Hey Katie! I really liked your idea behind having a creepy story based off of the supernatural tale we got to read. Reading your author's notes, I thought you'd add in more horror or ghostly presence other than just the repeated visual of the old man. I like that you gave build up for the main character, but maybe if you shorten that down you can add in more effect on what she's going through. You can tell that she wasn't prepared within a few lines, you gave a good amount of detail as to what we should know about her right off the bat c: I also felt that throughout I kept saying "no don't do that!" like I was watching a movie and telling the character to not go through the door. It was great! I think with a little tweaks and additions it would make for an even more chilling story c:
Hi Katie! I thought that you did a great job on this story! I really enjoyed reading it from beginning to end. I loved how you started your story kind of ominous and really built it up all the way through until the end when she found the man again. When I finished reading the story, I wanted to know more. What was her next move? Did she ever get out of the forest and make it home? Was her fate similar to the old man's? You really left me wanting more. But who doesn’t love a good cliffhanger? Overall you did a great job on this story and I really enjoyed reading it!
I enjoyed reading your suspenseful story. When I first began to start reading the story, it started out a little slow. However, by half way through the story picked up and I was able to see where you were going with the story. You did a great job at relating the story to the original one. I like the last line of the story too! I feel like that line put the stamp on the whole plot of the story. It brought me back to the beginning when the man warned her. I will say was not expecting the ending to be the end. I thought something really bad was going to happen to her but maybe the ghost saves her from it.
Hi Katie! Your story really left me asking questions, which I think would be a good think. The last sentence really threw me for a loop. Are there going to be ghosts in your story? Are they going to guide her home? This sounds like it could be really cool and I am excited to read it when its all done!
Hi Katie! I really enjoyed reading your two stories, and I especially liked how different they were. I like the whole idea of Ship in a Bottle, and how this little boy can see tiny people moving in this pirate ship. I wish there was dialogue in this story, either between him and his parents, or maybe even him and the tiny pirates! I wanted to know more about the ship and felt like it ended too quickly. The second story about The Girl in the Backcountry is much darker than I imagined. I really liked how you set the scene and described this girl being prepared, because I was rooting for her the whole time. I’m just a little confused about this old man and how she knew he was a ghost and the ghost warning she heard. Your header images are really cool and so is the layout of your whole website. Good job!
I really like your creative story! It was fun to read “Ship in a Bottle” and I like the interesting plot in the story. It must have been a very anticipated experience for Billy to see the ocean since he grew up in the middle of the country like Oklahoma. I really like the very vivid and rich description of Billy’s fascinating founding in the story: “This bottle was fully intact and not even slightly cracked, which Billy found surprising considering how strong the waves looked as they pounded onto the sand. What surprised him the most was the contents of the bottle, inside was a fully assembled miniature pirate ship.” I could literally imagine the scene that Billy was amazed in my head. I really like the vivid description of the movements in the bottle and the fascinating things that Billy saw. I wonder why the things in the bottle could move and even come out and grow in size. The story also made me ponder how it would have been different if Billy decided to go on board with the pirates and sailed away from his vacation house. Thank you for an amazing story!
Hey Katie! I love the visuals and creativity you have in both of your stories so far, it's incredible how easily I can see the reactions of the two kids in their stories. I'm surprised the parents didn't believe the little boy about the ship growing and becoming as massive as it was, I feel like there would have been some kind of footprint left in the sand that would have tipped them off. How did the pirates and their ship become trapped in the bottle? Was it a wizard of some sort? With the girl becoming lost inside the forest, I loved the ambiguity with regards to the ending. What caused her GPS to become inoperable? Is the foliage too thick around her, or did the ghost destroy the GPS so that she would become trapped with him? I think the second one is a lot more interesting of a concept! Hopefully she can escape and find her way out!
