Here are the guidelines:
- Reading responses must be AT LEAST 200 words.
- Include your full name at the end of your comments. Unnamed comments will be deleted.
- From the "Comment As" drop-down menu, choose Anonymous, then click "Publish."
- Reading responses are due by midnight on Wednesdays, no exceptions.
I felt like this week’s chapter was a refresher to somethings that I know, but are so important that they need to be reminded of. One of the thing LaPlante mentions in her chapter, What’s This Story Really About? is that when we call the meaning of the story, we are talking about theme. However, LaPlante mentions that she wants to avoid using that term because it can speak of abstract things such as, love, beauty or death. I personally have this belief that in order to truly find out the meaning and message of the story we have to experience the story. As LaPlante mentions on page 398 “Because it is an experience, it must exist in this world, the world of the five senses. But it must also have resonance at a deeper emotional level.” I have to agree with LaPlante because we can easily say that we “understand” something but at the same time not be able to “grasp” something. I thing a very well written piece of literature should be able to tell a story, while having plot and a message that can be expressed through experience of the story that the readers can get involved in while reading a story. One of the things that I personally agree with LaPlante one is on writing about things that matter to us. I think that we definitely should write about things that matter to us because if we write whatever then it would be boring, or at least for me. For example, when I write about something that matters to me, which is family and tradition, I can write very interesting things. When it comes to something that I don’t really care about, I don’t write very well and I find myself sitting there contemplating life and the decisions that I have made. On page 399 when LaPlante explains what transference by using Little Red Riding Hood. “The idea is that we commonly take emotions that we are feeling about one thing and transfer them onto other things… We take emotional meaning and transfer it onto people, places, or things.” This example really stood out to me in showing and explaining more to me what it means to transfer emotions and/or messages.
ReplyDelete-Marco Garza
This weeks chapter has been very insightful. Through my whole academic career I have seen the science behind writing as a tree with several branches that go beyond LaPlante's idea of how our writing depicts "experience" I highly agree with this concept! However, I have to see it through the eyes of knowing that we are able to write not just about our own personal experience, the beauty of writing is that we are able to do more; even create a new experience. I have written poems and short pieces that depict what I see in people, and they're reactions to this world and their lives (including the lives of other people) My favorite pieces of literature are biography based books that depict the experiences of people who have lived through the toughest battles of mankind. These pieces are what have inspired me to be a writer and learn how to aspire to the professional level of writing. It is amazing what we can do and what we realize after reading this chapter. I would've liked for LaPlante to touch deeper into this concept/idea's. Especially because I feel so passionate about it and I feel like this is something that as readers and writers we can create our own ideology based on our opinions about this chapter. We can learn to understand through the experiences of other people, and most importantly we can create an experience with characters that we know in our hearts and minds yet do not walk on the face of this earth. We can create life through experiences. It is up to us and that is what gives us meaning. We should write about things that matter to us and learn how to write it in the way that interest readers and other individuals. Our creativity is meant to teach and accompany a reader through a journey. It can also serve as a way of spreading awareness of something significant through different lenses. As writers we should care about a variety of topics when it comes to literature, of course we each have our own preferences and topics that we are most passionate about. However, I do believe that part of being in the liberal arts we have a responsibility to write through different lenses. Seeing things differently than those who "just read" and do not do what we on a deep level. LaPlante makes it clear that her book and all these concepts are what help us express our empowerment and explore our creativity and the reality in which we live in, in a way that would inspire others.
ReplyDelete-Andrea Castaneda
This week’s LaPlante reading got some sort of a mixed response from me while I do like the idea of making a story deeper than what is on the page and LaPlantes examples are very helpful, I feel like forcing it can be limiting and even harmful.
ReplyDeleteLaPlantes examples of how to write meaning are very helpful in finding out how to get something out if a story. I like her section about transference, bringing something real from oneself and adding it to a story can usually make it more compelling to read and helps it stand out and differentiate itself from others. The we are dust section is nice to read also because of how the meaning manifest itself, by using details and objects in the stories world, it further connects someone to the reading.
While all those techniques and theories are nice, I feel like they are not universal and instead of helping someone they might limit them, they might write better without that extra stuff. Another reason is that this limit can be potentially harmful discouraging others who feel their writings don't have a good enough meaning. These techniques would be fine if given as advice on the side, but the way LaPlante has written the introduction makes it seem that if you don’t do this then your bad. If the intro was re worded maybe it wouldn't have been such a mixed section to me.
