A Moment in Time
Project Reflection
The moment in Time project was centered around us writing a vignette (brief narrative description) around an event or story from our past. This "moment" that we choose must be one that has made a changed us, and allowed us to become who we are today. Throughout the process of writing the stories we worked on focusing different writing techniques such as: specificity, writing style, and episodic elaboration. Throughout multiple weeks of learning techniques, peer critiques, and endless refinement you end up with a one page story that is detailed and concise. As a challenge extension, we could create an art peice of a specific art style, or a podcast to give the stories more depth.
In the past couple of weeks, we have been introduced to many different guides and lessons on writing, including one about showing not "telling" and one on the components of a good story. In the show don't tell lesson, we were challenged to remove all "thought" verbs from our writing. Verbs such as imagined, worried, thinks, knows, believes, and many more. After removing the thought verbs we then had to rewrite the thought using descriptive sensory details to get the point across. Replacing "I thought about death" with "The cold fingers of death slowly wrapped around my mind, gripping tighter with each passing second." We also learned about the most basic frame of a story and how to create a good story that could captivate using that format. In its most basic form, a story should have these three parts: 1. The hero is introduced along with the struggle they face, 2. Then the hero's attempts to solve a problem or overcome a struggle is shown, 3. Finally the reader is shown the aftermath and how the hero has changed and developed since the beginning of the story. These were two of the strongest lessons that we received in this project, and have greatly improved my writing.
The most difficult thing I encountered in writing this story was pulling the specific details and order of events out of the memory I chose for the project. In Stephen’s class we journaled at the beginning of every day. To start the journal we all slowly drew a spiral on the page to help focus our minds and allow us to think back to the previous day. We would then spend a couple minutes recalling seven things we did, seven things we saw, one thing we heard, and then draw one picture that was relevant to the day. Although it was very difficult it helped me tremendously improve the clarity of the memory and of the story. One thing, although covered in class, that I can trouble with was dialogue and characters. If given the chance I would go back and work on those two areas to add another layer of depth to the story.
The most important part of any project reflection is the lesson that you gained from the project, and how changed or grew you as a person as a result. One of the big lessons I took away from this project is that stories allow us to bond and connect with others through past experiences and I benefits you greatly to be able to tell a story well. Another is that one concise, well written page easily outperforms ten mediocre ones. Both of these lessons have helped me to grow to use the tools I have learned to use in this project on all stories I tell and all writing I produce.
In the past couple of weeks, we have been introduced to many different guides and lessons on writing, including one about showing not "telling" and one on the components of a good story. In the show don't tell lesson, we were challenged to remove all "thought" verbs from our writing. Verbs such as imagined, worried, thinks, knows, believes, and many more. After removing the thought verbs we then had to rewrite the thought using descriptive sensory details to get the point across. Replacing "I thought about death" with "The cold fingers of death slowly wrapped around my mind, gripping tighter with each passing second." We also learned about the most basic frame of a story and how to create a good story that could captivate using that format. In its most basic form, a story should have these three parts: 1. The hero is introduced along with the struggle they face, 2. Then the hero's attempts to solve a problem or overcome a struggle is shown, 3. Finally the reader is shown the aftermath and how the hero has changed and developed since the beginning of the story. These were two of the strongest lessons that we received in this project, and have greatly improved my writing.
The most difficult thing I encountered in writing this story was pulling the specific details and order of events out of the memory I chose for the project. In Stephen’s class we journaled at the beginning of every day. To start the journal we all slowly drew a spiral on the page to help focus our minds and allow us to think back to the previous day. We would then spend a couple minutes recalling seven things we did, seven things we saw, one thing we heard, and then draw one picture that was relevant to the day. Although it was very difficult it helped me tremendously improve the clarity of the memory and of the story. One thing, although covered in class, that I can trouble with was dialogue and characters. If given the chance I would go back and work on those two areas to add another layer of depth to the story.
The most important part of any project reflection is the lesson that you gained from the project, and how changed or grew you as a person as a result. One of the big lessons I took away from this project is that stories allow us to bond and connect with others through past experiences and I benefits you greatly to be able to tell a story well. Another is that one concise, well written page easily outperforms ten mediocre ones. Both of these lessons have helped me to grow to use the tools I have learned to use in this project on all stories I tell and all writing I produce.