Hi Katie, I would like to say First of all the stories that you wrote were very interesting. You payed attention to details in them and kept me reading until the end. On that note something you could add is maybe a description of the pirates in the first story. Just some details about their clothes and their physical stature when they are small. You could add more details as the ship grows such as barnacles on the bottom of it as it grows for you may not notice this detail when it is small. These details would just add length to the story. The story is still good without them. There is a sentence in the second to last paragraph that confuses me that you could look at. “the ship had reached its full size and was swept into the ocean big a particularly large wave.” Also one in the second story toward the end. “Based on the condition of the tent and they way his gear was thrown about” this on I know you meant to say the. All together your stories are great. Keep it up
Katie, oh my gosh I so love your Ship in the Bottle story!!! That is such a cool story that your mom told you about the jar you have yourself. And the way you applied it to the Mythology story was really cool! I've never read your original, so I really truly loved your version. I would love to hear the pirates tell the boy how they wound up in the bottle with their ship, but without that it makes it more mysterious so that's cool too. I also liked your Girl in the Backwoods story. It was very interesting. I love the thought of backpacking and survival trips. I wish you had given an ending to the story where we find out if the girl makes it out or not, but I guess it's just a cliffhanger ending. I also kind of wish the ghost played a bigger role in the story. These are just personal things though and the way you told the story was good, it's just a personal wish is all. Good job so far!
I really enjoyed reading your stories! I’ll start with Ship in a Bottle. I really like the way you give such descriptive details in the story. As Billy runs on the beach I can really picture exactly what is going on! This adds a lot to any story and it is important to have! I can feel the excitement that Billy feels throughout this story! I wonder what the story would be like if he was able to talk to the pirates. Billy would definitely ask how they got in there and where they are from. I think that this would be a nice addition to this story. It doesn’t have to be long, but some other kind of interaction would be cool. Is there a reason that Billy’s parents don’t believe him? It seems like a far fetched story that he told, but it’s true! The Girl in the Backcountry was also a really great story. It is a spooky story… I love it! It is really nice to see that your story book contains such a variety of stories. You’re doing great on the storybook and I can’t wait to read more!
Hey Katie! I just read The Girl in the Backcountry and I love how at each step of the girl's trip, I was eager to see if that was the moment that she would experience something unsettling on the trail. I love how you didn't just talk about what the girl encountered, but you always included how she responded to it by feeling confident in herself and her ability to make it through the hike even though she felt sketched out. I will have to say that I am little confused about the end of the story and you might have purposely left us without an explanation for why she found the man that she had passed before dead in that tent. It would be interesting to make her meeting the man seem like a creepier event. Maybe you could be descriptive of the way he looked or how he talked or you can say that the young girl didn't see him at first and she heard footsteps for a moment until she finally saw him to make it more suspenseful!
I think you did a great job retelling the story about the old man not wanting to die. I would maybe look at one or two spots grammatically though where you could make a really easy fix that'll help the text flow just a little bit better! For example, in the first paragraph: "He looked into myths about a holy grail, an elixir of life, and even medical research looking into ways to extend his lifespan yet he found nothing that was useful." I think either breaking the sentence in between the words "lifespan" and "yet" or adding a comma there will work really well with the sentence. I do love your vernacular though. Gothic is not usually a term writers use to describe areas in text. I loved that. Pursuing is also another word that generally writers use in terms of physical pursuit, rather than pursuit of a goal. I like that as well. Good story!
Hi Katie! Your storybook looks great so far! I really like the concept of your favorite stories, I think that's so fun! I really enjoyed the Ship in a Bottle story. I thought you added a lot of elements that made the imagery really stand out in this story. I think that you could even elevate the story more if you added some dialogue. Maybe when he shows his parents what he found you could include some there. I think that this would really portray the excitement that he is feeling and allow your audience to be excited with him. Overall, I think you're doing s great job so far!!
Hey Katie, great job on your portfolio so far! I really like the layout and formatting of your web page. The unifying banner image creates a nice flow while each image that starts a story does a nice job of setting the scene. I really liked your story “Last Man Standing.” I like the way that you expanded upon the basic fairy tale you started with. I particularly like your use of descriptive imagery throughout. I wonder what it might look like if you tried to tell this story from the man’s perspective. I like your attempt to focus on the terror of true loneliness and I think this might aide that effort. I also think your story could potentially use some expansion in your description of the wasteland he walks. I wonder if a description of how his normal day goes, accompanied by the idea that this repeats forever, might help intensify the loneliness the reader perceives. I agree with your thinking that this kind of fate sounds like a nightmare rather than a curse and I think you could deliver that message in a stronger way.
Hi Katie! I really liked getting to read all your stories! "Last Man Standing" immediately made me think of the song "The Man Who Lives Forever" by Lord Huron. If you ever want to add music to your page, this might be a good option to check out! The song is about a man who, as the title states, wants to live forever with his love; even though his motives are different from your character's, the song still sounds a lot like your story! I think it would be interesting to read more about what the man does while the world withers away and the adventures he has when he first is granted eternal life. Although I like that "The Man Who Did Not Wish to Die" has a happy ending, your ending is very impactful by showing the loneliness and pain the man experiences as everyone and everything vanishes from his life.
