Blogging Around

Alex's Post: Carry it Forward: "Beat by Beat: The Rhythm of Writing", writing a note to grandparents vs. writing intensely

I liked how Alex related what she learned in class to the real world. Sure, we all have to write papers and essays for school. Its required, we get a grade on them, so therefore we must do a good job. But what about elsewhere? Is it really necessary? Alex seems to think that when writing a note to her grandparents, it doesn't matter too much. They know her, they know her writing style, and they know she means well. But what about a note to someone you do not know? You need to get your point across, but you also want to get it across in the feelings you want to show. I don't think that we necessarily want to be intense with our writing, as Alex said, but we want to be honest and portray ourselves the way we really are. After all, it is our writing.

Connors Post: Best of the Week: Author-Character Interaction, the struggle between the author and his character

In general, this is a great topic to explore. We may not fully realize it at times, (although truly obvious), but the author has absolute full control over his characters. The authors goal is to intrigue his readers and teach them a lesson. In this case, there were many, but the most salient one was that of redemption. Hosseini pulled and tugged at Amir's strings, until he finally found the way. Hosseini made the road so hard for Amir that at one point he couldn't even talk. Isn't this hard for us to read? After all, why would a reader want to read about horrific events, such as rape, beatings, and suicide? For some reason, we actually enjoy this. Why is this? I don't really have a solid answer for this question, other than maybe we need some form of entertainment to keep ourselves occupied. But is that reason enough? Or is it just accepted in our society? Authors create suspense and put their characters through the worst of things, just for our entertainment.