My mystory composition process was long thought out. Over the course of the semester, we have focused intensely on the author’s way of composing their works. We have never sought out to give their works meaning, but possibly to see a bit of who they are based on the way that they write. I feel that the way a person writes says a lot about them. I have kept note of all the pieces that we have read all semester, in order to be able to hopefully incorporate their modes of expression into my own final project. We have been through very diverse authors with ways of compsosing equally as different. I tried to use a few of the styles of the authors that I felt drew in my attention the most.
A lot of my entries are simply fragmented thoughts. This was a technique that seemed to be widely used in the works that we read, and always kept my attention throughout. I remember in Slaughterhouse-Five especially, Vonnegut jumped around from one scene to the next. It seems to ‘keep you on your toes’ so to speak, by not allowing you to get too focused on one idea, because then it switches to something else and you have to be able to follow where it is going. It also keeps what you’re reading from possibly getting boring.
I based a few of the entries on strict historical facts. I know this is an expressive piece, but I wanted people reading my blog to have the historical event it is based on in the back of their mind, so that they can relate back to that when reading my entries. The novel Ragtime had a lot of historically correct aspects but there were also aspects that were tweeked from the history books. I put things in my entries that interest me personally, and I feel like this is what authors do it put their touch on their work. If you are writing about something that you aren’t interested in, your readers are going to notice this and they will lose interest.
I also put a few personal stories in my entries. Philip Roth used personal anecdotes to form his novel and this was verry effective. These anectodes are the best way to draw the attention of the readers. They want to see you in your work. I know that when I am reading a book, and it has a part of the author imbedded into the text, I am automatically drawn into it.
In composing a MyStory project, one has to focus on what is understated. The things left out are things that we want to know about. In my particular project, everyone knows that Apollo 11 was a very big accomplishment in the history of our nation. We think of that time, and we think of happiness and triumph. What we don’t think about, is that there were people who weren’t as thrilled by it because they had more pressing issues in their lives. Many Americans had loved ones overseas fighting in Vietnam, but this is not what we would think about when we think strictly on the conventional level of the Apollo 11 phenomenon. Getting a glimpse into the life of a family, more specifically a young girl, who was more concerned with her father’s safety than the end of the space race, allows us to see the unconventional aspect of this experience.
