Shaun, I just read your first story in your project. I thought it was really good. I remember reading the original version of it in the assigned reading. I think I remember it because of how crazy it is. I was not expecting a character to die in the story. I applaud you for trying to change the short story into something much longer. It takes a lot of effort trying to add details to a story without changing its identity too much. The fact that you didn't want to refer back to the original story was admirable. Hopefully you are able to do more things like in the following stories that you pick. I find it hard to incorporate dialogue into a story without messing up the flow of it. However, your story was still easy to follow and flowed smoothly. I look forward to reading more entries in your project in the future!
Hey Shaun! I did not read the story that you are taking inspiration from in your first revision, but I understand the message you were trying to convey from the original. I was about halfway through when I thought "This crane is just playing smart not hard", which I assumed would be relatively close to what the moral of the story would be by the end. The crab coming into the picture changes the idea entirely though, and I think it is clear what you are trying to convey here. What goes around comes around basically. The crane used trickery to get an edge on others, and the crab did the same thing to the crane in the end. I think you did a good job conveying this. I will admit that it is a pretty simple story and premise, but I think your execution here is solid.
Hey shaun! Great job on your first story for your project! The crane sure did what was coming to him didn't he! It was only fitting for the crane to be learn his lesson through trickery because he did the same to the poor fishes. That is karma for you I guess! Maybe that would be a cool thing to maybe add as well! Since it is Indian epics it would make sense to add the theme of karma. The story's flow and the dialogue made it easy to keep involved and engaged! Although i did not read the original story that inspired yours I thought yours was great and had a good lesson with it. Maybe ill will check out the original to see how that story was as well! Keep up the great stories!
Your retold story of the Cunning Crane and the Crab was phenomenal! I really like how you changed the setting from the original story. You can see the imagination in the story as the fish were in a pool rather than a lake in your story. I feel like if the fish were to really be in a pool then they would be more reluctant to trust the crab, thus taking up his offer. Also your descriptive writing also helped conceive the story well! For example, "the crab laughed coldly" was an excellent phrase. The crab was obviously fooling the crane, so he had a sarcastic laugh. Also, I wonder how the fish ended up living in pool? Most fish that live in artificial habitats have been placed there. What if you add a little bit of background to your story. You could possibly elaborate on the owners of the pool and their terrible maintenance of the pool? Or, you could change the setting to a pond in a backyard! Furthermore, I really like your story and you don't need to change anything if you don't feel the need to. Those were just some tips because of the fish in the pool.
Hi Shaun, I read the story of the Cunning Crane and the Crab and it really stuck with me as an interesting story as well! Since I had familiarity with it whenever I read your story, it was really fun to see the spin that you placed on it and compare it to my memory of the original story. I think that you did a phenomenal job, and I encourage you to read through the story one more time and try to reword a couple segments where the words 'fish' or 'fishes' were used. It stuck out a lot, and although that is a major part of the story, it could be a little distracting to the reader. I think a great option to incorporate more detail, dialogue, and imagery into your story is to use a specific fish character as the speaker instead of 'a fish', descriptive wording that describes a watery voice, or details about which specific aspects the fish was describing to place more words between the 'fish' words. Your story is great, and I think this would really help smooth it out! Sincerely, Rachel
Both of your stories were very true to the originals. While I found it refreshing that you gave these stories your own spin, it also would've been interesting had you added a new element to each of them. For instance, in your second story, the scene where Bhima fights the nagas could have been given much more description. How does Bhima feel when he's just awoken? How exactly does he fight back? A way that you could switch this story up is by writing the story from Bhima's perspective that way everything becomes first person and more interesting. By writing from Bhima's perspective, you could go into a lot of detail that would really ground your reader into your story. Does Bhima feel betrayed by Duryodhana? What are his feelings? Does he ever feel scared, even for just a moment? You could even just write the scene when he wakes up in the water and draw that out for a while. These are just some questions to get you going.
Hey Shaun, this was a great story for your portfolio. Both of your stories are very interesting and very detail-oriented. Your recreation of the story and how you changed the original plot was amazing. It was truly a unique way of addressing the plot and it showed in your writing. You changed the setting, the characteristics of people, and more. The change of scenery allowed for the theme of the story to really speak. You did a great job showing emotion and features such as trust, freedom, and more. I believe there are many routes you could have taken in your first story, but I am glad you chose this. You have a creative imagination and strong writing skills. I cannot wait to see, how you build on your portfolio. Maybe you can add more characters into the mix, change the setting. Maybe see, what happens if the Crane survived but still learned his lesson. This will give you the opportunity to really test your imagination and go wild. Overall this was a great story to read, keep up the good work.
