Franklin: Writing for Story

I first read “Writing for Story” about a year ago and a lot of what Franklin wrote was effective for me. His writing was influential enough for me to reference it in my Comps essay that I turned in a couple of weeks ago. It doesn’t take long to see that Franklin is a good writer. For example, in his acknowledgments he gives a character description of his editor that goes like this: “Vern, the news editor of All Hands magazine, was an expert, acerbic and ancient (perhaps fifty) old man with a bad stomach and a mobile face capable of showing ten thousand different grades of disgust.” Find me a better character introduction and I’ll be impressed. The statement he made that was most influential on me though, was when he wrote, “True revolutionaries, the ones who actually DID change the world, used different instruments. They used words, typewriters, and paper.” This struck home for me, helping me realize the importance of a profession that I’ll probably take up some day. I like “Writing for Story” because, to me, the story is the most important part of a piece of writing. The story is what keeps the reader reading and what makes the reader interesting. Franklin chooses a couple of interesting pieces to include in his book.

Mrs. Kelly’s Monster: I like the tension that the writer creates in this piece. It reminds me of a scary movie with the good guys going into a dark cave where a monster lurks. The pop, pop, pop of the heartbeat does a great job of holding this tension. I also like how the author gets into the lives of both Mrs. Kelly and Dr. Ducker.

The Ballad of Old Man Peters: I like how this story starts from the beginning of Old Man Peters life. It works well with his growing idea of a dream that sometimes fades to a fantasy but starts up again small and continues growing until it’s a reality. The author also does a good job of showing Wilk’s never-ending thirst for knowledge, first by describing his dream of going to college, then by showing how he wants to travel everywhere in the world.

Throughout the rest of his book, Franklin continues to feed us useful information. He knows they’re good because he sets them aside in italics so that they stick in our mind. But there is plenty of other useful advice that might go unnoticed if you don’t read carefully. Just a couple of examples: “Complications and resolution are absolutely necessary to identify and define the story, but beyond this is a good story depends on action.” And, “actions in literature as in life, speak far louder than words.” From the outline to the structure to the polishing Franklin’s advice can help us form a story that will keep the reader reading.

The American Man at Age Ten

Susan Orlean hit this piece right on the nose. She picks the perfect boy to represent a "normal kid" and but it still able to show how unique he is in her writing. The story's lede is meant to take us back so we remember what it was like when we were growing up. Orlean does an awesome job with it. Everything from the OCSCU school to how he loves recycling to how he says "girls aren't very popular," cracks me up. These examples gives us a great idea of what he's like as a ten-year-old person.
This story is another great example of how narrative journalism can turn the mundane into the extraordinary. Orlean finds the most normal kid she can, yet is still able to write a captivating story about him. We're interested in these kinds of stories because they relate so well with some point in our own lives. It gets boring reading about famous/rich/"important" people all the time. Sometimes it's refreshing to read about something more familiar to your own life.
Orlean also does a great job weaving in facts with her introduction of Colin. At just the right times she'll include a paragraph about adolescent development or nintendo statistics. She's also ver good with her use of dialogue. When Japeth and Colin are talking to each other about Street Fighter it is exactly how I would expect two ten-year-old friends to talk.
The question I want to raise about this piece is: what is it about? Is there an underlying message? Or is it just a story about what consumes a kid's life?

My favorite blog

Bill Simmons: Sports Guy Blog

Simmons is good about speaking his mind and he is very interactive with his readers (he puts out a column called "the mailbag" every week where he responds to his readers' e-mails). Although his blog is on ESPN, he goes off topic a lot about recent trends, tv shows and movies. I can't believe this guy can think of so much to say and still keep us reading. If you're ever reading his blog look at the analogies he use. He's the best with them even though they keep getting more and more rediculous. The Sports Guy is a funny guy. Take a look at his blog sometime when you get a chance.

It's Only Natural

By Mike Leifeld

My biggest flaw might be my indecisiveness.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t lose any sleep thinking about what I’ll wear tomorrow or deciding what I’ll do next weekend. It’s the big decisions – like what I want to do for the rest of my life – that trouble me. For the longest time, I blamed my parents.

My mom has worked her way up through the ranks of the newspaper business, which meant a lot of moving for me. She was a writer in California, where I was born. She was a copy-editor in Lansing, Mich., where we moved next. She was an editor in Battle Creek, Mich. and also in Rochester, NY until she was promoted to publisher in Ithaca, New York. We were eventually sent back to Battle Creek, and have since lived in Wisconsin and Tennessee.

I hated my parents with every move because it meant goodbyes to old friends and uncertainties at new schools. It never took more than a couple of months to readjust to the new scene (and forgive my parents), but I was always aware that soon, the next move might come.

Now, as a senior at Kalamazoo College, I know there is another big move pending. As before, I don’t want to move, but now, more than ever, I have control of where I’ll go next. And I’m stumped.

My indecisiveness has plagued me for years: When I was in high school and all of my friends had sent out their applications and were awaiting reply, I was still trying to decide where I wanted to apply. When girlfriends pressured me to become more serious, I broke up with them. When deciding on my major at school, I chose English – not because I particularly like literary theory or poetry or anything that English majors are supposed to like, but because I couldn’t decide on anything else.