Hello Katie! I think the "Last Man Standing" was my favorite. You did a good job with the foreboding element in that story. I thought the imagery of earth being a barren wasteland was also very cool and it definitely highlighted my confusion about why anybody would want to physically live forever. I feel like the "Ship in a Bottle" could have been more exciting if Billy had more of an encounter with the pirates on board. As for "The Girl in the Back Country," I thought that was solid and suspenseful. Good job overall!
Hey Katie! I loved the theme that you used to gather your tales together. I wouldn't have thought to share tales from my own childhood or stories that I had ben told when I was young, and it was fun to be able to recognize aspects of your stories from the readings while also coming across details that were totally new. One thing I was unsure of as I was reading was how the stories were resolved. For many of them, the character is simply left after an event occurs. In the first, does the man continue to exist forever? Does he beg the "genie" to come back and kill him? In the second, does anything happen because Billy let them loose? Do they come looking for revenge? And in the third, what happened to the girl? Did she have any way of knowing the man was a ghost? Did she continue to wander forever? All three of the tales leave a bit of an eerie feeling at the end, and the lack of total resolution adds to that. You've done a good job of creating an ambience of unease, and your descriptions lend to that feeling. Overall, good work!
Hello Katie, I thought that your version of the original story “The Indian Who Wrestled with a Ghost” was such a good take on the story. I really like how you changed it into a girl that went backpack because it made it feel a lot more relatable and easy to follow. I thought the way that you wrote the story was really good. Your detail throughout the story really set the mood and gave it that spooky feeling you were going for. I did notice a few spelling errors like in the third sentence of the author’s note it says “but if they young man” and it should be “if the young man.” For your portfolio, I thought everything looks really great, all the pictures really go well with the stories and it is really organized. Overall I thought everything was absolutely great, keep up all the good work!
Hi, Katie! First off, I have to say that I love the design and layout of both your website and your blog! However, I would suggest putting a link to your comment wall on the home page of your website so that people do not have to go through your stories to find it. I definitely think that you have a very fun and unique writing style, and I think that the way you write your stories makes them a lot more interesting and fun to read. I did notice a few spelling and grammar errors here and there, but other than that, I think you are doing a great job so far! The pictures you choose seem to flow really well with your stories, and the titles you choose really have a way of pulling the reader in! Overall, I think you have done a wonderful job with your project so far and I look forward to reading more from you as this semester goes on!
Hey, The Psychic. I was the man who asked you to show me how to become an immortal a thousand years ago. Although you had told me the darkside of being immortal, things that i experienced in this thousand year were much more painful. I was regret. Back then, when I was still a normal person, I saw people struggle with sickness and death. I was afraid. Then I worried about life was too short to make everything the way i wanted. Thus I found for you. A thousand years had passed, I had to move a thousand times. I was being an eyewitness of my lovers, my relatives and people around me. It was so painful to see people passed away, but things were difficult since I was alone. I did make a lot of money during that period, but i couldn't use these money to buy back my wife, my daughters. Now i knew why those people didn't want to be immortal although it was not hard to do this. Being immortal was not a great thing to do, but to live a normal life in a meaningful way. Could I come back?
Hi Kaylee! I love the idea of Noah’s Ark but in a modern setting. I haven’t seen a story like this yet! I think the introduction does a good job of setting up the character of Dr. Noah. I could tell from the beginning that there would be some trouble between him and the other scientists. Good job foreshadowing! Disaster strikes was very intense at the end. I would hate to go through something like that. However, I would have liked to know more about the animals that were allowed in the bunker and how Dr. Noah gathered these animals if no one believed him about the meteors. Also, I wish we knew more of Dr. Noah’s emotions throughout the story. In Leaving the Bunker he is very stoic about the new state of the world, but surely seeing everything in ruin would have a deeper impact on him? I really enjoyed your storybook, and I hope the people are able to rebuild!
Hi Katie! First of all, I love your writing style. Typically, the big paragraphs in stories deters my interest, however you kept the story smooth and as little confusing as possible. The imagery in your "Ship in the Bottle" was wonderful, and gave the story a whole new element. There were a few small typos here and there that I am sure you can catch by reading the stories out loud. Overall you are doing a really good job at explaining the original story in the authors not to help give your twist on it more emphasis. Nice work!
