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theoneeyedwriter · 4 years

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why writing the first line of your wip is so difficult.

i hate it

you hate it

we all hate it

writing the first line for your wip is probably the hardest part of writing it. the first introduction to the character you, the writer, already love, but have to make sure the reader will also fall in love with. introducing a world or scenario you already know so much about to a reader that knows absolutely nothing. the first sentence is the deciding factor on whether people will fall in love with a piece of your soul or not.

no pressure or anything though.

so why is the first line so hard? because you already know your characters. you already know the ending, and the subplots, and plot twists, and later introduced characters. you’ve already spent hours on end with your characters that introducing them as though for the first time is almost impossible. you’ve spent days perfecting the major and minor conflicts and tweaking the minor characters, that you can’t even imagine what it’s like to be meeting them for the first time all over again.

now on to:

tips on writing the first sentence/chapter of your wip

so how do you write a good first sentence? first chapter? first dialogue?

look at all your favorite books, what do they have in common? the first line catches your eye.

the obvious example is “Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” it brings in your attention. makes you want to know, what makes them normal? why do they feel the need to accentuate on the fact that the Dursley’s are in fact normal?

your opening line should be an attention grabber. not like the first line in your high school essays were you have to state your thesis, or when doing a book report and must include certain things pertaining to the book in your first sentence.

make it intriguing, interesting. make your reader yearn to know “why are they normal?”.

how do you do this?

action. dialogue. decisions. normalities. a change. a sound. a pleasant view. a morbid or terrifying view. a poem, relevant to the story.

in the famous “And Then There Were None” by Agatha Christie, before the first chapter even begins, she includes the poem about the ten little soldier boys which is incredibly relevant to the story. think, are there any poems, quotes, etc that relate to your story? foreshadow something major? include that then build a first line derived from the quote.

dialogue is a more tricky starting point. you don’t want to start with just:

“Hey,”

“Hey.”

that’s boring. something simple like that needs more finesse that shows a bit more about your character. for example:

“Hey!” Her voice carried across the alleyway, making the monster on the other side turn abruptly, baring it’s teeth.

“Hey,” The monster replied, mocking her tone.

see the difference? it’s already more interesting because now you have to wonder 1) why the girl is so casually confronting a monster. and 2) why the monster is such a jerk.

(i do suggest using a more attention grabbing dialogue for a first line, but a simple line like this can show a bit about the character’s personality.)

a good example that i always look to for an opening with dialogue is from “All Fall Down” by Ally Carter:

“‘When I was twelve I broke my leg jumping off the wall between Canada and Germany,’”

another good example is from “Ender’s Game” by Orson Scott Card:

“‘I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one.’”

action is a very obvious and typical way to start a story. take the first line from “The Clockwork Angel” by Cassandra Clare for instance:

“The demon exploded in a shower of ichor and guts.”

the immediate jump into action intrigues the reader. it also informs the reader that the character(s) being introduced somehow hunts, fights, or got in a dispute with a demon.

action is an easy way to jump right into a scene that helps introduce what kind of character your mc might be.

making minor (and normal) decisions is another good way of starting a book. have you character have to chose between two (or more) things. one chip brand from another. whether they want a blue sweater or a orange one. something unimportant to the story, but gives the reader a glimpse of how this character makes decisions, if they are easily influenced by other people, and it gives the reader a window into the normalities of the characters life.

minor and unimportant decisions can make a character seem more real and alive. and, i’d love time know which color sweater the character would choose.

a big or small change in the characters life is also a good way to start a book. this can be something small, like moving towns, or something big, like a family member dying.

how does your character react to the change? what makes in minor? major? will it affect the rest of the story? will it forever change the character?

exposition is a common way of introducing a fantasy/sci-fi esc story. describing in detail (but not too much, too much exposition gets tiring for the reader)

the first book i think of is “The Hobbit” by J.R.R. Tolkien, which starts with the famous first lines:

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”

in these brief two sentences, you learn what a hobbit hole is. it is very concise, simple. nothing too much, nothing too lengthy. you just learn that a hobbit hole is a place of warmth and comfort, which almost sets the vibe, or overall mood of the beginning setting.

sounds, i find, are harder to pull off. what’s something that’ll richoette through the readers mind. i want to be able to hear the sound your describing as though i’m experiencing it with your character.

something like “the rumble of the thunder reminded him of the snor of a sleeping dragon, or the snarl of a werewolf a mere minute after the full moon rises.” makes the simplicity of thunder more interesting.

“the shriek that escaped the little girl resembled that of a banshee on the cusp of claiming its next victim.”

comparing simple noises to that of a supernatural creature can make it sound bigger, and give a simplistic sound a whole new characteristic that just saying “the little girl shrieked” or “the thunder rumbled” can do.

#writers block #writers on tumblr #writing #writingtips #writers of tumblr #authors of tumblr #books #inspiration #motivation #writer #writing troubles #writing help #writing community #writer support #writer shenanigans #teen writer

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randomnumbers751650 · 3 years

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Long, unedited text in which I rant about comparative mythology, Joseph Campbell and his monomyth,

Back in 2012 I wanted to improve my fiction writing (and writing in general, because in spite of nuances, themes and audience, writing a fiction and a nonfiction piece shouldn’t be that different) and thus I picked a few writing manuals. Many of them cited the Hero’s Journey, and how important it became for writers – after all Star Wars used and it worked. I believe most of the people reading this like Star Wars, or at least has neutral feelings about it, but one thing that cannot be denied is that became a juggernaut of popular culture.

So I bought a copy of the Portuguese translation of The Hero of a Thousand Faces and I fell in love with the style. Campbell had a great way with words and the translation was top notch. For those unaware, The Hero of a Thousand Faces proposes that there is a universal pattern in humanity’s mythologies that involves a person (usually a man) that went out into a journey far away from his home, faced many obstacles, both external and internal, and returned triumphant with a prize, the Grail or the Elixir of Life, back to his home. Campbell’s strength is that he managed to systematize so many different sources into a single cohesive narrative.

At the time I was impressed and decided to study more and write in an interdisciplinary research with economics – by writing an article on how the entrepreneur replaces the mythical hero in today’s capitalism. I had to stop the project in order to focus on more urgent matters (my thesis), but now that I finished I can finally return to this pet project of mine.

If you might have seen previous posts, I ended up having a dismal view of economics. It’s a morally and spiritually failed “science” (I have in my drafts a post on arts and I’m going to rant another day about it). Reading all these books on comparative mythology is so fun because it allows me for a moment to forget I have a degree in economics.

Until I started to realize there was something wrong.

My research had indicated that Campbell and others (such as Mircea Eliade and Carl Gust Jung, who had been on of Campbell’s main influences) weren’t very well respected in academia. At first I thought “fine”, because I’m used to interact with economists who can be considered “heterodox” and I have academic literature that I could use to make my point, besides the fact my colleagues were interested in what I was doing.

The problem is that this massive narrative of the Hero’s Journey/monomyth is an attempt to generalize pretty wide categories, like mythology, into one single model of explanation, it worked because it became a prescription, giving the writer a tool to create a story in a factory-like pace. It has checkboxes that can be filled, professional writers have made it widely available.

But I started to realize his entire understanding of mythology is problematic. First the basics: Campbell ignores when myths don’t fit his scheme. This is fruit of his Jungian influences, who claim that humanity has a collective unconsciousness, that manifest through masks and archetypes. This is the essence of the Persona games (and to a smaller extent of the Fate games) – “I am the Shadow the true self”. So any deviation from the monomyth can be justified by being a faulty translation of the collective unconsciousness.

This is the kind of thing that Karl Popper warned about, when he proposed the “falseability” hypothesis, to demarcate scientific knowledge. The collective unconsciousness isn’t a scientific proposition because it can be falsified. It cannot be observed and it cannot be refuted, because someone who subscribe to this doctrine will always have an explanation to explain why it wasn’t observed. In spite of falseability isn’t favored by philosophers of science anymore, it remains an important piece of the history of philosophy and he aimed his attack on psychoanalysis of Freud and Jung – and, while they helped psychology in the beginning, they’re like what Pythagoras is to math. They were both surpassed by modern science and they are studied more as pieces of history than serious theorists.

But this isn’t the worst. All the three main authors on myths were quite conservatives in the sense of almost being fascists – sometimes dropping the ‘almost’. Some members of the alt-right even look up to them as some sort of “academic’ justification. Not to mention anti-Semitic. Jung had disagreement with Freud and Freud noticed his anti-Semitism. Eliade was a proud supporter of the Iron Guard, a Romanian fascist organization that organized pogroms and wanted to topple the Romanian government. Later Eliade became an ambassador at Salazar’s Fascist Portugal, writing it was a government guided by the love of God. Campbell, with his hero worship, was dangerously close to the ur-fascism described by Umberto Eco (please read here, you won’t regret https://www.pegc.us/archive/Articles/eco_ur-fascism.pdf).

“If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled as New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge – that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism.”

Campbell did that a lot. He considered the Bible gospels and Gnostic gospels to be on the same level. Any serious student, that is not operating under New Age beliefs and other frivolous theories like the one that says Jesus went to India, will know there’s a difference between them (even Eliade was sure to stress the difference).

But Campbell cared nothing for it. He disliked the “semitic” religions for corrupting the mythic imagination (which is the source of his anti-Semitism), especially Judaism. When I showed him describing the Japanese tea ceremony to a friend who’s minoring in Japanese studies, she wrote “I’m impressed, he’s somehow managed to out-purple prose the original Japanese”. So, it’s also full of orientalism, treating the East as the mystical Other, something for “daring” Westerners to discover and distillate.

What disturbed…no, “disturbed” isn’t the word that I need in the moment, but what made me feel uncomfortable is that, in spite of all his talk of spirituality, the impression I had of Power of Myth is that I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone more materialist than him. Not even Karl Marx, founder of the Historical Materialism, was as materialist as Campbell.

At one point in the book, he was asked if he believed in anything and he gave a dismissive reply and said “I want to get experiences.” A man who studied all the myths of the world available, apparently didn’t believe in anything. Is that what spiritual maturity is? A continuous flux of experiences? Being taken by some sort of shamanistic wind like a floating plastic bag?

In nowhere in the interview he talked about virtues. In rebellion with his Catholic childhood, he said that we should go to the confessionary and say “God, I’ve been such a good boy”. Any cursory reading of the Gospel would say otherwise. Wasn’t this exactly Pharisee’s prayer in Luke 18:9-14? While the wasn’t the publican, who went with humility and asked for forgiveness, the one who walked out with an experience? And not only in Christianity, since in Tibetan Buddhism, a tulpa is something you have to kill, not foster like an imaginary friend like in some internet circles, contamined with this obsession with experiences.

