Reflection #3

Unnecessary actions and unexpected events always catch my attention when wandering around the city. Interactions between people are what interest me the most when observing my surroundings. And similarly to the text “If You Invent the Story, You're the First to See How It Ends” by Roxana Robinson relationships between two people grab my concern as well. Like connections between loved ones or families. It is thought-provoking when you contrast two different families. It always makes you wonder why they formulate the habits that they have. It is also appealing because just like Robinson said “Family connections -- between parent and child, brother and sister, husband and wife -- form the strongest bonds we will ever know. These are the people who can make us happier, and angrier, than anyone else on earth.” These strong connections are the type of things that I notice in my surroundings and make me ponder over what I can write about.

The thing that I could observe that could make a good story is basically anything that catches my eye.
“I write about the things that trouble me. I write about the things that disturb me, the things that won't let me alone, the things that are eating slowly into my brain at 3 in the morning, the things that unbalance my world. Sometimes these are things I've said or done; sometimes they're things I've heard about or seen. Sometimes they're only sentences, sometimes scenes, sometimes complete narratives. I carry these things around inside my head until I'm compelled to write them down to get rid of them. I sit down and begin.”
Anything that I am passionate about or makes me wonder is the kind of things that could make for a great story. Even the basic act of stalking an individual you never had a conversation with can make for an interesting piece of writing. Another key component is writing with detail and showing what you are trying to say but never demanding what the reader should feel. I could observe things with have a lot of meaning for example the relationships between two people, and anything else that makes me exude curiosity. There is no specific topic that I can pinpoint but I feel like what I like to write about that I observe has to come out of me randomly. Some things that spark interest for me may sometimes not be the case for another. Everyone varies in what kind of observations make a great story. But it’s how you feel about it that makes the execution of the story good enough to attract an audience.

Throughout the text the author tries to relate the story with the golden retriever to how she comes up with what she writes. I feel like I would never let a golden retriever licking its owner become something that sparks me into writing, but something as simple as that if it catches the authors mind enough can catch a reader’s eye as well. So what interests you is mighty important in how you write because things a person does not care for cannot be written well. If you can’t have a personal connection or don’t know well enough about the topic how can you possibly believe that you can grab the reader’s consideration to what you are spelling out to them?

Any kind of theme can be addressed based on your observations. The theme is all dependent on what you notice in your surroundings. “If I can set down these moments and make them a whole within a context that explains the scene and characters whose behavior I can forgive, the moments become comprehensible to me.” Basically any event or thing that you notice can be turned into a story that is filled with themes, and a story line that you are glad to have written. Observing and taking note is one of the most important things in writing because with that you can create a whole bunch of characters and an eye catching tale that can etch in someone’s mind.

Source: Robinson, Roxana. “If You Invent the Story, You’re the First to See How It Ends”.Writers on Writing:Collected Essays from the New York Times.Smiley, Jane, and John Darnton.156-160.Print.