Blog Entry #9: Workshop Questions, etc.

Part 1:

Q: What's working in the draft and why do you feel that it's working?

A: Sean's anger and intensity. I feel as though this is working because I tried getting into the character's mind before writing the dialogue and it came together pretty well in all honesty.

Q: What needs improvement in the draft and why do you feel that it's not working?

A: It feels slightly rushed, if only because I preferred to get to the action over anything else. That was the part of the story i came up with first and I could've worked that out a bit better.

Q: What are the questions you'd like the workshop to address about the story? Or, what insights about how to revise after your workshop?

A: I only have one question to ask. My Nature Writing professor told me that I should try to write out of my comfort zone occasionally, which is what I did with this piece. How did it come across? Menacing  or comical?

Q: What is the plot of the story? What's the main character's internal conflict in your story?

A: Sean and his lover Leslie have stolen a baby to get ransom money and make a run for it as he watches the family of his wife, Louise, crumble apart. However, Leslie tries ratting Sean out, which leads to a turn for the worse. Sean's internal conflict stems from how his family was treated by Louise, which is the reason why he married her (and hates her).

Q: How's the draft challenging your writing? What technique would you like to focus more on?

A: Not so much is there a technique I want to focus on in regards to working on this story, but the draft is challenging my writing because, as stated above, I'm writing out of my comfort zone. Sean physically hits Leslie, and never really write these scenes unless they are fight based scenes, but downright abuse is a much different subject.

Part II

The only story of Alejo Carpentier's that I read was The Kingdom of This World. It focused far too much on description than dialogue, something of which I'm not a huge fan of, but what saved this read from not wanting to continue it was the fact it at least was interesting. Carpentier managed to set the scene quite nicely, with "But I also thought that the presence and validity of the marvelous real was not a privilege unique to Haiti, but the heritage of the whole of America, where it has not yet been completed to establish, for example, a recount of cosmogonies" as one that makes the reader understand that he has firsthand knowledge of this situation...that he's actually a reliable narrator. The story is written in first person, again not really my favorite POV because I prefer to read about a bunch of characters rather than focus solely on the inner thoughts of a character (which leads to more description based pieces in the first place). The piece mainly goes on about the growth of Haiti and Cuba and how the land means much more to him than it would to most others if only because he knows what to do and where to do things in the countries that most people wish they could have the knowledge of.

As my book is coming in next Monday, this was the sole story I was able to read for this exercise so far.

https://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/03/books/hello-columbus.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1989/09/17/books/in-short-nonfiction-629189.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/01/books/books-of-the-times-christopher-columbus-in-magical-realism.html