- Eduardo Castellanos
LaPlante’s Chapter 12 “What’s This Story Really About?” we are shown some concepts of theme in terms of “particulars of of the highly specific situations we have chosen to creatively investigate.” LaPlante warns us not to think of theme as an abstract construct, but instead as the experience that we, the reader, have when we complete the story. LaPlante also goes into a specific Freudian concept that is described as “Transference”. Transference is the idea that emotions we feel are sometimes transferred onto things that are not directly related to the specific emotion. LaPlante uses an example of being angry as an analogy for this idea of transference. Being angry might mean that we transfer the anger we feel on to others and in that way we feel like other people are angry at us. What LaPlante is trying to convey here is that sometimes emotions that are in a story are really emotions that have a much greater meaning than the story leads on. The story by Stacey Richter, My Date with Satan, uses this idea of transference to deepen the meaning of the story to more than just two people who met online end up having a bad first date.
ReplyDelete-James Attwood
In chapter twelve, Alice LaPlante discusses about emotional meanings and senses in a story. In the chapter, she makes a connection to Sigmund Freud along with his theory of psychoanalysis and transference, which is kind of odd how she makes a connection to someone who isn’t an author of fiction writing like the examples of the excerpts she shows, but still she uses it well to illustrate how emotional meaning and transferring it into something would go into the process of writing. For me and my writing process for emotions and senses, when I’m writing I try to visualize the scene and place myself in the character’s shoes to get a better feel for their reactions, inner emotions, and objects in their environment. As for the short story by Stacey Richter, “My Date with Satan”, I’m left wondering about the ending. If it was a literal action, then did Pippi kidnap the sister Ivy though I’m thinking it was more of a metaphorical ending with it symbolizing her inner emotions. Whatever the case, the way Richter shaped the story leading up to this ending certainly invokes a lot of emotions especially the scene with Ivy and how she’s screaming throwing a tantrum eventually tearing up the Hello Kitty doll who is emphasized having no mouth and how Ivy just rips the doll to ‘see’ the inner emotions.
ReplyDeleteSylvia Lopez
Chapter Twelve has advice that I found incredibly helpful and at the same time some explanation that I wasn’t so keen on. My main example is the use of the Freud to describe a certain element of fiction writing. I understand that perhaps it was an appropriate one, but Freud actually has a reputation in psychology these days for being, let’s say, troublesome. Anyways, for a moment while reading this chapter I thought LePlante was making a case for the complete absence of the abstract in a story, however, I started to see that perhaps her argument was that the abstract can’t formulate a strong piece if there is no association of the real things. I especially liked the section covering the believability of a story, because I do think we often hear that criticism rear its head when it isn’t necessarily addressing the real issue. I prefer this idea that the only reason a piece might come across as hard to believe is because there is work needed on the rendering of events, rather than simply because you’re writing in a realm outside of what is strictly known to be real. I think “My Date with Satan” was a great story to have attached to this particular lesson. It’s a series of events that I don’t think most of us could say we directly relate to and yet there is a believability to it through the rendering of very real emotions attached to concrete details. Despite the almost outrageous nature of Satan/Ferris as a character, Richter made him leap off the pages and create a true sense of disgusted intrigue towards him.
ReplyDelete-Joaquin Castillo
The key message that LaPlante tries to convey in Chapter 12, “What’s This Story Really About?” is that we need to write about what matters to us, about something that has emotional resonance, while also attaching these emotions to “things of this world,” either physical objects, events, or truths (400). She writes that surface events and subtext must both be present together for a story to resonate emotion and have meaning for the reader. While we can try to use concrete and specific details to make a story believable, the subtext “must ring true emotionally” to make it believable to readers (402).
ReplyDelete“My Date with Satan” is a hilarious and complex story that exemplifies what LaPlante is teaching in this chapter. The reader is able to derive meaning from the subtext even though they may not be able to relate to the surface events. The protagonist/narrator is repelled by the idea of living a bourgeois conventional lifestyle as a suburban “zombie wife,” so she uses her costumes and role-playing and internet sex as a way to create self-protecting barriers and boundaries for herself. As soon as she’s expected to take off the makeup and be a “real girl,” or even just tell her real name, she’s gone! We can associate this complex meaning through her behaviors (399).
-Dorie Garza
LaPlantes Chapter 12 was great. It had a lot of information in it, a lot was a great refresher, but I really liked the section “But It’s the Truth!” I liked it because it reminded me of the believable bull shit I used to write on state exams since the very first one. The one trouble I had (still sort of do) is thinking what to write about a when it comes to any certain topic. Not that the topics were hard or anything, but I would always exaggerate what happened, and I would make up the rest. 90% of my writing work in state exams was believable fiction (lies basically), 6% exaggeration, 4% truth. One thing I really hate though, is that I think I have lost some of that. By no means was I a magnificent writer or anything, but at least my ideas and character were believable. I think this is due because I had to write nonfiction. I guess it might because I have come to an understating of the true complexity of writing that gives me a hard time to write anything believable in fiction. I can’t think of a character without wanting to give this character some sort of property not found in the real world. My question to this though is, should a character be believable to the setting of the story/world, or should a character be believable to the real world? I try to make my characters believable by building a world around them where what they do or happens to them is possible. Yet, we must keep this sort of anchor to the real world. (Sorry if this is confusing, it sounded way better in my head.)
