For today the draft of your first feature piece is due. What has been the biggest struggle in crafting the feature piece so far? What have you tried to do to overcome this struggle? How do you think this will impact your approach to your next feature?
I think that my biggest struggle concerning my first feature piece is allowing myself to use the freedom in the creative process when constructing this piece. I am so inclined to write strictly in a certain format and on certain topics with a certain type of research. This feature piece allows me to choose my own topic and to do my own research on it both primary and secondary. It is definitely a type of writing I am still trying to warm up to, but if I choose to venture on into the career path of a journalist I know I will have to learn this type of writing quite quick. I have used free writing to help ignite my creative thinking and to try and curb writer's block. With my next feature I hope that my experience with this one will help me become more creative with my topic choices and my style of writing. I feel that my next feature will be better and a little easier to write than the last because of the struggle I went through.
ReplyDeleteI encountered this same issue when writing my piece. All through my years of school, there's been strict instruction and not a lot of freedom so this was hard to adjust to. I loved your process of working through this, free write is a great idea and can lead to something awesome! Good luck with your piece!!
DeleteI couldn't agree more. As a political science major, I have gotten very used to writing strictly research papers, where the creative process isn't necessary. I'm also still warming up to this type of writing, but feel that creativity emerges with greater ease each assignment we have.
DeleteEmily,
DeleteI like how you use the technique of creative writing to fix your writers block. I would have never thought of that to just write to let your brain flow and become more creative. You thought outside of the book and that’s what you need to do to become a great writer. There will be many more piece that maybe difficult to write but thinking outside of the box to overcome a problem is a great way to start. This technique shows that you never gave up. If I ever have problem writing on a topic I’m not sure of I will start off by doing so creative writing to get my mind going.
I completely agree with you here Emily. I feel like I am always writing a certain way based on my major and who I am writing for. But in this class we can explore different ways to write things and portray stories differently for our audience.
Deletefreewriting is a great way to help with this. Also, just keep a notebook or even a list in your phone where you write down funny things your hear, interesting stories, cool things you see, etc. You never know what could develop into a story. Also, I often find I write well when I am mad about something so scrolling through my facebook newsfeed usually gets me pissed and helps.
DeleteMy biggest struggle in writing this feature piece is picking a topic. Through my entire career of school, we've always been given strick guide lines to stay in and this assignment is different. We are given creative freedom and that opens up a whole new world of possibilities that I'm not used to having. There are so many possibilities and it is hard for me to just pick something when I could really pick anything. In order to over come this issue, I made a list of topics that either interested me or topics I was passionate about and knew I could write about. I think this method will positively impact my piece because better writing always tends to come out writing something you have a passion for or just like in general. Writing about something you have a passion for comes out in your writing and evokes different emotions from your reader as opposed to if you just wrote something that was assigned to you.
ReplyDeleteI can see why this would be such a struggle! I am interested in really weird things so I was lucky that topic ideas came to me pretty naturally. Like you said, this is my first class ever that I would write it on anything that I wanted! It allowed a lot of freedom and I think the passion will make all of our papers awesome.
Delete- Sarah Despres
I completely understand what you're talking about- I feel like there are so many options for feature stories and its hard to branch out when in school you are instructed to write a certain story or a certain way. I agree that it is important to pick something you are passionate about, and go from there. Hopefully, something you're interested in will make things easier for you in the writing and creativity process.
DeleteThe biggest struggle thus far has been choosing a topic. Not having specific guidelines and set rules as we do in most other courses has me feeling overwhelmed and scattered, not knowing what to choose. In ways I feel that the lack of choice we have in other courses can work to diminish creativity. In overcoming this difficulty, it has helped to remind myself that it is truly not the topic choice that matters, but the content and quality of the writing. I remind myself of the many articles I’ve read about very interesting topics that are great, but also of those about seemingly uninteresting topics that have also proven to be very intriguing because they are well written. That being said, in the future I would like to choose a topic, commit to it, and try my best not to overthink things.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this kelly. Not having guidelines to what we need to include gives a endless amount of options that we could write about. The content is most important for sure.
DeleteJulee Leonardo
I would have to say my biggest struggle for writing this feature piece was trying to figure out a topic that was interesting and would catch people’s attention from the beginning. I don’t want to write a piece that will be boring to someone that they don’t want to read it. It was hard to find a happy medium, a topic that was interesting to me and easy to write while trying to find a piece that would catch the pay attention. I am good at writing topics I know the hard part is if it’s good enough for the reader to understand and enjoy. Some things I did to try to overcome this struggle was think about topics that I knew a lot about and try to choose one of the many features we learned about in class. I looked at the topics and brained stormy different stories that would fit into the features. Once I chose my topic I wanted to write I had to figure out how to make it interesting to me and the reader, even if that meant rereading it many times and changing sentences around. I think this will help on my next feature by having it come natural and won’t have to spend so much time on brain storming. I will be able to go straight to the writing.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest problem with this piece was the same as yours, picking a topic. It is definitely challenging to find a topic that you can get enough research done for and that is interesting for a vast majority of readers. I'm sure this practice will help you with your next piece!
