1B Hyclak AP Lang (20-21 SY) discussion
Post #1: What are you noticing about the writing in your book?
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Kaiya
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Sep 09, 2020 10:00AM
In my choice book, Dear Martin, the author, Nic Stone, uses an original way of showing readers things from the main character's, Justyce McAllister, point of view. Stone incorporates letters that Justyce is writing to Martin Luther King. The first letter starts off as this: "First and foremost, please know I mean you no disrespect with the whole 'Martin' thing. I studied you and your teachings in tenth grade, so it feels most natural to interact with you as a homie. Hope you don't mind that." You can tell from this introduction alone that Justyce considers his letters to Martin a safe place and as he continues to write them they are utilized as a sort of diary. Stone's inclusion of the letters give readers a unique insight into the story and makes the connection feel more real.
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In my choice book beware that girl, the author teresa toten uses many appositive phrases to compliment the description of locations and people. For example Toten describes the room where Kate O'brien is staying in in china town, by describing with detail the reader can infere that the living conditions are bad but O'brien is used to bouncing around. "I haven’t unpacked. I won’t. This is temporary. Besides,im freaked that the slime that’s weeping down the walls will marry up with the stink of the decaying cabbage and infect my brand-new secondhand uniforms. I’ve got an iron bed topped with shredded Spider-Man bedding, a small round table, one aluminum chair, a decent mirror, a TV tray that I use as a night table, a sink scarred by rust and a floor cabinet with a Coleman-like stove propped on it." Teresa writes with a grand amout of detail the condition of the room and shows a slim peek on the type of girl Kate is.
In my choice book The Lord of The Rings Return of the King, The author J.R.R Tolkien uses a lot of juxtaposition of different elements of the setting, using the night compared to the day of when events take place or a threat looms. As well as using very descriptive sentences of the setting. "For the fashions of Minas Tirith was such that was built on seven levels, each delved into the hill, and about each was set a wall, and in each wall was a gate. But the gates were not set in a line." The descriptions of settings are not always the most accurate as to help leave an imagination of what it may look like but also give you a foundation to what you should base it off of. The author also uses similes of day and night describing the night like a sheathed blade, not seen but still known to be dangerous, or the day where danger is obviously seen describing it like a warrior, where you can see everything that is dangerous.
In my choice book Angela's Ashes, author Frank McCourt adds small details to the people in his book to help make the audience feel more familiar with the subject matter. He does this with many people in the story, one of them being Frank's alcoholic father. "If he sings Roddy McCorley, it means he had only the price of a pint or two. If he sings Kevin Barry, it means he had a good day, that he is now falling down drunk and ready to get us out of bed, line us up and make us promise to die for Ireland, unless Mam tells him to leave us alone or she'll brain him with the poker" (95). These few sentences imply much about his father and the family's dynamic as a whole; how a good day for the father means blacking out and asking his children for patriotic sacrifice, and showing how their mother has no patience for him. Writing these small details of how the characters act make the reader feel more inclined to notice them since it is not the first or the last time McCourt mentions his father singing Kevin Barry when he drinks. It makes the audience feel more connected to the reality this family deals with daily.
My choice book is Learned Optimism, the author Martin E. P. Seligman uses a lot of examples to prove his points, he uses examples that he has personally seen and connects through them to make his point very clear. The sentence structure throughout so far switches quite often from complex to simple, this helps to create an effect when reading that exaggerates the importance. Martin includes a lot about pessimism and optimism so those are the two main words that are repeated, he also writes a lot about feeling this helps to set the tone and make it known when reading what feeling is created. Analyzing the situations through observing different perspectives is key when reading this book because interpretation is the main focus. Because of this characters aren't created to remember the character, but rather their mindset and experience. Characters are not of importance in this book because they do not come back unless referenced to further prove a point. There is not a lot of dialog or setting either, because of what the book is about, which is mindsets and the reasoning behind thoughts and behaviors.
In my choice of book Stamped the authors use authorial intrusion to create a connection with the reader which allows the text to be more engaging. An example of this can be found when the authors describe the reconstruction era in the United States. They explain how one of the influential members of the black community believed that black people should be happy "at the bottom" because it was a start. "Oof. I guess Booker T. Washington really doesn't sound that great, either"(122). The authors shift the attention to their own thoughts which allow the text to be more relatable. This is important because by making the writing more relatable the author is able to create a relationship with the reader adding to the various perspectives .