ReplyDeleteNow as to the story, it was not what I was expecting. It was not what I was expecting at all! I don’t think it is bad by any means, but the title is so misleading that I hate that I love it. I though it was going to be about a girl who dated the literal devil, and at first it sort of start like that. Then it changed to something way different than what I was expecting. I felt cheated.
-Alexis Perez
For Chapter 12, I thought it was an interesting chapter as LaPlante decided to review the importance of the story. However, in this chapter, LaPlante focused on the value and the significance of connecting what the writer wants to present to readers. I found this to be an important revelation as it reminded me about why we write, why writers write the material they do, and the way they present it to readers. All those things are important, if not the most important things to consider. This is discussed at length with the concept of emotional resonance being a huge factor in building events and subtext with the use of description, narration, and detail of all the senses to create a story.
ReplyDeleteAs for “My Date with Satan,” I thought it was a funny short story that slowly built the world we found ourselves reading. Every small detail became important in constructing Pippi’s perspective of Ferris, people, and society. In that sense, it highlighted the value LaPlante placed on transmitting emotion through objects and specific detail. The fact that Richter placed emphasis on emotion throughout her characters from small events from the present and past only adds to the buildup we are presented. It even seemed relatable to some people who might have experienced similar situations as Pippi, especially on dates. The fact that you can get different opinions and emotions about the whole composition adds to the value of the story from all the writing elements used.
- Joseph Gonzalez
Chapter 12 questions what the real meaning of a story is, and it is separate from theme. The point is to have a meaning in the story that cannot be easily summarized since it is goes deeper than the surface. It’s good to know the emotional relevance an object can hold. This can only be done with a physical object as LaPlante states, “you can’t attach an emotion to an abstraction or an intellectual idea.” Abstract ideas and concepts do not have emotional attachments to them the way objects do. I found it interesting the way LaPlante differentiates the use of objects from abstract concepts. At one point, she says how an object needs to be, “the outward manifestation of interior movement.”(400) Using an object to carry emotional weight turns a situation into something with deeper meaning and gives it that universality that she mentioned. In my own short story, the beginning is based around an object that is important to my main character but never mentioned again. After reading this chapter, I want to revisit it and see why my character might be holding onto that object for. Giving a physical object that ability to transfer an emotional meaning is something I really want to try to incorporate into my own writing.
ReplyDelete-Gabriela Urbano
The final reading of LaPlante’s book is on chapter 12. This section centers on the idea and the real significance of the story. What are the elements that matter to us? Having a connection to a moment, place or something, is what can push the story to relate with either the readers or audience. I completely agree with her on how the story must have depth for it to have any standing in the real world, details, and subtext are what sell the piece. Her moment on us being angry and how we transfer it, was an excellent example since I was a bit confused about the Freudian concept.
ReplyDeleteThe short story for this week was “My Date with Satan” was a comedic reading that I appreciated. The association between objects and emotion is evident throughout this piece, as the author shows Pippi's view through that lens. Using moments that are formed with concrete details, allow this fantastical piece to be grounded in reality and believable to the readers. It’s safe to assume that most people can’t relate to what’s happened in this piece, yet the emotions are what let us connect with it and with Pippi as a character.
- Eloy T Sepulveda
Chapter 12 is about the importance placed upon the meaning behind the story we create. We must have a deeper meaning is what Laplante tells us throughout the chapter. Since the meaning of a piece is determined by each person who reads it all the readers will have different understands of the text, and thats okay. A response to some extent of what your actually writing is good because the audience gets a sense of meaning in your story. To get a whiff of something beyond your story is great for a writer, not only does it show off our skills as a writer but its something that all writers wish too have. Mostly all writers want purpose. This is why it might be a bad thing because some writers may want to shove meaning down our throats. They might want us, as an audience to interpret their meaning in the same light which by lumping us into a some can cause them to make some mistakes like being overly repetitive so that we could a point across. LaPlante suggests that we have to write about what matters, which she states is a difficult task because people are all different, yet as writers we need to find a way to interest the reader by resonating with them even if they don't like the subject matter or theme. She goes on to say on page 398 to make your work "...something worth exploring." She says you can achieve that by being as specific as possible. I find that can be a problem as I mentioned earlier with the repetitive thing, yet I feel as if LaPlante means more along the lines of emotion, complexity, and the 5 senses with specificity.
ReplyDelete-Allison Gonzalez