Writing Stories free essay sample

Not many people can say that they like writing stories, or that they read stories online to help with their own writing style, or even that they use a few Internet forums as storage space for the first draft of what is hoped to become a novel. In that minority, I see myself; Hopeful that one day, I can publish a novel based on some story I came up with on sleepless nights years ago, gaining a writing style by observing styles used in video games, online fiction, and real novels as well as writing in text-based forum role-playing games (my identity completely anonymous, for certain). Writing this potential novel takes time, lots of inspiration, and practice. It also helps to be a bit unconventional. I consider my choice of storage to be odd, because it opens up the work to criticism (albeit mostly positive comments) from random, also anonymous people, not something most people would want with a first draft. We will write a custom essay sample on Writing Stories or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Also rather odd, though somewhat sensible, is my choice of words within the work: In one online location, I’ll have a few words changed compared to a different site, mostly because of different censor rules on the sites, but also as a sort of experiment. A method that I consider good is that I avoid stilted, flamboyant writing presentation. I could say that it all started a month after my thirteenth birthday, but in truth, it all goes back to when I was still in lower school. Every little kid has a tendency to come up with a fantasy, a sort of place where they insert themselves in with a bunch of characters from whichever recent influence has affected them, be it a book they enjoyed or a television show. They always think of some superpower to give themselves, and almost always conveniently make friends with everyone, even villains they like. All children at some point think of this sort of fantasy, and I was no exception. Still, though, unlike most children, the concept stayed with me, and instead of keeping the idea of a boy with superpowers in a world filled with characters copyrighted by big companies, I thought of a team. Though I stuck with the number four for the number of team members, I was bound to give them some form of special abilities, and so I did: The main protagonist has double normal human reaction sp eed and can run roughly twice as fast as a world class sprinter. The other three have similarly limited, yet inhuman abilities. It didn’t stop there. Around the age of thirteen, puberty brings with it an interest in girls, something that is reflected in nearly every character I’ve created since then. Each one is roughly sixteen years old and has some tragic history, and being with a girl that the character has, in time, fallen in love with. The first serious story I wrote, as well as the online RPGs I participated in, had a character that was named Ayitak, who’s family had been killed off years ago, and he met a girl named Jennel, who’s family was also killed, and eventually fell in love with her. Still, though, the repetitiveness of the idea got to me, and then I thought: What if the girl the main character starts off dating†¦ dies before true love sets in? It has been done before, yes, but I had a different idea. Instead of building up the character in preparation for her death, I could characterize her more as the story progresses, well after her death. The idea is that the reader doesn’t devel op any feelings for the characters right off the bat, and so this tragedy won’t affect them. Then, as time goes on, and the story continues, bits and pieces of her true character come out, and after a while, if a reader so wishes, he or she can imagine exactly who the girl was and how the main character really felt. This also eliminates another fantasy that’s been done to death: the damsel in distress. Even though I do bring another girl into the mix, she is much stronger. Her existence remains relatively secret, and she remains too protected to be in any danger of kidnapping. That combined with her superhuman nature keep her out of any would-be kidnapper’s mind. Ideas like that don’t come easy, and presentation is a matter all its own. The sort of writing styles I saw in those text-based RPGs ranged from illiterate and grammatically terrible to downright excellent. I saw one person that forgot to put spaces between his periods and the next sentence, jumbling up the words, and I saw the disadvantages of writing in script-style, with a character’s name and brackets. The disadvantage to that is that it lacks any thematic elements, with a linear structure and lack of any particular detail. I also saw character interaction in near-perfect execution, something that aids me greatly, with people absolutely nailing the characters they use and how they would react to something a different character would say. Aside from online material, I also have to thank some games on my video game consoles, such as Fire Emblem and The Legend of Zelda. Those games have writing that is almost purely in a script style, but with character portraits to g ive an idea of what the character looks like. Because they are video games, though, they go by the maxim, â€Å"A picture is worth a thousand words,† with animations and subtle background effects to detract the need for physical descriptions. Also of interest to me is that these games have stories