Study on Christianity
Printed From: Tippmann Paintball
Category: News And Views
Forum Name: Thoughts and Opinions
Forum Description: Got something you need to say?
URL: http://www.tippmannsports.com/forum/wwf77a/forum_posts.asp?TID=164953
Printed Date: 01 January 2026 at 9:41am
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Topic: Study on Christianity
Posted By: White o Light
Subject: Study on Christianity
Date Posted: 05 March 2007 at 9:58pm
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There is a program in my state called Governor's School For The Arts. It has programs for Music, Drama, Visual Art, and Creative Writing. Getting accepted to this program pretty much ensures a full ride to most in-state schools. I applied for the creative writing program, and got past the first cuts with a collection of 7 poems. The next stage is a group interview, these are the final cuts. This is the piece I chose to bring, the maximum allowed is one page double spaced. Here it is, enjoy. "Do things
ever just drive you mad?" Cale asked as he decided the last bites of his
bagel would be better left to the garbage pail than his stomach. ------------- 
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Replies:
Posted By: Tolgak
Date Posted: 05 March 2007 at 10:03pm
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¿que?
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Posted By: evillepaintball
Date Posted: 05 March 2007 at 10:10pm
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Tolgak wrote:Posted By: White o Light
Date Posted: 05 March 2007 at 10:19pm
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It is a reflection on my feelings on the religion, and my personal struggle with it etc. Cale could represent Man and Melinda could represent Jesus on a symbolic level. On the literal level I see them as being romantically involved. I'm going to have to explain all of it at the interview I'm sure.
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Posted By: Boss_DJ
Date Posted: 05 March 2007 at 10:21pm
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you spelled pail wrong
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Posted By: White o Light
Date Posted: 05 March 2007 at 10:22pm
thanks -------------
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Posted By: FROG MAN
Date Posted: 05 March 2007 at 10:24pm
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you hate christanity because theres a small thought in the back of your mind that it could be true, and it drives you nuts, you want it to be wrong, it has to be wrong, but what if, it drives you nuts and you wish it didnt exsist so didnt have to think about it. oh ya, its a paintball forum with 10 year olds, ------------- <1 meg sig = bad> |
Posted By: White o Light
Date Posted: 05 March 2007 at 10:27pm
I more see it as I want to be able to love Christianity, and it is explained as I would see it ideally. Yeah, I am expecting some helpful feedback though, I already got a spelling error. -------------
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Posted By: Hysteria
Date Posted: 05 March 2007 at 10:40pm
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"Well what do you mean by that?" Melinda asked. It annoys me to no end when I see it that in a book. I also think you should have something in there relating it to Christianity. One should not have to listen to your explanation just to link the title to the story. Other than those two things, it was good. |
Posted By: White o Light
Date Posted: 05 March 2007 at 10:48pm
Would "Melinda said" sound better? -------------
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Posted By: Pariel
Date Posted: 05 March 2007 at 10:52pm
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Too complicated. I'm ready for my nappy, I may actually read this in the morning.
That said, I'm not a big fan of metaphors, symbolism, or poetry. Your writing appears to be somewhere in there. I trust people who talk straight--there's really no reason to stuff Jesus (or anyone else) into someone else's story (plus, he's already go this own). *EDIT* Also, that's a ridiculously short passage to make a point out of. Personally, I think that pretty much everyone should be taught that unless you write a page, you shouldn't write the story at all. *EDIT #2* And that page better be single spaced. |
Posted By: jerseypaint
Date Posted: 05 March 2007 at 11:02pm
| I don't know why but it annoys me that they are both finishing what they were consuming in two consecutive sentences. Its like you wanted to start with alot of imagery, but it feels like you made Melinda finishing her tea so you could add more description to the sentence. I don't know, I'm not a very good critical reader, it just kind of hit me funny. |
Posted By: Hysteria
Date Posted: 05 March 2007 at 11:16pm
You have "Melinda said" and I changed it to asked in my post. |
Posted By: White o Light
Date Posted: 05 March 2007 at 11:49pm
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revised "Do things ever just drive you mad?" Cale asked as he decided the last bites of his apple would be better left to the garbage pail than his stomach. "Well what do you mean by that?" Melinda said, finishing up the last tastes of her tea. "I mean... here's an example.” Cale said as he sat up straight as if he was about to say something very important. “Like, the other day I see this guy in some real strange get up. I can't even describe it but the way he was wearing his clothes just really worked me up; worked me up real bad, I mean I could have hit the guy. I've never met him, spoken to him, nothin'. But at that point I could have just smacked him." He steamed, “I dunno, it’s just lately... the tiniest things will really kill me. Do you get that at all?" "I think I
know what you are talking about," Melinda said in a calm tone- Melinda was
always calm. Her attention had been taken away from the remains of tea leaves
in her cup to Cale's eyes. Melinda continued, "But it’s times I imagine a
deer drinking from a creek or the thin layer of ice that forms over rushing
water in deep winter that make me feel like it’s okay and I'm not out of place.
