kind of grandiose, inclusive, head-in-the-clouds abstract piece sure to reader’s imagination often comes across is a whole bunch of nothing. Rather, by one whittling away these things and writing about things exactly, more is related and said, and the reader is that much more affected since they can better relate the event or events to his or her own life.
Starkey’s other point which he wrote of on page 135 about the first-person point of view struck me as particularly astute: “don’t waste time trying to justify your narrator’s behavior; instead, let him or her act in whatever way your story dictates.” While people may indeed care why people may do such and such, a more powerful impact can be made on the reader by allowing him or her to determine these very things themselves. Further, a reactionary means of story development in which the characters themselves or the situation they are in ultimately determines how the plot resolves can produce powerful narratives.
Elizabeth Barham
I loved the way Starkey structured this chapter quite a bit. I enjoyed his introduction of different genres and how they worked or didn’t work in the short-short format. His breakdown of the elements that make up a traditional story (romance, fantasy, horror, etc.) and how they require backstory, which the short-short format simply struggles to provide. Following this, he explains and again breaks down several elements that make up a story. These include components such as point-of-view, setting, dialogue, and even the characters. He goes through each one, defining what they mean so that the reader may fully understand each piece in order to write them as best they can with the limited space they have. In other words, he reiterates the definition of these elements to help the read “shave” off unnecessary information that otherwise take up space and prevent a component to be written stronger. I feel that this is highly effective, as after reading through this and the following more extensive breakdown of each component, I was able to visualize how the writers of the three short stories provided went about creating their pieces. I see where each of them decided each component was strong, despite the length being rather short. Speaking of the extensive breakdown Starkey does, It really caught me by surprise the way in which he wrote this part of the chapter. Besides breaking down each concept and the various parts that make them up, he actually, in a sense, walked the reader through them. He not only spoke of character creation and point-of-view, he also explained the process of creating a character (such as name, motive, etc.) and how each individual point of view excelled in their own way and in what instances they were best utilized. This is something that I must commend Starkey on, as he went above and beyond to help the reader understand each concept at its core and how to actually develop a story from there. Overall, I think this was a well-written and structured chapter, and feel now after reading it, that I will ask the questions he asks the reader when developing a short-short.
ReplyDelete-Pedro Conchas
I found this chapter on Writing the Short-Short Story interesting because when I think of fiction and I think of a short story the first thing that comes to mind is fantasy. Fiction however isn’t solely made up of fantasy. The section pertaining to the elements of fiction were what I found most interesting. Its makes you realize that no matter how creative you want to get making sure your writing has structure is important to ensuring the flow of your paper. This is something I have always known but never took much consideration of its necessity. If my paper isn’t structured well how can it keep the attention of my audience? Not only that, but they wouldn’t be able to fully grasp and understand what I was trying to say. Characters are everything in my opinion. They come alive through the author’s words. Often characters are one dimensional or maybe too overly dramatic that there are unneeded characteristics that take away from the situation in the story. This is another area I lack in my writing. There is so much that goes into making a good character. In my writing although I know who my character is and what I want from them I never quite really give them a background. I know this is something I will be more focused on when I begin a short story or other form of fiction. Dialogue is something that has always interested me, but I have never tried to use in a story. I find the ability to write a dialogue fascinating and would hope that I can do it in the near future. I find the setting to be an integral part to a story to give you a visual of what is happening but sometimes I feel that leaving it out can be an interesting idea. Point of view, tone and style are also engaging features. Its incredible how something as changing the point of view in a story can change the story entirely in every aspect of what was written. I found this whole chapter had a lot to cover on the subject of fiction and short story writing but this particular section really had me responding to how I go about using these tools in my own writing and how I can use them to make it better.
ReplyDelete-Diana Zepeda
Although fiction is everywhere, due to the truth being bent, there are guidelines to follow. Within fiction are genres where there are certain things that should be done when writing. This means when it comes to short-short story there are rules that will make writing that type of genre. There is way a short-short story “should” be constructed, and in the end these types of stories are liked. When it comes to this genre, what can be done in a book with many chapters can happen in six hundred words (Starkey, pg 102). The tricky part is having to capture readers with little to say, but is beneficial to someone who is unable to read a whole novel. Like writing a genre, like that of Game of Thrones, would be impossible to capture all the fantasy on a page. Starkey uses three short-short stories to demonstrate different elements. The first, Crossing the River Zbrucz, is written in first person, it drags in readers with the character, structure, setting, point-of-view, the history, and it descriptive details. The Baby is about a misbehaving child and was able to capture the disciplining parents. The last story, Marzipan, has two characters with a lot of dialogue. All stories were unalike in their own way, and though one is probably preferred over the other, people have their own taste and someone is bound to like one of them. They would agree that the story that they like, was able to capture their attention, the way a short story should.