Hi Shaun! The "Greedy Crane who got its neck snipped," was a very enjoyable and easy to read story. One thing that I would change is the title -- you could maybe change it to something like "The Greedy Crane Learns a Lesson" so that the end of the story isn't spoiled for the reader but the title still builds suspense on its own. If you do stay with your original title then I would capitalize more than just Greedy Crane. Also, it would be helpful to the reader if you bolded the "Author's Note" and "Bibliography" subtitles. It somewhat ran together when I was transitioning from your story to that section of your writing, so some changes in format could be helpful to the reader! I really enjoyed your story "Bhima Unchained" as well. The changes in the setting and characters really highlighted your writing skills well. I would suggest the same layout modifications for the Bibliography and Author's Note for this story as well. Lastly, I think it would be cool if you had part of the title in the tabs of your website rather than just "First Story" and "Second Story." If the reader had to choose between which story of the two we wanted to read, then there would be no information to help us make that decision. Overall, great job! Your stories were very well written and easy to read!
Hey Shaun, I enjoyed reading your stories a lot. I like the progress that you seemed to make over this semester with your story writing. The first story was really easy to read, and I think the dialogue helped a lot. I often enjoyed reading through your author's notes because you really laid out your thoughts and how you got to the end product in each story. My favorite two stories were probably the last two. The first one I loved how you incorpated Django unchained, a lot of my stories on my portfolio are based off Narcos, so I can kind of relate to what you did there. The one thing I noticed was maybe you could improve on the look of your portfolio, maybe changing the names of the tabs would be helpful for some people. Overall your page looked great but you could change a few things. I loved reading your stories and have a great end of the semester. Philip Crowley
Sahun, first off I would like to commend you on your imagery in this storybook. The I clicked on the first story I quite literally burst out laughing after seeing the crab/crane. I also like there how you were honest in the author's note about any shortcoming you saw but in my opinion this story was excellent man! I particularly enjoyed then second story as it was about Bhima (the focus of my storybook). The life and adventures of Bhima are so extraordinary it is so fun to read about them!! Keep up the good work Shaun I look forward to reading more of your inspiring work!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteShaun,
DeleteI just read your first story in your project. I thought it was really good. I remember reading the original version of it in the assigned reading. I think I remember it because of how crazy it is. I was not expecting a character to die in the story. I applaud you for trying to change the short story into something much longer. It takes a lot of effort trying to add details to a story without changing its identity too much. The fact that you didn't want to refer back to the original story was admirable. Hopefully you are able to do more things like in the following stories that you pick. I find it hard to incorporate dialogue into a story without messing up the flow of it. However, your story was still easy to follow and flowed smoothly. I look forward to reading more entries in your project in the future!
Hey Shaun! I did not read the story that you are taking inspiration from in your first revision, but I understand the message you were trying to convey from the original. I was about halfway through when I thought "This crane is just playing smart not hard", which I assumed would be relatively close to what the moral of the story would be by the end. The crab coming into the picture changes the idea entirely though, and I think it is clear what you are trying to convey here. What goes around comes around basically. The crane used trickery to get an edge on others, and the crab did the same thing to the crane in the end. I think you did a good job conveying this. I will admit that it is a pretty simple story and premise, but I think your execution here is solid.
ReplyDeleteHey shaun! Great job on your first story for your project! The crane sure did what was coming to him didn't he! It was only fitting for the crane to be learn his lesson through trickery because he did the same to the poor fishes. That is karma for you I guess! Maybe that would be a cool thing to maybe add as well! Since it is Indian epics it would make sense to add the theme of karma. The story's flow and the dialogue made it easy to keep involved and engaged! Although i did not read the original story that inspired yours I thought yours was great and had a good lesson with it. Maybe ill will check out the original to see how that story was as well! Keep up the great stories!
ReplyDeleteHey Shaun!
ReplyDeleteYour retold story of the Cunning Crane and the Crab was phenomenal! I really like how you changed the setting from the original story. You can see the imagination in the story as the fish were in a pool rather than a lake in your story. I feel like if the fish were to really be in a pool then they would be more reluctant to trust the crab, thus taking up his offer. Also your descriptive writing also helped conceive the story well! For example, "the crab laughed coldly" was an excellent phrase. The crab was obviously fooling the crane, so he had a sarcastic laugh. Also, I wonder how the fish ended up living in pool? Most fish that live in artificial habitats have been placed there. What if you add a little bit of background to your story. You could possibly elaborate on the owners of the pool and their terrible maintenance of the pool? Or, you could change the setting to a pond in a backyard! Furthermore, I really like your story and you don't need to change anything if you don't feel the need to. Those were just some tips because of the fish in the pool.
