Beginnings #2--the 4th judging criterion

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cgpeoples
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Re: Beginnings #2--the 4th judging criterion

Post by cgpeoples »

Homework - #3 sample expo of one passage that doesn't work, and one that does

32-year-old Destiny Cahill couldn't believe she was having to start all over again and move back to Arkansas and live with her parents.

Destiny cried as she walked throughout her home for the last time. "Please, Lord, I don't want a divorce and I sure don't want to crawl back home and have to live with my parents! Please, help me!"
glorybee
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Re: Beginnings #2--the 4th judging criterion

Post by glorybee »

cgpeoples wrote:Homework - #3 sample expo of one passage that doesn't work, and one that does

32-year-old Destiny Cahill couldn't believe she was having to start all over again and move back to Arkansas and live with her parents.

Destiny cried as she walked throughout her home for the last time. "Please, Lord, I don't want a divorce and I sure don't want to crawl back home and have to live with my parents! Please, help me!"
Very good!
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Beverly Waller
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Re: Beginnings #2--the 4th judging criterion

Post by Beverly Waller »

Hi Jan,

I chose the option of quoting from a book. This is the first paragraph of Ellen Gunderson Traylor's novel, Song of Abraham:


“Ur was a foul city after dusk. Darkness hid the sick and outcast as they found their way inside the gated walls, seeking shelter from the cutting winds which blew off the Mesopotamian plains. Beggars in tattered clothes slept in dark corners, and small motherless children wandered among them in search of food.”


This beginning works, because it introduces you to the setting, both the place and a little about the time. The city of Ur was a “foul city”, not a good or safe place, after dark. It may be cold weather with “cutting winds” blowing. The phrases, “gated walls”, and “Mesopotamian plains” are clues of ancient Biblical times. The paragraph makes me sympathetic for the people mentioned here, and curious to find out more about this place.

Did I miss anything? Thanks for any comments! :)

Beverly
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Re: Beginnings #2--the 4th judging criterion

Post by glorybee »

Beverly Waller wrote:Hi Jan,

I chose the option of quoting from a book. This is the first paragraph of Ellen Gunderson Traylor's novel, Song of Abraham:


“Ur was a foul city after dusk. Darkness hid the sick and outcast as they found their way inside the gated walls, seeking shelter from the cutting winds which blew off the Mesopotamian plains. Beggars in tattered clothes slept in dark corners, and small motherless children wandered among them in search of food.”


This beginning works, because it introduces you to the setting, both the place and a little about the time. The city of Ur was a “foul city”, not a good or safe place, after dark. It may be cold weather with “cutting winds” blowing. The phrases, “gated walls”, and “Mesopotamian plains” are clues of ancient Biblical times. The paragraph makes me sympathetic for the people mentioned here, and curious to find out more about this place.

Did I miss anything? Thanks for any comments! :)

Beverly
Beverly, you nailed it. Well done.
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glorybee
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Re: Beginnings #2--the 4th judging criterion

Post by glorybee »

I commented up above--you probably missed it under that big quote box. Not really much to say--you analyzed that opening very well.
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Athayde
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Re: Beginnings #2--the 4th judging criterion

Post by Athayde »

Hi Jan,

I chose the first paragraph of Ernest Hemingway's novel, The Old Man and the Sea:

"He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him. But after forty days without a fish the boy's parents had told him that the old man was now definitely and finally salao, which is the worst form of unlucky, and the boy had gone at their orders in another boat which caught three good fish the first week."

Character: an old man who fished alone in a skiff.

Place: Gulf Stream.

Time: after eighty-four days without taking a fish.

It also includes the conflict and the sympathy elements.

(I find interesting how this author writes long structures and few commas!)

Am I right?

Thanks for your help!
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Re: Beginnings #2--the 4th judging criterion

Post by glorybee »

Yes, you've chosen an excellent example of a good beginning. (And writers as good as Hemingway have earned the right to use as many or as few commas as they wish!)
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Athayde
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Re: Beginnings #2--the 4th judging criterion

Post by Athayde »

Thanks, Jan. :)
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