In my choice book Midnight Sun, the author, Stephenie Meyer, so far has not used very much dialogue and instead is telling the story solely from Edwards' thoughts. Edward can hear people's inner thoughts and in the first chapter this creates a form of dialogue that is still told only from the realm of Edward's head. After getting Edward's attention through her, Alice, thoughts, Edward explains "How is he holding up? She asked me. I frowned, just a small change in the set of my mouth" (4 - this might be different in the paper version but my online book doesn't show the real page numbers since you can change the amount of words per page). The story is very focused on Edward's point of view (POV) since it is supposed to be the same story as Twilight, which was written from Bella's POV of their love story, but now from Edward's perspective. This means Meyer can go in great detail and depth of Edward's inner thoughts without much dialogue because the reader will already know the baseline of what happens.
In my choice book, "Sherlock Holmes" by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author is using a high level of detail and abstraction. The narrator is describing his case in The Hound of Baskervilles with a lot of statistical and descriptive information to help the reader form a conclusion. In chapter 6 of The Hound of Baskervilles, Watson observes, “Over the green squares of the fields and the low curve of a wood there rose in the distance a gray, melancholy hill, with a strange jagged summit, dim and vague in the distance, like some fantastic landscape in a dream.” Doyle put a lot of emphasis on describing small details in this setting to give the reader a clear vision of the environment which will aid in the readers judgement of the mystery. The art of deduction is a key characteristic of Sherlock Holmes’s persona and is the main detection skill in the novel. The concept of deduction states that if all the premises are true, and the terms correctly applied, then the conclusion will also be true. Doyle presents these “terms” or observations very plainly in the text as seen in the quote above to support a reader’s conclusion of a case.
In my choice read book, Camino Island, I've noticed that the author, John Grisham, often uses dashes to set off phrases that provide further information and create the tone. For instance, in the first chapter, when a group of thieves are making their getaway, Grisham uses dashes to give further details. He explains, “Mark and Jerry got into a pickup truck--a fancy club cab leased by Denny--and they followed Trey and the van out of the parking lot…”(19). Rather than containing that information in dashes, Grisham could've inserted it in parenthesis. However, he chooses to use dashes to emphasize how frenzied and fast-paced their heist was, which gives the chapter frantic tone. Not only does Grisham use dashes to provide more detail and set a tone, but to provide clarification or explanation. He writes, “He had wisely kept the news of his good fortune to himself--the money, after all, had been buried for decades--so he was not pestered by friends offering all manner of advice…”(45). Rather than use commas, or simply state information, Grisham chooses to insert clarification and information within sentences, set off by dashes.
In my choice book, Four, I have noticed that the author, Veronica Roth, uses the main characters voice in his head as the as the emotion of how things are going on in the story. For Instance, on page 32, Four is choosing his faction. " I look at him, and he nods, and I cut deep into my own palm, so deep the pain brings tears to my eyes. I blink them away and curl my hand into a fist to let the blood collect there... I open my palm over the coals. I feel like they're burning in my stomach, filling me to the brim with fire and smoke. I am free." (Roth, 32) Instead of telling the reader what is happen, she goes more in depth with Fours on thinking. On how is father whats him to go one way. but Four (Tobias) doesn't what to follow in his footsteps. And when Four says "I am free" he is not afraid of his dad, or what will happen to him. Roth uses her writing to strengthen how the read looks at the book. She choose to use the in head voice in order to fuel the emotion in Four. This means that Roth has a wider exception of how each character is able to think and feel.
In my choice book, Shoe Dog, I have notice that he uses explicit details to show his tell his story. He use these details to show the amazing places he has been and seen. He has traveled the world and seen some amazing things. "...watched the ships bobbing on Kobe's dark purple bay. Beautiful place, I thought."(Knight 63). He shows this amazing place, but he might not win his battle. He also use experiences to show how he has come on this journey of win and lose to show how he start to build his massive company he has now. "He narrowed his eyes, looked down. He seemed to be meditating. Again he looked up at me. "Yes," he said, "all right. You have western states."'(Knight 64) .This is show his win that he was able to use the franchise of a Japanese running shoe company to help them expand west ward in the United States of America. To try to start to fulfill his shoe dream.
In my choice book,"On the Outside Looking Indian," the author, Rupinder Gill, used a calm and relatable technique of humor and comparison to show the childhood longings and coming to terms and accepting that you are different. It is written in first person, where she is portraying her thoughts to the reader. In the fourth chapter, she is thinking about becoming a dog owner, as she missed the aspect of a furry companion in her adolescent years. While thinking about what to get, she adds humor by saying,"With small dogs, there is always the chance that I will turn into one of those crazy women who buys her yorkie drop earrings or ends up on a talk-show intervention after being seen sharing a milkshake with two straws with her chihuahua."(49) By utilizing humor into the context of the story, Gill keeps readers hooked to indulge in more relatable and humorous remarks. The thoughts she writes about are meant to be very relatable to readers and with a dash of humor it brings the whole message together.
