Blog#6 Samara: There usually is an agenda...but I try to make the writing my focus

That is a long title....sorry! I am one of those writers who feels the need to tackle a larger topic than just the story. For some reason this is how I have always written, at least since undergrad. Being that I am Jewish, a lot of my writing (poetry and fiction) has revolved around a Jewish theme, usually the Holocaust. I think I do this for two reasons; one because my heritage is extremely important to me, and two because I cannot fathom the hatred found in Hitler and his Nazi party to kill over six million Jews. I feel like writing about this topic helps me to make sense of it in my own mind.

My first short story I wrote my freshman year of college is called "No Room For Dolls." It is about a family that is forced to leave their home in Poland upon very short notice because they receive word of a Nazi raid fast approaching. The two daughters start to pack their necessary belongings, and the older sister has to teach the younger sister a lesson in life...where they are headed there is no room for dolls. Below is a short excerpt. (This was written in 1996 and hasn't been revised since, but I felt like I should share a bit.
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The chaotic streets were lined with overturned boxes, wrecked furniture that had been thrown out of stores, homes, and windows, and swastikas. They were everywhere, they hung from buildings, they were part of every soilders uniform, hugging the muscles of their right arms. The worst were the flags with Hitler's face on them. Swastikas; two black lines that if unbent meant nothing, but together, bent against a white background with a red stripe at the top and bottom, made the most powerful symbol of hatred I've ever seen. Looking out my "Juden" sprayed window I was able to see this symbol every morning.
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For my current piece of work Black and Blue I am not focusing on the Holocaust but another sensitive topic, child and spousal abuse. So, it is clear to me that there does seem to be an agenda in my writing, but it is focused on topics that I am passionate about. I do not want my writing to become a political statement, just want readers to walk away from what they have read of mine with something to think about.

Blog #6 Melissa Davis

This blog topic really made me take a long, hard look at my writing. I had to ask some difficult questions about myself and my work. Do I even know what my political, religious, social, sexual, and economic beliefs are and can I recognize them, hidden or revealed? After much soul searching, reading, and discussions with myself and my “readers”, I came to two conclusions: I write what I know, and I do try to diversify my writing to reach a larger audience.

I am an only child who grew up in a two-parent household. I have had times of wealth and times of poverty. I have felt totally accepted and completely shunned. I have had good relationships and horrible ones, been loved and been abused. I have experienced the joy of religious belief and the utter devastation of my faith destroyed. I have felt confident about my political ideas and understandings and completely lost in the hidden agendas of politicians. I have lived in small-town South Georgia and Atlanta and have all the diversity perceptions that come with both areas.

With that said, I do try to vary my characters, settings, and ideas in my writing. Since I write mostly for young adults, I find that my characters and plots are somewhat stereotypical. I have noticed that in reading other (YA) writers, they each try to impart some sort of moral, ethical, or thematic lesson to their readers. I do as well. I spend 180 days a year with teens and I use what I see, hear, and learn from them to imbue my characters with realistic characteristics. I am limited in my experience since I teach in a rural county; however, over the years, the diversity of my students has greatly expanded and therefore, I have a greater pool of characteristics and beliefs to pull from.

In my latest story, I have a group of teenagers who are quite different. Sophia and Samuel are twins, a sister and brother, who grew up in foster homes. Sophia is the all-American cheerleader type while Samuel is the geeky, techno expert. October is an Asian Goth-girl who comes from a single parent family (her father) who was deeply cultural-minded and religious. Rick is a wealthy, spoiled brat who was given everything he ever desired, except love and attention by his parents. Shawna is an African American girl who grew up with her older brother until he was killed by gangs. Jesse is the final character they pick up and he is a bit of a mystery to the group.

I find that my beliefs are revealed within my writing and I do so deliberately. One of the reasons for writing young adult fiction is to help them through the overwhelming experiences that come with growing up. Some of them need to feel connected with a character, some need to escape from their reality, and some need to see that, despite adversity, you can succeed. While my views might be limited, I try to use my students to expand the diversity of my characters.