The way I came to see Joseph Campbell as a man who was so stuck in his own world that nothing could move him out of it. All he wanted to do was this big experience, but in the end it’s as wide as the ocean, but shallow as a puddle. Even when Campbell speaks about having a “cosmic consciousness”, all that New Age jargon, claiming it’s about people discovering they’re not the center of the universe, it’s still so…self-servicing. It addresses a crowd so obsessed with experiences, but wants nothing to do with anything that requires compromise. He quotes the Hindu concept of maya, that life is an illusion, but I wonder how right he is about it.

I want to share this critique, by a researcher in comic studies: “We do not remember The Night Gwen Stacy Died because Gwen’s death reminds us of our own mortality, ‘the destiny of Everyman’, but because the story exposes the fragility of Spider-Man reader’s fantasies. Even icons can die.”

The exposition of the fragility of myths, especially the Hero’s Journey, never happens in Campbell’s work. It never talks about the potential of myths hindering entire societies, causing strife and causing people who can’t fit to become outcasts. Not even the cruel ones, like the Aztec death cult is treated as sublime, ignoring the fact that the Aztec neighbors helped to Spanish because they had enough of the Aztec myth.

I have changed my article. While I will still write on the hero entrepreneur, I’ll take a more critical view. The focus of the entrepreneur as an individual has many issues, because it ignores the role of public investment (necessary for high risk enterprises, like going to the moon or creating touch screens) and it treats with contempt the worked wage. Cambpell also treated with contempt the “masses”, who cannot be “heroes”. The theory on the entrepreneur is the same, treating the entrepreneur as a hero and the waged workers as lowlifes who have nothing to do, but to work, obey and be paid – to the point it feels like some economists treat strikes as crimes worse than murder. Not only that, but they can exploit the worker (see a book named “Do what you love and other lies about success and happiness”, it could be replaced with “Follow your bliss…”).

Campbell wrote in a time that there was no Wikipedia. So his book was the introduction of myths to a lot of people. It helped it was well-written. He considering his approach apolitical, but it’s clear that’s it’s not exactly like that (though this is a reason why Jordan Peterson failed to become the next Campbell, since he’s also a Jungian scholar, but he tried to become a conservative guru and this was his downfall). And, nowadays, Campbell is still inevitable in the circles that his themes matter, unlike Freud and Jung. Read it, but be aware of its problems, because it has already influenced what you consume.

#my rants #this is just a rant #so don't take it as a final word #sources can be provided on request

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thebubblemaster · 4 years

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Its midnight and I gotta wake up at 5am to go to work tomorrow but I've been thinking about this for a while and I gotta get it off my chest!

Yall are always complaining about how english teachers find meaning in literature that isn't there and then go off and try to analyze media like youre writing a dissertation. And i can always tell which one of yall actually pays attention in English class bc some of yall don't understand what makes a good analysis! Some of yall just list evidence and expect it to stand for itself and some of yall just go off on explanations without providing any examples. Half the time i ask myself if the person even watched/read whatever it was in the first place! And this applies to both positive and negative analysis. Either way yall have to learn how to analyze things well bc sometimes I see a post I do not agree with but it's well written so I can see where they're coming from, but other times I'm just angry bc its obvious you either didn't pay attention in class or had shitty english teachers.

As someone who considers herself very good at writing analysis essays I can't just stand by and watch yall make fools out of yourselves. Not to flex but, ive been getting As on my last minute essays since freshman year of highschool, so you can be sure that that this advice isn't coming from an amateur.

Anyways, here's my tips on writing an adequate and organized essay for all of your academic and fandom needs.

Forget about the intro. Trust me. I've heard so many people say they get stuck forever on their introductions and it's heartbreaking. If I'm not writing something in class, I always write my introductions last.

Start with your thesis. This is the last sentence of your intro, and really the only important part of that whole paragraph. The basic formula for a thesis is something like, "In Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, he shows that the American dream is futile through his use of symbolism of the green light, Gatsby's idealization of Daisy, and Gatsby's eventual death." Havent read the book in 5 years but you get the idea. You state what it is you think the author is doing and 3 ways you think you can prove it.

The first sentence of each body paragraph will introduce one reason and briefly elaborate on what it is about the reason you will focus on.

Gather evidence. Pick out exact quotes that appear to support the reasons you've provided in your thesis and separate them by each reason. Even if youre going to paraphrase or cite a scene as a whole as evidence, it's good to have the exact words recorded so you can reference them easier when you go back to actually write the essay. Dont forget to record the chapter and page number each one appears on so you can cite it later on. I usually gather more than I think ill need so I have options when I'm writing my analysis, but you'll need at least 2 per reason.

Explain why you think these quotes or scenes support the reason you gave. Why does the light represent Gatsby's unattainable goals? How does his perception of Daisy and her reality differ?

Connect it all back to the original point of your thesis. How does Gatsby's unattainable goal of a relationship with Daisy compare to the unattainable goal of the American Dream? How does America's perception of this dream and the realities of it's futility reflect in Gatsby and Daisy's relationship?

Repeat 3-6 for every body paragraph and you've got 60% of your essay done.

Conclusion. Restate the thesis. Give brief, one sentence summaries on how each of your paragraphs connect to your overarching point. End it with something like "It is due to Fitzgerald's use of symbolism and characterization that the message of the American Dream itself being an illusion throughout the novel is successful." Praise the author or something along those lines. Dont bring up anything new that you didnt talk about in your previous paragraphs.

Ok, back to the Introduction. The introduction is there to provide context for the analysis. Youre always supposed to write as if your audience has never read the book youre writing about. Introduce the author and the specific work your essay is about. Use the authors full name the first time you mention them and then just the last name every time after. Only mention things that are relevant to what you will be talking about. Keep it concise and build up to your thesis. Introduction paragraphs for analysis essays Do Not have to be long. In fact, it should be the shortest paragraph in the essay. 4-5 good sentences should be enough.

Now here are just some basic tips everyone should know

Book titles are typed in italics: The Great Gatsby. Poems and short stories are written in quotation marks: "The Raven," or"The Yellow Wallpaper."

Never use contractions. Ever. The only reason an apostrophe should be in there is if it's there to be possessive.

Don't use a thesaurus. Seriously. If you're not entirely familiar with a word, don't use it. It's obvious when someone has filtered their essay through one because they're usually unreadable. You don't have to use long words to get your point across.

DO NOT WRITE IN THE FIRST PERSON! There is no "I am going to write about" in a formal essay. This is obvious to anyone who is reading it. Dont say what you'll write about, just write about it!

Don't use words like "attempts" or say things like "this might connect to this" or whatever. State everything as of it is an undisputable fact. Be assertive with your points. It makes you look more credible and like you know what you're talking about.

Write in the presnt tense always even if the author is dead: "Fitzgerald uses symbolism." As well as about a character's actions of the book's events: "Daisy crashes the car and runs over the woman," "Gatsby throws lavish parties."

When teachers say avoid passive voice they mean the noun goes before the verb. "Nick drives the car" not "The car is driven by Nick."

It doesn't matter whether you agree with what you're writing. If you see evidence for a point and its the easiest thing to write about, just do it. No one will care or notice if it's not your real opinion.

If you can frame something in a way that will help your point, then do it. Even if at first glance its not exactly relevant.

You can make anything into an argument if you try hard enough. Which is basically what youre doing when writing an analysis essay, arguing that your interpretation is the right one.

Be as concise as possible. Avoid all tangents to your main point and stay on topic 100% of the time. This will help you keep your essay organized and your reader convinced that you have a solid grasp on the text.

Now go forth and make convincing arguments! Even if they are about weeb shit.

Thank you for your time.

#english #literature #english class #writing advice #analysis #academics #the only thing i cant really help with is grammar #i always get points off for bad grammar #but like #who cares #grammar is but a guideline i have and will continue to ignore for the foreseeable future #anyways its 1am now and ive spent an hour writing this #ha #edit: up an hour later fixing my mistakes #this is what happens when i wake up at noon on my days off

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crewhonk · 5 years

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...Of The Line (Introduction)

A series collaboration with @nomadsgrogers where she writes for Giovanna as the reader! We’re just projecting onto our writing, its FINE

Series Summary: Steve watches YN Banner grow up before his eyes-- from a shy, dorky sixteen-year-old to a fierce, brilliant woman who never fails to keep him on his toes. He knows that she’s untouchable, but that doesn’t stop him from being completely wrapped around her finger for the rest of his long life.

Series Warnings: Mutual Pining, age gap, gun use, these two are idiots-- seriously they're so dumb, slow burn

Pairings: eventual Steve Rogers X Banner!Reader, eventual Buky Barnes X OC!Stark

Words: 2.7K

Chapter Summary: Introduction of YN Banner, her brilliance and her meeting her best friend, uncle and one Steve Rogers for the first time. (warnings: battle of new york, english major discourse)

“... Of The Line” Masterlist

_______________________________

YN Banner had grown up under her father's wing. Her mother had left her at his doorstep in New York, swaddled in nothing but a baby pink blanket and a note describing how she was too much of her father. How she was too much of Hulk— the strength of him, and his same green eyes— it was too much for her mother.

He took her in without a doubt in his mind. He had never hulked out when she cried as a baby, or when she fell from a large boulder in Spain. In fact, Hulk seemed only concerned for her— no desire to show himself but all the desire in the world to shelter her from all that was bad or could hurt. And he did so— for sixteen long years, he had taught her to control herself, taught her to be gentle, and taught her to pick her fights only when she had no other option. She made her first perfect stitch at ten, she had corrected him on the progression of Gamma Cells at twelve. She was everything he could want in a child.

His heart, still, broke for her.

She had lost her first patient in Somalia—a child just shy of five to radiation poisoning. She had never had a home, nor a best friend, nor a proper education. Sure, she could explain the basis of nuclear physics in a way a child could understand (something he still couldn’t do) but she didn’t know how to write an essay, how to sit down long enough to understand the meaning of a story because hell, there was no time for that when you grew up running.

Until 2012 a few months after her sixteenth birthday when Natasha Romanoff swept her and Bruce to the big city of New York.

“What’s your name, Little Lamb?” She had crooned, tucking a strand of hair behind YN’s ear. Her touch was gentle, the caress of her still chubby cheek almost longing.

“YN Banner, Ma’am.”

“It’s Natasha to you, Pretty Lamb.”

Everything picked up after that— YN and Bruce had been shoved into an expensive lab (with swivelling seats!) and a time bomb of a weapon with probably the most overwhelming man on the planet. YN had actually grabbed his forearm when he jabbed Bruce int he side with a pen, hoping to bring out Big Guy. Her grip was too strong for that of a sixteen-year-old, and he wasn’t afraid like he should have been. He was amazed.

“YN Banner. Little genetic miracle. Nice to finally meet you and not read about you.”

“Touch my dad again like that and I’ll rip your arm off.”

“Good.”

_______________________

A few days had passed until the attack on New York. The man wearing horns and green silk had escaped along with the Big Guy and the Norse God, and they had returned with fire and blood and green blurs.

