My Outline

In my English 101 class, we are beginning the process of writing an autobiography about experiences that shaped our view on reading or writing (or even both if we choose). To be completely honest, I wasn’t really excited to write this when I first heard about it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine with writing, but when it comes to it being about myself, I draw a blank. I think it’s kind of ironic actually. The easiest thing to write about should be yourself. It’s not like you have to research everything or have to have any citations. It all comes from you and what you remember. But again for some reason I find myself unable to write down anything. 

So in order to come up with something that I could show my teacher, I decided I might as well start from kindergarten. I can remember back to writing a journal everyday, but I wouldn’t say that it was a turning point for me. At that age I was just trying to learn how spell the alphabet, not how to write a novel. When I think back after kindergarten, my first and second grade years kind of just merge together so I don’t remember much. Then my third grade year came and it was probably the first time I ever wrote a research essay. It was a turning point in my view on writing but not exactly for the best. If I remember right, other people in my class were having a hard time concentrating so it became a last minute task, and nobody likes writing papers last minute so it caused me to dislike it. It wasn’t like i completely hated it, but every time it would come up I wouldn’t be the first to jump up and down. 

At this point, I saw that I did have quite a bit to create an outline, and I hadn’t even gotten to the actual part. So I wrote down my seventh grade experience and how it truly made me resent my writing. It wasn’t until high school that I would like writing somewhat again. 

My high school years are more rememberable and so that is where I feel like more specific things changed my viewpoint and style of writing. Specifically I wrote about my junior year with my teacher Mr. Ortoloni. He, unlike most of the CA teachers, would make us free write everyday. He was all about writing more than reading, although we did read a lot as well. He also made us write a lot of poetry. Mr. Ortoloni loved it when we expressed in our own voice rather than in what he called the “MLA speaker”. So my outline surrounded my time with him. But Ortoloni was not the only teacher to get that spotlight. My senior year was with Mr. Geist and he probably brought out the length in my papers. My expanded thoughts all came from him. He didn’t seem like he would have taught me as much as he did, but looking back at it, he probably prepared me for college writing the best. 

Suddenly I realized that I was done and it really didn’t take as long as I had thought. I feel pretty good about writing this paper now and the outline just exemplified it. Now the next step is to actually go out and do it. 

 

A Blogger’s Narrative

I think there are different connotations for both narratives and blogging. For some reason I think people find that blogging can’t contain proper MLA formats or can’t be considered proper in places like school. But then again, people think the exact same with narratives to the blogging world. There seems to be a line that people just don’t cross when it comes to writing narratives and blogging. In reality though, it seems like they are more alike than not.

A narrative can be about almost anything has a viewpoint of some sort; almost just like blogging. It’s counterpart is just the same. Everyone has a viewpoint on a subject even if they say they don’t. So if they were to have to write about it on a blog setting, they may just as well be writing a narrative on why they have that viewpoint.

In my English 101 class we read some narratives from our textbook “Everyone’s An Author” by Andrea Lunsford. Most likely a high school freshman wouldn’t see them as narratives, but rather just informational stories about people, but as a college freshman, the mind has to expand past the words and what they mean. I read “A Farewell to Arms” by Roman Skaskiw and his was probably the best one for myself. The author was in the US Army and had a conflict of whether or not he should be honorably discharged or not. There was the worry that he wouldn’t be accepted into any other group because the military was all he had ever known. He decided to wait to leave and experienced life as a civilian for a while and realized he could be accepted. With this realization he left the army and continued a life that he pretty much already had. The point of the narrative was to show that there was nothing wrong with leaving something that he had been with for so long.

It reminded me a lot like a blog and how people most of the time have a purpose to their blog. The reason why they write them is to show others what is the effect on them after they do or say something with hopes that someone else has done or is doing the same thing. My purpose right now is to explain how narratives and blogs are the same and can be used to help each other. I am writing my viewpoint in the hopes that someone is wondering the same thing and will eventually agree with my views.

To get my viewpoints across I have to describe why I feel like I do and narratives do the same, but maybe in a different way. Narratives often have to describe what is going on why a blog is describing just a viewpoint. Yet they are both using description and the use of expanding your thoughts into text.

Merging blogging styles and narratives can spice up pieces of texts. For example, adding a little personal narrative into a blog can extend a personal standpoint on issues or topics. Likewise, adding more blogging style writing to a narrative can spice it up from the typical uses and bring more of a connection with the readers because they feel like they are actually being spoken to.

