Three Reading Responses (make up)

Here are three reading responses in one—all revolving around chapter 10. 600 words. Ugh. : p

 Crowding and leaping—two techniques that I had never considered until this chapter of Steering the Craft. Ursula K. Le Guin in reference to crowding says, “It’s what we mean when…never use ten vague words where two will do.” I am guilty of overcrowding.  I remember once in high school a friend was editing a manuscript of mine and she crossed out words that were “unnecessary.” I didn’t understand her logic—I thought more words meant longer and that longer meant better. Through this class, I’ve begun to realize that I actually prefer to be shorter. I thought about what would I like, as a reader. I am drawn to shorter stories and poems, and I think most people would agree there. I have discovered I have short tolerance when it comes to short stories or poetry. When I wrote my first short story for this class, I was working toward page length and trying my hardest to make it long. I look back on that particular short story and am really embarrassed by it. I know there was some great use of language imbedded in it, but the story itself was cliché. I remember then one day when I was writing another story and happened to be short on time. That short story ended up being only a page long—but it’s one of my favorites that I have written. I’m learning that length really almost means nothing….and perhaps the shorter, more concise, less wordy a story or poem is—then all the better.

Leaping is the technique that I am making myself familiar with. I have a fear of confusing my readers. I know a lot of times I will let my parents or friends read some of the pieces I have written and I get the typical, “It’s great! But I have no clue what you’re talking about.” I get really frustrated when that happens, so I then try to include details and make my message clearer. I’ve realized lately that sometimes details make a short story messy and really cliché. A lot of times my explanations are outright boring, and really don’t even help with the story. Sometimes the reader doesn’t want to know why Bill just walked into the bank…they want to know the action—what is he doing? What does it look like? Where is the action? When practicing leaping, certain “unimportant” informational details are left out so that the story can progress. I all actuality, I think this technique is one of the best that I have learned in this class. I’m learning what is important to leave in my pieces, and what I can do without. Crossing out portions of my work sometimes is really painful…taking all the time to write something to simply discard seems like a waste of time. I was mulling this over when I started to consider my English Classes—in English, we right multiple analytical responses about whatever text we are reading. Through this process, we throw out the irrelevant “junk” to get to the “meat and potatoes” of our Essays. I have found, though, that sometimes the responses that I discard end up being the introduction or conclusion to my Essay. In the same way, some of the sentence that I cross out for my poetry or short stories could most definitely be incorporated in some other work piece that I’m writing. Nothing anyone ever writes should be “thrown away” completely…who knows when it might be needed again.