YN had been hiding in the bunker of the tower with a few of the civilian employees while the buildings crumbled around them when a girl around her own age sat beside her.

“Banner, right?” She asked, her dark eyes already on YN. YN only nodded, trying her very best to keep her cool under this very new, very stressful situation. She didn’t need to respond to the other girl for her to continue speaking.

“I’m Giovanna Stark. One night stand with my dad and I came out the other side of nine months. Left on his Malibu doorstep. Good thing too— Mom was apparently an English major. Can't do much with that though, can you? Write a book. Teach a few high school kids. Yell at the clouds or something.” YN found herself laughing more as the new girl— Giovanna— continued to ramble.

“Me too. I don’t know what my mom did— Dad doesn’t talk too much about her, but she didn’t like that I was too radioactive. Apparently, she likes her kids without Gamma radiation in their blood.”

“Wait,” Giovanna stopped her pity party with a hand on her knee. “You have Gamma in your blood?”

“Yes?”

“First, when dad saves the world can I take some blood? I’m going to be a surgeon in ten years and how cool would it be to write my thesis on Gamma blood and its benefits? Second, if I annoy you will you turn into a green monster?”

“I haven’t turned green yet, have I?” YN smiled, and Giovanna smiled back.

“I like you. I think I’ll keep you.”

___________________

As it turns out, Giovanna was just as smart as YN was— the two girls found themselves in the lab most hours of the day following the disaster that was New York. YN’s dad had hulked out, and Tony and his assistant (“they’re going to get married one day, honestly”) cleaned up the legal mess quickly and beautifully. Giovanna had drawn blood and babbled on excitedly in Italian about how different YN’s blood from any other humans blood she had seen before.

“Seriously, the way it adapts to the mutation as it multiplies is better than any porn I could find on the internet.” Giovanna rushed excitedly, putting the slides in the freezer and wiping down the counter. “This is brilliant— you’re brilliant.”

YN could only blush and smile, excited to have someone in her life who stretched her boundaries to the border of discomfort. She had been learning so much about how to be a sixteen-year-old in the past week that when Bruce walked into the lab one Monday night to ask if she wanted to join him in Australia, she could only wrap her arms around his neck in a tight hug.

“I think I’m gonna stay here, Papa. I— I can be a teenager here. I don’t have to save lives here, and I can actually finally read Harry Potter for the first time. I— I want to have as much of a childhood as I can.” She whispered a grimace on her face for fear of breaking her own dear father's heart.

“Good.” He only smiled tears of joy in his eyes. Finally, he could give her everything she deserved. “You stay here. I’ll come back every two weeks. Maybe I’ll even get you some presents occasionally.”

“Presents?” YN tried to quell her excitement. She hadn’t grown up with much, so the idea of her father spending money on her on things she didn’t need sent a small thrill jolting up her spine.

“Occasionally.”

“I love you, Papa.” She squealed, hugging him tighter. He squeezed back, burying his face in her messy hair and breathing her in. This would be the longest they would be separated and it scared the life out of him.

“Love you, Squish.”

______________________

It’s later that day after Bruce leaves on a fancy jet that YN meets Steve Rogers for the first time. She had stolen American textbooks before, read through them and rolled her eyes at the basic knowledge that was the American curriculum, but one topic she could never get enough of was that of the Howling Commandos. Bucky Barnes, quick with numbers and a gun and oh, so easy on the eyes. Timothy Dugan, always smiling under the bush of moustache hair on his lip. Gabriel Jones expert sharpshooter and the best translator in the American Army— twenty languages in his load magazine.

Steve Rogers, sickly small until a serum mutated his blood and made him a soldier with enhanced strength, speed, agility, stamina, endurance, reflexes, durability, and regenerative healing.

YN couldn’t say she didn’t like to see someone like her heightened to such a high pedestal.

Tony had thrown a dinner in celebration of the commemoration of the Avengers: Initiative. The dinner wasn’t much— take out from any place that hadn't been destroyed and was, in fact, still open. “God bless the working class,” he had said after finishing his second cheeseburger. Gio sat next to a mopey YN who was not yet used to being without her dad and chatted around the food in her mouth while YN picked at her fries.

“Roscoe! Nice fo you to finally join us!” Tony cried, grinning as Steve Rogers rolled his eyes and sat down next to Tony. God, he was even more beautiful here in front of her than in the books she stole. His blond hair was darkened by the water fo his recent shower, skin tinged pink from the heat of it but fresh nonetheless. His shoulders were beyond wide and thick, and his arms bulged under the fabric of his white t-shirt. YN flushed red at the idea of him picking her up and doing things her father would very much not approve of. His thighs were straining the dark grey fabric of his sweatpants and YN had to genuinely turn towards Giovanna and talk to her so she would force herself to not stare at this Adonis of a man.

She, in her distraction of him, hadn’t noticed that he was staring at her in much of the same likeness. Her skin was glowing and soft, probably malleable under his hands, the softness of puberty just barely leaving her stomach and shoulders and face— a soft thing which he almost immediately wished to protect. He wanted to hide her away from the world until she looked at him. Her eyes were impossibly gentle but had an arsenal of maturity behind them and a roaring fight behind the shine of her green iris. She had fought every day to be where she was now, and the intelligence in her posture told him already that she would continue to stay and continue to fight. Whichever teen was lucky enough to catch her eye would be blessed by Thor himself— this was, in fact, an angel among them.

“Sorry, the media wanted about one hundred quotes. Did you save any fries?” He asked, and YN swore she could hear his stomach snarl at the sight of food.

“Nah, they were good though, if that means anything to you,” Tony said halfway through a bite of his third burger. (“I’m a growing boy!”)

“It doesn’t but thanks,” Steve grumbled, grabbing a take out container of fried rice and pulling it towards him. One thing Steve loved about this whole new century was the diverse choices of food. Sure, he still boiled everything but he honest to god had no clue how to do anything else so take-out was a really neat invention. YN acted quickly, sliding her paper plate of fries towards him and offering him a small smile and a shrug.

“I wasn’t gonna eat much anyways.” And Steve blushed nodded a thank you before swallowing them all down in a matter of seconds. Kind girl, he thought.

They talked aimlessly, laughing about some of the things they had seen in battle and boasting about their teammate's work and the night passed quickly. YN, always the shy one, could only steal impossibly brief glances at Steve as if he was the sun and she couldn’t look at him too long for fear of being hurt.

“What about you, what do you want to do?” Steve asked her now, and she flushed at the intensity of his stare before looking down and picking at her nails.

“I wanna work at an outreach centre, I think. Or maybe make changes in government that allows for kids like me to be safer in their homes. Something with kids.” She said faintly— she genuinely wasn’t entirely sure if she would even be able to go to school, but Bruce had always taught her it was good to have plans— something to look forward to.

“That’s amazing.” He encouraged ducking his head to catch her eye. His smile was gentle and warm and YN’s stomach flipped. “Nice to know that you two are going to be leaders of your generation. Real trailblazers.”

The way Steve made YN feel seen was a feeling she really didn’t want to go away any time soon.

______________________________

It’s about three in the morning later that evening and YN was sprawled on Giovanna's white duvet, staring at the posters on her ceiling and listening to One Direction's most recent album (”Take Me Home”) as Giovanna sat next to her, painting her own toenails a bright blue.

“You’re more broody than usual.” Giovanna piped up after a song called ‘She’s Not Afraid’, and YN shot her a confused look.

“Pardon?”

“I know we just met, but you’re already easy to read. What’s going on?” Giovanna asked, putting the lid onto the varnish and hucking the bottle across the room. It landed in one of her clothing drawers and Gio fist pumped before leaning back on a hand and staring YN down.

“Nothing.”

“Liar.”

“I just— God. Steve’s really nice, okay?” YN groaned covering her face with her hands and groaning into them. Giovanna’s eyebrows shot up before a thrill shot through her bones— did she sense a crush? Was this what that was?

“Bit of a stick in the mud, honestly— but yeah, he’s nice. His butt’s nice too.” Giovanna smiled, watching as YN’s skin flushed a darker red and cheering silently to herself. God, she was good.

“Yeah, I noticed,” YN mumbled, dropping her hands to her sides and smiling at her new friend who squealed and threw herself back onto the bed before clapping excitedly. YN shushed her quickly for fear of her excitement waking up the others on the floor, and Gio shushed herself enough to only let out a tiny squeak of excitement every ten seconds. The two sat in silence for only a few seconds longer before YN opened her mouth to speak once more.

“I think this one singing now is my favourite.”

“Harry’s my favourite too.”

________________________

Three years had passed since then, Uncle Tony, as YN knew him now, had defeated the Mandarine (white cooperate guy playing the villain? Groundbreaking.), moved into his Malibu house, moved out of the house, rescued Dum-E and ended themselves back in the Avengers Tower. Flashy building with far too many rooms, but home. Always home.

YN and Giovanna had since become inseparable, bonding in a way only soulmates did and having the ability to almost communicate telepathically when words were not able to be said. They were both homeschooled by Tony and Pepper themselves, Bruce dropping by often and teaching them both about anatomy and other surgical procedures. Giovanna had almost cried the first time he complimented a sucre— textbook, he had said and she squealed and threw her arms around his shoulders.

“Thank you, Uncle Bruce!” She squealed into his ear. YN watched with bated breath— not out of jealousy but out of fear of Big Guy getting too uncomfortable. However, much to her surprise and joy, Big Guy made no move to show himself, only purring low in Bruce’s chest and hugging Giovanna tighter.

“Anytime, Brains. Now, YN come over here. JARVIS has a hologram of a heart that I want you guys to see.”

When YN and Giovanna weren’t in class or in the lab tinkering into the early hours of the morning with their dads, they were in the gym with Tony’s trainer, as Natasha and Steve had been posted down in Washington. She had worked their muscles and refined their fighting until they were almost lethal. It wasn’t until Clint had dropped by for. Weak they really became the pair to watch. Giovanna had become fond of the shining knives in the armoury, and YN had become fond of the arsenal of guns and Widow tech Natasha had left behind when she and Steve had left for Washington. Her aim was impeccable and her strategy on the matt threw even Clint a run for his money. It was an impossible match when Giovanna backed YN up— two angry, twirling tropical storms which could take out anyone who dared face them head-on.

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fatehbaz · 5 years

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At one point, this PDF/online document was set as my homepage for a week or two. It’s a nice compilation, from 2017, of recent artistic, academic, and activist work on the cultural importance of forests with special focus on decolonization; Indigenous voices; biosemiotics and “forest as community”; and Amazonian cosmology. The intent here seemed to be the mingling of research and art to explore the decolonization of ecological thought and the “emotional, socio-political, and eco-cultural” significance of forests in “an age of extinction.” It’s not always great (there are some kind of suspect, twee contributions from Euro-American), but there is also some good material here, especially about “forest as organism”; Indigenous justice in Brazil; cosmology; and the Amazon.

