Project Reflection |
Our first project of the year was our WWI Historical Fiction Project. The basic project objective was to write a short, five to ten page story conveying a truth of war, or a specific perspective. To prepare for this project, we read and annotated All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, drawing from the book as inspiration. To make our stories as historically accurate as possible, we studied WWI for about a month and a half beforehand, utilizing lecture notes, individual research, and seminars.
In my opinion, the literary element my story does the best is plot. I say this because I spent a lot of time on the major plot twist in the climactic scene, and put in a lot of extra effort to insure that all related loose ends were tied. Also, I chose to work with my classmates Katie Austin and Rebekah Kuster to write the same story through different perspectives, which proved to be quite the challenge, as the plots of our stories needed to connect logically. However, I feel we successfully integrated each other’s plots, which is why I say it is a strong suit of my writing. A section of my story that exhibits my use of plot is, “With that, his hands detached themselves from hers. Rather than facing those piercing eyes one last time, he kissed her on the forehead, grabbed his pack, and trod out the door and into the night. He must have passed three other shops before he felt a delicate finger tap his shoulder.
“Irma, my mind is ma—” Before he could finish, Dieter was wrapped in a tight embrace, and his wife had slipped a smooth, rectangular object into his hands. Looking down, he saw it was a journal, bought brand-new from the local bookshop.
Answering his questioning gaze, Irma explained with a regretful shake of her head, “It’s so you remember who Dieter is, you foolish man.” She then spun on her heel and raced back off down the street, leaving Dieter to turn her gift over and over in his hands.”
The literary element I think I struggled the most with was “show don’t tell,” because a lot of what drove the plot and character development forward happened inside my main character’s head, which I had trouble illustrating without the usage of the discouraged thought verbs, such as “wondered.” Not letting myself use “remembered” at my leisure was especially difficult when referring to my main character’s temporary amnesia. To overcome the difficulty I had in this area, I imagined what I do when I can’t remember something, and tried to mirror those mannerisms in my characters. For instance, instead of saying a character recognized something, I would instead describe the flicker in their eyes or the furrow in their brow.
The first major revision I made was to round out the character of Dieter. He started out as the very depiction of loyalty and trust, with no flaws in between, and while that was honorable, it was hardly realistic nor relatable. To revise this, I made Dieter blindly nationalistic, a trait that could accompany his protectiveness but also show that his actions aren’t always right. I think for a reader of my story, Dieter is now a much more personal character than he was before the revisions, because within him are flaws that people can relate to. The second major revision I made was more technical, and involved the language barrier between Dieter and the French soldiers. At first, it was inconclusive how a German man emerged from unconsciousness automatically speaking French. However, after receiving some feedback in class, I concocted the backstory of Dieter’s mother, a stereotypical French woman very present in his life when he was growing up. As I was informed, amnesiacs often refer to their mother’s language, so by interweaving Mrs. Neumann in with the story, I think I made what would have been a random occurrence make a lot more sense to the reader.
The challenge extension I did for this project was not using any adverbs. I chose that option because I’d never really thought about how adverbs affected my writing, and I was interested to see how I would manage without them. A section of my story that shows my integration of the challenge extension is, “Dieter pitied these unfortunate recruits. The timidness and lonesomeness in their otherwise blank eyes contradicted the decorous air with which they held their shoulders back. Their lips were pulled taut into indignant lines that looked like scars marring their faces, as if the tighter they were pressed together the less their fear would show.” Before revisions with the challenge extension in mind, this section was littered with adverbs that only cluttered my writing. When I removed the adverbs, I found that my writing flowed better, and that adverbs had been a sort of crutch, prohibiting me from actually illustrating, not just describing, an action.
In my opinion, the literary element my story does the best is plot. I say this because I spent a lot of time on the major plot twist in the climactic scene, and put in a lot of extra effort to insure that all related loose ends were tied. Also, I chose to work with my classmates Katie Austin and Rebekah Kuster to write the same story through different perspectives, which proved to be quite the challenge, as the plots of our stories needed to connect logically. However, I feel we successfully integrated each other’s plots, which is why I say it is a strong suit of my writing. A section of my story that exhibits my use of plot is, “With that, his hands detached themselves from hers. Rather than facing those piercing eyes one last time, he kissed her on the forehead, grabbed his pack, and trod out the door and into the night. He must have passed three other shops before he felt a delicate finger tap his shoulder.
“Irma, my mind is ma—” Before he could finish, Dieter was wrapped in a tight embrace, and his wife had slipped a smooth, rectangular object into his hands. Looking down, he saw it was a journal, bought brand-new from the local bookshop.
Answering his questioning gaze, Irma explained with a regretful shake of her head, “It’s so you remember who Dieter is, you foolish man.” She then spun on her heel and raced back off down the street, leaving Dieter to turn her gift over and over in his hands.”
The literary element I think I struggled the most with was “show don’t tell,” because a lot of what drove the plot and character development forward happened inside my main character’s head, which I had trouble illustrating without the usage of the discouraged thought verbs, such as “wondered.” Not letting myself use “remembered” at my leisure was especially difficult when referring to my main character’s temporary amnesia. To overcome the difficulty I had in this area, I imagined what I do when I can’t remember something, and tried to mirror those mannerisms in my characters. For instance, instead of saying a character recognized something, I would instead describe the flicker in their eyes or the furrow in their brow.
The first major revision I made was to round out the character of Dieter. He started out as the very depiction of loyalty and trust, with no flaws in between, and while that was honorable, it was hardly realistic nor relatable. To revise this, I made Dieter blindly nationalistic, a trait that could accompany his protectiveness but also show that his actions aren’t always right. I think for a reader of my story, Dieter is now a much more personal character than he was before the revisions, because within him are flaws that people can relate to. The second major revision I made was more technical, and involved the language barrier between Dieter and the French soldiers. At first, it was inconclusive how a German man emerged from unconsciousness automatically speaking French. However, after receiving some feedback in class, I concocted the backstory of Dieter’s mother, a stereotypical French woman very present in his life when he was growing up. As I was informed, amnesiacs often refer to their mother’s language, so by interweaving Mrs. Neumann in with the story, I think I made what would have been a random occurrence make a lot more sense to the reader.
The challenge extension I did for this project was not using any adverbs. I chose that option because I’d never really thought about how adverbs affected my writing, and I was interested to see how I would manage without them. A section of my story that shows my integration of the challenge extension is, “Dieter pitied these unfortunate recruits. The timidness and lonesomeness in their otherwise blank eyes contradicted the decorous air with which they held their shoulders back. Their lips were pulled taut into indignant lines that looked like scars marring their faces, as if the tighter they were pressed together the less their fear would show.” Before revisions with the challenge extension in mind, this section was littered with adverbs that only cluttered my writing. When I removed the adverbs, I found that my writing flowed better, and that adverbs had been a sort of crutch, prohibiting me from actually illustrating, not just describing, an action.