ReplyDeleteSandra Melaine Villarreal
The assignment I have been looking forward to the most since day one, was writing our short fiction or flash fiction piece. Mostly, because I love writing fiction. Though I will admit that I did have more fun writing the creative nonfiction piece than I thought I would. But, writing fiction is just something that I will always claim to be my niche, whether it's true or not to other people. In these last few years I have published some of my works online. Now, before this class I have never read anything that properly taught me the do’s and don'ts of writing fiction. So as i read the chapter it was nice to see that I was doing some of the things right. And while reading the chapter, I found myself nodding and smiling at the checklist of what you should do. A checklist of which I agree should be the foundation for everyone who sets of a goal to be a writer for fiction.
ReplyDeleteI have always known that there are three kinds of POVs: first, second and third. For me personally, I prefer to write in third person. And I sort of never noticed that I wrote that way too. Which sounds kind of weird to just realize that now, but it's true. When I was reading the section concerning point of view, it spoke of the third- person with omniscient point of view, and how we are the “God” over the story we’re telling. This is the POV I usually write my stories in. I rarely write in first person and I've never honestly tried second person. I hope that i'll get the chance to branch out it seems like a challenged i'd actually enjoy doing.
One of my favorite things about writing fiction is coming up with the dialogue. In the passage it was mentioned that it was like the characters were dictating. I have to say, at least for me that it's so very true. When I imagine what I want to write, I see the whole scene as a movie happening in my head and I just write down what I see.
-Victoria Walls
'm usually very interested and enjoy why Starkey writes based on what he wrote about creative writing and nonfiction. However, I don't think he got the full essence of what fiction is and what it brings to the table. He did mention what fiction consists of, but I was hoping for more detailed and imagination. Perhaps I'm a little biased because I particularly enjoy fiction the most because it is without a doubt my favorite genre. It enables the writer, and reader for that matter, to open their imagination to new horizons. It's a way to tell a story the way we want to tell it instead of stating events that happened. I rather question and explore someone's imagination through their writing instead of just reading facts and events that happened. Why? Because I believe that for a lot of people, including myself, fiction is a way to describe how we feel by creating a whole new world of our own. My favorite types of nonfiction are paranormal or horror stories where I try to entertain the readers and make them feel scared or at least entertain them to keep reading.
ReplyDeleteJust like Isaac Babel, I believe most fiction writers aspire to make the readers "catch their breath in the final sentence". In other words, keep them entertained and try to place the images you thought of while writing to their own heads.
There are a lot of ways to write fiction, from parody, horror, to just exaggerating actual events that happened. Fiction also allows you to create your own characters and setting that could be the opposite of what we see every day.
Erik Ramirez
This chapter focuses on the short-short story. According to Starkey, it should be less than 1000 words, and there are plenty of considerations listed to write a story like these. Given the short amount of writing space, one has to take in consideration the focus on catching the reader’s attention. The story is usually fiction, and the beginning, middle and end have to be well balanced, and carefully structured in terms of chronological design. To me what is most important is the point of view, tone and style as a reader. However as a writer I would probably enjoy best defining the characters, and the setting. But it is quite a challenge to combine these things right and put it into a plot, and have it come out right. It is not so bad, but it might take practice to master and polish, in my opinion. One thing that I am not familiar as a writer is the dialoguing, which is another essential to the short-short. I have read plenty of dialogues, but it was not until recently, I had to establish a point, by describing, and writing a very short dialogue. I found it quite challenging. I had to focus on the timing and the content at the same time.
ReplyDeleteAlso, another feature of the short-short is the climax, as in any other story, there is a need for the most sensitive, maximum attention part to the story. In the examples “the baby, marzipan, and crossing the river” is very clear how either descriptive, and to the point one has to be with respect to limit. I find this very challenging. What I mean is, trying to write a very short story where you want to illustrate a character as much as possible, in order to establish a mentality or thought onto the reader about the particular character, in addition to the dialogue. Because you want the reader to catch the idea, the intention, or personality, right the first time!!! Starkey mentions about being careful with content and not deviating from the subject, such as writing a comment in the middle that could ruin a full story.
Francisco J. Aboytes
In the second chapter of his book, Starkey develops the theme of short stories and walks the reader through the uniqueness of this writing style. I find it very interesting how authors are able to express themselves through a finite space as short stories are written. Starkey portrays the elements of fiction including point of view, tone, style, setting, dialogue, character, and structure through selected readings.