composed entirely out of character interaction. Playing through them and reading every ounce of their story proved to be a good experience, keeping me entertained and helping me with writing. How? Well, take Fire Emblem, for example. All that game has are character portraits and writing. The dialogue is displayed below the characters in a text box, with the speaking character highlighted on the screen. The language each character uses is unique, with accents, such as the British accent’s lack of an â€Å"h† pronunciation. This helps because it shows me different possibilities with character speech. What really brought about my interest in writing was when I started reading online stories, particularly a few about video game characters. Reason: I’m a nerd like that. Seriously, though, what I saw was very different from the plain text of, say, â€Å"Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.† What I saw was capturing, mysterious, and, at the same time, technically unprofessional and a mere first of second draft. Something unprofessional had all it needed to be publishable except rights to the characters, yet where was it? On a site called fanfiction.net. It intrigued me into searching the Internet for more, and I found it on a different site. That place was Gamefaqs.com. What Gamefaqs.com had were forums, cheat codes, and game guides typed by average people. Within those forums, I found a place with plenty of talented writers who spent more time with online material than writing to make something they’d try to publish. These are the same people that had nailed character interaction and had a descriptive, gripping style that makes them a must-have for any group-writing idea. When our first text-based MMORPG, â€Å"In the Shadow of the Dawn† started shortly after my story, â€Å"The Evil Overlord† failed miserably, I joined in with the aforementioned Ayitak. I have the entire RPG history saved, and it amuses me to see how different I was at the beginning compared to now. Truly, writing for that story with all those other writers in an anonymous sort of fashion was where the majority of my writing practice comes from. I even still occasionally write there today. It all started itching at me, urging me to start. Eventually, the ideas started to impede my ability to think about writing anything else, and I started. For Chapter 1 and the beginning of Chapter 2, all I have posted up are first drafts. The first chapter deals with the 4 characters, Stride, Argent, Orion, and Viran traveling to an island on a sort of mercenary mission. They’re searching for a criminal with red hair and yellow eyes, though they are never told what crimes he committed, and they stay at a hotel where Stride meets someone that Orion hopes will help slightly heal his heartache. In chapter 2, after witnessing a man’s murder on the street by a sniper, Stride discovers a hidden semi-secret about the island-city that casts a shadow over its government. The first drafts were received well, with the four parts of chapter 1 ranking a 4/5, 4/5, 5/5, and 4/5 from one of the readers, specifically the one that was best at character interaction. This only made me wan t to keep going, though the recent destruction of my laptop has impeded my work. The story will continue, though. What else can be said? My odd choices combined with my writing style form an uncommon mix, one that is different, and one that works. My choices of space create a permanent place to recover first drafts, and my ideas for the story continue to flow. This story will be my novel, my epic, and, hopefully, my masterpiece.

Dorothy Day, Founder of the Catholic Worker Movement

Dorothy Day, Founder of the Catholic Worker Movement Dorothy Day was a writer and editor who founded the Catholic Worker, a penny newspaper that grew into a voice for the poor during the Great Depression. As the driving force in what became a movement, Days unwavering advocacy for charity and pacifism made her controversial at times. Yet her work among the poorest of the poor also made her an admired example of a deeply spiritual person actively engaged in addressing societys problems. When Pope Francis addressed the U.S. Congress in September 2015, he focused much of his speech on  four Americans he found particularly inspiring: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Dorothy Day, and Thomas Merton. Days name was no doubt unfamiliar to millions watching the Popes speech on television. But his effusive praise of her indicated how influential her lifes work with the Catholic Worker Movement was to the Popes own thoughts about social justice. Fast Facts: Dorothy Day Born: November 8, 1897, New York City.Died: November 29, 1980, New York City.Founder of the Catholic Worker, a small newspaper published in the Depression which became a social movement.Named by Pope Francis in his 2015 speech to Congress as one of his four most admired Americans.Is widely expected to be declared a saint in the Catholic Church. During her lifetime, Day could seem out of step with mainstream Catholics in America. She operated at the fringe of organized Catholicism, never seeking permission or official endorsement for any of her projects. Day came late to the faith, converting to Catholicism as an adult in the 1920s. At the time of her conversion, she was an unmarried mother with a complicated past that included life as a bohemian writer in Greenwich Village, unhappy love affairs, and