I have created this blog to be able to show the outside world my writing pieces and get comments and critiques (good and bad!) with my identity being hidden. I really love writing but I am always too embarrassed to let any friends or family read my pieces, so PLEASE comment and tell me exactly what is on your minds'!
Also, please try and answer all the survey questions scattered about my blog; this is another little experiment of mine!
I will be posting additions to my stories or even new stories at the very least once every two weeks. Different stories will have distinctly different names that no one should have trouble separating the two.
Anyway, if you stumble across my blog and like the writing, please follow me and comment/criticize away!
Hey guys! So Idea 2: Seasons is a new idea I have gotten and instead of writing this one in a notebook and re-reading it a million times before I post each piece (like I did for my first Idea), I am just going to wing this one! So each post under "Idea 2: Seasons" will be kind of like improv.
As always, give me criticism and your thoughts! I would love to get some feedback!
The character that I was so upset about dying, in a previous blog, has not died! Michael Grant has found a way to keep her alive and totally revive her, hurray!
Although this has made me extremely happy, I still have not discovered why authors kill certain characters off!
I guess my journey to find the meanings of character deaths will have to continue!
Right now, I am reading a novel, the third from the Gone series by Michael Grant, called Plague. Within the three novels that have already been published, many characters have died. This is credited to the sickly, twisted plot that illustrates a tragic and horrifying dystopian society. In this regard, it is extremely necessary for characters to die or be murdered; what kind of gruesome world doesn't have deaths?
However, I am confronted with a very difficult realization in this particular novel, for one of my favorite characters is about to die. Plague is only the third book of this series which Grant plans on becoming a six book series, which means this loved character is dying only half way through the storyline. I can not, for the life of me, understand why this girl must die. She plays a crucial role and has a tough, yet calming personality that only few dislike. If she dies, which is a definite future event, there will be an empty spot where her character has been in which cannot be replaced by anyone else.
The whole point of that rant:
This raises a question, however. Why do certain characters have to die in novels, shows, and movies?
Sometimes, a meaningless character passes away in a show and it has a valuable message or meaning, yet it doesn't provoke strong emotions for the viewer. This is probably the most common form of death in entertainment. It is used solely to display a message, a point, a symbol, or even to get a reaction out of the viewers.
Other times, either a main character or secondary character is doomed. Most often it is for being too heroic and self-destructive. Is this to tell readers and viewers not to turn to heroism because it kills? That saving other peoples' lives can easily lead to his or her own death? Or does the author create a character that is impossible to dislike, and then write their death in order to upset the reader purposefully?
I can think of countless novels, movies, and shows where people were created to my liking and then written off for infuriating reasons. I cannot be the only person in the world who has experienced this and felt so passionately about the death of a character!
What is your thoughts on why amusing characters are killed or destined to die? Even if a character isn't the best person, even if he or she is a "bad guy" character that you have learned to like, why did he or she have to be removed from the story?
In every English or writing class I have ever been in, every teachers and student and article we had read discovered symbols in each piece of literature we've looked at. At times I went along with this, and other times I just sat back and wondered where the hell they got the idea that the chair in the corner of the room symbolized the solitude of an old man who was only mentioned in the story, not actually in it.
I have been wondering for years whether symbols were real or not. I juggle this idea with myself every time I pick up a book; I can see both side. And if symbols are real, are all of them intentional? Or are some so deeply twisted into the authors thoughts and feelings that she or he creates them subconsciously? Which raises another question: Are the subconsciously created symbols even symbols at all? And if not, are there even such things as symbols?
Through my own writing as I experiment on this blog, I want to see if I ever have the urge to create a symbol of some sort just through my writing instincts. Additionally, I want to know if anyone, other than myself, noticing anything they believe might be a symbol while reading my writing.
So please, if you stumble upon this blog anytime, and see this, please read what I have written, and comment as much as you want/can. I want to hear the good and the bad comments, and the comments discovering potential symbols or lack there of. And anything else you can think of: suggestions, likes, dislikes, tips, anything and everything!
I read the letter to myself over and over again on the bench in the park that was pushed into the Earth next to the river, perfectly shaded by the gorgeous weeping willow that was in full bloom. The wind blew by from time to time, the tree's graceful, long arms sweeping to and fro.
I sat in that very spot listening for hours upon hours to the hushing and gurgling of the river for a few hours, reading and rereading, contemplating and imagining. And I cried. The words were figures, slowly twirling and leaping about the park, gliding across the river. I could reach out and touch each word, feel the warmth, the sting, the wetness. Each figure I touched provoked streams from my eyes, provoked a stinging in the over flowing pools. They circled the bench, climbed the willow, splashed in the water, taunting my brain. And yet I stayed put to study each form, for they were not intangible, but instead very real. Like black hieroglyphics, they moved across the grass in no particular order, taking over the land around me, slowly, yet like rapid fire with balletic movements. The chaos caught my eyes, it hypnotized me. The shapes were intriguing especially with the patterns that my mind created from them. I was mesmerized as I sat there staring at the words that had come to life.
And somewhere in that time, that incredible retreat, my eyes had decided to cleanse themselves. The tears, they poured out of me just the way the waterfall of colored emotions flowed out of Iliana. And as they poured, I begged the God that I don't believe in for mercy. Oh, how I begged that late spring afternoon. The pain that the beautiful dancing figures implanted in my chest was not completely unbearable, but just under that. The pain was just to the point where if there was anymore, I would not be able to live with it, but yet I could. So I begged and pleaded with a power which I had once grown to believe to be fake. I had had no intention of spending my whole afternoon alone, on that bench, on the far side of the park. The tan I acquired was unintentional as well. My stroll had turned for the worse the second I saw that small purple bottle floating down the stream, bobbing, turning, nodding at me.
I remember clearly feeling an attraction to the glass container, it was beautiful. But more than that, it was as if the bottle wanted me to lift it from the current, it was calling me. So I lowered myself and reached my arm out. I didn't have to try to catch the bottle, it came to me. That was the moment I saw the folded up paper, bent and contorted to fit, behind the purple, iridescent bottle. Instinctively, I sat on the wrought iron and wooden bench and twisted the small cork out. I couldn't help but feel that I was in some scene from a show or movie, going to release something epic, about to witness all the consequences of this moment of curiosity, both good and bad. Half of this assumption was correct, the half about me reaping the consequences. The epic part? Not so much.
That was when I found myself slipping the paper out. Don't ask me how, because still, to this day, I have no idea how my large fingers fit into the extremely tiny mouth of that bottle. The letter and myself had a pull to each other of some sort. That's all I can come up with. I moved like a zombie, in a trance, unfolding the paper to the realization that it was a letter. I remember getting as comfortable as I could on the bench in the gentle sun, listening to the music that the wind, willow tree, river, and birds all made for me.
And I read.
I read the letter that was written in the most beautiful script anyone has ever seen. Not one paragraph went by without the provocation of my tears. That was how I came to spend that whole Sunday afternoon on a bench, in a park, by the river, under the willow, with the sun, and a wonderful tan to go with my puffy, red eyes.
The thing was, I could not get that woman's words out of my head. They spun around and around my skull reminding me of all the emotion that was jam-packed into the letter. Maybe it was too much for me and I went into shock for those hours, since I can't remember everything that went through my mind for those long hours. Or maybe I only thought a few things, that, like Iliana's words, circled around in my mind continuously.
