Unit 1 Reflection: Skills to Pay the Bills

            Truth be told, I actually came into this class not expecting much simply because I've already taken four or five writing classes and written tons of papers and stories throughout the last five years of college. I was surprised when I found out that there were some key elements to good writing that I didn't have. We've talked about what a narrative is and how to tell a story through your writing, building tension, and exploding the moment in the class so far and each of those elements has been extremely thought provoking and beneficial. Building tension was probably one of the most important topics we discussed because I've never really been able to do it in my writing. For that reason, Its one of the areas in my writing that I want to work on the most, and this class has given me ample opportunity to do that. Exploding the moment was another really interesting exercise and one that I know I'll use often simply because really detailing a story in a non-wordy way its critical to having an impact on your audience. I also think the explanation of rhetorical was helpful in situating my mind's eye before I start a new piece. Having a direction is definitely helpful in creating a narrative. The other area that could be important although I've never really valued it very highly is to comment as a reader. I personally have always wanted people to be completely honest about my writing even if that means saying that it sucks. Obviously it's important to be nice about giving feedback to colleagues but I think sometimes more critical observations can be helpful. Then again I understand the need for the writer him/herself to learn to identify and fix their errors.