Saturday, February 14, 2009
What If?: Writing My Own Short Story
This week in class we started our short story unit. I am very excited for this new unit because I love writing and especially writing short stories. We have not done this type of writing since junior high school and I have missed it. However, I feel like this type of short story writing is going to be a lot harder and more intense than when we wrote short stories in junior high. What if I am incapable of creating a story that has a deep enough meaning to please my teacher and fellow academites? I often fear that I do not see the deep meaning behind some of the stories we read in Academy. If I doubt myself when it comes to finding the deepness and underlying messages in someone else's writing, how can I write a story that is complex and deep? I love writing when I don't feel like I am under any pressure. An example of this type of writing would be these blogs. I can just write. I wonder if I'll write a short story, only to be told that it's junior high style writing. To dig deeper. To add more hidden meanings. Those two things, digging deeper and hidden meanings, often make me doubt myself and my capabilites. However, for this assignment in English class, I am not going to be intimidated. I am going to take everything we talk about this week regarding the short stories and the style that they are written in, and attempt to write my own short story. Our teacher said we are not trying to teach our readers any lessons. That is very comforting to me. I still feel as though other classmates may have more intense stories, but I am not going to doubt myself. I can be my worst critic. What if I write a short story and succeed? That would be great. So I am going to write my own short story. And I am not going to doubt myself.
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2 comments:
Emiqua,
I feel you. Well, actually, I'm coming at the situation from a slightly different point of view, but I've been exactly where you are before. I think we can relax a little bit on worrying over whether or not Mr. Allen will ask us to *insert hidden meaning here*, because I feel as though if we follow the directions, gestures, and form as content, meaning will come into the things we write, hopefully almost as reflex. If not, no big deal, non? As you said, we're supposed to write a story with STORY and CONTENT, and not a labourious over-emphasis on the lesson of the day. Perfect. I too agree that ever since I heard the words "hidden meaning" and "deep" slither out of a teacher's mouth, it added a whole layer of inauthentic and forced meaning to something that we'd rather just enjoy/interpret for ourselves, and to try to apply that to one's own short story may just be crossing a line. A meaning shouldn't be forced, I find, and if you end up having one, wouldn't it be better to discover after having written the story? I'd love a moment like that, personally.
Anyway, I think this is the perfect kind of assignment for letting all those worries go, and I think you're doing just the right thing by sitting down, using what you know, and just trying to make the best short story you can. Leave the deeper meaning treasure-hunt to the poor 6th graders who just discovered that literature will mean getting beat over the head with political context and "hidden insight" for the next three years-- we've got fun stories to write. :]
Well, I think that you are thinking too much about this short story of yours. I always thought that stories are not manufactured, but have always existed and are just meant to be written down. So, don't stress over this thing, it's just one story, its not going to ruin your life if you do a bad job on it.
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