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- Reading responses must be AT LEAST 200 words.
- Include your full name at the end of your comments. Unnamed comments will be deleted.
- From the "Comment As" drop-down menu, choose Anonymous, then click "Publish."
- Reading responses are due by midnight on the night PRIOR to our discussion of the required reading.
I was really not attracted to the characters, or the narrator. I felt like she was always complaining about things and I found that really annoying. I also could not read this in one sitting, I found myself getting bored and moving to work on some other class assignments and then I would come back and pick up where I left off. Something I did like was that she had some nice elements of figurative language in the piece, but other than that there was nothing that I liked. One thing that also bothered me was having to read the word Satan so much, I just did not like that. For me some of the sexual scenes were a little too much and it was not believable for me, which also made me like the story a lot less. LaPlante has a section where she talks about how “in a creative writing work shop, to hear the criticism that a piece is not believable to readers.” And I have heard that comment a lot through the class, and I was disappointed that LaPlante’s section was not as informative as I was expecting it to be.
ReplyDeleteJessica Guzman
In Chapter 12, “What’s this story really about?” LaPlante discusses the reality of your story, can it happen? Does it make sense? Have you convinced your reader? She talks about writing with emotion and writing about things that matter. Writing a story with a deeper meaning then what is being showed, in other words sub textual desires. Conveying emotion into your readers. In the story, “My Date with Satan” by Stacey Richter, I have to admit was a story a bit difficult to process. It had a little of everything. Online dating, getting to know one another, romance and then suddenly bam! She likes to indulge in BDSM, when men get attached she suddenly doesn’t care about them anymore. She likes making men feel weak. She likes being her own person. It’s a difficult story to digest and yet it did invoke feeling in me, a feeling of confusion, wonder, disgust and loneliness. Throughout the reading I kept asking myself if I could trust this individual, was she sane? I felt she was stuck in the past and because of this acted the way she did. This story contained a lot of unsaid emotions, a lot of sub textual feelings and desires.
ReplyDeleteAlejandra Rodriguez
This is where putting an object, person, or idea is a lot more than it is presented to be. Using the items presented in a story as means to evoke emotions and provide a deeper connection about the character or the situation at hand. Or at least that is what I’m getting from LaPlante’s chapter. And a recall back to “We are made of dust” quote from O’Conner, kind of reminds me of Moby’s song, “We Are All Made of Stars,” we’re unique, right? But then again, what O’Conner is saying that we’re story has nothing, no meat, no skeleton, thus we have to put up something that would grab the reader’s attention. Or blind them with dust, or stardust! I’m confused with the truth part because my genre of writing is pretty much unbelievable due to being speculative fiction. Unless it has to fit with the crafted world’s own terms and its truth to be plausible within its realm.
ReplyDeleteAgain, reading stories out loud, had to read this in my head. And jez! The hell did I just read!? I was just waiting to read someone interacting with the guy down below, but just some geeky guy who wants to be punished by …what are they called…masochist? This is what happens when you go too deep in the internet and find this kind of stuff. Besides the pain and sex, there is emotions kept locked up by the narrator that she thrives with her chat room username and persona just to be someone other than her real, trouble self, hiding herself with makeup and her weird hairstyle. I like how the Hello Kitty products were placed in the story because of some superstition or story behind their creation, but damn it, I was expecting the writer to tell a story of a pretend, made-up date with Satan with humor used in story. But hey, I (cringed and partially) enjoyed the story, especially when the little girl, Ivy, tore through the doll and her intentions of finding emotions within the doll.
Hector Dimas
My date with Satan by Stacey Richter was about the story of a women who goes out with the weirdest people, such as a guy who’s internet name is Satan. And though she may be this innocent looking person on the outside, its all just a front for her darker persona inside.
ReplyDeleteBesides this short story, we had to read another one of LaPlane’s chapters from Method and Madness. And though I usually read some of these chapters with indifference, this was not the case for chapter 12. I have to admit that I actually enjoyed reading this one. It may be my favorite one of her chapter’s so far. Specifically because it gave me some insight of what I have been wondering about for sometime, especially when it comes to my own writing. And that is the idea of creating emotions and sensory events within a short story. One of the main things mentioned is the idea that emotions are abstract ideas. Which obviously is hard to convey unless you create something within the story, such as an object, that can help translate that emotion for the reader. If this is done correctly, a story will become more than just entertaining, it will turn into a meaningful work of literature.