In my book, Emma, the author, Jane Austen, uses dashes to show one of the characters, Miss Bates, frantic way of speaking. Miss Bates is known to be someone who talks very fast, and Jane Austen portrays that by adding dashes in her sentences. An example of this is: "...four weeks yesterday:--a Miss Hawkins:--well, I had always fancied it would be some young lady herabouts; not that I ever--Mrs, Cole..."(Austen 159). The dashes do a great job of allowing the reader to feel how quick she speaks.
In my choice book, "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time", the author, Mark Haddon, uses an interesting way to narrate the story. The main character is 15 year-old with autism, so his view on things that occur are different from normal. They way he responds to situations is unexpected. He has fixations on certain things and hes always honest. It makes for an interesting book because normally the story would go along in a more chronological way but because the main character is on the spectrum and he's the one "writing" the book, he tells everything in a more matter-of-fact way, and its not necessarily chronological. He likes to talk about his past and the things hes interested in. The author is able to utilize this to make the story more suspenseful in a way because you cant progress further in the story until the main character can figure it out.
In my choice book Divergent, the author, Veronica Roth, put the reader in the main character’s consciousness by using run-on sentences, sentence fragments, and strange digressions. In chapter 2, when Beatrice is taking the tests one can read what her consciousness is thinking when it says, “A bad idea-no, a very bad idea. My heart pounds and I clutch the pole to keep my hands from shaking, from giving me away. If I tell him I know the man from the article, something awful will happen to me.” (Roth 17)Beatrice is shaking and scared to tell who the man in the article is to the guy. You can tell that she doesn’t want to tell the man who she knows, but she wants to convince him that she doesn’t know. One can also find out how she’s feeling by reading “heart pounds” and you can tell how she’s frightened to tell who she know. The author wrote the book to let the reader know the main characters consciousness as she’s doing certain actions.
In my choice book A Canticle for Leibowitz, the author, Walter m Miller. Uses lots of symbolism and real world references to portray the over arching theme of the book. Miller uses the catholic Church and the reformation of it in a post apocalypse world as a way to show religion, and humanity in the circle of life. Miller also uses fire as a symbol in two senses. Cleansing and chaos. Saying "As the world was washed with fire a new world emerged." (3) and "As the building burned not only was the montasary destroyed, but all lives within." (78)
In my book, Everything I Never Told You, the author, Celeste Ng starts the book in the past. I think she does this because shes laying out opportunity to foreshadow later in the book, and to give the audience some background on the characters. The author also quickly puts somber in the air and sets the emotion. For example, "She checks every room, opening every closet. She peeks into the empty garage..." (6) This isn't necessarily sad, but but the author definitely gets the point across that the mother is frantic, and in shock without flat out telling us that. The author also writes multiple pages with no dialogue (explaining or telling a story) and then multiple pages in complete dialogue throughout an event.
In my book, The Girl on the Train, the author ,Paul Hawkins, uses a unique writing style. She mainly shows the readers events happening through the three main characters point of view. Because this book is very suspenseful and mysterious, it lets the reader know only what the character does too. In the book it states, "In my head u can still see that little pile of clothing lying at the edge of the track, abandoned. " (2) This shows how the author gives us a deeper insight into what the character is thinking and their motives. The author uses very descriptive words and a strong perception into their lives, all of which lead to a general mystery.
In my choice book Horrorstör, the author, Grady Hendrix, uses a lot of appositive phrases as well to add emphasis on the scenarios and situations occurring in the book. Grady also uses these appositive phrases to build anticipation and allow more info or detail to be given within a sentence. In chapter 1, it says, "But every morning, five days a week (seven during the holidays), they dragged themselves here, to the one thing in their lives that never changed, the one thing they could count on come rain, or shine, or dead pets, or divorce: work," (paragraph 2). Many other examples like these are shown throughout the book to demonstrate and almost help the reader visualize the mindset and state as to which the people and workers are in. With the use of appositive phrases also comes in handy with the letting the reader know how reliant the workers are with their jobs, using this knowledge allows the reader to better comprehend events later in the book. Also with more detail, the tone for the chapter and most of the book is set as an added bonus.
