Fairytale Fiction “The Red Path” by Lauren Matthews

Lauren’s presentation was about a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood that she is working on turning into a novella. She talked a lot about the historical and symbolic meaning behind the story. She talking about the link the story had to powerful woman and womanhood. She mentioned one retelling where Little Red was saved by a group of woman who helped her to escape the wolf by laying a path for her across a river that the wolf could not cross. Little Reds safety came by women's influence, and the story tells us how powerful that can be.

She also told us that in some of the stories, Red had to choose between a path of pins or a path of needles to make it to her destination. In some stories, she chose neither, but the choice did not seem to make a difference. The paths were a metaphor for the girls growing up and experiencing maturation. The red hood is also seen as a metaphor for this, as well as the girl going through the wolf, and back out again. It was interesting to think of the story in this way, and relate a deeper meaning to all the events beyond the normal “curiosity killed the cat” message, or something like that.

Lauren also focused a lot on the relationship between the girl and the wolf within her story. Just as the girl had to go through the wolf to reach a new understanding, the girl could not take her place in the world without her connection and struggle with the wolf. In Lauren’s tale itself, the initial encounter between the girl, Lilla, and the wolf was more of a prologue into the rest of the story. After the wolf kills her grandmother, and supposedly kills her, he lives for many years killing and stealing the skins of the people he encounters. Until one day, when he is disguised as a man, he crosses paths with the king and his queen - Lilla. The story then unfolds about the struggle between Lilla and wolf both being the last of their kind (him having killed her family, and her having all the wolves killed after that) but still being unable to kill each other, until one day they are both being hunted and must ban together to survive. It was a reeeeally interesting retelling, and I hope that one day I will be able to read the whole story.

Style Academy #4 - Participles

Exercise #1- Identify the Participles

I fell ten feet to the ground, landing on my back.
I fell ten feet to the ground, and I landed on my back.
When I fell town feet to the ground, I landed on my back.

The first way the sentence it written, it definitely gives it a sense of motion, sort of like you are reading it in the moment it it happening. The second why makes it feel like one cause and effect action, but nothing more than that. And the last way, adding "when" gives sort of a disconnect to the audience, like it happened at some point, but it does not matter because it did not happen now.

Shifting the weight of the line to his left shoulder
(kneeling carefully)
(submerged)
watching the blood trial away and the steady movement of the water . . 

Again, they make the sentence more concise an floating. Changing the phasing from a participial to another tense makes the sentence more interesting and more connected.

Long credited with changing the way Y.A. fiction is written
Empowering a generation to demand stories that reelected their realities

Exercise #2 - Creating Participles 

The girls stood in the road by the side of the car.
Growing more tired by the minute, the girls stood in the road by the side of the car, wishing the engine would start working soon.

Review
I have never really consciously thought about adding participles into my writing, but after watching this video, I realize how often they do pop up while I write. They are definitely a tool I have used before without even knowing it, but now I do know how to recognize participles, and I will be able to use them more to my advantage in the future.

I really like the use of participles because of how they make sentences flow better. Repeating the same kinds of phasing while writing can make your paper sound choppy and jarring. But switching it up with different sentence structure and participles will make all of it seem more interesting, and probably smoother to read.

Issues Paper - Getting my Feet Wet

Topic #1
SEARCH: church attendance young adults
-"Religion Among the Millennials
http://www.pewforum.org/2010/02/17/religion-among-the-millennials/
      -Although the "Millennial's" show less infester in church attendance and affiliation with any one faith, the religious ideas they have still closely resemble traditional beliefs. 

-"Survey: Reasons Why Young Adults Quit Church"
http://www.christianpost.com/news/survey-reasons-why-young-adults-quit-church-28813/
     -The teen years are seen as a time to test religion, but as life changes - college, jobs, more responsibility - young adults stop going for simply the reason of inconvenience 

-"The Real Reasons Young Adults Drop Out of Church"
http://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2014/december/real-reasons-young-adults-drop-out-of-church.html?paging=off
   -In addition to life changes and/or just wanting a break, other reasons youth drop our of church come from disconnect with members, or members being judgmental, hypocritical, unfriendly and unwelcoming.


Topic #2
SEACH: why read the king james bible

-"King James Version - King James Bible Online"
http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/King-James-Version/
      -It is simply the most popular. It is the original, and that hold value. It has a very poetic word choice.

-"Why I Read the Authorized King James Version of the Bible"
http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/kjvdefns.htm
     -God is unchanging, therefore, we should not try to change his word.

-"Why Do We Support only The King James Bible For the English people?"
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Bible/kjb_only.htm
       -Much all the other article from this website, other versions do not hold enough value.



I have chosen the first topic, because it seems to offer a wider verity of  opinions and reasonings, so it will be easier for me to create my own specific approach based about the evidence I find.