The “Stalker project” was actually really interesting. You have to wonder who was watching you, and if the person you were watching knew you were doing so.
However, that was not the point. This activity made you think about different words for the same thing, without being synonyms. Case in point: Listing 12 things that can fill in for the word “green.” I personally used a lot of symbolism in that list. Envy is green. But so is grass, which is not so abstract.
I had a hard time making metaphors out of physical descriptions and activities. I kind of just wrote what that description might mean about the subject’s personality. For instance, my subject sat up very straight, with wonderful posture. So I wrote that this person looked regal. I might have missed the mark a bit though…
For a writer, describing things in multiple ways is a great skill. We think of synonyms all the time, why not words/phrases that are not exact, also? To think of metaphors for a word is more difficult, but is more interesting in a piece of writing.
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ReplyDeleteI agree that this exercise was very interesting. It's weird because I "people watch" and "observe" on a daily basis, but when I was sitting and actually PLANNING to "stalk" someone it felt ten times weirder (very invasive). But I agree Dr. Lay's intentions weren't to make us feel weird, but to help us expand our writing skills. I also mixed symbolism and concrete objects when trying to describe "green." I used things like "money" and "go," and everything else in between. I also found the hardest part of the assignment to be the metaphors for our subjects. There were many ways that you could have described the subject (that's the beauty of writing isn't it? freedom)...You decided to compare your subject to the word "regal," while I, on the other hand, simply used an object. I said that the size of my subject was comparative to that of a large snowboard. The ideas are infinite and I'm sure everyone in class did something a little different. But in the end, I agree that this writing assignment was great to help us writers build out skills in description.
ReplyDeleteThe activity where we listed things that are green was used as a warm up, to try and warm up your creative mind. Maybe look to that a little more, and think a little more outside the box when reaching for things to compare to. This assignment was meant to improve your writing, and you had to think in an abstract world to excell.
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