ReplyDeleteThe first one is titled “Crossing the River Zbrucz” by Russian author Isaac Babel. One of the characteristics of fiction found in this reading is greatly exemplified through the descriptive language, particularly when the author describes the setting. Starkey strategically chose this piece, I think, to expose the reader to a brilliant prose. For instance, the reader is raveled in the diction when Babel described the scenery found by the treacherous Zbrucz. In fact, the reader is left to juggle with powerful adjectives and active metaphors as Babel paints the “banners of the sunset” while adding an aggressive personality to the “blackened Zbruccz” as it “roars and twists” (104). Easily, Babel could have written, “and there was a long river which we all crossed.” Instead, the author raptures the reader into this staggering setting creating a tense atmosphere since its narration. To add an artistic touch, Babel’s story is written in present tense and so the reader as no other option but to accompany the author in this adventure. It is fascinating to read how the dialogues are intertwined superbly as if the story was live, actively occurring.
As Starkey presents the reader a new story, the reader is left to grip on to some sort of literary breath. In “The Baby,” the author Donald Barthelme writes in practical terms as he develops his witty narrative. I couldn’t stand reading through the first paragraph because the author plays with a theme and seems to enjoy writing about it. It is nerve wrecking to read about the punishment of a 14 month baby tearing pages (as a baby should do). Now, I think Barthelme purposefully wrote cynically as a means to unfold this otherwise boring text.
Following Barthelme’s narrative, Starkey introduces a plot-twisting story titled “Marzipan” by Roberta Allen. It’s interesting to note how “normal” the story begun with an encounter with a young Englishman. Nevertheless, Allen contrasts the positive flow of the story with the latter melancholy in a way that the reader would have not predicted.
In all, Starkey desires is to stir a sense of wonder through these texts and analyze the individual components that make creative unique. A particular writing component that drew my attention is the power of our tenses and I could not find a better example than Babel’s narrative. If this story would have been written in past tense, the intensity of the drama would have not perhaps been the same. There is just something about throwing the reader in the present that awakens the reader and resurrects the text.
- Julio Manzano
When short-shorts were mentioned in this reading it was on page one-hundred and I thought it was a misspelling because it said “writers of short-shorts must also consider…” I pictured clothing and thought it was random. As I read more into it I was educated on the main criteria of creating short-shorts. I like the point that was made in this reading that it is not easy to create these short stories. I enjoy creating short stories, but it is always difficult to figure out what is worth writing and showing the readers. I agree that we often have a short attention span including myself so short-shorts are perfect when sharing a story to your readers. When reading stories, we are accustomed to happy endings or resolutions. I’ve learned from this reading that it would impact the reader more if your story allows the reader to interoperate in more than one way.
ReplyDeleteWhen reading Donald Barthelme “The Baby,” it has an ending that can be interpreted in different ways. I like how this story made me feel emotion toward the treatment of the baby’s punishment. Even thought it was not physical abuse, I feel that mental abuse is worse. Barthelme’s ending for his story threw me off because they were stern on their rules for the four hour punishment of the baby. I thought that the baby was going to die from not eating a healthy amount. Having the parents give in at the end made all their work pointless and made me feel relief but confused on their bad parenting. I never stopped reading this story because of the suspense Barthelme created. I wanted to know how the story was going to end, and that is what is most important when creating stories because it keeps you reading and thinking.
Marzipan by Roberta Allen has a well written structured story, by starting the first sentence with imagery, taste, and a scene. In this reading I like the point that was made on page 112 on why the author didn’t go into detail about the girl, and the reason being is because it would take away from the story. I’ve learned that if you can’t describe your story in a few sentences then you don’t know your story well enough to be talking about it.
Bianca Salinas
There are many types of stories writers can use in order to create their own works. To me, it is whatever they feel truly strong in and are able to express what they want. In today’s reading, I believe that the first part of the chapter was giving the readers (myself and everyone in class) something to think about when writing a short story. It can basically be anything, such as fiction or nonfiction. To me when writing a short story they are mostly fiction and when they are, like in the book there is a structure to it because you only have limited amount of time and also length to accomplish what you want to get across. Just by reading the short stories provided in the reading, to me they had a structure that fit when creating short stories. In the structure of these stories they are able to express the characters, give what he story is trying to get across and also provide much entertainment to the audience despite them being short. To me, when writing a short story, you are limited and you must use that limitation to the best of your abilities. And also the most challenging thing to me is creating the character and because of the limitation is is hard to be able to express who these characters really are but you can through their actions. As you continue to write your own short story you must be able to write the point of view of the story and also have dialogue in it a well. To me, with a short story this can be accomplished when someone knows how to do it and make it interesting enough for the reader to continue reading it. When having limitations especially when you do not know if you are getting your point across in the story and if you are able to finish it with a proper ending, to me you have talent. When having no limitations in the story, the author is free to continue to drone on and on about what is going on in their plot. But with someone who gets the point and is able to entertain the reader and get their point across as well in a short story, that is talent and that is someone that can write anything wonderful.
