Chapter 6 (Reader Response 15)

I'm really glad we were assigned Chapter Six of Imaginative Writing, because it got me off my butt and focusing on paying attention to the chapters in a way I hadn't been during the semester so far.  But it  had a lot of solid advice and interesting perspectives on explaining the process of writing the story and elements that make it captivating.
Here are a few of my favorites:

• "If the story succeeds", readers will have their "capacity for empathy enlarged by having lived in the character's skin for the duration".
• Looking at a story's beginning, middle, and end as "conflict, crisis, and resolution" instead.
• the pattern of connection and disconnection (particularly when it was traced out piece by piece with examples to show the shifts)
• And, on that point, how ending with connection or disconnection helps determine the story to be a tragedy or a comedy.  

I'd never read or heard any of these phrases before, and I think they helped me understand the concepts better than previous ways they'd been explained.  Especially the connection and disconnection.  That one is going to haunt me every time I read something.  But in a good way.  Not all hauntings are necessarily bad, I think.  It's just like the first time someone told me we breathe through one nostril at a time.  Now that I know, I'm aware of it and think of it sometimes when I'm not overwhelmed with anything.  It annoys me, but I'm grateful for it.  It reminds me that something is working right. 

One day I really want to write a story that doesn't fit what a story usually is.  It won't be about a journey.  Or a stranger coming to town.  Or two worlds colliding.  Or a love story.  And it won't be a slice of life.  It'll be ages before I find a way to do that, but I think it might be fun to push the boundaries of the kinds of conflicts I write.  The kinds of stories I portray.  This chapter made me want to try that.  And it gave me a new way to look into a story's conflict, to read it closely and sectionalize it.  I just wonder what advice and ideas I've been missing by skimming the other chapters.  Guess I know what I'll be rereading this week.