Today was a even more boring day than yesterday. First of all, I didn't have internet for the whole day. I thought my computer's networking card was dead, but in the end, I remembered that I turned the networking card off yesterday. That's why I started blogging so late today. Anyways, the rest of my day was boring because I read
The Magicians for most of the day and for the rest of the day, I played piano, did some programming, ate food, and practiced typing.
The Magicians is getting less and less interesting. Oh well... Here is the revised description of my dad, AGAIN.
If there are two attributes of my dad that stick out, it is his absentmindedness and the fact that he is a lot nicer to guests than he is to family members.
First of all is his absentmindedness. He is very forgetful sometimes. For example, once, we were going to a party at his friend's house. My dad remembered i
t was at 12:0
0, but when we got there, all the food was gone. The party actually started at 10:00. Another example of his absentminded forgetfulness is; he was once going to a going-away lunch for the CEO of his company. He really wanted to go and he already paid the money, but he went a day late. These examples really prove that my dad is absentminded and forgetful.
Second of all, my dad is a lot nicer to guests than he is to family members. He is way too genial to guests, while he overreacts in a bad way to family members. For example, he always wants to save money and buy the cheap things for his family, but he buys very expensive things for guests and people outside the family. When a member of his family does something wrong, he shouts at them. But when a guest does the same thing, he says, "Its okay" and laughs with forced laughter.
The most noticeable attributes of my dad are that he is a lot nicer to guests than he is to family, and that he is very absentminded.
Hey Andy! An improvement, but a couple of points:
ReplyDeleteFirst, you're writing this in an academic essay format, which is probably isn't the best of things for a description. After all, when you're describing your dad to your friend or something, you're not going to structure the description with an introduction, two paragraphs with supporting examples, and concluding paragraph.
However, I did like how you backed up each point with specific examples, rather than just stating "he is absentminded" or "he procrastinates."
Second, you want to pay attention to the way you're structuring your sentences. This is something that you'll develop with time - a second sense that tells you what flows and what doesn't. Like the phrase "laughs with forced laughter" doesn't work. Try saying that out loud to yourself. Does it sound flowing to you?
Okay, so tomorrow, I want a revision of this, where -
Yeah, just kidding - you don't have to write about your dad again. =) Write about whatever you want tomorrow, but make it one thing, and make it deep and detailed. Anything at all - use your imagination!
Where are you in The Magicians? I guess it's not really your type of book then... But when you're reading, I want you to pay attention to the way the author uses language and structures his phrases, paragraphs, and chapters. Don't just read it for the plot - think about the language and the writing itself! Go back and think about why the author did what he did every few pages or so. Also, if it is absolutely, positively, completely, utterly, painful for you to read, switch to a different book instead. (However, if you do this, you need a 400+ word written persuasive bit on why, and a description of the book and what parts you did and didn't like).
By the way, I hear you're leaving for Boston on July 3rd. I'm expecting daily blog posts from you while you're at Boston! Write about what happened each day, observations you noticed, what interested you, what foods you ate, what people you saw across the streets, what movies you saw, etc. etc. Also, keep up your reading of 200+ pages a day.
Until tomorrow,
Hans
By the way, I came across a brilliant description in a short story I read the other day, written by Gary Shteyngart. It's written by the character "Lenny" in first person about himself.
ReplyDelete"Take a long look at me. What do you see? A slight man with a gray, sunken battleship of a face, curious wet eyes, a giant gleaming forehead on which a dozen cavemen could have painted something nice, a sickle of a nose perched atop a tiny puckered mouth, and, from the back, a growing bald spot whose shape perfectly replicates that of the great state of Ohio, with its capital city, Columbus, marked by a deep-brown mole. Slightness is my curse in every sense. A body at the chronological age of thirty-nine already racked by too much LDL cholesterol, too much ACTH hormone, too much of everything that dooms the heart, sunders the liver, explodes all hope."
Yes, the author uses run-on sentences, but he does so in a calculated way to achieve a particular effect. Look at his similes and metaphors - how he paints an image and _shows_, not tells. Sure, this is only a physical description, but with two sentences, he describes not just the image of a person, but the IMPRESSION of him as well. He could have just as equally done the same with personality/mental stuff as well.
You want descriptions like that, which are creative and not generic, which are fresh and not redundant, which paint an image, not list attributes in bullet point format.