There are some beauties that can't be described through art or anything else
that trivial. Its times like those I'm pretty sure I'll never die." -------------
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Posted By: carl_the_sniper
Date Posted: 06 March 2007 at 12:23am
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hey that's not a poem.... it doesn't even rhyme
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Posted By: Darur
Date Posted: 06 March 2007 at 12:28am
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I tend to agree with most of the comments about the length and depth of the passage. There are no references, ties, connections or anything we can relate to Christianity save for the title. Were I to respond to the piece without any of your explanations, I might consider your meaning as a possible interpretation, but I could probably justify a dozen other interpretations. Build on your long form and consider allusions. You could take the syntax from a fitting biblical passage and mimic it, or some such small allusion. A piece should speak for itself, never ever write something which you have to explain. Finally, work on your diction and syntax. You repeat a number of words, that gets very irritating (examples: Bus, last, Melinda, etc.). Vary how you set-up the sentences. Your diction and syntax are very vanilla, they aren't intriguing and have no connection to what your talking about. Involve the reader, your story reads like an essay question right now. A decent start, but theres a ways you can go. Good luck! ------------- Real Men play Tuba [IMG]http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/1859/newsmall6xz.jpg"> PH33R TEH 1337 Dwarf! http://www.tippmann.com/forum/wwf77a/log_off_user.asp" rel="nofollow - DONT CLICK ME!!1 |
Posted By: evillepaintball
Date Posted: 06 March 2007 at 12:32am
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my english teacher deducted points on a free form poem i had to write (with given criteria - literary devices and such) because it "wasn't in poem format" |
Posted By: carl_the_sniper
Date Posted: 06 March 2007 at 12:36am
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i hate english teachers in all my experience... english teachers are the most closed-minded of all teachers. ------------- <just say no to unnecessarily sexualized sigs> |
Posted By: Darur
Date Posted: 06 March 2007 at 12:52am
Some are good, some are bad. My last two were two of my best teachers ever. My honors teacher last year taught me more about reading in depth then any other teacher. She gave us all a good grounding in annotation which has saved my life this year. My AP Comp teacher this year is also excellent. She wants creativity. We can write essays in any style about anything basically, so long as they work. Students who write excellent essays which follow strictly the 5 paragraph format get lower grades then the essays myself and my friends write which take things from a totally different angle. ------------- Real Men play Tuba [IMG]http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/1859/newsmall6xz.jpg"> PH33R TEH 1337 Dwarf! http://www.tippmann.com/forum/wwf77a/log_off_user.asp" rel="nofollow - DONT CLICK ME!!1 |
Posted By: MT. Vigilante
Date Posted: 06 March 2007 at 11:47am
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Well Melinda seems to detatched from humanity to represent Jesus, remember he was a man, (as in a human). So he felt the same pain, the same temptations, the same struggles as we do, he did this so he could relate to us. The differance between us and him though, is that he never gave in to his temptations, thus proving he is stronger than us, and perfect. Other than that, I thought it was pretty good, a little short, but good. Thats, my two cents. -------------  Join the XP Re-Revolution!
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Posted By: Kayback
Date Posted: 06 March 2007 at 12:11pm
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Maybe I'm blond, but I also don't see any connection between Christians and the people in that story.
I'd be more inclined to think Melinda is simply a tree hugging hippy, who probably practices Wicca and Cale is simply an asshole. And I don't think you really need the "Melinda continued in the part that reads "Melinda continued, "But it’s ". It's not like anyone else is talking. And if she has this deep conviction that keeps her calm all the time she also probably wouldn't say "I'm pretty sure I'll never die". You should ptobably throw some words like "know", which show how sure of this she actually is. But I'm not a very good critic either, so feel free to ignore me. KBK |
Posted By: White o Light
Date Posted: 06 March 2007 at 5:19pm
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I think I'm going to change the tea to wine, to add another allusion to christ.
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Posted By: jerseypaint
Date Posted: 06 March 2007 at 6:54pm
I thought the setting was in the morning, implied by the bagel, tea, and bus stop (morning commute)? |
Posted By: MT. Vigilante
Date Posted: 06 March 2007 at 9:42pm
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There was one more thing i did not understand; how does imagining pleasant immagry make one believe they are going to live forever? I do like how you made the character representing humanity become angry by stupid little pointless things, and be angry at themself afterwards because of it. That is how we all are. One last thing, the relationship between the Jesus character and the humanity character needs to be worked on. Right now Jesus sounds more like just a mentor and a friend, which he is infact, but you need to also represent the savior aspect of the relationship in order to give a more acurate representation of christianity. ------------- Join the XP Re-Revolution!
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Posted By: Dye Playa
Date Posted: 06 March 2007 at 10:10pm
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not enough allusions to christianity, as stated before. without your explanation, i had no clue what you were talking about. the wine thing would kind of ruin the entire reality of the story, unless you re-did the entire thing, starting from scratch with a new setting. one route you may want to go is have the angry kid get pissed, have melinda tell him to calm down give advice or whatever, and then have melinda get on the bus (symbolicly dying), have the angry kid punch someone in the face, and have melinda come back (symbolicly reborn) and still support angry kid, forgive him, and what not. ------------- 
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Posted By: TippmannBro
Date Posted: 06 March 2007 at 11:40pm
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I suck at in depth reading, but I could see how you might be able to pull this off, given the appropriate number of references to Jesus in the story. The wine idea is pretty good. Also, I think the first sentence about Cale and his bagel is way too long. Maybe I'm just too dumb to read long sentences, but I think it would sound better to split it into two sentences, the first with the statement and the second about his dislike of the bagel. ------------- WAR EAGLE!!! |