Post Four: Short Story Reflection

I like reading short stories that have some sort of mystery behind it. I always seem to stick to a plot that has a mystery. I always like a story with an incident either shocking or intense. These sort of short stories always keep me reading. I also like having a character that is likeable in the story. I don't tend to read stories with characters that I dislike because it make me dislike the story. It does depend on the story, but a likeable character to me is a character that is strong, smart, and isn't afraid to show some emotion. Understanding how a character feels is really important to me. I want to know how a character is feeling in different moments. It's what makes the character easier to understand.

One of the short stories that I read during this unit was called an Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. This short story really stood out to me because it was intense and I liked how it had a major twist at the end. The story focuses on a character named Peyton Farquhar, who was about to be executed. Throughout the story your perceived that he escaped and that he survived, but it ends up to be all a dream. His character really stood out for me because as he is escaping I was routing for him to get away. The author really showed his emotions during every situation. I was really happy that he survived. Once I found out it was a dream I felt different kinds of emotions because I knew he wasn't going to survive. The story made me feel something, and that's what stood out for me.

When I was writing my short story, it was harder then I thought it would be. I edited it many times, and it was a big process to create it. What I found most challenging was creating an impact and making the story realistic. Creating that impact is ultimately an authors goal, but making it realistic would help a lot with the impact. That was very difficult aspect to accomplish because I was trying so hard to focus on making my story interesting, that I forgot to make it more realistic. My favourite stories to read are ones that have an impact, so I wish I could have created more of that in my story. I also didn't like the way I ended things. It was hard to create a conclusion because there were so many things I could have done. I would like to improve it a bit to create more of a twist at the end of the story. What I really liked about my story was my character. It was easy to write in her point of view because I felt like I knew her. I also like how I did a flashback, it makes the readers think about what is happening and makes the story really interesting. It revealed a lot of emotion for my character and I think helped understand her thought process.

I think I learned a lot in this short story unit, and I hope that my writing is improving. Going into this course I thought that the short story unit would have been really hard for me. Opening my imagination is difficult. It was exciting to see that I can come up with creative ideas and I learned a lot about short story writing.