Hey there Katie! I just got the chance to take a look at your project. I really loved how you kept your page simple, clean looking, and still very easy to navigate! I liked the images that you chose for each of the pages in your project because I feel like they weren't too much that they were distracting to the reader. Yet, they brought this sort of mellow, calming or serene feel to your page. In regards to your actual content, I really like your style of writing, as it has a very nice flow to it and is easy to follow. Since I am in the other class of Professor Gibbs', I was not as familiar with the stories, and yet I still feel like I was able to understand exactly what the meaning was overall behind the originals. Great job overall and I hope your semester went well!
Hi Katie! I really enjoyed reading your story "The Lost King's Treasure"! I thought you did a great job of keeping the original lesson about greed but making the story very much your own. I felt like there were several "twists" in your story; there were several times I thought I knew where the story was headed, but it took a different turn. I thought this kept your story very interesting and exciting to keep reading. At the end of the story, I was worried something would happen to the homeless man when the neighbor first approached him and again when he was pushed into the river, but was pleasantly surprised when he was able to escape and was helped by the old man. I noticed there is no picture for this story like with your other stories; I think adding one might help readers understand your visualization of the story!
Hi there Katie! I read your last story, The Girl in the Backcountry. I think you did a great job and definitely accomplished the feeling of unease you said you were going for in your authors note. The ending was very spooky and it makes me uncomfy not knowing if the girl made it out or not. I was kinda hoping this would turn into a story similar to Labyrinth, the David Bowie movie from the 1980s. I chuckled a bit at when her GPS died, but then my next thought was something along the lines of "kids these days..." so thanks for making me feel old just because I can read a paper map! Overall, your website looks great! Keeping the banner image the same across all four pages really helped make it one cohesive site. You did a great job with this project. Good luck on your finals!
I really enjoyed reading the stories in your portfolio. The Lost King's Treasure was an interesting adaptation to The Golden Squash. The fact that you did not use names, but instead just the description of each person in the story, was unique. I was surprised to see how well that worked. One thing that I noticed was that there were a couple of minor errors in the last paragraphs of the story. It looks like you may have changed it and there is either an extra word or it is missing a word. However, it does not take away from your wonderful story. Your second story was chilling! I cannot imagine being the Last Man Standing. I read the Japanese Fairy Tale that you based your story off of and I have to say that you captured it well, while also keeping the originality of your story. I appreciate that you explain that the man is immune to poisons, weapons, etc. That helps clarify how permanent his situation is, which is another thing that I really liked about your story. I thought that your idea to have the man actually live forever was a perfect ending. I was a little upset in the Japanese Fairy Tale when that guy was able to go back and live a happy and normal life. Although they both learned a lesson, your guy actually had to suffer the consequences. I really enjoyed your other stories as well, but thought it best not to make my comment any longer... :)
Hey Katie. I just read you portfolio and really enjoyed myself. The Lost King's Treasure was a nice story because it shows that you should never try to be greedy. The old man helped the man stuck in the river out of the kindness in his heart not because he thought he was going to get some reward for it. When he received the five gold coins it was basically showing that you get rewarded for doing good deeds. It was strange to me though that the man decided to only give his daughter two coins instead of three or even all of them. I guess if he had given all of them up then he would not have been able to take care of the homeless man that was almost killed all because of the neighbors greed. Also I really enjoyed the story Ship in a Bottle. I always use to think that those little ships in the bottle were more then they seemed when I was a kid and it was nice to see in your story it actually was more then just a play ship.
Hi Katie! I really enjoyed reading through your stories in your portfolio. I think that you have done a really good job at keeping your readers engaged in the stories you are telling. I like the way that your stories had a theme in all of them. The Lost King's Treasure had a really cool theme about greed that I think everyone can learn from. My favorite part about reading through your stories was reading about the ways that you adapted them from the original stories. Reading through your author's note and seeing the way your mind worked was really cool. As I typically hadn't read the stories you were deriving your new stories from, I thought it was cool how you took the old to make new.
