Meta-Cognitive

When I sat down to write this paper, I was at a loss as to what to do. I started trying to write a dialogue, but soon realized it wasn’t coming out as I envisioned. So, I thought about what I liked doing, and decided that telling stories was something I liked doing. Having narrowed my options down, I then decided that since I was so in love with the story of Pandora’s Box, I better get to work on writing it. Hemmingway seemed like a fun writer, since my sentences are usually longer, and his use of dialogue was interesting. Initially, I was just going to write a paper full of short sentences. Then I thought to myself “Why not take it a step further?” I went to his story “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” and began to match my story’s structure to his. I decided that it would be a better paper, and would give me a better idea of how he writes. Taking it even further, I began to match up my sentences syllable for syllable. After awhile, that became too difficult, and I felt it wasn’t adding to my story. So I stopped doing that, changed a few things back to the way they were before, and kept writing, while still keeping with the structure. The girls in my workshop group both liked the story I had written, which made me proud. They gave me a few ideas of where to end my sentences to make them sound more Hemmingway- like, and they also suggested I might throw in another paragraph about setting, just to break up some of the dialogue. At first I was a bit conflicted, because to do that would mean I would disrupt my structure, which I had worked so hard on. But then I realized that it wouldn’t really hurt the paper, but would instead add to it. It would keep the style, but at the same time, sound more fluid. I think my strong points were the dialogues, and my weakest point was the pace of the story. I had trouble keeping things moving, and had to constantly remind myself to do so. Though Hemmingway’s “A Clean, Well-Lighted Place” doesn’t span over too much time, it does move, and I was lacking that. I thought the dialogues were the most fun, so that is probably why they came most easily. I hope that in the future I will be able to write more fluidly, and I will be able to show the span of time with more ease. All in all, I feel as if I have a lot of progress to make, but at the same time I’m content with my writing. I know I will progress this year, and I look forward to that.