From the introduction:

Borrowing its title from Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1972 science fiction novella, The Word for World is Still Forest is composed in these pages as an homage to the forest as a turbulent and generative multinature. Throughout this book, we invite you to join us in traversing the mighty forests of Amazonia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Northwest, arriving in the old urban woods of Berlin, where this book was published. [...]

Moving from concepts of the forest as a thinking superorganism to the linear monocultural plantations and “concrete jungles” that threaten the life of global forests, you will encounter trees as companions, communities, entities, and providers; in other moments, they will appear as expert witnesses, data stories, or resourceful ancestors. Whether they occur as images, subjects, or architectures, the forests of this world will beckon you to remember that their destiny is entangled with yours. […] Since we began to work on this volume in 2014, the relevance of Le Guin’s description of militarized, ecocidal violence has only continued to intensify. [...]

This homage to words and forests is followed by an essay from Pedro Neves Marques about the particularities of Amerindian multinaturalism that sharpens our sense of the forest as an ontological multiplicity teeming with relations, perspectives, and temporalities. [...]

That such forests and worlds are largely incommensurable with Eurocentric image-making technologies poses a serious challenge to understanding and solidarity by demanding that we learn “how to inhabit the space of the in-between, the interval between ‘worlds’ in order to contribute to a decolonization of the many worlds from the imposition of the ‘one world.’” This book is an attempt to open up a space for these transformations. [...]

Curator Dan Handel presents a paginated version of his research on wood as a vital aspect of forest mythologies and a driver of industrial resource management. By translating elements from his previous exhibitions into this volume, Handel contributes to a renegotiation of the metaphors and mechanisms that render the forest present in human habits of consumption, creativity, and ideation.

Canadian forest ecologist Suzanne Simard examines how underground networks of fungi uptake nutrients of salmon brought from sea to river to land by grizzlies and wolves. Simard’s text summarizes her ongoing collaboration with researchers from various First Nations communities in British Columbia to offer a defense of nature as a tangled web rather than a taxonomical order. Accompanied by visualizations from forestry researcher Kevin Beiler, this contribution makes a plea for a more holistic approach to forestry science and urges us to “fundamentally transform the modern scientific image of nature as a resource.”

Remaining with the motif of the axe implicit in Castleman’s work, we follow Nonuya knowledge-elder Abel Rodríguez (also known as Mogaje Guihu) to the Middle Caquetá River region in the Colombian Amazon. He shares an oral narrative conveying the discovery and eventual felling of the Tree of Abundance, which relays the origin of social, territorial, and ecological inter-dependency in the Amazon; at the same time, this mythological narrative alludes to the beginning of labor, violence, and disease. Rodríguez’s storytelling was transcribed and edited in collaboration with Carlos Rodríguez from the Tropenbos International Colombia forest conservation group and the philosopher and editor Catalina Vargas Tovar.

An understanding of the Amazon as an anthropogenically cultivated multinature is further elaborated in the contribution by Brazilian architect, urbanist, and activist Paulo Tavares. His essay and richly annotated selection of archival photographs and contemporary cartographies expose the “politics of erasure” deployed by the Brazilian state against Indigenous peoples and their lands in the twentieth century. Highlighting the hybrid literacies required by resistance movements fighting illegal logging, plantations, evictions, and development, Tavares shows that genocide and ecocide are often two sides of the same coin in struggles for land sovereignty. He also underscores the politi-cally significant thesis that many forests of the Amazon region are the result of Pre-Columbian domestication and cultivation practices. By rendering Amazonia palpable as the living ruin of an “‘expanded polis,’ within which humans and nonhumans co-inhabit a common political space,” he infinitely complicates any comfortable dichotomies of city, civilization, and culture versus forest, wilderness, and nature. An interview with anthropologist Eduardo Kohn, based on his book How Forests Thinkand observations from his fieldwork in Ecuador, explores the philosophical implications of nonhuman thought. After a discussion about “thinking-with” multispecies semiotics, we conclude our conversation with questions about how to cultivate a forest-like mindfulness even in non-forest ecologies—a provocation that we hope resonates through many other contributions in this book as well.

(End quote.)

Included is an essay by Pedro Neves Marques which, in my opinion, provides a nice and concise summary of “Amazonianist” scholarship, Amazonian cosmology and animism, and the work of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro. Viveiros de Castro’s work is celebrated for its respect for and attention to detail in Amazonian worldviews, and is often cited as an example of the importance of Amazonian/Indigenous “multinaturalism” and animism as alternatives to Western scientific naturalism.

Also, Paulo Tavares’s article here is - again, in my opinion - good and important. The Brazilian state denies that a genocide took place against the Waimiri Atroari people. But Tavares mapped the local forest region to clearly demonstrate that not only were the Waimiri Atroari forcibly removed, but that they also had a previously underreported and sophisticated system of agroecology and forest management.

Some of the editorial commentary can verge on twee Euro-American/Western mysticism and cultural appropriation, but the articles and essays themselves are nice. There is some questionable content occasionally referenced in the text - including some commentary from a Western academic who drinks ayahuasca - so take some of the material with a grain of salt. All-in-all, it’s an enjoyable read, though. If nothing else, there are some good citations and resources for further reading.

The Word for World is Still Forest. In intercalations 4. Edited by Anna-Sophie Springer and Etienne Turpin. In association with Kirsten Einfeldt and Daniela Wolf. February 2017. [Available online for free.]

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tolkien-in-beleriand · 4 years

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so a number of people is curious about PhD here in Brazil and as I have nothing else I want to do right now let me tell you about it

I’ll talk about the two processes I went through for my PhD (masters is kinda the same but a bit simpler)

as I already told you here in Brazil the best universities are free, it’s kinda hard to get in but if you do you have the best education available in the country and chances are you will get some kind of scholarship. in my case as I am poor as hell I had a scholarship since first year of grad school and also a place to live. yes, I was paid to live in a nice city away from my abusive family and to study in the best program of my field in Brazil

then came the masters in which I also had a scholarship

and then the nightmare begins

see as part of my scholarship I had to finish my masters in two years. what does it mean? it means that in my second year I was writing my masters dissertation, finishing papers, preparing for qualification, then argumentation, writing my PhD project and preparing for the PhD tests

and of course as you probably know by now I love complicating things so I applied for two PhDs programs. why? only God knows, but I did. now each university has its own way to deal with PhDs applications so I’ll tell you about the two kinds of tests I had to go through

first my home university:

first you write a project. 20 pages. must have: abstract, key words, title, introduction, methodology, cronogram of activities, bibliographic references. it must present a certain novelty in the idea, they want something new, a thesis (that I will later prove right or wrong in 200 to 300 pages). my thesis was basically “Fantasy is a literature genre and it IS NOT the same as fantastic literature (don’t get me started - I wrote a PhD thesis about it but I’m still bitter)”

you need to hand this project in September. then in October is the written test. in our field the written test (in this particular university, as I said it varies) is: they pick a literary topic, that is a surprise only reveled to us mortals the day and hour of the test, and we have four hours to write an essay about it, in a room like an exam, no researches allowed. the topic in my year was History and Literature. then they grade the essay 0-10 and you need at least a 7 to go to next phase.

fine, now the few people who got the 7 go to phase “analyzing the project”. you get a grade on that too. and you need a 7 to pass as well.

then if you are lucky enough to have your project accepted you go to phase “interview” when a board will make all kinds of questions about your study, project, plans, you know... to make sure you were the one who wrote the thing and know what you’re talking about (I just need to mention here that at my interview they said my project was perfect and made 0 questions because, and I quote, “we know your trajetory and we know what you are capable of and no one else studies Fantasy Literature here”)

then they grade the interview. if you didn’t get at least a 7 bye bye bird, it doesn’t matter if your project was perfect and you aced the written test, it’s goodbye

after this they add all the scores and divide by something and if your final score is below 7, that’s goodbye too.

then you need to do the language test because oh yes YOU DO NEED TO KNOW TWO FOREIGN LANGUAGES to be accepted in any PhD program here.

and that’s it for my first application. I passed first place. usually the good programs gets scholarships and our program was very good so we had like six scholarships every year for sure and then maybe more. they give the scholarships according to the final score so yep I got it

but... when I traveled for my second PhD application I still didn’t have any of my scores, I didn’t even know if I had passed the written test and let me tell you I was desperate and honest to God terrified I wouldn’t pass

anyway, now process number two:

they make things quite different there and they are way more demanding so I was just really terrifie that I would end the year with a crappy masters and no PhD perspective.

first test they do is the language one, a translation and ooooh boi do I hate translating stuff. but it was okay, I wasn’t worried about that part. the system there was very different. while at my home university the process was spread through months, here you had three days of tests and if you failed the first day you are not even invited for the next day. again, you need 7 to pass.

so first day: language test, 52 people applying. 20 passed for day two, me included.

second day, written test. I knew they had a different style from my home university but I was not prepared for that. they gave you 10 questions, all about literature. you had to pick five and answer. so you kinda had to write 5 mini essays on 5 different topics and the questions were like “in the page 25 of the essay Memory in Baudelaire by Walter Benjamin the author express a view on how experience play a central part in the story of the narrative genre. comment on that.”

one of them was to “comment on” the trajetory of the novel as a genre. I read the 10 questions then I started laughing. then I noticed the Professor in the class was the one I wanted as my supervisor there (she is like a big deal in Fantasy studies), the one who, in two months, would be in the board of my masters argumentation. I started crying. so much. I had to be escorted to the bathroom to “calm down”. well, I thought, it’s over, I better not even come back to the exam room and save me the embarrassment of looking the Professor in the eyes. but I couldn’t do that. I had to at least convince myself that I did everything I could. so I went back and started answering the ones I thought I had a shot at. we had four hours too and after doing my darnest to answer 4 questions I wanted to die before having to answer one more. so I chose the novel one because, you know it’s not that hard to trace a genealogy of the novel as a genre. but I was so tired. so incrediby tired and I thought I won’t pass anyway so I might as well have some fun. and friends, what did I do? I wrote a mini novel where my protagonist was the novel “living” through all its phases. I can’t remember a word of that but I did it.

when I was back to the hotel I started crying so much and felt so guilty, I was sure I would fail both programs. next morning the result would be on campus and honestly I only went there because I had spent too much money to just ignore the result, I would never have peace if I didn’t check. but I was really really sure I didn’t pass so I checked out the hotel, got into a taxi, asked him to take me to campus for two minutes, so I could check a thing, and then he could take me to the station

ooooh I have no words to describe my happiness when I looked to a list of FIVE names who had got through to the next phase and my name was there.