an abortion that rendered her emotionally devastated. A movement to have Dorothy Day canonized as a saint in the Catholic Church began in the 1990s. Days own family members have said she would have scoffed at the idea. Yet it seems likely that she will one day be an officially recognized saint of the Catholic Church. Early Life Dorothy Day was born in Brooklyn, New York, on November 8, 1897. She was the third of five children born to John and Grace Day. Her father was a journalist who bounced from job to job, which kept the family moving between New York City neighborhoods and then onward to other cities. When her father was offered a job in San Francisco in 1903, the Days moved westward. Economic disruption caused by the San Francisco earthquake three years later cost her father his job, and the family moved on to Chicago. By the age of 17, Dorothy had already completed two years of study at the University of Illinois. But she abandoned her education in 1916  when she and her family moved back to New York City. In New York, she began writing articles for socialist newspapers. With her modest earnings, she moved into a small apartment on the Lower East Side. She became fascinated by the vibrant yet difficult  lives of impoverished immigrant communities, and Day became an obsessive walker, ferreting out stories in the citys poorest neighborhoods. She was hired as a reporter by the New York Call, a socialist newspaper, and began contributing articles to a revolutionary magazine, The Masses. Bohemian Years As America entered World War I and a patriotic wave swept the country, Day found herself immersed in a life filled with politically radical, or  simply offbeat, characters in Greenwich Village. She became a Village resident, living in a succession of cheap apartments and spending time in tearooms and saloons frequented by writers, painters, actors, and political activists. Day began a platonic friendship with playwright Eugene ONeill, and for a period during World War I, she entered a training program to become a nurse. After leaving the nursing program at the wars end, she became romantically involved with a journalist, Lionel Moise. Her affair with Moise ended after she had an abortion, an experience that sent her into a period of depression and intense inner turmoil. She met Forster Batterham through literary friends in New York and began living with him in a rustic cabin near the beach on Staten Island (which, in the early 1920s, was still rural). They had a daughter, Tamar, and after the birth of her child Day began to feel a sense of religious awakening. Though neither Day or Batterham were Catholic, Day took Tamar to a Catholic church on Staten Island and had the child baptized. The relationship with Batterham became difficult and the two often separated. Day, who had published a novel based on her Greenwich Village years, was able to purchase a modest cottage on Staten Island and she created a life for herself and Tamar. To escape the winter weather along the Staten Island shore, Day and her daughter would live in sublet apartments in Greenwich Village during the coldest months. On December 27, 1927, Day took a life-changing step by riding a  ferry back to Staten Island, visiting the Catholic church she knew, and having herself baptized. She later said she felt no great joy in the action, but rather regarded it as something she had to do. Finding Purpose Day continued writing and taking jobs as a researcher for publishers. A play she had written hadnt been produced, but somehow came to the attention of a Hollywood movie studio, which offered her a writing contract. In 1929 she and Tamar took a train to California, where she joined the staff of Pathà © Studios. Days Hollywood career was short. She found the studio not terribly interested in her contributions. And when the stock market crash in October 1929 hit the movie industry hard, her contract was not renewed. In a car she had purchased with her studio earnings, she and Tamar relocated to Mexico City. She returned to New York the following year. And after a trip to Florida to visit her parents, she and Tamar settled in a small apartment on 15th Street, not far from Union Square, where sidewalk speakers advocated solutions to the misery of the Great Depression. In December 1932 Day, returning to journalism, traveled to Washington, D.C. to cover a march against hunger for Catholic publications. While in Washington she visited the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on December 8, the Catholic Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception.   She later recalled she had been losing her faith in the Catholic Church over its apparent indifference to the poor. Yet as she prayed at the shrine she began to sense a purpose to her life. After  returning to New York City, an eccentric character turned up in Days life, someone she regarded as a teacher who may have been sent by the Virgin Mary. Peter Maurin was a French immigrant who worked as a laborer in America though he had taught at schools run by the Christian Brothers in France. He was a frequent speaker in Union Square, where he would advocate novel, if not radical, solutions for societys ills. Founding of the Catholic Worker Maurin sought  out Dorothy Day after reading some of her articles about social justice. They began spending time together, talking and arguing. Maurin suggested Day should start her own newspaper. She said she had