ReplyDelete- Andrea Serrano
In this new bracket of writing technic, I read in Starkey about Creative writing in fiction. What I loved is that Starkey said, “Fiction are everywhere.” Which is so true. Creative fiction is the creative writing that flows from a make believe world that is all the writers own. This is my favorite form of writing. So as I read this passage I read with anticipation and excitement. I found it interesting that Starkey said poems and dramas also fall under creative fiction writing as well. I never thought about it before, but it makes sense. So maybe this will open up my writing world to those two creative writing technics as well. I think my favorite quote from the reading was, “The moment you begin to feel the urge to string words together into a story, go for it.” (102). What a true statement! When we are given a creative splurge or an idea or the motive to write something presents itself in our mind we need to put pen to paper or start to type away to let the creative spirit flow within us. If we don’t the moment could pass the magic is gone and you won’t remember what life changing writing you could have written down. As a creative writer I need to learn that on fiction writing; do not get carried away or sloppy. When writing fiction it feels like there are fewer boundaries, when in reality you still have to follow a typical writing structure; beginning, middle, end. Without a good form of structure and breaking typical writing rules you could lose your audience and readers in the process, and they wont be able to follow your fiction piece. We need to treat fiction writing with as much grace as we would poetry, as much research as we would non-fiction, and as much passion as we would a drama piece. Fiction is not a careless writing piece; it has just as much potential and meaning as the others. I noticed that fiction also has more to do with structure and design. While non-fiction uses the same or similar technics, fiction uses it to keep the audience in the made up world the writer has put together.
ReplyDeleteClaria Buddle
Before reading this section, the short story had a very loose definition in my mind. It was something like: shorter than novel, but not as long a novella. This was a very unhelpful and vague defintion. Furthermore, I remember reading in a class once that Edgar Allen Poe had thought that the ideal length of a short story was a body of work that a reader could finish in about an hour. To hear that short story may span from as short as few hundred words to two thousand words, is surprising. It is amazing that a work only three hundred words might be considered fit for publication, but this is how it is, and it is true. The examples of short story included in this section were examples of the different lengths of short stories because all three were relatively short. (There are even shorter short stories out there, though!) Learning about important things that go into short story writing like how to create characters that do something within a limited reading session was very helpful interesting. Because the writer does not have a whole novel to develop and flesh out a character, they must insinuate and infer and hint - or they may outright say. Making characters for a short story, and how the writer would treat and use those characters, would be different than in a novel. Although the writer may develop and have a whole background for a character, because of the limited word space, they may not get to share this with the reader. They must work with and around this. That does not mean that the characters may not in a change in a short story, either. Dialogue is one way that characters may experience change, good or bad. Conversations between characters may encourage character growth: resolution of old wounds, peace with death, or finding the silver lining in dark times.
ReplyDelete-Doris Tolar
Something about this chapter made me hate writing if only briefly. It reminded me about the about trust and how as a reader, we often have to question everything in a work. Has anyone read Lolita? If you have, then you know what I’m talking about. You have to question everything the author is telling you about the actions and the motives. Sometimes you have an unreliable narrator and you have to be prepared for that. Anyway, I think that anything I wanted to say has already been covered by my peers. Again, the author provides an exceptional chapter for the students to understand using various examples.
ReplyDeleteMaria Fajardo
ReplyDeleteSomething about this chapter made me hate writing if only briefly. It reminded me about the about trust and how as a reader, we often have to question everything in a work. Now, I’m not saying that it is bad but it just reminds me that as a reader, I have to be careful and as a writer, I should learn from their example. Has anyone read Lolita? If you have not, I highly recommend it. It is probably one of the most beautiful works of literature out there. There is a reason why people feel so conflicted about loving this book and it certainly has something to do with the Nabokov’s beautiful prose. If you have, then you know what I’m talking about. You have to question everything the author is telling you about the actions and the motives. Sometimes you have an unreliable narrator and you have to be prepared for that. Anyway, I think that anything I wanted to say has already been covered by my peers. I’m not really conflicted about the word limit because 200-1000 words is more than enough to tell a compelling story. If that’s not enough then you can always compress and get rid of everything that is useless to the main story. I think that a writer that is really hard because we all want to think that everything we write is of significance but sometimes we lose too much time and effort developing something that could be expressed in a few words instead of dedicating it paragraphs. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this area of writing since I don’t think my style of writing translates well to short story. I know that if I write too much on something I’ll get frustrated with word count and write nonsense just to get it over with. I think that the main reason why writing short stories is hard for me is because I don’t like the rules. Although not as annoying as playwriting, short stories require something that I think I don’t have. Again, the author provides an exceptional chapter for the students to understand using various examples.
Maria Fajardo