I still can’t believe it and until this day I wonder what kind of crap did people write because they considered my “novel is a protagonist of a novel” answer over other 15????

anyway so I was happy but fucked because I had checked out the hotel so I had no place to go and the interview would be only at 5pm so there I was full of bags wandering around the campus waiting for my interview.

interview time: board with two fucking specialists in the Fantasy field and an ass who thinks she is above this. I was very nervous, they asked a bunch of questions about my project (oh yeah I forgot to say you had to hand a project like in the other uni and it is considered part of your application as well) and then... last question... from the ass “why do you consider fantasy as literature” I froze, the other two smiled (they knew my reputation). I want to murder that woman. why do I consider fantasy as literature? WHY?? son of a motherfucking bitch. so I smile*** and ask “what do you study?” she answers “Goethe” with an air of superiority. I say “oh I love Goethe, he is magnificent and the way he.... bla bla bla” I was just showing off. then I say “now think about why you consider Goethe literature. that’s your answer.” I want to say that if I had a mic I would drop it but nah... if I had a mic I would probably make that bitch eat it.

they didn’t have score there, you only passed or failed. I passed. one of five. from 52. I got a scholarship there too, but I decided to stay home. my supervisor at my uni was amazing and a wonderful person and so so smart and funny and he is in a band and is super cool and nerdy, also one of my best friends and one of the most successful translators in Brazil

so yes. this is two of the possibles processes you can go through to get in a top PhD program. and that friends is the easy part. seriously, masters and doctorates are exhausting and it breaks you. neurotypicals get mental illnesses because of it and honest to God I don’t know how I managed it. neither does my doctors. no, actually I know. it was spite.

*** funny story: because of an incident in my masters interview, before my PhDs interviews my supervisor called me to “teach me how to interact with stupid people”. he basically told me I was not supposed to laugh at a stupid question, I was not supposed to death stare the board after a stupid question and, of course, I was not allowed to get up and leave. because I did all that in my masters interview and almost didn’t get into the program. then he made me pretend he was the board talking shit and I had to smile and take notes. his words “it doesn’t matter if you are writing a curse and planning that person’s murder, smile and take notes.”

in my defence I did all that because in my masters interview a Professor asked me if I knew that Tolkien was an author who died in the 70s and that The Lord of the Rings wasn’t just a movie. after I laughed and asked if she was joking she got mad and then I tried to explain that yes, I did in fact know that John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, born in January 3rd, 1892 and dead in September, 2nd, 1973, was an author and wrote the book called The Lord of the Rings who inspired Peter Jackson’s trilogy. then I pointed out that my study had nothing to do with The Lord of the Rings, book or movie. I was in fact studying Tolkien’s essay “On Fairy Stories” and how critics point out The Lord of the Rings as the base of moderny fantasy without noting that Tolkien himself wrote the theory I consider the foundation of fantasy as a genre. then she said “that was done before” and I said “no it wasn’t, surprisingly enough people never came to this conclusion until now” and she looked me in the eyes and asked “are you sure? did you do a deep and careful research on the matter?” and I said “yes I did” and I swear to God she asked “did you try google it?”

yep I just got up and left. did I try google??? are you fucking serious? yes I did, when I wasn’t even at the uni yet you moron. google. can you believe it? I was reading papers from Oxford and Cambridge and this ass ask me if I used google.

I had a very bad score at my masters interview but my supervisor loved it anyway.

so that’s it. I hope it helps to have an idea how things work around here.

#phdblr #phd #masters #academic life #long post #very loooong post

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amariemelody · 4 years

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for meme: friday,saturday, september :)

Aww, thanks, honey! Here we go!

Friday: most self-indulgent fic you have ever posted?

Oh gosh, this one is putting me on the spot here. But alas, my most indulgent fic has to be Heliotrope, an Assassin’s Creed fic, starring Altair Ibn La-Ahad and a black (Nubian)!Adha...’cause I love that freakin’ Alty and I wanted to pair him with black girl. So I done made up a black girl.

I’ve put it on hold for...goodness, 4 years now because I’m not too sure of the direction and I’ve been taken over by the Marvel fandom, haha. But I’d like to come back to it someday.

saturday: what gets you excited whilst writing?

The feeling of being able to share something with an audience-usually an emotion!

I’ll get scenes & general ideas in my head and then usually think, “Oh, haha this will make other people laugh!” or “Dang, this is breaking my heart so now I gotta go break everyone else’s heart. Can’t suffer alone.”

So when I’m writing, I don’t just feel that I’m putting black on white paper-I’m painting a scene, a setting that I want my audience to be able to see what I see and so feel what I feel (I’ve been told that I’m very, very good at that, if I do say so!), and so what I wanted to convey was successfully conveyed. Also, if my audience sees something even more and/or something different, I love for them to tell me that, too!!

september: share a comment or review which still warms your heart?

I have to pick just one? Well, I don’t get a whole lot, but...every comment I’ve gotten from @the-omniscient-narrator has been platinum. This one in particular on my 1st Harlem Lights fic with SamSteve:

This is quite possibly one of the most unique takes on the soul mark trope ever - no, it truly is. It feels so real, the history of that law, the reincarnation, the insecurity that both of them are feeling. Ugh my heart. You've done such a great job that I read this all in one breath last night on my phone - but I had to come back and leave a review on every chapter because it's ridiculous that you don't have a million kudos and just as many reviews. What a beautiful foundation this chapter is for the rest of this remarkable story.

ETA: your inclusion of all the other Avengers & Fury was seamless and gorgeous! (I also thought they would be the reincarnations of Kyle and Hemsen - but I should've known you'd surprise me)

And this one, also from her on that same fic:

As someone who wrote a thesis on the Harlem Renaissance, this whole chapter was a delight and a half! Black Mecca indeed - Sam's hesitance and his parents' hopeful attitude felt very real. I love Monica for seeing Sam's need for a connection to this new place and giving him so much more. I laughed at the Wilson's horror that Sam left a guest standing outside like that. Oh my beautiful awkward bird.

The description of the crew - their kindness, their exuberance, their banter. Your use of slang, the description of all the sights and sounds were out of this world. Latina Maria Hill :) Sam being just struck by how beautiful all these people are, especially Charles & our sweet James Rhodes Rhodey walking arm in arm with Sam was everything! UGH I just really love your introduction of everyone and how Steve & Sam are so blatant in their crushing that they immediately get teased. The rations joke - I want to quote this whole beautiful thing back to you.

It was the 1st of all her commenting on each chapter of that fic and...wow. I remember when I done did that fic for a holiday gift exchange, I felt that I did not do enough research on the Harlem Renaissance before I rushed to post it, but for her to be another, older black girl say that she did a whole ass college thesis on it and I hit the nail on the head...that was a great breath of relief for me.

It also just...touched my heart that someone cared about my work that much to leave me platinum treats on each chapter. I still tear up thinking about it today. She then encouraged me to write the sequel (a prequel, really, featuring Rhodey & Tony), and flipped out when I did!

As a result of it, we’ve since become friends and even call each other on the phone from time to time. Friendships are beautiful and you never know where they’ll come from!!

#drakefeathers #I sometimes get asks #I done talked a lot more than I thought I would haha!#Amarie talks #Writing #My fanfiction

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l1lithh · 5 years

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The English Major's Guide to Writing Essays

I know everyone usually dreads writing essays. It’s a long, tedious process that usually ends in frustration tears or an all nighter. As an English major/Crazy person that actually enjoys writing essays, I hope I can offer everyone a bit of help and save every student a some suffering.

**** The Setup ****

Find a good environment. I recommend a place that you’re comfortable and familiar with. A place that makes you feel safe and welcome. If you’re in a new environment that you have to adjust too, you’re not going to be very focused on what you’re doing. My favorite essay space is either the comfy chairs in my school library or the courtyard in my dorm building. Some might prefer busy coffee shops, while others might need to be concealed in a completely silent space.

Take care of your needs before you begin. If you're hungry, go eat something before starting. If you're tired, go lay down and take a nap for a little while. If you're feeling antsy, go for a run or a walk. Keep in mind, this goes for emotional needs, too. I've tried to write essays hungry/and/or upset, and it doesn't work well at all. You're gonna do your best work when you're 100% taken care of.

Make sure you have everything you need in one place. This pretty self-explanatory. Make sure you have everything you need for the essay within your immediate reach. Take all the research papers you need and keep them neatly stacked next to your computer or essay writing device. Keep your water right next to you. If you have an outline or notes from the class you’re writing the essay for, gather them all together and keep them right in front of you. This will make writing the essay a lot less tiring, and the process will go a lot faster.

Snacks & Water. This might be a personal preference, but I like writing more if I have something {healthy} to eat, like a small plate of hummus and pita, a handful of potato chips, or a bowl of berries. I also like to keep a water bottle nearby, because water is never a bad idea. Plus, if you’re writing in the morning, it’ll help kick start your system and improve focus.

**** The Essay ****

Ok so this part is a bit more tricky, so I’m gonna go step by step here. These steps are mostly for research papers and analysis-oriented papers and are pretty general. More specialized essays like creative writing pieces or lab reports are a whole other post entirely!

1. The overall format. So the overall format I’m going to use here is the CHUNKS system, which includes an introduction paragraph, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. I’ll cover each one of these elements one by one. It’s important to note that this system will be even easier to follow if you have an outline prepared, so I’ll cover that, too.

2. The outline. Outlines are your best friend. If you have a good outline, writing your essay will be a breeze. Your outline should cover the introduction, with a hook and thesis, the body paragraphs, which should contain your topic sentence, your evidence, commentary, and your connection back to your thesis. Finally, your conclusion should summarize everything.

3. The Introduction. Your introduction should open with a hook sentence, or any interesting quote, statement, or question that is related to your essay topic but intrigues your reader at the same time. Next, you should have your thesis. A thesis is pretty much the argument you’re trying to make in a paper and is the heart of your essay. Since it’s so crucial, I’ll give an example: In his short story, Barn Burning, William Faulkner builds an overall theme of family loyalty versus justice; he accomplishes this by his use of characterization, symbolism, and Southern Gothic elements. As you can see, the thesis follows this outline:

1. General argument - “William Faulkner builds an overall theme of family loyalty versus justice.”

2. Evidence 1 - Characterization

3. Evidence 2 - Symbolism

4. Evidence 3 - Southern Gothic elements

4. Body paragraphs. So, each body paragraph is meant to expand on each element of evidence, and explain why they prove your thesis. Body paragraphs should generally align with this outline: Topic sentence, which introduces which part of your thesis you're talking about, direct quote with evidence, and then commentary tying your quote back to the thesis. An example would be:

William Faulkner uses characterization to build his theme of family loyalty over justice. "Quote from text" (Faulkner, 5). Here, Faulkner characterizes his main character as intelligent yet submissive. This proves that family loyalty is prioritized over objective justice because even as an intelligent boy, he still feels loyalty to his father, even in the face of his father's evil.

