Week 8 Reading and Writing
Wow, this class really has been amazing. It is a lot of work, but I've never been miserable doing it as it's hard to not like reading stories!. However, my favorite part of the class so far has been writing the stories. As an engineering major, I don't often get the chance to flex the creative writing portion of my brain. This class has really provided an outlet for me to do that, and I've found myself actually caring about my stories and wanting to make them as good as they can be.
Looking back, I don't really like my Susan vs Orville story. I just think that it was really a stretch trying to keep the plot of the story the same while completely changing the setting. It feels like a naive way to approach twisting a story if the structure isn't there to perfectly draw parallels. Going forward, I actively took steps to focus on changing one area of the story.
In Pig Out, I definitely tried to throw a single wrench into the story: Circe not actually being evil, but Eurylochus misinterpreting her words. To facilitate this, I changed up Eurylochus's character a bit to make him more naive so the misunderstanding was a little bit more believable. From there, I only needed to focus on the repercussions of changing that single aspect of the story.
Mildly Inconvenient did something similar, where I took the character who in the original story did all the killing and had them refuse and be a voice of reason. Where I changed this formula a bit was in The Grass-Cleaving Sword. In this one, I completely changed the setting and scenario. Instead of changing something about the original story, I took a point of interest, the Sacred Sword, and threw it into a completely modern setting.
Overall, I think I have done a pretty good job with writing my stories. I think this is because when reading the original stories I always keep in mind that I will need to write a story based on it. One area where I can improve is making sure that if I don't completely understand the story I gain that understanding before moving on to the next one.
Looking back, I don't really like my Susan vs Orville story. I just think that it was really a stretch trying to keep the plot of the story the same while completely changing the setting. It feels like a naive way to approach twisting a story if the structure isn't there to perfectly draw parallels. Going forward, I actively took steps to focus on changing one area of the story.
In Pig Out, I definitely tried to throw a single wrench into the story: Circe not actually being evil, but Eurylochus misinterpreting her words. To facilitate this, I changed up Eurylochus's character a bit to make him more naive so the misunderstanding was a little bit more believable. From there, I only needed to focus on the repercussions of changing that single aspect of the story.
Mildly Inconvenient did something similar, where I took the character who in the original story did all the killing and had them refuse and be a voice of reason. Where I changed this formula a bit was in The Grass-Cleaving Sword. In this one, I completely changed the setting and scenario. Instead of changing something about the original story, I took a point of interest, the Sacred Sword, and threw it into a completely modern setting.
Overall, I think I have done a pretty good job with writing my stories. I think this is because when reading the original stories I always keep in mind that I will need to write a story based on it. One area where I can improve is making sure that if I don't completely understand the story I gain that understanding before moving on to the next one.
Artist's depiction of Susanoo vs Orochi, my favorite photo from my reading notes so far! Source: Deviant Art
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