Introduction to a Hot Mess
About Me I am a Capricorn, born on January 11th. I am currently majoring in Biology. After undergrad I will be getting my masters in HR and then going to medical school. Talking about myself so I asked my family and friends to describe me. I love to cook, I played soccer in high school and also ran cross country. I did this horrible thing where I decided to take Latin as my language of choice. I still have mixed reviews about it. I am obsessed with candles especially citrus and fresh cotton or laundry smells. I unfortunately am not a trust fund baby so with that being said I work at Walgreen's and I used to be a resident advisor. I have just recently picked up a job bar-tending. I love my friends like they are my family. I love to dance. I am also a Christian. I don't particularity like going out much. I am a twitter addict. Hard -working and goal oriented. I LOVE children but am or may not want one. My sister thinks that I am loving, caring, very caring, compassionate,
Hey Dacia,
ReplyDeleteMy comments are going to be over the two stories and your home page. To start, your home page is similar to mine. Very simple, but has easy navigation. I am actually wanting to try and make mine more exciting, so if you have time maybe see if you can do some more to it. You do not have to though, because I doubt I will. I really enjoyed your first story. I think telling a story through a diary entry is an incredible way to give us insight into the character themselves. I really liked the lines where she repeated questions. It give a sense of what she was really thinking. As people we constantly are asking questions, so it was great. As far as your second story, I enjoyed that it was different than the first. I hope you keep up with making each story different. I also enjoyed that you put a modern twist. There is nothing negative I have to say about any of your stories really. If there was one thing, I would just proofread a bit more. Overall, great portfolio!
Hi Dacia! I read your first two stories and looked at your homepage. I really like the image on the home page it is very mysterious and got me curious as to what your storybook was going to be about. The first story was very dramatic. I also got the feel that everyone sort of preferred Madri to Kunti. Using the diary as a way to tell Kunti's side of the story was very creative. I think that there could have been more explanation as to how Kunti married Pandu and how Madri got involved so that those who have not read the story still know what is going on. The second story was mythical and magical. I really like the grandma and her granddaughters characters. There was one spelling mistake I noticed but other than that it was wonderful! Looking forward to reading more of your stories this semester!
ReplyDeleteHi Dacia! I really enjoyed reading your two stories! I loved that the layout of your Portfolio is so simple and clean, and pretty easy to navigate. I really enjoyed your take on two stories we read in the Mahabharata. I always felt bad too that Kunti just got left with all the children and she didn't even seem to get a choice in whether she wanted to raise Madri's children or not. I like the diary method becuase it really gave an insight into her thoughts on what happened. I also love how you compared Bhima to a vampire and put a modern twist on the story. It was a really interesting point of view. My only suggestion would be to re-read your stories slowly, aloud if it helps you. There are some minor grammatical errors that you might catch that way. I always find that reading it aloud helps because it really forces your brain to focus on what you're reading, thus you can catch those little mistakes easier. Great work though, keep it up!
ReplyDeleteHey Dacia, I just wanted to say this first but the homepage picture of your portfolio pulled me in and kept me interested in your project! The picture is very intriguing and mysterious. I chose to read through your first two stories because the title caught my attention. I was really interested in the first one because I wondered what it was about. I liked this story the most as well! I liked how you made it a diary entry to truly express how Kunti is feeling. I have not come across a story like that yet, so good job on creativity! As for the second story, I loved how you give it a modern twist and used Twilight as your inspiration. So far, I really like the header picture you used for the first two stories; it goes well with your stories! However, on your third storybook, I think it would be nice to change it to fit the story you told! Other than that, I really enjoyed reading your storybook. Keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteHey Dacia!
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I want to say that your image use for your homepage is really captivating. I find that it does a great job in making the readers intrigued for the upcoming stories. I appreciate how you have different styles for all three stories in your project portfolio. For your first story, I like how you used the diary entry style to portray Kunti's story. I find that writing in first person along with a diary entry really helps the readers connect to the character better. A suggestion you may consider for your first story is possibly breaking up the one large paragraph into multiple paragraphs. Sometimes a story is better conceived if it is broken up, which is easier on the eyes of the reader. You may also want to consider utilizing action beat dialogues instead of traditional talk dialogues. Action beat dialogues will help elevate your story to the next level and also help readers perceive your story with a better image in their heads. Overall, great job on your rendition!
Hey Dacia! I enjoyed reading these stories on your blog, so it was neat to see them come to life in your portfolio!
ReplyDeleteSo this week's focus is on Author's Notes. My suggestions for yours aren't really specific to one particular story, they're more just general structural thoughts. Overall, what I really enjoy about your Author's Notes is how they show your thought process and feelings behind your stories. I think that's really cool, and definitely helps me connect more to the stories too. What I would like to see more of in the Notes though are background information and sources. Links to the references you used, brief summaries of the stories you retold, interesting facts that you found that didn't quite make sense to put in the stories themselves...adding some of those elements would create a more well-rounded Author's Note. Also, there isn't a ton of punctuation, which leads to it feeling a bit overwhelming to see this wall of text all at once, so maybe think about adding some commas, semicolons, slightly different sentence structures, etc. Overall, I love your stories and the perspective you put into your Author's Notes, and I can't wait to see how it finishes up!
Hi Dacia! I am a student in the Mythology and Folklore class, but I love being able to ready storybooks from Indian epics. I come from an Indian heritage, but it is always fun to learn more about my cultural stories. First of all, I want to say that you did a really fantastic job of including images in your storybook. The images really helped draw me in to the actual plot. I also liked how each of your stories was very different from the last. It made it more interesting to read, and I did not get bored at all. The best part of your storybook, in my opinion, was the Author's Notes. They were so useful in seeing the way you constructed your stories, and added a much more personalized element. The only thing I would recommend is potentially adding more details to the characters themselves. I can't wait to read more!
