MLLL 4993 Posts

How To Craft Constructive Feedback One thing stood out to me in this article. The second point of "Be a Guide" seemed very important to me. It was explaining how when giving feedback on someone's work, you should take into consideration what the creator was trying to get across. By thinking what the writer was trying to do, feedback becomes a much easier process. I will definitely be keeping that in mind as I look over my classmate's work. The Difference between Praise and Feedback This somewhat ties into the first article. I feel like it's not as applicable to people here considering none of us are children, but the idea that praising the effort is important in my mind. That's where the tie-in to the first article comes. I feel like we should recognize the effort that the writer put into where they are trying to go with their story, and then provide feedback to how they can achieve their goal more effectively. Motivation:  Source

Supernatural Characters - Rakshasa   I'm definitely going to want to use a unique antagonist in several of my stories, but it may be fun to have one of my characters encounter a "generic evil entity" early on in their stories. I think the Rakshasa can fill that role easily. The Rakshasa were created by Brahma's breath and started to eat him. Vishnu saved Brahma by banishing the Rakshasa to Earth. While there are good and bad Rakshsa, their characteristics make it pretty easy to write them in as villains. Here's a picture I found of a Rakshasa: Rakshasa:  Source Ravana Ravana seems to be one of the most well-known Rakshasas. He is the King of Lanka and fought against Rama in the Ramayana. A story I may use here is where he goes to take revenge on Rama, but ends up falling in love with Sita when he sees her and kidnaps her. I'm not sure where exactly I'll go with the story, but something about trying to wrongfully taking something for yourself and r...

I could feel it the second the words left her mouth. My time is coming to a swift end. The sins of my past have finally caught up to me. My son, I am sorry. I looked at the woman who stood before me. Her request left me speechless. I'm trying to find a way around this. Some loophole? Alas no. She loves her son and will do anything to see him succeed. He will not take kindly to this venomous betrayal, but she is too blinded by her love to see. Perhaps this is just fate possessing her? Maybe my curse is clouding her judgement and forcing her to do this. It doesn't matter though. A demand has been made of me. I am honor-bound to carry this out. No matter how unjust it is. No matter if it will kill me. How long ago was it? It's as if I'm back in that forest from so long ago. I was young and strong. Those keen ears that could hear a deer sating its thirst from far away. From the sound alone I could determine the direction and distance of my target. I ...

A lot of plot developments in these readings as well. I'm not a huge fan of Kaikeyi. That was pretty lame what she did to Rama. There are so many names and it is very difficult to keep them all separated in my head. The impressions that the stories are having will be easy to remember and I can just come back to the book and reread it for a refresher. Instead of renting the book out, I may order it off Amazon for easy access. $12 for a new paperback is not bad at all. Actually, I just tabbed over on my browser while writing this and ordered it. I won't have it until Friday, so I'll be able to use it for next week's readings. Once I get back from an event tonight, I'll look ahead and try to order some of the other books we'll need for the class. I see there's online versions too, but I like having a hard copy of books. If nothing else, it will be a fine addition to my bookshelf! In any case, lot's of good content came out of this week's rea...

Through these stories, one thing that sticks out to me the most is the avatars of the gods. I find that story mechanic very interesting. It's like I can retell the same clash of rivals over and over throughout different time periods. It's definitely something to look into. I'm actively looking for villains to use in my stories, and I rather like the character Ravana. You just can't beat a 10-headed antagonist. I'm curious how far I can go with manipulating the story elements. I need to look deeper into old stories from previous students and see how they named different characters. I'd like to use different names just to make the story feel like my own, but at the same time I don't want it to seem ambiguous as to who I'm referencing with my characters. Back to Ravana though: Ravana is an devotee to Shiva, who I immediately started thinking could be the "background mastermind" for some evil plots. But as I did some more research into Shiva, I...