Delete-Kayla Chernecky
I think that my biggest struggle in writing this essay was finding people who I could interview, or even just to get a question answered. The topic I had originally chosen was such a personal interest of mine, that I thought it would be so natural to write a piece on it. However, I realized it was a really obscure thing and it was actually hard to find information on it. To overcome this struggle, I ended up just changing my topic. I have gotten lots of secondary research on it from online, but again, finding a person directly linked to it is hard. I actually am doing the interview with someone on Wednesday. I think to fix this problem for my next article, I will try to pick a person to interview first, and then let my article take it's path from there.
ReplyDelete- Sarah Despres
One thing you could try is to post on social media in different places and see what responses you get. You can try your facebook friends and different groups you are a part of.
DeleteI definitely think that hardest part for me was figuring out how to put what I wanted to get across in words. I knew what I wanted to write about from the get go, that was easy, but trying to make it flow in the direction I wanted it to was the most difficult. I think that I've over come it by looking at other pieces of writing and was able to grasp how I wanted my readers to follow the story I wanted to tell. And next feature writing I believe I'll have a better grip on where and how I want to take the piece I will be writing about. Wording can always be tricky, and sometimes depending on what you're writing, it can be a touchy subject, but those are what needs to be written about.
ReplyDelete- Leah O'Bryan
The biggest struggle I have found with this feature piece would have to be the layout of constructing it. I know what details I want to include, but since this is a creative writing piece I want to make sure that include what is necessary for the reader to follow the main point I am trying to say. What I needed to do for this draft was create an outline of all the main points I will include in the feature. Since the topic I chose is related to my life and millions of others, I found writing it became easier with the list of everything I wanted to include. The approach I took for this article will help me outline future feature pieces because I know that it will help me focus on what I intend to write about.
ReplyDelete-Julee Leonardo
I truthfully faced a lot of challenges while writing this piece. It was difficult for me to even find a topic that would be both interesting and appropriate for a feature piece. After I picked the topic, I had trouble finding sources and conducting interviews. However, as the process progressed and I opened myself up more to it, it all became easier. When it came to writing the paper, I wasn't sure how I wanted to construct it and how present I wanted to be in the writing. It took a lot of editing and I think I still have a long way to go before I pass in the final version. By being more open minded and susceptible to the process of trial and error, it made the process flow easier. For my next piece, I will definitely keep these things in mind and most likely have an easier time crafting a piece.
ReplyDelete-Kayla Chernecky
I agree with you on the struggle of choosing a topic that would both be a good fit for me and my style of writing as well as the format of a feature piece. I also agree that opening up and warming up to this type of writing will help me write better and more creatively.
DeleteThe biggest struggle for me is the style of writing. My piece is another profile piece and the biggest struggle for me has been how to write it the right way. I have to remember all of the rules we learned in class and apply it to writing this piece.
ReplyDeleteSean Burwell
When writing my feature story, the hardest part was telling a sports story without sounding like a news or sports story. Rather, I focused on David, the boxer going to the Olympics and his personal challenges and accomplishments. I have tried to overcome this struggle by trying to write more in-depth about David as a person, rather than solely as an athlete. I think this makes the story more interesting because a lot of athletes are objectified and their sport is made out to be their entire identity. In my opinion, writing about the personal side of David will impact my approach to my next feature because I would want to plan out my story as more well rounded and wholesome.
ReplyDeleteWell if you want it to be a sports story there is nothing wrong with that. But if you want people to know David than that deeper level is important. It really has to do with your goal.
DeleteThe biggest struggle of my feature piece would be finding a topic that grabs the attention of almost anyone who reads it . In the past I've chosen a specific audience but I am truly trying to capture the attention of a lot of people. Also getting the opinions of others that vary and are not the same can be a struggle . This makes you have to branch out to find different opinions of people within the same community.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest struggle was finding a topic that I thought would be interesting. I really did not like my rough draft, so I scrapped my original idea and went in a different direction towards something that appeals to me. My new topic is looking at outlining the steps and things required to making your first video game.
ReplyDeleteI think this will be a good piece to set up my fourth, where I'm going to dig into breaking down the collapse of Curt Schilling's failed 38Studios.