Hey Katie! I really liked your idea behind having a creepy story based off of the supernatural tale we got to read. Reading your author's notes, I thought you'd add in more horror or ghostly presence other than just the repeated visual of the old man. I like that you gave build up for the main character, but maybe if you shorten that down you can add in more effect on what she's going through. You can tell that she wasn't prepared within a few lines, you gave a good amount of detail as to what we should know about her right off the bat c: I also felt that throughout I kept saying "no don't do that!" like I was watching a movie and telling the character to not go through the door. It was great! I think with a little tweaks and additions it would make for an even more chilling story c:
ReplyDeleteHi Katie! I thought that you did a great job on this story! I really enjoyed reading it from beginning to end. I loved how you started your story kind of ominous and really built it up all the way through until the end when she found the man again. When I finished reading the story, I wanted to know more. What was her next move? Did she ever get out of the forest and make it home? Was her fate similar to the old man's? You really left me wanting more. But who doesn’t love a good cliffhanger? Overall you did a great job on this story and I really enjoyed reading it!
ReplyDeleteHello Katie,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your suspenseful story. When I first began to start reading the story, it started out a little slow. However, by half way through the story picked up and I was able to see where you were going with the story. You did a great job at relating the story to the original one. I like the last line of the story too! I feel like that line put the stamp on the whole plot of the story. It brought me back to the beginning when the man warned her. I will say was not expecting the ending to be the end. I thought something really bad was going to happen to her but maybe the ghost saves her from it.
Hi Katie! Your story really left me asking questions, which I think would be a good think. The last sentence really threw me for a loop. Are there going to be ghosts in your story? Are they going to guide her home? This sounds like it could be really cool and I am excited to read it when its all done!
ReplyDeleteHi Katie! I really enjoyed reading your two stories, and I especially liked how different they were. I like the whole idea of Ship in a Bottle, and how this little boy can see tiny people moving in this pirate ship. I wish there was dialogue in this story, either between him and his parents, or maybe even him and the tiny pirates! I wanted to know more about the ship and felt like it ended too quickly. The second story about The Girl in the Backcountry is much darker than I imagined. I really liked how you set the scene and described this girl being prepared, because I was rooting for her the whole time. I’m just a little confused about this old man and how she knew he was a ghost and the ghost warning she heard. Your header images are really cool and so is the layout of your whole website. Good job!
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteHi Katie,
I really like your creative story! It was fun to read “Ship in a Bottle” and I like the interesting plot in the story. It must have been a very anticipated experience for Billy to see the ocean since he grew up in the middle of the country like Oklahoma. I really like the very vivid and rich description of Billy’s fascinating founding in the story: “This bottle was fully intact and not even slightly cracked, which Billy found surprising considering how strong the waves looked as they pounded onto the sand. What surprised him the most was the contents of the bottle, inside was a fully assembled miniature pirate ship.” I could literally imagine the scene that Billy was amazed in my head. I really like the vivid description of the movements in the bottle and the fascinating things that Billy saw. I wonder why the things in the bottle could move and even come out and grow in size. The story also made me ponder how it would have been different if Billy decided to go on board with the pirates and sailed away from his vacation house. Thank you for an amazing story!
Hey Katie! I love the visuals and creativity you have in both of your stories so far, it's incredible how easily I can see the reactions of the two kids in their stories. I'm surprised the parents didn't believe the little boy about the ship growing and becoming as massive as it was, I feel like there would have been some kind of footprint left in the sand that would have tipped them off. How did the pirates and their ship become trapped in the bottle? Was it a wizard of some sort? With the girl becoming lost inside the forest, I loved the ambiguity with regards to the ending. What caused her GPS to become inoperable? Is the foliage too thick around her, or did the ghost destroy the GPS so that she would become trapped with him? I think the second one is a lot more interesting of a concept! Hopefully she can escape and find her way out!
