Characters Of My Non-Fiction Narrative

This is Thomas Jefferson one of the main characters in my story.  I represent him more in his style and passion then physical description.  I described how he was an avid inventor and engineer.  I also explained and added a quote to show how he was a curios person.  As well most people know he was an excellent writer and was actually the person who wrote the Declaration Of Independents for the United States Of America.

This is the image I chose for Jacob Graff, Jr.  I chose this image because it is an image of his father and I assumed that he looked at least a bit like his father.  I don't speak very much of Jacob other than that he build the Declaration house as it is called.  Jacob was a Philadelphia brick mason and built his own house in 1775.

For the wife of Jacob Graff I feel this image would represent her well.  I chose this picture as it seemed to be a picture that would represent and average women in the mid to late 1700's.  She is only mentioned once or twice in the story but I feel she is a relevant part of the story.

This image is of the fully rebuilt Jacob Graff house or Declaration house as it is often called.  It is the main and only real setting in my story.  I describe this setting by detailing it's most prominent features such as the strange shape and floor plan.  

This image is to represent the consequences of what would happen if they failed.  Although this fighting happened anyway it would have happened much more and many more people would have died.  The fight with Britain would most likely ended in death for most if not all of them.  

Inspirational Writing

http://nealbascomb.com/first/ncool1.htm


Neal Bascomb, The New Cool, Crown, 2011
"The auditorium grew louder, everyone splintering off into cliques. A few students still focused on reading the rules.  Others debating specific points, enthused about the games similarity to basketball, ..."  The New Cool, Neal Bascomb, pg 37.
I feel this quote as well as the rest of the book is inspirational because of how well the author conveys the mood and mindset of the people within the scene.  It also shows you what kind of mentality people have toward the subject, some are focused on the rules, some on the design and some on the game and strategy needed to play it.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun


Dalton Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun, J. B. Lippincott, 1939
“Put the guns into our hands and we will use them. Give us the slogans and we will turn them into reality. " Johnny Got His Gone, Dalton Trumbo.
This piece of writing is inspirational in many different ways.  It is inspirational in that it shows you no matter what situation you are in their is always someone to listen and some way to tell them,  it also shows that you should never give up even in the most dire situation.  On the subject of writing it is a good example of something with a lot of dialogue. It is the thoughts of a single person who can't see, can't hear, can't smell, can't speak and can only feel what his surroundings are like.  All of the dialogue is the characters interpretation of the world around him based on a single sence, he manages to create this story only using thoughts of the main character and the pictures are painted so well with only thoughts that you feel as if you are in the room with him.

Writing To My Pleasure

"The first thing you learn playing video games is how hard they are; the second thing is how many hours they take to play."  Painkiller Deathstreak, Nicholson Baker, pg 1.

I appreciate the quote because it has a "first thought" sort of style, it seems to me as if this is the first thought that came to mind when he started playing video games.  Some things in this writing that impact the reader is the open mindset to video games.  He also seems to give a full review/walk around of the game in the first paragraph of each section to help the reader understand what he was going through as he played the game.  I like to use a similar follow a format style of writing where you organize what you talk about in a format at the beginning of each new section.   

Interview Madness

I didn't get any ideas from other students for improving or changing my interview but I came up with the idea to try and make it using "fancy" or "sophisticated" language.  So in order to do so I will go through the introduction mostly and I will replace some of the words with larger more defining words to help emphasize the idea being created.  An idea I got from a professional interview was to post a lot of details about going to the interview, largely describing setting it was in.  I got this idea from the Rolling Stone interview with Barack Obama.  The only trouble I am having is with computers disconnecting, not connecting, crashing and not saving properly.  Although when I can connect I am doing fine, being able to do work helps to get it done.  Nothing really surprised me during any part of the interview or any other part of it, it was generally all what I had been told before.  I am proud of finding the picture at the top because that is exactly what I look like when I try to work on my interview.

Non-Fiction Narrative

For my non-fiction narrative I am reading Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer.  A few picture I feel show what I have read so far are:
http://photos.igougo.com/images/p388067-Denali-Alaskan_wilderness.jpg
http://hitchwiki.org/en/images/en/thumb/0/02/Dumpingsnow.jpg/300px-Dumpingsnow.jpg
Some of the things that stand out to me about the story is how stubborn Chris, or Alex, is.  He seems to not want any help or support.  He didn't want any help, he seemed to think that he knew all he needed to know to survive but clearly he didn't.  As a goal for myself I feel I need to find a better way to read so that I retain more of what I read.

Writing Goals and Inspiring Writers

          My writing goals for this year are as follows, first to formulate a better writing structure and second to create a more complete writing vocabulary for essays and other things of the sort.  Other than that I have no real writing goals, as I don't really enjoy writing.

          As for writers who inspire me I don't necessarily have any as I generally dislike reading.  Other than reading instructions or information on things I research I tend to avoid reading.  Although I suppose that my lack of non-mandatory reading may be part of the reason that my writing vocabulary is so limited.  But again I don't read in my spare time so I don't know of any authors that I could name off the top of my head as people who inspire me or my writing.

Excellent Interviews

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/steve-jobs-in-1994-the-rolling-stone-interview-20110117

          This is an interview conducted by the Rolling Stone magazine in 1994 with Steve Jobs and was released January of 2011 a short while before his death in October of 2011.
          Something that stands out to me about this interview is how the questions seem to be premeditated but  at the same time the interviewer seemed to be able to come up with follow up questions if they did not get the answer they were searching for.  As well, a question I might ask the interviewer is, "Roughly how long do you spend researching the interviewee before you think you have sufficient data for an interview?" or I might ask them, "How many questions do you enter an interview with, how many get answered and how many are you going to use in your article?"  An idea I may take from this interview is to have more than enough questions to begin with, then simply use the ones you feel are most appropriate for your article or are best answered to your liking.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/obama-in-command-br-the-rolling-stone-interview-20100928

          This is an interview with President Barack Obama conducted by the Rolling Stone magazine published in September of 2010.
          A technique I feel I will take away from this interview is the formatting used in the article.  More specifically the use of the first sentence to tell the what the setting is like, then going on in the intro paragraph to tell more of the background of the interviewee and the history of the interviewers relationship with the interviewee.  Something that stood out to me is the use of a quote at the end of the intro paragraph, it seems the quote could be from the interview but is not shown.  The quote also seems to humanize the interviewee, which I think is a good thing for the reader especially with someone like the President of the United States who to some people may not seem human.  I believe this helps with the rest of the interview because it helps the reader keep in mind that this person is just like them, he thinks, breaths and acts like them.  He's just another person who won a popularity contest.