Blog #6 Toni Michael--Agendas

At first I was really struggling with the topic of Agendas in My Writing because I really believe that stories are vehicles to truth. The stories that we have read this semester have all touched me in some element of truth that has forced me as a reader to look at my life and the lives of others through a different lens. If I have any agenda for my writing, it would be that emotional complexities and the motives that drive them could be realized through the characters in the stories I write. I have found this to be very hard.
One reason why this is hard is because of my own biases and fears. Up to the present, I have been very guarded in my writing. I have attempted to stay as free as I possibly can from any types of agendas that would cause me to have to say, “Yes, that is what I believe,” or “Yes, that is the way I see it.” Again, I am being forced to humbly admit that I am a coward because essentially writing is a revelation of the truth as I see it, and I have to have the courage to write and let the chips fall where they may.
I admire Flannery O’Connor who tackled the challenge of being a Catholic in the South whose agenda was shaped by Christian concerns. In Mystery and Manners she writes the following:
The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural; and he may well be forced to take ever more violent to get his vision across to this hostile audience…to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling images (34).
Her clarity and sense of purpose is clear in her own mind and it gives direction to her writing. I lack this type of vision, and often find myself floundering in my writing.

Blog #6 - Kathleen - No Hidden Agendas Here

Ah, me. I feel like a fraud, trying to compare my writing projects to these great published books we have been reading for this class. First of all, I've written very little fiction. I haven't even taken Fiction Writing in the MAPW program. I've registered for that class for the fall, but so far, so have only two other people. Many of you blogged so knowledgeably about writing in various third-person forms. I can't really contribute with authority to those conversations.

I am a Creative Nonfiction kind of girl. I've written essays, not short stories. Profiles of interesting people. Magazine articles. My homework. I'm striving to combine nature, travel, and memoir writing for my wanna-be-a book about my family's trip through Ireland. But I am mainly striving - to get the words out and down, to shape the narrative, to make parts of it funny, parts of it interesting, and parts of it poetic, to keep at it and not quit. Bill Bryson's travelogue of his attempt to hike the Appalachian Trail, "A Walk in the Woods," is the prototype for what I'd like to accomplish, the kind of book I'd like to produce. Right now, I'm focused on production. I've not had the time, the talent, or the temerity to promote an agenda.

But . . . I'd like to. I'm generally on a soapbox about something: child prostitution and sexual abuse of anyone, hunger in Africa, the education and social acceptance of young adults with disabilities. I used to daydream about writing books, particularly young adult books, that helped readers understand another person's life, helped them empathize with someone who is different from them. I admire Adiga for crafting a work of fiction that could make a comfortable American like me despair over the state of affairs in India. I'd be proud to write literature that had an agenda - and made a difference.

Blog #4 - Barbara. Perspective: Up-Close or Far-Out?

Blog No. 4 – Barbara
Perspective: Up-Close or Far-Out?

Reading Olive Kitteridge has given me a joy-ride through space. I feel like I’ve circulated around a character via other characters and events. Through thirteen episodes or chunks of writing, Strout gradually presents Olive, the main character. In “Pharmacy” she’s in the background as Henry’s better (or worse) half; in “Incoming Tide” she takes center stage as the savior of two suicidal people, young man and a young woman. In “The Piano Player” Olive blends into the woodwork as Henry’s amenable dinner companion; in “A Little Burst” she again takes center stage as the fury who’s going to teach Suzanne a thing or two. In “Starving” she plays a vital role in turning an anorexic around (temporarily) by telling Nina that she’s breaking Olive’s heart; in “A Different Road” she again plays savior, this time to a thug about to shoot himself. In “Winter Concert” she comes briefly across the page as Henry’s beloved wife; in “Tulips” she shows up as a failed ambassador to the internal, twisted world of Louise. In “Basket of Trips” we see Olive as the empathizer to a widow who never did travel but did dream about traveling with her now-dead husband; Olive does not feature in “Ship in a Bottle,” about another family with an insane mother. In “Security” Olive goes to visit her remarried son, Christopher, and he gives her big doses of truth about herself with both barrels; in “Criminal” she’s absent. In “River” a new Olive emerges, though still fighting, and starts a relationship with Jack, whom she learns to trust. I greatly appreciated cruising through Strout’s unique piece of work.

For my novel, The Way Things Work Out, I want to stay in the first-person to guarantee the limited knowledge of my protagonist. She depends on God for the successes in her life; her limitations play into the development of the plot. For my other book, a combination of non-fiction and fiction, I’m altering the perspective from third-person limited, in the biographies, to first-person, in the poetic prose. I present two famous people and their work in one chapter, and in the next I have them meet through an accident or a time warp, because either they lived in different times or were contemporaries but never met.