Overall, both are great uses of writing. They can be used to help each other and just accent each other perfectly. It makes me realize that I need to use this own advice I’m giving and translate it into my own writing.

The Last Film Is Always the Darkest

Has anyone ever noticed that the last installment of every movie nowadays looks the darkest? While looking through movie posters, I saw this Iron Man 3 poster. The film is the 3rd installment of the Iron Man franchise with marvel and the 4th film with Tony Stark as he appeared in Marvel’s The Avengers as well. This movie takes place months after the Avengers had beaten Loki and saved the world from impending doom (like most any superhero movie). After realizing that he wasn’t as indestructible, Tony sought to create the perfect suit and spends nearly every second down with Jarvis in his own little “Bat Cave”. Doing this causes stress on not just his own life, but his relationships as well. All the stress eventually leads to panic attacks that occur more and more often as the film continues.

The movie is obviously darker than the other two and the blacks and whites are more emphasized rather than the iconic red and gold suit. They show Tony Stark and his suit falling and breaking apart which shows that the film will contain an extreme struggle for the main character. But this is almost just like the last Harry Potter Film. Take a look at how the Harry Potter franchise movie posters have changed over the years and how they have gotten darker and darker as time has gone on. 

I truly think that in order to catch the attentions of the audience in the beginning the poster needs to have a bright contrast of colors and then as they continue, the contrast must go down in order to keep the same design but to still be different enough to be seen again. If the poster were to look the same for every movie, there would be no point in seeing it because people would most likely see it as the same film they already saw maybe a year ago. It’s actually a brilliant concept to think about. The more movies, the more people become attached to the characters. So in order to become attached even more, there must be an intense struggle. That struggle always has to be depicted in the wallpaper, otherwise the audience won’t know at all what to expect. Again, this concept was done in the Batman Trilogy. 

I really like the use of the darker colors and in poster the character looks completely broken. Personally for the Harry Potter posters, I feel like the last one could have been a little darker, but if you take in account how many posters there are out there, I think this is the best representation of the film in a whole. Likewise, the first poster of the Dark Knight could have been ironically a little brighter, but then again it is called the “Dark” Knight.

The whole use of the darkness is a great feature in my mind and I have no problem with it. I actually set out and looked for more and found The Hangover trilogy had followed the concept. I think it might have been more ironically, but they still used it. Take a look at how the posters changed between the 1st and 3rd film (Sorry I couldn’t add the second poster). 

They obviously were trying to be funny, but it still catches peoples attentions and did it’s job to get to people to the box offices. I wouldn’t revise any of these designs because they obviously worked on others and me as well. How can I dislike a poster that drew me into the theaters?

Anyways, I just wanted to point out this concept that seems to be taken unnoticed by lots of people. Hopefully I brought some “light” to the ever darkening effect of the ever famous movie poster.

Can A First Draft Be Too Shitty?

I read “Shitty First Drafts” by Anne Lamott the other day and I have to say that it truly is an interesting article. But a question kept occurring to me and that (pardon my french) “How shitty can a first draft be without being just ridiculous?” The author is obviously a skilled writer for many years and has many great jobs like writing restaurant reviews. It is probably easier for her to expand her thoughts, but what is it like for those that are not so skilled in the writing process?

I know that I personally have a problem with being descriptive and expansive. My thoughts are often straight to the point and I find myself struggling to get an actual paragraph unless I have the standard five-paragraph essay note-taking format. But Lamott seems to have the complete opposite problem. I know that people say, “The more you write the easier it gets,” but in all seriousness I have been writing since kindergarten. It just never came easy to me.

Back to the question though. Do writers just scribble what they are thinking about, even if it’s completely random? There must be some type of structure to what their writing, and I feel like most of their rough drafts would look to me like it were their second or third. I have a feeling like the people either get writing or they don’t. You can learn how to write, but how you apply it just can’t be taught. There are others who are probably going to disagree with that statement, but I’ll just take a stab that they like writing, or are good at it.

On the other hand, I did like the attempt Lamott tried to take when connecting to the reader. She pretty much said that even the great authors have to have more than one draft and they most of the time are not even close to the finished product. That is how mine typically are. Once I get other people to look at my work and I get their opinion, it usually makes it easier for me to get my sentences to actually sound appealing.

So essentially what I realized while reading was that there is no such thing as a “too shitty draft”, even thought there has to be some type of alignment to the paper, article, or story. No one just comes up with the perfect draft the first try (except for that author that is not to be named). Every writer must go through the process no matter how much they enjoy or dislike it. It will eventually make everyone’s papers more dynamic and interesting to the reader.