I’m sure my indecisiveness has led to some commitment problems that stem from not staying in one place or doing one thing for long periods of time. I think this is the reason why choosing a post-college path has been so difficult for me. For example, I discovered an interest in journalism two summers ago when I worked as a sports reporter in Wisconsin. I continued with the work the next summer in Tennessee and decided to focus my studies for a possible career in journalism. I know that I could get a job as a journalist and, until recently, I was sure that is what I wanted to do.

However, sometime in the last few months, I began having reservations about this career. I knew I would get bored if I always had to write the same kinds of stories (little league stories in Wisconsin) and annoyed of working on deadlines (late-night games in Tennessee). And the job is, after all, in the same business as the one my mom followed. Did I really want to deal with all the moving and instability again? So, recently, I began exploring other options. I looked into everything from law school to business jobs to the Peace Corps. Nothing seemed to jump out at me.

With the last couple months of my college education winding down, I have felt troubled, like most seniors do, about which one of these paths I will take after I graduate. It bothered me a lot until a couple of weeks ago when I stumbled across a surprising revelation. The eye-opener came from the same source that I thought had caused my problems: my parents.

After dinner and a few drinks last month, my parents and I talked about all the places we lived and which places we liked the best. We talked about the time my dad took a water-balloon to the face in Rochester, the baseball field he mowed in our backyard in Ithaca and my first high school football game in Battle Creek. We talked about my sister’s bike-trail in California, our Packers tickets in Wisconsin and the time we met Kenny Chesney in Nashville. We talked about good memories and even some bad – like the time I tried to run away when they told me were moving again.

But that night my mom told me something that changed my outlook on life. When I wondered aloud about what it would have been like if we would’ve stayed in California and never moved she said, “Well, you wouldn’t be the same person you are now.” She pointed out that I probably wouldn’t have met half of the people I know or experienced half of the things that made up what I am made up of.

It was stupid of me to never think of this before, but the words have had a profound impact on me. I realized that no matter what post-college path I choose, I will have experiences, good and bad. Worrying about which decisions I will make when the time comes does me no good. No matter which road I choose, those experiences will shape who I am, along with the ones I have already experienced.

So, even if I still am indecisive or have commitment problems, I should realize that it is only because I am happy where I am at now and I’m scared to lose it. It’s only natural.

An Ugly Badge of Courage

This author is the type of person I would not want to hang out with. Although her writing is engaging and she kept me reading because I wanted to know what type of tattoo she'd decide on, the more I read the more I disliked her. Certain things kept getting on my nerves, like how she called the lady who cut her hair her "hair therapist" and how she made this out to be the biggest decision of her life. The thing that sent me over the top was when she wanted to tell the younger people at the tattoo parlor that tattoos were "for those of us who have lived enough to have something permanent to say." I laughed out loud. Who is she to judge these people and what they want to do with themselves? Another thing that made me laugh is that she brought a doctor with her to make sure the needles were clean. No wonder people were looking at her funny. As far as looking at this story through her writing, I thought she did a good job with telling the story and keeping the reader engaged by not giving away what the tattoo would be early on. The most important thing in journalism is to keep the reader reading. But, some writers rub some readers the wrong way and she was too abrasive for me. Also, her tattoo sucked. It was a good idea and the symbolism of it was touching, but unless you read the article no one would be able to tell what was on her ankle.

Cynthia Carr Reading

Cynthia Carr's reading on Monday night was all right. It wasn't too exciting and her stories weren't very attention-grabbing. An old guy behind us was snoring loudly and I nodded off for a second, too. But, her investigative journalism techniques were interesting and it was pretty cool how she was able to (sometimes quite difficultly) find out things about what exactly happened at the Meriam lynching. I’m sure it was probably pretty intimidating for an old lady to interview certain men on such a touchy subject, but it seemed like she got most of the info she was looking for. A lot of what Carr recovered, she related to herself and the white guilt that she felt for having a grandfather in the KKK. Just as O’Kane uses her parents in her story to come to terms with her own lifestyle, Carr uses the Meriam Lynching to delve into her issues of having a family member in the KKK. It seems that in personal narrative it’s important to use other events as a window to look at yourself.

Pattern of Migration

I identify with the Pattern of Migration story because, like O’Kane, I have moved around several times (8 different cities) and don’t really know where to call home. Despite the third word of the story being a typo (no online editors?), the lede serves an interesting purpose. O’Kane uses her parents’ loyalty toward Ireland to contrast her lack of a place to call home. Even when she writes of how her parents fell in love with California, she’s continuing to bring light to this contrast. When I first read the ending of the story I thought that it was anti-climactic and was left wanting some resolution. However, the second time I read it I realized I missed the importance of her father’s wishes to be buried back in Ireland. Since it’s a personal story I forgot to look for the importance of each event as it relates to the story-teller. When her father says he wants to be buried in Ireland, O’Kane realizes that not even her parents were set on calling one place home. And, at the end of the story when she takes time to sit in reflect she says, “Right now, with my head in Ireland, my heart in the Deep South and my belongings headed to Wisconsin, I have no idea where home is.” This isn’t necessarily a bad thing because after her views change about her parents she realizes that this isn’t such a bad thing. This story was helpful in understanding personal narratives because the author used an interesting technique by intertwining her parents’ lives to make amends with her own on-the-go lifestyle.