Body paragraphs should flow from one to the other via the use of transition words like "Second," "Third," "Finally," "However," or "Similarly," to name a few. A transitionary phrase might help, too, for bigger points--"However, all of this is not to say that....".

5. The conclusion. A huge misconception about the conclusion is that it is a summary. While it is a summary, you should also make a judgment about the text in question. You should reiterate your thesis, then draw a strong, finalizing judgement to "seal the deal" and boost your thesis even more. This is your chance to really stick the landing and make the grade.

And that's all there is to it, folks! I hope this helps those of you who hate writing essays find some guidance.

#studyblr #studyspo #bookblr #writing #how to #mine

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fairy-studies-blr · 5 years

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Well I’m back from break with another masterpost! This one took me a while to write, so I hope at least some people find it useful. As you can tell from the title, it’s a step-by-step guide on how to write literary analysis essay aka an essay that analyzes a literary text. Enjoy!

1. Read the book

I mean this one’s pretty obvious right? If you want to do well on a literature essay, you have to actually read the book/poem that you’ll be analyzing. While you’re reading, you should be taking note of major themes that the author is developing and the different ways in which they appear throughout the book. The following is a list of things you should be keeping an eye out for while you read (but it’s by no means exhaustive).

Things to note (potential essay topics)

historical context, aka how are the author’s background and the events going on in his/her life reflected in the text

the way characters are portrayed and their function in the story

major themes

use of literary devices (allusions, imagery, repetition, etc.)

questions you personally have about the text

writing style

key scenes/lines

2. Develop your thesis

Now you have to come up with a thesis, or in other words your central argument. This is where your annotations will come in handy. Use them as a guide to come up with a general argument about the text. If you're getting stuck, ask yourself why a particular scene/quote/character/device is important to the text. If you can answer that question you have a thesis statement. To use a personal example, I wrote an essay on the symbolism of oranges in a partiuclary book. My thesis statement was:

While in the beginning of the novel oranges represent the religious norms that Jeanette eventually rejects, as the story progresses the color orange, and later oranges themselves, come to symbolize Jeanette’s desires for other women. The double meaning of the oranges exemplifies Winterson’s message that the Bible and what it says is always open to multiple interpretations.

Notice how specific this thesis is. It tells you exactly what argument I’m trying to make, and how that argument relates to a major theme in the text, or in other words how it contributes to our understanding of the book. Your thesis should be between 1-3 sentences. Any longer than that and it’s probably not specific enough.

Finally, one of the biggest mistakes people make is coming up with a thesis that just states a fact about the book. In other words, if you’re writing about the Sherlock Holmes stories, you can’t say, “Homes uses his powers of observation to solve the crimes.” This is not an acceptable thesis because it is not making an argument about the text, it is just stating a fact. Anyone reading the book would know this was true. Your thesis needs to be a statement that someone could potentially argue against.

3. Find quotes/evidence

Once you’ve come up with a solid thesis, you need to look through your book/poem and find the evidence that you are going to use to support your thesis. This can include things the characters say or do, descriptions, scenes, elements of the work’s structure, or specific quotes. I find that it’s normally easier to do this before making the outline itself, because it gives you an idea of what things you want to include. I recommend using post-it flags to bookmark all of the parts that you want to reference. This process will be much easier if you have already annotated the text, because you’ve probably already taken note of things you can use as evidence for your argument.

4. Outline

Start your outline by writing your thesis at the top. Then, number each paragraph/section and write down a topic sentence next to that number. Underneath the heading for each paragraph, use bullet points to expand on the topic sentence, explain your analysis, and mark down where you are going to put your evidence. You can either include your quotes in full in your outline, or you can simply write down the page numbers you will be referencing. Regardless, make sure you take note of what evidence supports your analysis in your outline, because this will allow you to spot any weak points in your argument. You don’t have to use complete sentences, but the more info you put down the better. Remember, outlines are allowed to be messy, so don’t get stressed about it not looking perfect.

5. Writing the Draft

Before you start writing your paper, make sure you have your both your text and your outline handy as well as a thesaurus/dictionary. Write down your thesis at the top of the page so that you can easily reference it as you’re typing. Typically, I like to start my papers by writing all of the body paragraphs first, and then I’ll go back and write the introduction and the conclusion. I do this because I usually end up straying from my outline and/or adjusting my thesis as I’m writing the body paragraphs. It’s easier to introduce the paper once I already know what I’ve written.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make in a literary essay is summarizing the text instead of analyzing it. Any evidence you present in your paragraphs to support your thesis must be coupled with your own analysis. You have to explain how the evidence you present supports the argument you are trying to make. You shouldn’t be taking quotes out of context either, trust me teachers can tell when you do that.

6. Revise

This step shouldn’t be that much different than revising any other papers you’ve done, but there are a couple of things you should keep in mind. Make sure you’re consistently using present tense to discuss the text that you are analyzing, because although literature may have been written in the past, it still exists today, in the present. Also, make sure you haven’t summarized the text at all.

Be careful when talking about authorial intent. Don’t assume that just because you interpret something a certain way that’s how the author wanted it to be interpreted. This doesn’t mean you can’t talk about your interpretation, it just means you might want to avoid saying things like, “he/she wants to show...” or he/she wrote x in this way because... Instead, opt for “this shows x” or “or y can be interpreted in x way.”

Also, literature papers are often formatted in MLA, so make sure your essay matches their guidelines. All of my professors would take off points if our papers were not in MLA.

If you want more general revision tips, check here and here.

And that’s the end of this post. I’m thinking of turning this into a series, where I go over how to write different kinds of essays, so if you liked this one keep an eye out for future posts. My ask box is always open if you have a question (about this post or anything else), or if you have some other tips you’d like to share put them in the comments. Happy writing!

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globalitportfolio-olivia-blog · 5 years

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My Letter to you

Dear Dr. Shea,

My reading goals this semester were to increase my reading rate by three pages/hour, read a war book or ⅔ of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and to read 15-20 minutes before I went to bed, after my homework. I did increase my reading rate by three pages and I did read every night whether it be my Ap World History textbook or an a actual book. What I did not accomplish was my goal to read most of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I read one of the books but I wanted to focus more on the African style books as this was our theme for the third quarter. I have been very interested in learning more about the World Wars and so one book I read about World War II was The Hiding Place written by Corrie ten Boom, about her own war story and how she helped many Jews. The main thing that helped me actually achieve my goals was the passion I have for this subject and this pushed me to read things like the Hiding Place and watch things like Schindler's List. My writing goals this semester were to use more emotion which was the same as what I was going to do as a risk, write three pages in my notebook on the weekend, and to improve my grammar and sentence structure. I accomplished writing with more emotion and using better grammar and sentence structure, however most of the times I did not write in my notebook as often as I said I would. Even though I did not write as much, I wrote more reflections on the things I read and watched as I said previously. I also began to add small illustrations to many of the things I printed out or the pages I felt just needed more to them. Something that helped me achieve my goals was to write or print out things that actually had meaning to them or that I was interested in, such as my reflections on things I was learning in Biology, my movie reflections, or printing out things like song lyrics. The same thing that helped me achieve my reading goals also motivated me as a writer because if I was reading or watching something I was invested in I would be able to encourage myself to use my emotions in writing. I feel like in order to grow as both a reader and a writer I need to look at is as a cycle maybe, if I read or watch something intriguing or confusing then I will be more compelled to write in more depth and start questioning things more.

Often after I watched something I would use my writer's notebook as a way to reflect on what I had just watched and doing that helped me to actually think about the things I had been watching instead of just binge watching things with no purpose. I also used my notebook to have a place where I could put the lyrics of a song I was listening to at the time or to draw/doodle when I wanted to have my notebook be more creative. The reflections played a big part in my growth as a writer because it forced me to go more in depth than I normally do with my writing, and as I briefly mentioned earlier, to think about what I was watching and reading but also to read and watch pieces that made me think.

My Pop Culture Analysis was done on the movie The Help which I titled You is Kind, You is Smart, You is Important. Through this analysis I discussed the theme of racism with the thesis being that; This movie shows the struggles black people went through even 100 years after emancipation from slavery. The main theme of this movie is the pro-racism that still existed after slavery in the southern parts of America but it also connects to family and community. I would say that I excelled in my thesis and the way I put my ideas onto paper. Although I had to revise my thesis, my final thesis developed a good argument for the rest of my paper. I could have done better with my cinematic analysis. In this essay I just analyzed the story line and did not really go into depth with the kinds of shots, angles, or lighting that was used in the movie.

In my Cry the Beloved Country in-class essay I sought to discuss the ways racism is treated in this novel, and answer how the different characters address it and/or try to eradicate it. My main argument in this book was to show the portrayal of the apartheid of racial struggles and crime that was going on in Johannesburg in 1948. Black vs. white crime was very common and this book shows just one case of it happening. Often when reading this book the question “If roles were reversed and Arthur had been the one to shoot Absalom, under the same circumstance, would the consequence be the same?” The characters in this book go through many changes but they all still have their thoughts and own experiences on racism. In this essay I excelled at using resources from the book to support my argument, specifically quotes and character relationships. This can be seen when I used a quote in this section of my essay: James Jarvis never really understood what his son was doing but after he died and found the book he was writing I think he began to understand or at least try to. "But I wish now that I'd known more of him. You see, the things that he did, I've never had much to do with that sort of thing," book two, page 20. I could have done much better with developing my conclusion. My original conclusion “Now to answer the question I asked earlier, I think that if Absalom had been shot instead there would not have been much attention brought to the case because as a white man Arthur was given the benefit of the doubt and people wouldn’t want to cause a scandal. With the death of Arthur we get to see the changes that Jarvis goes through, that most likely wouldn’t have happened if his son was still alive. The vast differences between Arthur and James help us understand the apartheid better and the efforts people made to eradicate it.” In order to make this better I needed to refer back to my thesis and I deleted unnecessary sentences and created stronger sentence structures.

The poem I did was using the Sijo format which is typically three lines in english and three lines repeated just in another language. The title of my poem is Day By Day, and it is about the beauty of sunsets. I chose the topic of sunsets/sunrises because they’re such a beautiful portrayal of God’s work and it’s something I’ve come to greatly appreciate over the last couple of years. My first draft felt very plain and empty to me and so I decided to add the other part of the Sijo style, writing the poem in two languages, which in my case I used French. I feel like this is my strongest part of the poem because it adds more depth to it, and especially because it’s so short it makes the poem look more interesting. The biggest part of my poem I had to work on was adding more detail. From my rough draft my peers suggested that I added more detail or use better, more descriptive words. In my Persepolis In-Class essay I began with … Always keep your dignity and be true to yourself” (Marji’s grandmother on page 150, panel 6.) In the graphic novel, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, the author portrays the theme of family through the graphic novel feature of captions which shows a relationship with her grandmother and her uncle. This introduction was my biggest strength of the essay as it began with a hook that related to the theme I was discussing and it included a strong thesis. I wanted to explore how Marjane Satrapi uses captions to develop relationships between Marji and her family. Throughout this essay I used many quotes and passages from the book that would best help me develop my argument but one thing I needed to fix/ add was one more example to the end of one of my main arguments and create a better conclusion. Doing this would have created a more solid argument and adding more to my conclusion would have wrapped up my essay well.