-Kathleen m. Salinas
Reading, A Date with Satan, there were many moments when I had to pause and reread the same sentence a couple times. The sensory overload, especially right at the beginning, felt a little cluttered in my mouth. Nevertheless, at the same time, I found the details of the Sanrio shop and Satan himself, only helped to center the story within a specific time and frame of mind: within the thoughts of PipiLngstck, a baby girl domme. I giggled through most of it- at that sheer awkwardness when the fantasy of the roleplay falls apart and it turns out “Satan” is just some “loser outcast guy”, a fake pretending his way around you. That misspelled “mroning” a funny little crack in the facade. And then there's Pipi, who goes on to say, “I really hate it when people...say how technology is depersonalizing and makes us into machines and the future is dank and scary.” (421) right after a description of all the poor people stuck online and their stunted pseudo sex; she, herself, unable to open up and reveal her true “identity”, preferring the anonymity of the “game”, opting out when things get too heavy. I have to say, this was one of my favorite readings- it was almost too real and relatable in an odd way.
ReplyDeleteRobin Turrubiates
Is it weird I'm disappointed that Satan turned out to be some geek using this as his online username and not Satan himself? I was kind of hoping this short story would run along the lines of Chuck Palahniuk's Damned, but oh well - it was still an interesting read. I liked LaPlante's chapter, especially the section Making Things Carry More Emotional Weight than They Logically Should and the quotes "I am going to make you feel what I want you to feel.""...I will make you feel as though you have had this experience. "Along with the following statement, "Not necessarily agree with, not necessarily enjoy, not necessarily understand completely, but experience." I feel like this connects with what we've discussed in previous class times, how there are some stories that revolve around an event that we may not have personally gone through, so it is the authors sole purpose to write about this event in a way that makes us feel as those we are experiencing it firsthand. How even if it's something completely out of the ordinary that we may never encounter it within our life time, say being trapped in a whale's stomach, the author should write about this in a manner that is so vividly detailed that we can feel ourselves transported into this very situation.
ReplyDeleteKarla Olvera
In "My Date With Satan", it had a lot of subtext I at first didn't grasp but throughout the different scenes and backtrack of PipiLngstck's story of how she met Satan and exactly which guys she was attracted to, it made more sense. Satan too, in the bedroom when they're getting intimate reminded me of a German play when he said the lines "I'm completely at your mercy. Do with me as you will." (page 424). The whole time Satan, whose real name is Ferris shows vulnerability and that is what attracted PipLngtsck, which is why those lines reminded me of that play. It was with two characters, a man and a woman where all the man ever wanted to do was please the woman in whatever she asked for. He was determined to make her happy and said those exact lines at one point in the play, where him too was at the woman's mercy begging.
ReplyDeleteIn chapter 12, "What's the Story Really About?" dealt a lot with subtext, meaning what is the hidden message that wasn't really said to the reader. It was interesting reading how LaPlante says there are two levels when it comes to subtext. One is the "percept that all writing exists in the sensory world" and the other "a world that embraces a complex emotional and intellectual subtext" (page 397) then later advises us when to combine those two levels in fiction. To me the reading "My Date With Satan" included those two elements of subtext.
-Illiana Luna
“The dual nature of creative writing.” I enjoyed this chapter. I believe that theme is the most important aspect of a story; it can make it or break it. So to explore this chapter that LaPlante compiled was a rather decadent treat. I especially liked the quotation from Flannery O’Connor on page 398 that describes a narrative as an experience. I found it to be very illuminating and overall it was an interesting way to go about writing a story—with the intent to be a dialectical revelation in terms of theme instead of a block-like presentation of it. However, I did not quite agree with LaPlante’s perspective regarding the abstract. Personally, I think that the abstract is an interesting topic to write about. I understand that being “very, very specific” is probably a good thing, especially in short fiction, but I don’t think that abstract ideas are incompatible with specific experiences. In fact I think that meta-fiction is a type of genre that plays with the abstract so I disagree that writing should not be abstract or theoretical. She does continue to say that it shouldn’t be general and with that I can agree but on the flipside an effective theme addresses the general aspects of society otherwise it wouldn’t resonate very well.