Whatever I do, I the writer need to remain flexible, and my work needs to engage and even touch the reader. In fact, in writing Artists Connect, I thought, “OK, so I present two famous personalities who have something in common. How do I make these people more interesting for the non-professional artist?” I thought, “Why not make them meet? If they lived in different centuries, use an unobtrusive time-warp; if they lived at the same time but never met, create a fluke (also self-effacing) so that they do meet.” So the biographies give information on the times, the home, the circumstances, the personality, the philosophy, and the output of each individual. I write them in third person, from the point of view of a researcher who has found information and made some connections. The poetic prose that follows these biographies tells a story from the point of view of the latest living artist (or my favorite artist, if contemporary), in first-person. So, in the style of a dramatic monologue, I climb into the skin of the person I choose, and, based on what I know, I relate an experience from his/her perspective, where s/he meets the other artist. This work has meant equal parts work and fun for me. So far I’ve presented Flannery O’Connor and Franz Liszt (both Catholics), and Herman Melville and Norman Rockwell (both from New York City). I’m currently presenting Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare, both from the 1500s, who knew about each other’s work but never met. I’ll write the poetic part from Cervantes’s perspective. He will wake up one morning in London, at William’s favorite tavern.

I do think perspective plays a crucial role in a narration and in the assimilation of a narration.

Blog #5 By Brittany Leazer: Plays and POV

Out of the choices for point of view, I normally stick to third person limited. I have not had much experience with anything else. It seem to me, a story just comes rolling out of my head in that form. I don't think I have ever started formulating a story that was in first person. Third person limited, just seemes to come naturally. Because I mostly write scripts and plays, I have never really thought about point of view, until I started the MAPW Program.

In many of my courses at Kennesaw State, I have been pushed to go beyond my limits and try different techniques in my writing. I have found that playing with point of view helps me see my story from different sides. For example, if I write in first person I get a better since of who the main character is. The character becomes a little more dimensional. If I write in third person omniscient I get a better idea of who all the characters are, and this helps me identify with these characters. Sometimes I just use different points of view to help me along in the story, and then I choose which one is the best for the piece.

Some of you may be thinking, " If she writes plays, what does she care about point of view?" When I am working on a play, I often write in short story form first. This helps me see the whole play in my head, and using different points of view helps me with the characterizations. In play writing, you cannot write out what the character is thinking. A playwright must know their characters well enough that they can portray the character's thoughts through action and dialogue, so the audience can identify with them. The best way for me to do this is to meet my characters in short story form and then "play" with the point of view.

Blog # 5: Jess Yaun: Ready for Third Person Omniscient?

My stories often begin in the first person. A story idea wiggles around in my head for awhile and when I sit down to write, “I” usually comes out first. By the second or third page of scribbled first draft I’ll know whether first person is working or not. I think beginning in first person allows me to get inside my protagonist’s head and know them intimately. However, before starting the MAPW program, I didn’t think too much about point of view. In fact, in one of the first stories I turned in, my classmates pointed out I had switched point of view at the end of the story. It was only two lines, but when I looked closely, I had indeed slipped from the main character’s head and into another’s.

Once I focused on point of view in a way I never had, I realized I could create distance between myself and my protagonist and steer away from creating a main character that was too much like me, by writing in third person. I also enjoyed discovering for another story that writing in first person made the action and emotion immediate and gripping.

I prefer third person limited only because I’ve never really tried third person omniscient. The power and scope of that point of view still scares me. My novel started in first person like most of my stories do, but long before I revised and submitted my first section to my fiction class I had switched to third person limited. My protagonist, Rebecca, is dreadfully alone for the first few chapters and first person felt claustrophobic – both to write and to read. But now that I’m about halfway through the story, I’m beginning to wonder if it’s time to experiment with third person omniscient. No longer alone, Rebecca finds herself thrust back in time to the days of the Cherokees, and she is surrounded by a large clan that claims her as family. Yet suspicion grows among the tribe about who she is and why she is among them, and although I haven’t written those parts yet, I may need the freedom of showing what the people around her are thinking and feeling. I liked third person limited because I wanted my reader to go on the journey with her, to experience her revelations along with her, much as the reader does with Strout’s Olive Kitteridge, but I fear her limited perspective might suffocate the conflicts and twists that could emerge with a broader telling of Rebecca’s story.