I did my book talk on The Dream Keeper and other Poems by Langston Hughes. In order to hook my audience I started off with a quote then talked about the artist. This is the first part of my book talk; Hold fast to dreams, For if dreams die, Life is a broken-winged bird, That cannot fly. This was one of the first poems that this author wrote while he was just bored in class. The author of this collection of poetry was an a leader of the Harlem Renaissance and a great poet, activist, novelist and playwright. One of the earliest innovators of the art form called Jazz poetry. I chose this book because I wanted to explore the African-American genre of poetry because of the rich cultural history it has. I think that I was most strong in talking about the author and the background of this book as I explained some of the historical context behind it. I could work on hooking my audience better because the way I did it wasn't too captivating. If I were to do this project again I would probably pick a book with an actual plot and main character because although I enjoyed discussing this book and the poems that I liked the most, it was hard to discuss what happens in the book when it has no plot.

I did my One-Pager on the The Bride Price by Buchi Emecheta. This book shows traditional Nigerian customs in a small Igbo village and the influence the colonizers had on their land, as seen through the eyes of a young teenage girl encircled with the tribal customs. On my One-Pager I think I portrayed the setting, themes, and summary in a creative yet neat way with color to add creativity to the project. I could have made this project better by organizing my thoughts better and maybe adding more detail. If I were to do this again I would keep the same book because really enjoyed reading it but I would try to add more quotes and detail to the project because I would want my audience to get a better review of the book.

For my quarter three B project, the cultural artifact, I created a collage of African proverbs and placed them on top of a selection of African cloth. Cloth is a very symbolic thing of Africa for me because I have done sewing and cloth markets were seen daily in Nigeria. Proverbs are a big part of African culture and history as they are a portrayal of wisdom. My strengths of this project were that the African culture was portrayed well through the cloth and proverbs. My weaknesses were that I did not spend enough time putting the things together so some of the proverbs and cloth were coming apart. If I were to do this again I would describe some of the proverbs meanings and spend more time on putting the items together, because that was one of my weaknesses. Something rewarding about completing this was the overall look of it because the fusion of multiple African clothes looked nice with the added culture of the proverbs.

For my quarter four B project I put together a collection of poems. I used two of my own poems, one about sunsets, one about goodbyes, two French poems and one American poem. One of the French poems was the song “Do You Hear the People Sing,” from Les Miserables, and I also used a picture portraying the French Revolution, and two poetry analysis from the poems we did in class. My strengths with this project are that I used many pictures to help the visuals of the poems, and that I used more poems than necessary from around the world. I would change the analysis to different poems from the ones I did in class to the ones I used from around the world so that I would better learn how to analyze a poem. Something rewarding of this project was the visual effects on the project because you could see that the whole thing wasn’t just words, but something that frustrated me was that I didn’t have a picture for some of the pieces I did which would have assisted the look of the poem.

The A project I completed was the Poetry Slam/Memorization. I memorized a poem by Langston Hughes, the same author I used for my book talk. This poem was titled Harlem and through it the author was trying to portray the dreams he has for life and the struggles with fulfilling them. His work is very inspirational so I chose this poem because although some of the phrasing is different he still shows a strong message. My strengths of this poem were that I was actually able to memorize this poem and recite it, which is a big fear of mine. My weakness would be that I read too fast. If I were to do this again I would take my time reciting it and I would add more emotion so that I could better portray Langston Hughes message.

I think the artifact that best shows excellence this semester would be my peer-reviewed poem, in which I got a distinctive. Through this short three line poem I was able to add depth, with the French section, detail by using descriptive words to make it ‘vivid’. The poem style I used was the Sijo and I followed the format well by making it only three lines and having it repeated in another language.

Day by Day

Sunrise, Sunset

The golden morning and the afterglow of the evening.

One waking us to a new day, the other putting the day to sleep.

Au jour le jour

Lever du soleil, Coucher du soleil

Le matin d'or et la lueur du soir.

L'un se réveillant à une nouvelle journée, l'autre s'endormant.

I demonstrated growth through the Socratic Seminars and TQE group discussions. The first few times of doing the seminars I never really put a lot of thought into what I was saying and I would only provide one or two comments each time. As we did this more though I started becoming more confident in giving comments and more specifically asking questions. A big part of gaining more confidence to participate was taking time to takes notes and me actually wanting to find out something in what we were reading. The smaller TQE discussions were the best for me because it was just a small group of us focused on a certain section and speaking during that time felt like a normal conversation between friends, just with some intelligence. One of my Thoughts: At first it seemed odd to me that the Umuofians were excited for the locusts to come because I was thinking of the harm they would bring to the crops. When they started talking about catching them I realized they were for eating, and because the coming of the locusts was such a rare thing it made the event even more exciting. After it rains you often see those insects with wings all over the ground and in Nigeria we called them ‘Shinge’ and once people collect them the Shinge would be fried and they would just be carried around as snacks. One of my Questions: Why did the village leaders decided to kill Imefuka? And my Epiphanies: One of the questions from last week was about Okonkwo’s character and as I’ve kept reading his character has revealed that he actually does care for his family and he’s not “heartless.” Also there is a very strong belief in witchcraft and spirits in Nigeria and Chielo can be seen as a symbol of the culture in Umuofia.

One of the things I wanted to take a risk in this semester was to use more emotion/ depth in my writing. I think this is portrayed well through the reflections I wrote on Narnia: Prince Caspian, and Downton Abbey. My Narnia reflection: I just watched Narnia because I wanted to procrastinate even more and um...Prince Caspian! The first thing I realized especially this time watching it was how similar the story line is to Jesus coming to Earth. Prince Caspian blows the horn and the four come to “save,” the Narnians. The second thing is how that first battle scene is so devastating! It kills me everytime when the big guy goes under the gate to hold it up for everyone and as if that wasn’t bad enough they start shooting arrows at him! Also wow I didn’t remember that so many Narnians were locked inside...how sad! Oh and we can’t forget about the white witch who’s a metaphor of sorts for satan and we can see Caspian being tempted, but then regrets it. But the best and saddest part of the whole movie, in my opinion, is the song ‘The Call’ at the end. That’s the biggest tearjerker ever! Despite the fact that this reflection was written probably sometime around midnight and it’s very simple writing I feel like this still shows risk taking because it was one of the first reflections I had done in my notebook and I opened up how I felt about the movie.

I already discussed Persepolis and Cry, the Beloved Country but I would say that both of those books challenged me to look at situations from different viewpoints like Marji vs. soldiers during that time, or in Cry white vs. black men. Persepolis didn’t really disappoint me at all because it was such a new genre to me I was to invested in learning about her culture and how it was portrayed through a graphic novel. In Cry, the Beloved Country I really thought that the son would be set free after so much time that his father, the Reverend, had spent looking for him so I was disappointed when he was hung. Even though that was disappointing it still brought one of the greatest reconciliations in the book which was between Jarvis and the Reverend on the valley hill. The Breadwinner was similar to Persepolis but it really showed the life of women during that time of war, in depth compared to Persepolis.

I read Things Fall Apart which follows the adult like of Okonkwo and his family and tribe in Umuofia. Okonkwo is a young influential leader in the village of Umuofia who always strives to be seen as strong. Through this book we see traditional customs and culture before and during the time that colonizers came to Nigeria. Some of the major themes seen in this book are pride, masculinity, and change and tradition. In this book Chinua Achebe incorporates traditional Nigerian proverbs which help add culture to the book. Some of these proverbs are "Proverbs are the palm-oil with which words are eaten" and "When the moon is shining the cripple becomes hungry for walk," and many more. As we did a TQE session every week I had to take notes and think of questions or things that stood out to me in whatever section of the book we were reading. This was challenging for me because it forced me to read in detail and not just skim to get the basic information. Through doing this I was able to appreciate the beauty of this book even though it talks about some uncomfortable things, one of those being when Okonkwo drank palm wine out a persons head that he had just defeated. *SPOILER ALERT* I was disappointed with the way Chinua Achebe killed off some of the most important people like Ikemefuna and Okonkwo, without giving a very good explanation. Although those were disappointing I really liked the character development of Okonkwo, who we could see started caring more for his family. This is a very rich book with many lessons and traditional beliefs, social/gender norms, and the hardships of being “successful.” I would recommend this book to anyone interested in West African culture and how it changed when the “white men” came to their country.

Persepolis was my favorite book because I was able to explore a new genre. Not only was this a new genre for me, graphic novel, I learned more about the Middle East and the history it has had with all the conflict and religion vs. politics.

My least favorite book was Cry, the Beloved Country because I felt as if I didn’t have enough time to read and think through the book as I was more focused on doing Socratic Seminars and getting a good grade. This year I have explored new genre and grown as a reader because of it. I will read differently from before by reflecting on the things I read because I want to be able to answer questions better and take my time doing things.

In class I participate more through the group activities such as TQE discussions than answering questions. I would say I was strong in my participation though because I prompted others in my groups to think by asking meaningful questions. I could improve by answering more often in class and sharing more of the things I have written and shared the books I have read.

I have improved greatly through my writer's notebook and creativity through my projects, such as the cultural artifact. I have also improved on my book/TV show reviews as I have learned to analyze things in a new, better way. I was challenged this quarter through the analyzation of things because although it was something I improved on I really had difficulties using film terms, etc. to describe things in a movie or book.

My favorite activities were the Socratic Seminars. I enjoyed doing these because I was able to hear my peers thoughts about whatever section of a book we had just read and it is important to get different viewpoints.

I would say the main thing I have learned about myself is that if I have enough confidence in either my writing or participating in class I will do much better. Once I had confidence in my notes for class discussions I was participating and learning much more. Through my writing once I just started writing good ideas would start to flow and sometimes they don’t come write away but this class has encourage me to write more often and more in depth.

My Things Fall Apart group helped me the most because we learned how to work together and make our projects the best they could be. Through working together for Things Fall Apart we also helped each other with other projects and pieces for this class like the peer-reviewed poem and the poetry packet.

I would say I helped my Things Fall Apart group because it was a group effort in trying to help each other as much as possible. The same ways in which they helped me, I also tried helping them. We worked together on the book activities well and we all put in effort in the TQE discussions which made reading the book more interesting.

I think that I earned an A in this class because I have put extra effort into all the work I have done through doing extra credit like turning things early, doing revisions when I need to improve something like on both of my in-class essays, and putting extra work to make my projects look beyond expectations like what I did with my cultural artifact and my poetry packet. I feel like I have met all the expectations to have an A in this class and I hope that it will be demonstrated that way through my Digital Portfolio.