ReplyDeleteAndres Trevino
In this chapter, LaPlante goes over the ideas of the emotional weight of stories, the subtext behind the bigger ideas of the stories, and how this forms the idea of what a story- your story, their story, any story- is really about. This was actually very interesting to me because I have been trying to up the ante as far as emotional depth and deeper meaning in my own story for this class, so I actually found that this chapter captured my interest more, as a kind of result of that. I didn’t think that it’s always necessary for a story to have something- be it, person, object, idea- to be/mean more than it appears to at first glance, but seeing all of the potential for what can be done with a few lines here and there hinting at something bigger- well, I can just see how it would appeal to an author to slip in a larger meaning when there’s almost an incentive to do so in order to seem- or be- deeper.
ReplyDeleteI don’t know exactly how I felt about the story in connection to the chapter itself, it had a lot going on plot wise, and the kind of internet persona that the narrator had sculpted for herself seemed like it was going for a sort of subtext kind of thing, but it seemed a little too on the nose for my taste. Violent- for lack of a better word- type of behavior always points to some bigger subtext in my experience, so it seemed a little overplayed- but then again, maybe not, because I’ve never seen it put down on paper quite like that.
-Lauryn Flores
LaPlante’s Chapter 12 and “My Date with Satan” by Stacy Richter express the ideals of what lies beneath the letters and words that make up complete stories. For example, “My Date with Satan” explains the actions of a woman who chats on the internet with individuals for a very specific crowd. Throughout her encounter and date with a man named “Satan”, we are expressed through her various thoughts and her mindset with such an event. Relating with Chapter 12, we can begin to look below the story and what it really means to the events that occur. For example, when we see “Satan” and his compulsions to have the main protagonist hurt him, we can pass this off as just a basic kink. However, as we are exposed to his living style and background, we can see that this is probably an outlet to escape such things. We see this to in the Pipi’s character. She hates the normality of life and breaks ties with “Satan” when it seems that he gets too real. However, we can see that the real reason she dislikes this is because she doesn’t like society as a whole. This is reinforced by her experiences with other men, her job, and the way she perceives the basic style of living and marriage. As such, LaPlante is justified when the story is more deeper then what the story lets on. Thus, the two articles are connected and compliment each other.
ReplyDeleteDavid Leal
Chapter 12 of LaPlante's book discusses how understanding what your story is about is critical in getting readers invested in your story. She states that there are two ways to view your story's overall description. This includes both what's actually happening in the world and the subtext that comes from writing your story. The meaning of your story can develop through the subtext even if your plot is describing something different. The writer must pay attention to both of these aspects if they want to believe what they are writing.
ReplyDelete"My Date With Satan" is one of the strangest things I've ever read. The focus of this story seems to be a mix between the narrator's interaction with this nerdy guy who calls himself "Satan" (I'm very curious as to why he would do so") as well as her obsession with this little autistic girl. I'm going to assume the overall meaning of this story has something to do with this girl's strange view of the world and how it keeps her from wanting to form any deep relationships. I'm going to assume that there's something mentally wrong with "Pipi" as I highly doubt a normal functioning human being would do...what we see Pipi do at the very end of the story. This is some subtext that may exist in the story. Maybe Pipi is obsessed with this little girl because she has a mental disorder and Pipi can relate. "Satan" may seem odd, but I'm not sure I would be too comfortable being with a girl like "Pipi."
Michael McCormick
Chapter 12 reflects on a whole lot in very few little words to constitute a chapter in all honesty. In the first section, addresses different answers to the same question, but doesn’t even explain what that means, but I assume its deals with using the five senses in writing. As for the rest of the chapter, it seems like repetition of topics already covered in previous readings.
ReplyDeleteAs for My Date With Satan, tells the story of the dark areas of internet chat rooms. The main character paints this image of innocence within herself, but then the audience quickly gets she’s into the whole BDSM world. She was considered an outcast and ventured her way into online chats, to deviate from reality, while also finding people with her similar interests, to put it lightly. I like how the character names reflect their online usernames, or what they aspire to be, rather than their actual names. To me, this means that they found a way to stay within that online world, but remaining sort of anonymous to each other. Also, she is very descriptive throughout the piece, which is always a plus.
Pedro Trevino