ENL5F-05 Revisited!
Apr. 18th, 2003 06:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aggienautENL5F-053: The Teacher Edits
RESPONSE to the Teacher Edits:
First of all, if she doesn't give me a good reason of why the things she's underlined and written "passive" next to detract from my story I'm not going to give her sentiments the slightest consideration. I am not motivated by the arbitrary rules thought up by the English Teaching Establishment one bit.
"the small desert island was bounded [passive] by reefs, a warm cyan, and..." her insertion of the commas there change the meaning of "a warm cyan" from describing the reefs to describing the island. Is she like, dumb? I will admit it would be better if say the word "a" was turned to "of."
And of course she wants me to eliminate the whole first paragraph, and at the very very least the first two sentences. Yea thats because once again the Establishment's prevailing view is that it is better if things begin with a quote and by no means a description of the scene. I say sucks to their mainstream opinions.
"Dave thought to himself" is circled, no explanation given but presumably she wants to nix that.
Okay in the paragraph I'm looking at now she changes "...caught in the midst of a massive storm, when suddenly struck by lightning." to two sentences, with a period after "storm," and the second sentence simply reading "Suddenly struck by lightning." Yea definitely an improvement. Uhuh ::rolls eyes::. Further on in this same paragraph she changes "He'd all but counted himself dead ... corridor, but then he woke up here." to "...corridor. And then he woke up here." Aside from the fact that that is not a complete sentence, it changes the implication of BUT that waking up contradicted his assumption of being dead to I don't know part of the same line of thoughts that he had "counted himself dead." What a lame change. Seriously.
Also she wrote "I like reading Dave" at the bottem of the page. Heck if I know what she means by that, but its obviously complimentry so.. ::shurg::
Inside Jokes and the Foolishness that Inspired Me
In HS there was this girl named Jonna. The poster child for annoying behavior and as Nick and I concluded, the epitome of EVERYTHING annoying a girl can be/do all rolled into one. She was a freshman while we were seniors. She had this mad crush on Alberto before meeting him, and in her mind he was totally someone he was totally not at all in fact. Then she kinda led Nick on for awhile before one day deciding she didn't want to talk to him anymore. Seriously for NO REASON. "I just.. don't want to talk to him," she herself would explain. Yea, thats Jonna. At the very least she's burning in hell in my story*.
The other allusions are to the three stories other people had read out loud in class for the other assignments. All three were about 14 yr old girls feeling neglected. In two of them the girl didn't have a mother, in one of them the girl was on some sort of date where the boy was blatantly ignoring her, and she was talking about her mom making cheese sandwiches, and in the end the boy was like "you don't even have a mom!" ..In another the girl was talking to animals about how she wished she had a mom or something. So yea.. my references to waht the girl in my story is saying are very overt.
The Theme, The Point, Should You be so Dense as to Have Not Yet Gleamed It
Uh, yea. They're in hell dude. The end. But see.. Dave was like.. very mildy evil, so he therefore is in rather mild (compared to other possibilities!) discomfort for all of eternity. Basically he was a rightious bastard. Who coincidentally, loved to volunteer to read his writings first, just like the annoying girls whose terrible stories I deride. Similarly, Jonna is in hell with the kind of person who would equally disturb her: one who totally ignores her. Obviously it doesn't go into it, but I believe she is in hell for living in her own little world, taking for granted the pretty good life she did in fact have.. and she was no doubt a future sorority girl to boot!
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no subject
Date: 2003-04-18 09:45 pm (UTC)she was talking about her mom making cheese sandwiches, <--well now THAT'S exciting... couldn't it be something like, heh, cheese danishes? XD
bwahha.
I think this is the story I still needa read >.> ::has bookmark..I think?::
HAHAHAHA!
no subject
Date: 2003-04-22 09:05 pm (UTC)“My favourite colour is pink,” continued Jonna. Dave tried to figure out how long they’d been there. He was inclined towards the twenty-four hour range, but time seemed so nonexistent it was hard to be sure. It could have been multiple days. Time seemed to stretch on forever. Long since having exhausted any interest in analysing the various attributes of the island, Dave contemplated them without moving. <---HEH HEH, had this experience...
The three palm trees were lacking even the amusement of coconuts <--NOOO! MY AMUSEMENT! COME BACK TO ME COCONUTS!!!!
“Of all the people to be stuck on a desert island with,” /Dave thought to himself. / <--kay your prof is psycho in prefering a RANDOM QUOTE FROM NOWHERE to the possibility of a character THINKING :P
when [S]uddenly struck by lightning. <---HAHAHHAHAA BEST EDIT EVER OMG ::falls over::Sheesh, if I knew we got points for fragments....
Idly entertaining the idea that he was here as a result <---this paragraph DANCES when you're reading it with the lights off... @.@
Dave dismissed these idle thoughts quickly however; none of it was unethical or outside the bounds of what he was officially encouraged to do by school, church, the paper, each relevant authority respectively. <--snicker.
passive voice rawks
I swear I think so many aspiring writers and such completely lose track of the purpose of writing, buried under these rules. And I mean it has happened before; for over a hundred years plays and stories strictly followed the wisdom that they should have no set place and time, such that we end up with stories with the disconcertion of places being referred to as G---a and dates of 18--.. which I found really irritating. I mean as if Jane Eyre wasn't ALREADY painful enough you know?
But yea.. this teacher's strange and very strict interpretation of the edicts of style she's been taught really lose sight of the big picture. Just one example of the many many; she seems convinced that a story must start with some kind of "hook" immediately.. immediate action. I think that (A) someone's patience can definitely be expected to last a paragraph or two without some quote or drama; and (B) the having the first line as a quote is SO cliche. Frankly I'm not amused at all by it and do find it slightly tedious to wait a few paragraphs before I have any idea whats going on. Arrgh I hate people. I despise the stories my classmates write.. I despise most "aspiring writers" blargh. And other "artists" I think I said it before, one becomes a writer not because one decides to be one, but because one has something to say, and can say it such that people want to listen. People mostly write CRAP that follows the crappy rules perfectly but is totally uninspiring.
In summary, I hate people
Re: passive voice rawks
Date: 2003-04-24 05:54 am (UTC)YAH PASSIVE VOICE! ::holds up protest signs::
heh thankfully I haven't had to read Jane Eyre, but I do get the point...and it's sad -_-; Writing is supposed to encorporate some originality or something...I dono...maybe writing is turning into math classes >.> well, not turning into...it's been trying to be there for a while.
ARGH not the QUOTE THING.... that can be all right sometimes but....rarr... a description of the scene or whatnot can be JUST as gripping anyhow :P
mmm classmates::CHOMPDEVOUR::
Yes, being a writer shouldn't be about TRYING to Be a Writer -_-; That just...defeats the purpose :P
Bah, who needs the rules. Emily Dickenson wrote with random punctuation so we can the breakage of rules too~
Well..not much left for you to hate...seeing as I just ate them...which, is actually a lot like hate just without the h so maybe you were able to eat some too and be pleased?
Re: passive voice rawks
And while this story WILL be short.. hopefully (= ..it will describe an extended adventure of Boot and his cohorts. I just hope I don't end up totally overshooting the 15 page range we've been instructed to be wary of. But in general I'm already evilticulating like an evil overlord brooding over his emminant glory. muahahahahahaha