For future classes I would suggest spreading out the due date for projects because although we were often given a long time to complete the projects most things were due around the same time and it created extra stress.

Sincerely,

Olivia Pederson

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anthonybronaugh · 2 years

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How to Write a Successful Essay

In Anthony Bronaugh’s opinion, you should jot down the main points of the entire event in chronological order for the body of your speech. Do not begin with your own personal story to prevent rambling. Instead, begin by recounting a time when you were pushed so hard that you drowned. After that, you should describe what happened to that person in incident A. Consider including specifics about that person in event B if you wish to make your point more powerful. And so forth.

Look for themes and subjects that are relevant to you and your topic while you prepare your speech. The fables of Aesop are a fantastic source of speech topics. Some examples include The Dog and His Reflection, The Fox and the Grapes, Belling the Cat, and The Emperor's New Clothes. A first, an event, or a moral principle could be the theme. These stories all have a human element to them and can be used as narrative speech examples.

The audience should be aware that the speech is coming to a close with a strong conclusion. A straightforward recap of the main points is a decent approach to end a presentation, but a wrap-up fact, story, or quote is a more powerful technique. A repeat of a moral or lesson that was presented during the speech is used in narrative speech examples. The speaker should evaluate the outline to ensure that the material is reflected in his or her speech, and the conclusion should be straightforward and unambiguous.

Anthony Bronaugh pointed out that the objective of the speech must be stated in the thesis of a narrative speech. It should also include the speech's theme. A narrative speech usually comprises three or five components, each of which should be clearly designated. The introduction, the main events, the role of the key characters, and the resolution are the main points of a narrative speech. After the outline is finished, the story's details should be translated into dialogue.

The audience should be alerted that the speech is coming to a close with a strong ending. Wrapping up a presentation with a brief review of the main points is a nice idea, but a wrap-up fact, anecdote, or quote is a more effective strategy. A moral or lesson that was covered during the speech is restated in narrative speech examples. The speaker should go through the outline to ensure that the material is reflected in his or her speech, and the conclusion should be short and unambiguous.

The objective of the speech must be stated in a narrative speech's thesis. The topic of the speech should also be mentioned. A narrative speech often comprises three or five components, each of which should be labeled explicitly. Introduction, important events, role of key characters, and resolution are the main points in a narrative speech. The story's details should be converted into dialogue once the outline is completed.

According to Anthony Bronaugh, narrative speech examples are crucial for delivering the most powerful and effective speech. A well-written story reflects the author's own life experiences. It has the ability to powerfully portray someone's mood and feelings. One of the four traditional rhetorical styles is narrative. Arguments are used to persuade others, exposition is used to explain concepts, and description is used to convey a visual experience through written words. Essays, fairy tales, and movies are all examples of narratives. There are five key characteristics to all tales that can be found in these forms of works.

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thenewbubonic · 6 years

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Kanye – ye

The album is populated with mutters and drawls, modulated voices, instrumentals that are held together by the drums as the melody traverses a scape of samples. Vocal guests appear and vanish before the next in line. The opening, I Thought About Killing You, is a spoken word feature which casts an American Psycho pallor over the whole thing. When he’s talking about rampant casual sex in the next song, and you remember this guy is 40 and with 3 kids, it sounds more like someone letting you into his kill room more than someone just high on life and fun. The backing instrumental is pretty and it is impactful and it opens the scene on the album effectively. There’s self-doubt, depression present in his talk about killing himself, but for the most part Kanye is introducing this project with repeating over and over how much he loves himself and that he wants to kill you: pure egomania.

What’s unmistakable is that this album is beautiful. The sounds here are delicious and warm, shining like a Wyoming dawn. Kanye is also rapping better on this than he had on most of TLOP although, just like that album, that he has anything at all to say at this point in his career is a bit of a stretch. Regardless of whether he’s delivering great bars, the energy is present and it makes it much more listenable than TLOP where there are a lot of moments that felt phoned in. That this album is only 7 tracks feels a little bit like an over-reach in artistic cut-sight. The thematic tone feels rushed when you go from the American Psycho opener to him offering a fond remembrance of dark nights 8 minutes later. You want to feel the whole stupor and the dawn before this reminiscent track, but instead the short tracklist confines this album’s reach to that of a playlist. The somber synth that appears at the beginning of All Mine returns in Violent Crimes and speaks to an unseen world of sound. It seems likely that is an element that will be drawn out in future concert performances of this album.

It feels a bit like getting a dark and strange short story from one of your favorite authors later on in his career, and in that sense it is an enjoyable project. I could imagine vibing to these songs off some liquor, but at the same time there are moments like on All Mine where the tone is set for this sexy club track and then 40 year old Kanye starts talking and we remember, oh yeah, we’re in his world, and it goes back to feeling more like story time than a song.

The album cover has a little quote scribbled on it: “I hate being / Bi-Polar / its awesome.” And on Yikes he talks about him being on his bipolar, that it’s not a weakness but a super power. It could be taken that this is the thesis statement of this album. Considering the 7 track format is something he’s doing not only for his own album but for those he’s producing, Pusha T’s and Nas’, as well as his collab album with Kid Cudi, it seems more like a retroactive explanation to say that the short tracklist enforces a feeling of sudden, jagged personality change. The intentionality of it makes it more disappointing, because whatever he’s hoping for with the brevity – it doesn’t take. Where most of Kanye’s albums, even Yeezus, sound ultimately sweeping and gracious, this one feels more than ever before like a claustrophobic, instinctive ego-grab. On one hand, the art and artist shouldn’t be seen so closely together, but that is exactly what Kanye does. He makes himself the main attraction of his own art. So, while this album invites you to observe the spectacle that is Kanye, the form and layout speak towards a quieter, more artistic effort and the bipolarity of that contrast is, ultimately, more a detractor than a blessing.

There are few artists whose work exudes such a sheer intelligence: the layers and compositional complexity lead one to think, to wonder. That usually isn’t what music is trying to evoke in its listeners, though. This album exudes thought and control, but with just 7 songs it may be over-controlled, and in turn the beauty is stifled; and whole songs, whole emotions, don’t come through. No Mistakes, for example, comes in at 2:03 and feels like a revisit to the feelings invoked in Bound 2, but the short runtime cuts it short of being a fully thought out song, with almost half of it being taken up in a verse that is bookmarked by two renditions of a chorus.

This album strikes the ear strangely at first: the long introduction serves as a barrier to entry in some ways and the short length will leave listeners wondering if they missed out on a more complete vision and, being confronted with the reality of Kanye matching up with the persona of Kanye it’s impossible to not sense that this 40 year old man is being over-shallow and name-dropping in his efforts to put out exciting music, but this is still a Kanye record full of lovely production, bravado-filled and energetic lyricism, and composition that keeps you coming back to hear it again and again. The final two songs, Ghost Town and Violent Crimes, are by far the most soaring and musically exciting and the ones I’ll be revisiting the most.

In summation, I give this album twelve distant views of a mountainous Wyoming sunset out of which the tides have not visited since ages prehistoric.

#kanye #ye #album #review #album review

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cuiwritingstudio · 3 years

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The Dos and Don’ts of Introductions

By Makenna Myers, Writing Studio Consultant

I’m going to tell you an embarrassing story. It was the second semester of my sophomore year, and I had just started working as a Writing Studio consultant. We were doing a series of short presentations in our staff meetings and I, the lucky new girl, had the first slot. I dutifully put together my presentation about writing introduction paragraphs, complete with a fancy Prezi. I stood up in front of my new coworkers and was struck with the most sudden and overwhelming stage fright I have ever experienced. I suddenly knew nothing about introductions or how to form a sentence, my mind stuck in panic mode. I did my best to collect myself and fumbled through the content I’d worked so hard to prepare. Midway through the disastrous presentation, a horrible realization hit me—I forgot to give my introduction… to my presentation about introductions.

Yes, that is an absolutely true story, and here I am, two years later, asking for a redo. I present to you the do’s and don’ts of writing a great introduction to an academic essay:

1. Do have a strong opening sentence. Depending on the topic of your essay, this could be a thought-provoking question, a relevant quote, or an intriguing fact. This might look like: “Hitchhiking is a uniquely American tradition, born from the explosion of the automotive industry and the vast size of the nation” or “In Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates writes, ‘I was made for the library, not the classroom.’” No matter what you chose, make sure that the first line is directly relevant to your paper topic.

2. Don’t start from the beginning of time. It is okay to jump right into your topic. Do not begin with something like “Since the dawn of humanity…” or “As long as people have existed….” There is no need to go back that far in time, nor do you have the space to address a couple thousand years of human history before presenting your thesis. Here’s an example of a good starting point: “Ira Aldridge and his revolutionary acting career are a forgotten wonder of the Shakespearian world.” The author does not make broad, sweeping statements about Shakespeare’s work or theatre in general, and instead immediately tells the reader who the essay is going to focus on and why they are important.

3. Do think of the introduction as a bridge. The introduction is a place of transition for the reader between their world and the world of your essay. Make sure to give them the tools they need to understand your argument. These tools will vary depending upon the subject of your essay, but could be definitions, context, brief plot summary. Consider this introduction for an English paper:

“Marie de France’s ‘Lanval’ tells the unconventional love story of an esteemed knight of King Arthur’s round table and the mysterious Fairy Queen. The poem features the subversion of expectations at every line, presenting beloved Arthurian characters like King Arthur and Queen Guinevere as less-than-admirable. However, the most notable subversion of expectations comes in De France’s unraveling of gender roles.”

The author does not waste time and establishes the main focus of the essay, the general plot, and what part of the poem is going to be discussed as concisely as possible.

4. Don’t feel pressure to write the introduction first. Just because the introduction is read first does not mean it has to be written first. In my own writing, I often find it hard to write the introduction first because I do not always know exactly what my body paragraphs are going to look like. Writing the introduction after the body paragraphs can be easier because you have a clear idea of what you are introducing. As long as you have your thesis statement solidified, write the rest of your essay first if the introduction is giving you trouble.

Looking back, that botched presentation is one of the most hilariously ironic moments of my life. Who forgets to give the introduction to a presentation about introductions? Me, apparently. Introductions often intimidate students and prevent them from writing the rest of their essay. Don’t let that fear overwhelm you. Keep these tips in mind, and I am sure you will nail it! Just don’t be like me and forget the introduction entirely. Trust me, it’s pretty embarrassing.

Makenna Myers is from San Diego, California. She has a passion for words— reading, writing, and editing them. You can find her at her happiest with a pen in her hand and a blank page before her. Appropriately, she is a senior majoring in Humanities with an Emphasis in Creative Writing and a minor in English. Outside of her love for creative writing, she has experience writing CMS and MLA formats and has written for professors such as Danger, Armstrong, and Elliott (among many others).

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