Three Makeup Reading Responses

Got a tad behind on reading responses! One of these is for the week of (3/21/11) and the next two are from last week (3/28/11)


Steering The Craft Chapter 3

   Chapter three is all about sentence length. I find myself varying on sentence length occasionally when I'm writing something, but I think I should take it into greater consideration from here on out. I believe I have always understood the theory of sentence length having great impact on my work, but I have not given it enough attention in the past. Ursula K. LeGuin said that "Prose consisting entirely of short, syntactically simple sentences is monotonous, choppy, a blunt instrument." While I agree with this statement for the most part, I find myself recalling a short story that I wrote. In my story, I was trying to play up a little "emotionlessness" and felt that short sentences did the work for me. I guess this is one of those rules that are allowed to be broken occassionally! Otherwise, short sentences just remind me of third grade. On the opposite side, I find long sentences exhausting. I skim them so rapidly that I miss half the beauty of the words. The example from Jane Austen's Mansfield park really is a beautiful piece, but I would be able to follow and appreciate it better if it was broken up in a few places. Just my oppinion. :)


Steering the Craft Chapter 5

  This chapter was on Adjective and Adverb. The exercise that we did in class oracticing this was one of the most effective exercises I have ever done. Though I wasn't thrilled with the outcome of what I wrote, I saw the effectivenss of the adjectives and adverbs that I chose. To be honest, I didn't even realize what I was doing. I was just changing words here and there, not entirely seeing the effect until after a couple of different themse. Another reason I enjoyed the exercise was because I find myself writing in the same voice with a lot of my prose pieces. Though I do believe consistency is a good thing--too much is simply too much. This exercise allowed me to play a little with my voice, which I found very helpful. A good point that Ursula K. LeGuin had in the book was the overuse of adjectives like "great" and adverbs like "suddenly" had cause them to really lose their meaning. I never really lean towards the word "great" but I know without doubt that I have used "suddenly" in a cheesy fashion. I love how LeGuin says that "somehow" is a weasel word. I agree one million percent! In tutoring, I've read the "somehow" sentences that students have written in their essays. These sentences are weak--just make up something for goodness sake! ;)


Steering the Craft Chapter 6

   Chapter six in entitled, "Subject Pronoun andVerb." The first section of this chapter is about passive voice. This is something else that I may have neglected in past writing. The book later discusses verb tense. This is something that I take a bit to the extreme. I absolutely love writing in present tense. Something about it seems more alive and genuine. Writing in present tense is more natural to me...I have to force myself to write in past. But I also love reading books in present tense, too. It's always somthing that stands out to me.
   The book then addresses person of the verb. The exercise we did in class on this was loads of fun. I have known for a while, though, that I perfer writing in first person. However, I thought it was fun playing around with third and second persons (especially snce I had never tackeled second person before). The hardest part in writing a story or a novel in first person is that you have to solve ever problem you create with one character, whereas with third person, the reader is able to see different perspectives and learn about situations before the main character sometimes. I have read books that are in first person where the author still jumps around to other characters to avoid this problem. (I actually even did it myself once.) Later, I felt like this was almost cheating. The beauty of first person is that readers feel more intimate with the main character. When the author abandons him even for a brief while, that connection is lost.