ReplyDeleteHi Katie,
ReplyDeleteI would like to say First of all the stories that you wrote were very interesting. You payed attention to details in them and kept me reading until the end. On that note something you could add is maybe a description of the pirates in the first story. Just some details about their clothes and their physical stature when they are small. You could add more details as the ship grows such as barnacles on the bottom of it as it grows for you may not notice this detail when it is small. These details would just add length to the story. The story is still good without them. There is a sentence in the second to last paragraph that confuses me that you could look at. “the ship had reached its full size and was swept into the ocean big a particularly large wave.” Also one in the second story toward the end. “Based on the condition of the tent and they way his gear was thrown about” this on I know you meant to say the. All together your stories are great. Keep it up
Katie, oh my gosh I so love your Ship in the Bottle story!!! That is such a cool story that your mom told you about the jar you have yourself. And the way you applied it to the Mythology story was really cool! I've never read your original, so I really truly loved your version. I would love to hear the pirates tell the boy how they wound up in the bottle with their ship, but without that it makes it more mysterious so that's cool too. I also liked your Girl in the Backwoods story. It was very interesting. I love the thought of backpacking and survival trips. I wish you had given an ending to the story where we find out if the girl makes it out or not, but I guess it's just a cliffhanger ending. I also kind of wish the ghost played a bigger role in the story. These are just personal things though and the way you told the story was good, it's just a personal wish is all. Good job so far!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your stories! I’ll start with Ship in a Bottle. I really like the way you give such descriptive details in the story. As Billy runs on the beach I can really picture exactly what is going on! This adds a lot to any story and it is important to have! I can feel the excitement that Billy feels throughout this story! I wonder what the story would be like if he was able to talk to the pirates. Billy would definitely ask how they got in there and where they are from. I think that this would be a nice addition to this story. It doesn’t have to be long, but some other kind of interaction would be cool. Is there a reason that Billy’s parents don’t believe him? It seems like a far fetched story that he told, but it’s true! The Girl in the Backcountry was also a really great story. It is a spooky story… I love it! It is really nice to see that your story book contains such a variety of stories. You’re doing great on the storybook and I can’t wait to read more!
ReplyDeleteHey Katie! I just read The Girl in the Backcountry and I love how at each step of the girl's trip, I was eager to see if that was the moment that she would experience something unsettling on the trail. I love how you didn't just talk about what the girl encountered, but you always included how she responded to it by feeling confident in herself and her ability to make it through the hike even though she felt sketched out. I will have to say that I am little confused about the end of the story and you might have purposely left us without an explanation for why she found the man that she had passed before dead in that tent. It would be interesting to make her meeting the man seem like a creepier event. Maybe you could be descriptive of the way he looked or how he talked or you can say that the young girl didn't see him at first and she heard footsteps for a moment until she finally saw him to make it more suspenseful!
ReplyDeleteHi Katie!
ReplyDeleteI think you did a great job retelling the story about the old man not wanting to die. I would maybe look at one or two spots grammatically though where you could make a really easy fix that'll help the text flow just a little bit better! For example, in the first paragraph: "He looked into myths about a holy grail, an elixir of life, and even medical research looking into ways to extend his lifespan yet he found nothing that was useful." I think either breaking the sentence in between the words "lifespan" and "yet" or adding a comma there will work really well with the sentence. I do love your vernacular though. Gothic is not usually a term writers use to describe areas in text. I loved that. Pursuing is also another word that generally writers use in terms of physical pursuit, rather than pursuit of a goal. I like that as well. Good story!
Hi Katie!
ReplyDeleteYour storybook looks great so far! I really like the concept of your favorite stories, I think that's so fun! I really enjoyed the Ship in a Bottle story. I thought you added a lot of elements that made the imagery really stand out in this story. I think that you could even elevate the story more if you added some dialogue. Maybe when he shows his parents what he found you could include some there. I think that this would really portray the excitement that he is feeling and allow your audience to be excited with him. Overall, I think you're doing s great job so far!!
Hey Katie, great job on your portfolio so far! I really like the layout and formatting of your web page. The unifying banner image creates a nice flow while each image that starts a story does a nice job of setting the scene. I really liked your story “Last Man Standing.” I like the way that you expanded upon the basic fairy tale you started with. I particularly like your use of descriptive imagery throughout. I wonder what it might look like if you tried to tell this story from the man’s perspective. I like your attempt to focus on the terror of true loneliness and I think this might aide that effort. I also think your story could potentially use some expansion in your description of the wasteland he walks. I wonder if a description of how his normal day goes, accompanied by the idea that this repeats forever, might help intensify the loneliness the reader perceives. I agree with your thinking that this kind of fate sounds like a nightmare rather than a curse and I think you could deliver that message in a stronger way.
ReplyDeleteHi Katie! I really liked getting to read all your stories! "Last Man Standing" immediately made me think of the song "The Man Who Lives Forever" by Lord Huron. If you ever want to add music to your page, this might be a good option to check out! The song is about a man who, as the title states, wants to live forever with his love; even though his motives are different from your character's, the song still sounds a lot like your story! I think it would be interesting to read more about what the man does while the world withers away and the adventures he has when he first is granted eternal life. Although I like that "The Man Who Did Not Wish to Die" has a happy ending, your ending is very impactful by showing the loneliness and pain the man experiences as everyone and everything vanishes from his life.
