Friday, March 18, 2011

Friend's War Story and Writing Process

My friend wrote a story and posted a part on her blog. So I decided to read it over and edit. Yes I know it was a draft and it had many mistakes in my opinion, -such as repetitiveness- but thats what revisions are for.

My English teacher stressed much on the whole writing process. The main parts are: Braintstorming, Drafting, Revising, and Final.

Brainstorming to get your ideas out on paper and to scramble them into something that makes sense. This part should be done so well the next part flows evenly without much struggle.

Drafting to "properly" write out your thoughts into grammer structured and strained sentences. The trick is not go ahead to the next step during this process. I forget the exact reason why, but its something along the lines of not breaking the thought flow from your mind/brain to your hand through your pencil to the paper. Also you can edit later, just get everything out.

Revising is the most painful part. They are many things you should to think of: diction [replace repetitive/weak/plain/boring/redundant words with better/stronger/flavorful words]; sentence structure [not always using the same order of clauses/parts of a sentence] and length [long/meduim/short]. These are jsut a few things to think of and also largely affected on style of writing. If you are writing for a "first grader" audience, don't go and use puerile or pusillanimous, use stupid/dumb kind of words. SIMPLICITY! Think of your audience basically. Also infect the paper with your own style or a certain stlye such as old talk [something formal/Shakesphere/poetic] or southern [y'all/howdy/+'um].

Final. The last draft you have that you believe is presentable.

Yes I rambled a bit in the middle.... Now here's my version and go to the link for her original version. (I have permission to do something like this as we do know each other and I have asked to help edit :3)

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

http://imaginarythoughtsofagirl.blogspot.com/2011/03/war-story.html

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Joëlle!”
A voice shouted her name. She rolled her eyes.
“Joëlle!”
This time, much louder and sterner. Joëlle stood up from her chair and grabbed her rabbit. She walked out of the library and down the hall, running into her mother quickly.
“Where were you?”
{The queen asked.}
“No where important”
The young girl replied. Her mother kept her gaze; her daughter just stood there.
“Very well, it matters not” said the queen. “But what does matter is that Prince Abelard will arrive soon. It will be your duty to accompany him”
“Will his Uncle be coming as well?”
“Yes. Why?”
“It is just that I enjoyed his company the last time he visited”
Her mother smiled slightly.
“Well then, I expect to see you at supper tonight.”
At that her mother turned and walked away. Joëlle sighed and continued through the halls of her palace without any thought. She knew every corner and room, having grown up exploring all the nooks and crannies. Her favorite room was an old forgotten library of books rejected from the newer library built years ago. The library had a sense of emptiness with no visitors other than herself and dust collecting over the years. The small room allowed her to break down her thoughts and expose herself emotionally when she wanted to escape from her life for a little while. She glanced up at the ancient grandfather clock in the corner. Quarter to six, nearly time for supper. She sighed, another evening of sitting quietly and speaking only when spoken to.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The {} is a part where I think should be either added to the first paragraph or at least to the part before the dialogue. Or given more information such as appearance of the queen.
Also as this is just a segment, some things I left alone such as the last sentence, because I would need to ask for an explanation of the purpose/feeling of the sentence. an example of one thought is that I remove the comma and insert 'to'

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