Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Metacognition: Short Story

To tell all yall the truth, I went into this editing phase with a hatred towards my short story. I put it off to the very last moment because I had been surpressing the fact that it needed to be done. I didn't want to think about my story because I had no idea what the ending would be, I needed to change who the narrator was, and I didn't want to spend the time finding/writing a more substantial plotline.

The first task I decided to tackle was that of the narrator. Originally I had someone talking about the life of the main character and also interacting with that main character; however, that extra person was not bringing anything to the story. So I chose to make the main character the narrator and she would tell the story from her own perspective.

To change around the plot, I took the original situation and wrote about how the main character felt right before it occured. It turns out that the main character never even makes it to the event, after much contemplation. My short story is about her car trip to the event, but the main focus is her reflection about her past life experiences on the way to the party. The fact that she ends up not going to the party solved my issue of finding an actual ending for the story. I feel I should improve the ending because it is too forces. I would like to find a way to leave a more ambiguous last moment.

I'm still not in love with my story, but now it is bearable to work on. I think in the next step of the revising/editing process, I need to develope the characters more andaborate on the life instances that the main character remembers.

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