ReplyDeleteHello Katie! I think the "Last Man Standing" was my favorite. You did a good job with the foreboding element in that story. I thought the imagery of earth being a barren wasteland was also very cool and it definitely highlighted my confusion about why anybody would want to physically live forever. I feel like the "Ship in a Bottle" could have been more exciting if Billy had more of an encounter with the pirates on board. As for "The Girl in the Back Country," I thought that was solid and suspenseful. Good job overall!
ReplyDeleteHey Katie! I loved the theme that you used to gather your tales together. I wouldn't have thought to share tales from my own childhood or stories that I had ben told when I was young, and it was fun to be able to recognize aspects of your stories from the readings while also coming across details that were totally new. One thing I was unsure of as I was reading was how the stories were resolved. For many of them, the character is simply left after an event occurs. In the first, does the man continue to exist forever? Does he beg the "genie" to come back and kill him? In the second, does anything happen because Billy let them loose? Do they come looking for revenge? And in the third, what happened to the girl? Did she have any way of knowing the man was a ghost? Did she continue to wander forever? All three of the tales leave a bit of an eerie feeling at the end, and the lack of total resolution adds to that. You've done a good job of creating an ambience of unease, and your descriptions lend to that feeling. Overall, good work!
ReplyDeleteHello Katie, I thought that your version of the original story “The Indian Who Wrestled with a Ghost” was such a good take on the story. I really like how you changed it into a girl that went backpack because it made it feel a lot more relatable and easy to follow. I thought the way that you wrote the story was really good. Your detail throughout the story really set the mood and gave it that spooky feeling you were going for. I did notice a few spelling errors like in the third sentence of the author’s note it says “but if they young man” and it should be “if the young man.” For your portfolio, I thought everything looks really great, all the pictures really go well with the stories and it is really organized. Overall I thought everything was absolutely great, keep up all the good work!
ReplyDeleteHi, Katie! First off, I have to say that I love the design and layout of both your website and your blog! However, I would suggest putting a link to your comment wall on the home page of your website so that people do not have to go through your stories to find it. I definitely think that you have a very fun and unique writing style, and I think that the way you write your stories makes them a lot more interesting and fun to read. I did notice a few spelling and grammar errors here and there, but other than that, I think you are doing a great job so far! The pictures you choose seem to flow really well with your stories, and the titles you choose really have a way of pulling the reader in! Overall, I think you have done a wonderful job with your project so far and I look forward to reading more from you as this semester goes on!
ReplyDeleteHey, The Psychic. I was the man who asked you to show me how to become an immortal a thousand years ago. Although you had told me the darkside of being immortal, things that i experienced in this thousand year were much more painful. I was regret.
ReplyDeleteBack then, when I was still a normal person, I saw people struggle with sickness and death. I was afraid. Then I worried about life was too short to make everything the way i wanted. Thus I found for you.
A thousand years had passed, I had to move a thousand times. I was being an eyewitness of my lovers, my relatives and people around me. It was so painful to see people passed away, but things were difficult since I was alone. I did make a lot of money during that period, but i couldn't use these money to buy back my wife, my daughters.
Now i knew why those people didn't want to be immortal although it was not hard to do this. Being immortal was not a great thing to do, but to live a normal life in a meaningful way.
Could I come back?
Hi Kaylee!
ReplyDeleteI love the idea of Noah’s Ark but in a modern setting. I haven’t seen a story like this yet! I think the introduction does a good job of setting up the character of Dr. Noah. I could tell from the beginning that there would be some trouble between him and the other scientists. Good job foreshadowing! Disaster strikes was very intense at the end. I would hate to go through something like that. However, I would have liked to know more about the animals that were allowed in the bunker and how Dr. Noah gathered these animals if no one believed him about the meteors. Also, I wish we knew more of Dr. Noah’s emotions throughout the story. In Leaving the Bunker he is very stoic about the new state of the world, but surely seeing everything in ruin would have a deeper impact on him? I really enjoyed your storybook, and I hope the people are able to rebuild!
