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Friday - Oct. 7 Assignment

The most interesting thing I've done in this unit would actually be coming to class most of the time on 5 hrs sleep, occasionally very caffeinated and tired. I joke, yes,
but that is one of the things that makes me amazed I've been able to keep up this well for so long. Although, I don't plan on relying on it anymore, it has proven to be pointlessly difficult on myself.

It's hard to say what was the most interesting thing I've learned from the fiction unit, especially since I'm typically very good at doing what is the basis of most of the class: analysis. I've read rather unique stories: "The Things They Carried", "Who's Irish", and the puzzling wording of Poe's "The Cask Of The Amontillado", which, I could say, were the interesting things in this unit. The most honest answer I can come up with is actually a more or less reinforcement of concepts I already knew, and an unveiling details of concepts I had a grasp on. For instance, I already well knew the whole plot flow thing, I didn't know it was invented by Aristotle and I didn't know the technical distinction of round and flat characters.

When I say I didn't know the "technical distinction", it means more so that most of what I know about writing and how to write is based on intuition and experience, not studying parse. This may explain my shaky confidence in writing, other than the lack of self esteem concept, but I'm not here to analyze myself, I am not a character in a story... or am I ?. This also explains, for the longest time and at times today, my rebellion against the whole concept of rules for writing, except for the general formatting and spelling rules. This is why my first foray into writing centered on fan-fiction, which when I think about now, was probably the perfect way to get into writing.

In fan-fiction, there is a sort of a loose template one has when writing: in most cases, the characters are already established and well known, the story is generally well known as well, and the interactions with characters are too. Of course, this depends on how familiar the author is with the characters and the "universe" from which they come from. This also explains the common belief that fan-fiction is self-serving crap whose sole purpose is to perpetuate any given universe purely for selfish fantasy. While a certain small portion of this general stereotype of fan-fiction is somewhat true (it's certainly a motivation for most fan-fic writers out there), there are very promising amateur writers out in the vast sea of fan-fic arenas on the internet, much how there are a few promising writers in any given genre that may or may not struggle to keep their stories unique among the generic clones of that genre just selling for money.

Anyways, the loose template, I found, helped me focus on other things in a story that would help establish the fan-fic piece as more legitimate. Structures, flow of the plot, even introductions of original characters derived from the same universe were all things I constantly practiced upon writing in fan-fic. Of course, reading fan-fic also helped as well. Just like with any genre, as I read fan-fic, I sub-consciously studied certain elements in each author's story. The only difference is that fan-fic is on the Internet, and therefore, is much more interactive than any type of real life book. Often, authors included e-mail addresses with a plead for any type of feedback, even flames, but in most cases, they asked politely for no flames or fluff; in other words, no ridiculously negative or positive comments.

Throughout the entire unit, I was reminded of the steps I had taken to get serious about writing, from coming with semi-serious flow charts of events of plots that would constantly be revised every 1 or 2 months when I found the papers again, to writing fan-fic yet somehow never really publishing most of it online, then fairly selfish but extensive journal entries of self-analysis, to finally taking Intro to literature before En102, eager to begin writing and get somewhere with it. By now, as I write, I remember when I would sigh at the instruction of reading short stories in high school, but the majorities I've read since arriving at college are much more interesting. I realize that in all my ambition, short stories would most likely be the best way to start out, much like making a movie with a small budget, then increasingly getting better at the process and (hopefully) getting a bigger budget. Of course, I haven't been writing much lately, so I should dig up my old fan-fiction, give it another go with newly acquired knowledge, and just simply write. Besides, it's called writing, not talking, and I've done plenty of talking already with this journal entry. Speaking of, I should probably get busy on catching up on past entries while amnesty allows.