doubts about finding the money to get a paper printed, but Maurin encouraged her, saying they needed to have faith that the funds would appear. Within months, they did manage to raise enough money to print their newspaper. On May 1, 1933, a gigantic May Day demonstration was held at Union Square in New York. Day, Maurin, and a group of friends hawked the first copies of the Catholic Worker. The four-page newspaper cost a penny. The New York Times described the crowd  in Union Square that day as being filled with communists, socialists, and assorted other radicals. The newspaper noted the presence of banners denouncing sweatshops, Hitler, and the Scottsboro case. In that setting, a newspaper focused on helping the poor and achieving social justice was a hit. Every copy sold. That  first issue of the Catholic Worker contained a column by Dorothy Day which outlined its purpose. It began: For those who are sitting on park benches in the warm spring sunlight.For those who are huddling in shelters trying to escape the rain.For those who are walking the streets in the all but futile search for work.For those who think that there is no hope for the future, no recognition of their plight - this little paper is addressed.It is printed to call their attention to the fact that the Catholic Church has a social program - to let them know that there are men of God who are working not only for their spiritual, but for their material welfare. The success of the newspaper continued. In a lively and informal office, Day, Maurin, and what became a regular cast of dedicated souls labored to produce an issue every month. Within a few years, the circulation reached 100,000, with copies being mailed to all regions of America.   Dorothy Day wrote a column in each issue, and her contributions continued for nearly 50 years, until her death in 1980. The archive of her columns represents a remarkable view of modern American history, as she began commenting on the plight of the poor in the Depression and moved on to the violence of the world at war, the Cold War, and protests of the 1960s. Dorothy Day addressing a protest against the Vietnam War.   Getty Images Prominence and Controversy Beginning with her youthful writings for socialist newspapers, Dorothy Day was often been out of step with mainstream America. She was arrested for the first time in 1917, while picketing the White House with suffragists demanding that women have the right to vote. In prison, at the age of 20, she was beaten by the police, and the experience made her even more sympathetic to the oppressed and powerless in society. Within years of its 1933 founding as a small newspaper, the Catholic Worker evolved into being a social movement. Again with Peter Maurins influence, Day and her supporters opened soup kitchens in New York City. The feeding of the poor continued for years, and the Catholic Worker also opened houses of hospitality offering places to stay for the homeless. For years the Catholic Worker also operated a communal farm near Easton, Pennsylvania. Besides writing for the Catholic Worker newspaper, Day traveled extensively, giving talks on social justice and meeting activists, both inside and outside the Catholic Church. She was at times suspected of holding subversive political views, but in a sense she operated outside of politics. When followers of the Catholic Worker Movement refused to participate in Cold War fallout shelter drills, Day and others were arrested. She was later arrested while protesting with union farm workers in California. She remained active until her death, in her room at a Catholic Worker residence in New York City, on November 29, 1980. She was buried on Staten Island, near the site of her conversion. Legacy of Dorothy Day In the decades since her death, the influence of Dorothy Day has grown. A number of books have been written about her, and several anthologies of her writings have been published. The Catholic Worker community continues to flourish, and the newspaper which first sold for a penny in Union Square still publishes seven times a year in a print edition. An extensive archive, including all of Dorothy Days columns is available for free online. More than 200 Catholic Worker communities exist in the United States and other countries. Perhaps the most noteworthy tribute to Dorothy Day was, of course, the comments by Pope Francis in his address to Congress on September 24, 2015. He said:   In these times when social concerns are so important, I cannot fail to mention the Servant of God Dorothy Day, who founded the Catholic Worker Movement. Her social activism, her passion for justice and for the cause of the oppressed, were inspired by the Gospel, her faith, and the example of the saints. Near the end of his speech, the Pope again spoke of Days striving for justice: A nation can be considered great when it defends liberty as Lincoln did, when it fosters a culture which enables people to dream of full rights for all their brothers and sisters, as Martin Luther King sought to do; when it strives for justice and the cause of the oppressed, as Dorothy Day did by her tireless work, the fruit of a faith which becomes dialogue and sows peace in the contemplative style of Thomas Merton. With the leaders of the Catholic Church praising her work, and others continually discovering her writings, the legacy of Dorothy Day, who found her purpose editing a penny newspaper for the poor, seems assured.