Hi Katie! First of all, I love your writing style. Typically, the big paragraphs in stories deters my interest, however you kept the story smooth and as little confusing as possible. The imagery in your "Ship in the Bottle" was wonderful, and gave the story a whole new element. There were a few small typos here and there that I am sure you can catch by reading the stories out loud. Overall you are doing a really good job at explaining the original story in the authors not to help give your twist on it more emphasis. Nice work!
ReplyDeleteHey there Katie! I just got the chance to take a look at your project. I really loved how you kept your page simple, clean looking, and still very easy to navigate! I liked the images that you chose for each of the pages in your project because I feel like they weren't too much that they were distracting to the reader. Yet, they brought this sort of mellow, calming or serene feel to your page. In regards to your actual content, I really like your style of writing, as it has a very nice flow to it and is easy to follow. Since I am in the other class of Professor Gibbs', I was not as familiar with the stories, and yet I still feel like I was able to understand exactly what the meaning was overall behind the originals. Great job overall and I hope your semester went well!
ReplyDeleteHi Katie! I really enjoyed reading your story "The Lost King's Treasure"! I thought you did a great job of keeping the original lesson about greed but making the story very much your own. I felt like there were several "twists" in your story; there were several times I thought I knew where the story was headed, but it took a different turn. I thought this kept your story very interesting and exciting to keep reading. At the end of the story, I was worried something would happen to the homeless man when the neighbor first approached him and again when he was pushed into the river, but was pleasantly surprised when he was able to escape and was helped by the old man. I noticed there is no picture for this story like with your other stories; I think adding one might help readers understand your visualization of the story!
ReplyDeleteHi there Katie! I read your last story, The Girl in the Backcountry. I think you did a great job and definitely accomplished the feeling of unease you said you were going for in your authors note. The ending was very spooky and it makes me uncomfy not knowing if the girl made it out or not. I was kinda hoping this would turn into a story similar to Labyrinth, the David Bowie movie from the 1980s. I chuckled a bit at when her GPS died, but then my next thought was something along the lines of "kids these days..." so thanks for making me feel old just because I can read a paper map! Overall, your website looks great! Keeping the banner image the same across all four pages really helped make it one cohesive site. You did a great job with this project. Good luck on your finals!
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ReplyDeleteHi Katie,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading the stories in your portfolio. The Lost King's Treasure was an interesting adaptation to The Golden Squash. The fact that you did not use names, but instead just the description of each person in the story, was unique. I was surprised to see how well that worked. One thing that I noticed was that there were a couple of minor errors in the last paragraphs of the story. It looks like you may have changed it and there is either an extra word or it is missing a word. However, it does not take away from your wonderful story. Your second story was chilling! I cannot imagine being the Last Man Standing. I read the Japanese Fairy Tale that you based your story off of and I have to say that you captured it well, while also keeping the originality of your story. I appreciate that you explain that the man is immune to poisons, weapons, etc. That helps clarify how permanent his situation is, which is another thing that I really liked about your story. I thought that your idea to have the man actually live forever was a perfect ending. I was a little upset in the Japanese Fairy Tale when that guy was able to go back and live a happy and normal life. Although they both learned a lesson, your guy actually had to suffer the consequences. I really enjoyed your other stories as well, but thought it best not to make my comment any longer... :)
Hey Katie. I just read you portfolio and really enjoyed myself. The Lost King's Treasure was a nice story because it shows that you should never try to be greedy. The old man helped the man stuck in the river out of the kindness in his heart not because he thought he was going to get some reward for it. When he received the five gold coins it was basically showing that you get rewarded for doing good deeds. It was strange to me though that the man decided to only give his daughter two coins instead of three or even all of them. I guess if he had given all of them up then he would not have been able to take care of the homeless man that was almost killed all because of the neighbors greed. Also I really enjoyed the story Ship in a Bottle. I always use to think that those little ships in the bottle were more then they seemed when I was a kid and it was nice to see in your story it actually was more then just a play ship.
ReplyDeleteHi Katie! I really enjoyed reading through your stories in your portfolio. I think that you have done a really good job at keeping your readers engaged in the stories you are telling. I like the way that your stories had a theme in all of them. The Lost King's Treasure had a really cool theme about greed that I think everyone can learn from. My favorite part about reading through your stories was reading about the ways that you adapted them from the original stories. Reading through your author's note and seeing the way your mind worked was really cool. As I typically hadn't read the stories you were deriving your new stories from, I thought it was cool how you took the old to make new.
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