ReplyDeleteHi Dacia! Your portfolio is looking really good! I think the image you've chosen for the background on the home page is particularly clever since it shows a girl with a world literally in/on her head which depicts well what the mind of a writer such as yourself is like. It's just too bad that it's a little blurry, because it's really a beautiful representation. I am familiar with the writings which you have featured since I regularly comment on your story posts on this blog, but getting to reread them has been really enjoyable! You have a great knack for story-telling and have a very distinct voice as a writer! Since this week's Feedback strategy - week 13- was to focus on paragraph formatting, I have to say each has sufficient space between blocks of text to set a natural pace for the reader except maybe your first story, "The Second's Diary." I might consider where you could break up this mass of sentences where it might be suitable. Other than that, I love each of these chapters in it's own way but I must say I think the second one "Grandma's Tale" has to be a favorite. Ever since I read it the first time, it stuck with me!
ReplyDeleteHi Dacia! I think the homepage of your portfolio is gorgeous! Such a cool image to open your website for your readers. I wish it were not quite so blurry! This week, we are supposed to be commenting on paragraphing and paragraph styling, so that's what this comment will focus on, and I chose to look at this with your story "The Second's Diary." First, this story is one long paragraph. At first, this may seem like a good stylistic choice because it is a diary entry, and many diary entries are long, stream of consciousness paragraphs which are written without thought for formatting of readability. However, since this is a story, it is going to need some formal qualities which make it easier to read -- paragraphs chief among them. Consider breaking for a paragraph wherever Kunti's thoughts seem to take a breath, or where she moves topics slightly. Breaking the story up into paragraphs will make it way easier to read!
ReplyDeleteHey Dacia!
ReplyDeleteIt's me again. I am just commenting on another one of your stories. I already left a comment earlier, but this will be over your "Beauty and the Beast" story. I really enjoyed how you tied Beauty and the Beast into the story and it fit really well. I was a bit confused as to which source story you were talking about, so maybe mention the exact title of the source story in your author's note. I also enjoyed how you wrote in the first person. It gave me a better idea of the character and who she was in the story. The dialogue also added a lot to the story so very good writing choices. I also think it would be a good idea to have the story not be on one complete side. You can split up the story into multiple text boxes and have the first paragraph be next to the picture, but the remaining story take up the whole page. That is a small complaint, but overall, great story!
Hi Dacia!
ReplyDeleteFor your “The Second’s Diary”, the first few sentences could use some punctuation to help the reader understand Kunti’s tone. Like “I am a Queen—or I used to be.” The paragraph that starts with “I can’t believe” is a little longer than the rest and could be split into two paragraphs, maybe at “Like, Madri,…” I love that this story gives Kunti a voice and expresses her resentment towards Madri and Pandu that doesn’t come through in the Mahabharata.
I like in your “Grandma’s Tale” story you made a new paragraph for each change in the dialogue. This made it easier to follow the conversation and keep track of who was talking. I noticed that a couple of the quotation marks had an unnecessary space between it and the words in quotes, which made it a little harder to figure out which words were supposed to be in quotations. Your author’s note does a good job of describing your story elements that you pulled from outside sources, but I would love to see your thought process explaining how you tied this story to the Mahabharata. I would also add more space between the story and the author’s note like you did in the third story so it is easier to refer to the note if needed.
For your “Beauty and the Beast” story, I would create a new paragraph starting with “The day started out normal.” Just to create a natural pause since that sentence starts the flashback. The sentence that starts with “after the king had died” is a fragment, taking out the “and” and putting in a comma would fix it. I was a little confused on which Mahabharata story this referred to, so maybe that could be something you elaborate on in the note.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI have to say I loved the writing style of your first story! I loved how you made me connect with the main character and feel as she feels. I feel her pain and her suffering at being a second-rate queen that is now in exile. I honestly felt bad for Kunti and even during reading the original story felt that way. I feel that in many of the stories the people I feel bad for or root for end up being second class or rejects. The second story I was totally spun for a loop. I did not know where you got the idea. I was reading the story and had to do a second take to see if I was still on the right blog. I thought your adaptation of Bhima as a vampire was brilliant. I too thought of him as a blood thirsty warrior just not in the literal sense. I like including vampires with Indian epics.
Hey Dacia! I have visited your page before to read some of your weekly stories, but I have never visited your project! I was excited to see what you did with your project because I really enjoy your writing style. The first thing I noticed about your story book is the home page. The image you chose was really cool and captured your theme very well. I think it is a great image to captivate a reader into reading more! All of your layout and images looked very neat and professional. The only comment I would make is some of the images look a little blurry but they are still great images! Just maybe needed to fit a little differently. As far as each of your stories I was very impressed by all of them. My favorite was your last story, Beauty and the Beast. Your use of detail in the story made me able to actually visualize the scenarios and characters. Overall, I think you did a really great job with this project!
ReplyDeleteHi Dacia!
ReplyDeleteI came back at the end of the semester to see the finished product of your project. I must say, I’m not disappointed one bit! The banner picture you have for the home page is astonishing. It’s very bold and there is a lot to look at. It draws the reader in and makes you want to look at everything else you have on your page. I think the pictures you chose for the rest of your stories match well and add to the overall feel of the writing. I had previously read The Second’s Diary and Beauty and the Beast on your Blogger page, but this was the first time I had read Grandma’s Tale. I think you mentioned you had also wrote a vampire story and I’m so glad that I got to read it. I too wrote one about Bhima! I think you did a great job with your project this semester and am glad I got a change to read it!