Paper 4: A Partial Literary Narrative

Through the years my writing has taken on many shapes and forms.  My entire life has thus far been composed of producing papers in all different kinds of classes for all different kinds of teachers.  Sometimes it’s a treacherous, tedious journey through a highly academic research paper, and sometimes it’s a fun, comedic fictional romp.  What I have found however, is that no matter who you’re writing for, whether it be for the prim and proper snarky know-it-all, or the chilled out, passive “slacker,” it’s the writer’s voice or uniqueness that will ultimately decide if people will actually read it, or if they just “go through the motions.”

            Before you start to develop your own voice, first come the basics.  Without proper grammar or punctuation, it doesn’t matter if you have the charm of an upper-class 18^th century Englishman; people need to see that you at least know how to compose words into sentences.  When asked if I was a writer as part of my WSC2 class, I responded with the following: “Yes, of course I’m a writer!  The fact that I’m responding to this question via the written word is enough proof of that.  All it takes to be a writer is to be able to compose words on a page in a legible order.  While that doesn’t necessarily constitute being a good writer, it is still writing nonetheless.”

         
            You must also take into consideration how you plan to give your information to the reader.  As part of an exercise in our class, we had to analyze and blog about two different videos depicting the same poem (“Like, You Know” by Taylor Mali).  The difference was that one video depicted Taylor Mali onstage, the other a “typography,” a computer generated motion graphic that captioned every word spoken by Mali.  When asked for a class blog entry about how the poem’s form affected my appreciation of it, I answered:  “The form of a poem can alter a person’s perception, whether it is expressed through the written word or told orally.  In Taylor Mali’s poem, the way in which he orates his piece adds life and humor to a somewhat dry lesson in communicative confidence.  The ideas worked in the strictly audio form (the stand-up special) because his delivery added a “spice” to the work. However, as good as it was as a stand-alone oral routine, the “written word” version of the speech certainly aided and helped in my overall comprehension and appreciation of the piece.  The visual words overlapped by the narration emphasized important wordings and phrases spoken by Mali.  The words were a great addition to Mali’s poem, but on their own without the dialogue, the words would not do it justice.”  Of course this was my opinion, and I received some backlash from what I wrote by classmates who found the on-stage portion much better.  Same poem, different delivery: this can mean the difference between a captivated and a half-asleep audience.

            
            Once you realize how important the choices you have to make are, it comes time to make a decision.  The writer must choose wisely, and know their audience well.  “A sentence starts out like an unhatched egg.  It could turn out to be a newborn chick or somebody’s omelet, and it’s ultimately up to the writer to choose its fate.”  In other words, you can’t have the chicken and the egg.  Especially when starting a paper, when you have many ideas floating around in your head, it can be easy to lose track and try to accomplish everything, but sometimes simpler is better.  Choose the path that the reader will embark upon and stick to it.  Keep your “vision” and don’t crack the egg if you want a chicken.

            
            Once you’ve mastered all of the grammar rules and they are firmly implanted in your brain, you know in what form your writing will take place, and you have an overall plan for where it’s headed, all you really have to do is be yourself.  Don’t try to copy anyone else, don’t try to sound like a know-it-all, just write as you.  If you enjoy what you’re doing, it will rub off on the readers.  When asked why I write, I responded with:  “I write because to me it’s fun (well, not always, but on the whole it is).  It’s a gratifying feeling to see peoples’ physical reactions to something you created.  Whether your intention was to get the reader to laugh or to dry heave in disgust, when a work “hits” you can’t help but feel accomplished…Although writing can sometimes seem boring or tedious (especially highly academic college papers), it’s a necessary skill and can be fun as long as the author enjoys his or her subject matter.”  The lesson here is to have fun.  If you don’t it will be an excruciating time for both the writer and reader.  If you can find a way to take pleasure in writing, your papers will pretty much write themselves.