Hi Shaun,
ReplyDeleteI read the story of the Cunning Crane and the Crab and it really stuck with me as an interesting story as well! Since I had familiarity with it whenever I read your story, it was really fun to see the spin that you placed on it and compare it to my memory of the original story. I think that you did a phenomenal job, and I encourage you to read through the story one more time and try to reword a couple segments where the words 'fish' or 'fishes' were used. It stuck out a lot, and although that is a major part of the story, it could be a little distracting to the reader. I think a great option to incorporate more detail, dialogue, and imagery into your story is to use a specific fish character as the speaker instead of 'a fish', descriptive wording that describes a watery voice, or details about which specific aspects the fish was describing to place more words between the 'fish' words. Your story is great, and I think this would really help smooth it out!
Sincerely,
Rachel
Hi Shaun!
ReplyDeleteBoth of your stories were very true to the originals. While I found it refreshing that you gave these stories your own spin, it also would've been interesting had you added a new element to each of them. For instance, in your second story, the scene where Bhima fights the nagas could have been given much more description. How does Bhima feel when he's just awoken? How exactly does he fight back? A way that you could switch this story up is by writing the story from Bhima's perspective that way everything becomes first person and more interesting. By writing from Bhima's perspective, you could go into a lot of detail that would really ground your reader into your story. Does Bhima feel betrayed by Duryodhana? What are his feelings? Does he ever feel scared, even for just a moment? You could even just write the scene when he wakes up in the water and draw that out for a while. These are just some questions to get you going.
Good work!
Hey Shaun, this was a great story for your portfolio. Both of your stories are very interesting and very detail-oriented. Your recreation of the story and how you changed the original plot was amazing. It was truly a unique way of addressing the plot and it showed in your writing. You changed the setting, the characteristics of people, and more. The change of scenery allowed for the theme of the story to really speak. You did a great job showing emotion and features such as trust, freedom, and more. I believe there are many routes you could have taken in your first story, but I am glad you chose this. You have a creative imagination and strong writing skills. I cannot wait to see, how you build on your portfolio. Maybe you can add more characters into the mix, change the setting. Maybe see, what happens if the Crane survived but still learned his lesson. This will give you the opportunity to really test your imagination and go wild. Overall this was a great story to read, keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteHi Shaun! The "Greedy Crane who got its neck snipped," was a very enjoyable and easy to read story. One thing that I would change is the title -- you could maybe change it to something like "The Greedy Crane Learns a Lesson" so that the end of the story isn't spoiled for the reader but the title still builds suspense on its own. If you do stay with your original title then I would capitalize more than just Greedy Crane. Also, it would be helpful to the reader if you bolded the "Author's Note" and "Bibliography" subtitles. It somewhat ran together when I was transitioning from your story to that section of your writing, so some changes in format could be helpful to the reader! I really enjoyed your story "Bhima Unchained" as well. The changes in the setting and characters really highlighted your writing skills well. I would suggest the same layout modifications for the Bibliography and Author's Note for this story as well. Lastly, I think it would be cool if you had part of the title in the tabs of your website rather than just "First Story" and "Second Story." If the reader had to choose between which story of the two we wanted to read, then there would be no information to help us make that decision. Overall, great job! Your stories were very well written and easy to read!
ReplyDeleteHey Shaun,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your stories a lot. I like the progress that you seemed to make over this semester with your story writing. The first story was really easy to read, and I think the dialogue helped a lot. I often enjoyed reading through your author's notes because you really laid out your thoughts and how you got to the end product in each story. My favorite two stories were probably the last two. The first one I loved how you incorpated Django unchained, a lot of my stories on my portfolio are based off Narcos, so I can kind of relate to what you did there. The one thing I noticed was maybe you could improve on the look of your portfolio, maybe changing the names of the tabs would be helpful for some people. Overall your page looked great but you could change a few things. I loved reading your stories and have a great end of the semester.
Philip Crowley
Sahun, first off I would like to commend you on your imagery in this storybook. The I clicked on the first story I quite literally burst out laughing after seeing the crab/crane. I also like there how you were honest in the author's note about any shortcoming you saw but in my opinion this story was excellent man! I particularly enjoyed then second story as it was about Bhima (the focus of my storybook). The life and adventures of Bhima are so extraordinary it is so fun to read about them!! Keep up the good work Shaun I look forward to reading more of your inspiring work!
ReplyDelete