Year 2021+ Essays

Collection of Short Writings

"Direct Characterization" Example: "That girl is quite reckless, wouldn't you agree, sir?" the butler raised a weary eyebrow in the direction of the young female. "She's stupid if you ask me." the young boy continued his studies, ignoring the nuisance's excuse for a kid.

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"Indirect Characterization" Example: The light blond bangs of Violet's hair framed her face as she typed diligently upon the typewriter. Her emotionless eyes scanned the paper for mistakes before handing it to the Auto-Memories Doll beside her.

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Direct characterization is when a character in the story vocalizes things about another character. This would bring more information to the reader more directly about the character being talked about.

Indirect characterization is when different things about a character are brought out naturally without needing to be stated from another character.

My examples described both of the characterizations very well by demonstrating them in the form of narrative. The first example has two characters describing another character, giving the reader a general picture of that character. In the second example, the character is described to the reader through the actions they take, also forming an image of the character.

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Writing an extremely compressed story can be both bad and good. Having a lot of information at once can save time and space when both reading and writing, so it's a major advantage. However, consistently having a lot of information at once can become confusing for the reader. They would end up struggling to read the piece and eventually give up on it reluctantly because it was too difficult for them to understand or process. Not all readers would be like this, of course. Some readers in fact enjoy being fully dived into the story, craving every little detail. Writing in a compressed way might also make the flow of the story off-set. Say it was a scene just after a battle ended, or when a sad backstory of the main character gets revealed. During those times having a compressed way of writing makes things speed along when usually times such as those have a melancholy and slow flow to them.

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Figurative language is a way of saying or referring to something without stating it in exact words. It could be through comparisons or exaggerations, but their overall motive is to bring out a meaning of a subject in a creative or fun way.

An example of this could be: "The girl's legs looked like Daikons."

This example uses the figurative language form of a Simile. A Simile is a way of comparing two things using the words "like" or "as".

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Other kinds of languages can provide large amounts of imagery, however figurative language does a much better job of creating a solid base for the reader's imagination. Using comparison and exaggeration, the words pop out to the reader in a way. Figurative language takes items or things that people already know well and puts it side to side with the other item or thing.

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Using rhyme is very popular due to its effects on the reader or listener. Rhyming causes the words being said seem like they were meant to go together. Like puzzle pieces fitting together perfectly in a satisfying way, rhyme schemes can create that same feeling of euphoria or satisfaction as the words coincide beautifully.

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Some rhymes can feel stale if they have the same repeating pattern for an extended time. Much like repeated phrases in poetry having a dulling effect on the reader after being repeated a multitude of times. Writers can make their rhymes seem fresh and interesting by using unusual formatting, unusual punctuation, or by using different types of rhymes.

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Using free verse is oftentimes more difficult on the writer. Being able to come up with a good poem while having no guideline is extremely hard. Having a format to go off of is less straining and easier on the writer.

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A contemporary poet might want to write in a traditional form for many reasons. One reason might be that they want to make a connection to the form of poetry's origins. Another reason might be that the writer wants to bring forth a certain emotion with the traditional form.

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While writing in prose during this section, I was sure to check my punctuation and grammar. I removed unnecessary words and tried my best to use words that were more complex yet understandable. Most of the time I would make a rough draft first, which normally ended in me changing the entire story to an entirely new idea so it would work. In all of my prose writings, I made sure to come up with ideas that were as original as possible. In one I ended up writing a short prose story based on the Narwhal song, and changed things up a bit.

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In one of my works I started writing about something romantic, however it didn't work out well so I ended up scrapping almost all of it. I did keep the general idea of romance, but added the twist of death and memories of the times when they were together. It ended up being more of an emotional heart wrench, especially to write. The type of revision I had made during that was a global revision.

In every one of my works I have done local revision. When writing in general I usually put something down at first that either doesn't make sense, or is long when it could be short. Mistakes like these include punctuation, spelling, grammar, and sentence structure.

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The poem I worked on the longest was called "Estimable Llama." This took me a while because one: I fell asleep making it, and two: I had no help making it. I made this poem because I made a bet with my friend that if they made a snowman I would include them in the poem I had to make for school. (They had never made a snowman before) In the end they agreed and after they sent me a picture of the finished snowman, I began writing the poem. This poem often says "llama" because that was the nickname I gave my friend. I feel happy when I reread the poem because it reminds me of them and our friendship.

In my "Estimable Llama" poem, I had to make many small adjustments. I never really made any drastic changes, but I did fix spelling errors and word choices. In doing that, I showed local revision.

In my "Dilapidated Kingdom" poem, I had to change the direction the poem was taking along with different aspects of the poem to make the overall message be clearer. This poem also took a while considering how much I had to change. The revision I showed by doing this was global.

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Poems mentioned above will be published next.

[2021-Creative Writing]