Eight Plot/Character Devices I'm A Sucker For.

1. Time Travel: As contrived and cliched as it's come to be these days, I can never get enough of time travel. Not in the most classical "let's go back to ancient Egypt and learn how they lived!" sense but in dealing with things like the butterfly effect. I'm intrigued by the idea making small changes and creating large ramifications in the future. Good stuff.

2. Flashbacks: I loooove flashbacks. Learning about someone's past and why they're the way they are today is fascinating to me. It's a cool way to introduce psychology to writing, as well as creating climactic reveals and plot twists.

3. Bad Guy Turns Good: Yeah, this one is pretty awful originality-wise, but I still love it for some reason. Getting to see an "evil" character from a new perspective creates a fresh feel to a narrative. Seeing how they develope under new circumstances creates cool situations

4. Good Guy Turns Bad: I almost like this one even more. Seeing a character kicked around so much that they turn immoral actions is very entertaining to me. Another psychological aspect of writing that's intriguing.

5. Snowball Effect: I really like when a narrative begins in a very simple setting, with a simple character in simple circumstances; however, one particular event changes all of this and creates a story of epic porportions. Small scale instantly ramps up to large scale with little oppurtunity to look back.

6: Puppet Master: Even though I always see this one coming, it almost always satisfies me as well. Finding out the coniving master mind that's been pestering the protaganist for some time is only a tool for a much more powerful entity is really cool. Turning what was once an unstoppable villain into an insubstantial rag doll can be a really cool twist, when used correctly. However, this is an awful idea when thrown into at the end just to extend a plot line. If it all makes sense in retrospect, it can work great.

7. Substantial Time-Lapse: Having a substantial time lapse part way through a story is very refreshing to me. This device is actually pretty rare compared to the previous ones. Having a good chunk of a story involve the childhood events of a character, then the entire second half involving it's adulthood can create some really cool progression that would otherwise be lost in a plot that progresses on a day to day basis.

8. Multiple Perspectives/Crossover: Seeing events from multiple prespectives always excites me. It really helps get a full view of what happend. Even little nods here and there to other things that were going on at the same time as a particular event really flesches out a story.

"Times have changed for student protesters"

My theory as to why students are more apathetic towards political causes these days is that it's the current nature of our country. I feel the goverment and (some) media alike have kind of chipped away at our spirit, and have replaced this spirit with a false sense of security in our governments actions. Though usually not completely frowned upon, political protests aren't exactly portrayed in the most positive light by our media and education. Seldom were we ever encouraged growing up to stand up to the government when what you see is wrong. Not to mention the fact that these important events are usually glossed over by the government. You need to be in a progressive and intelligent educational system to get a good idea of what went on during a particular protest.

Now the majority of us don't feel we can make a difference, we feel the government is an unstoppable juggernaut that won't give pause to our actions, great or small. Can I blame us? In recent history large movements such as gay rights and the legalization of marijauna have show little avail on a national scale, so maybe the government is impenetrable these days. Now I'm pissed off and depressed. Bah.

My New Addiction

Recently I've been spending most my freetime on a little website called tvtropes.org. As a pop-culture enthusiast and a writer; I find reading about the literary techniques I've been exposed to as long as I've been able to expose media extremely interesting. The pages are written with readability in mind, and often have a sense of humor to their tone. My favorite part is that you can search up a peice of fiction and it'll list off all of the tropes it exhibits, even hyperlinking to definitions pages if you don't understand what a Thanatos Gambit is. I suggest you check it out if you're a fan of plot techniques and pop-culture.

I'm Scared of Distorted Noises

That's right, you read correctly. Not much truly upsets; I leave bugs be, clowns are alright, and the dark is actually pretty rad. However, for reasons not entirely identifiable by me, I'm scared of noises that just don't sound right. They send chills down my spine.

My earliest memory of this fear effecting me is from when I was about six. A few Christmases earlier I had received one of those large picture books with buttons on the side. The buttons played noises when pressed to supplement the picture book. I believe the book was about Sonic the Hedgehog. Anyway, after years of use, the battery powering the speaker in this book began to die. In my experience, a very low power battery in certain electronics can start to create undesired events. For example, when the battery on my surround sound remote in my basement starts to die, the remote will randomly decide to send signals to the receiver; consequently it sometimes turns on full blast IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. Well, this is what the picture books speaker decided to start doing while I tried to sleep many nights.

Now, this wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for the fact that the sounds it played were entirely distorted, and unidentifiable. These demonic sounds coming from my closet haunted me for life. To this day, I have trouble listening to distorted sounds. Most recently I've lost sleep because I heard a lot of speech played in reverse on the television earlier. For whatever reason, this scares the hell out of me.

Death of a Fish

When I was his age, I faced a similar debacle to Gopniks son. In fact, it still kind of bothers me to this day. I'm talking about the concept of consciousness, and how it creates our identity. This idea began to bother me when I was about ten, and I made a comment about blue being our dogs favorite color. My dad laughed and quickly began to explain to me that animals such as dogs don't take into consideration things like that. It may seem trivial to you, but I feel after learning that fact I began to pity animals; the concept of having no sense of artisticness or imagination was/is a frightening thing to me. People often make off handed comments saying that they wish they were such and such animal, but in reality that would be an extremely stagnant lifestyle when compared to a human's.

I'm also bothered by the fact that our memories are what help us retain our personal consciousness. If you think about it, if you forget this particular moment reading this blog five years from now, you are no longer the same person. If you don't recall this particular state of mind, you're in a completely different place. Scary huh? Animals only remember very important things, like specific people and what tastes good, but they don't have complex memories like we do. Consequently, animals have a very shallow identity. Your brain just exploded.

How I Write

Much like the way I function in everyday life, I write with very little preperation and in long but sporadic bursts. The latter idiosyncrasy isn't really a problem but I really need to work on the planning stage of my writing. As far as my writing enviroment, I'm not too picky; however, it's a much slower process if I'm doing it with others (I like to joke around alot).

Since my writing is fairly stream of consciousness in its early stages I get alot out of revision. I often find sentences that are sophisticated in nature but constructed like a first grader, and it's fun to refine them.

BUT, the underlying problem in my writing habits is my stubborn and picky attitude in the pre-writing process. I'll gather my ideas for a week, be extremely excited to begin writing a story, but within a single night I can decide that the idea is stupid and scrap the entire thing. This can happen several times in a single month. It's bad practice, I know, but I embrace it somewhat as it ensures I'm happy with what I write.

THE END.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

My answer to this rather controversial question is, no. As was thoroughly pointed out by Carr in the essay, the internet, like many technological breakthroughs before it, is triggering a brain evolution. Since our brains are so "malleable", as he described it, they are extremely susceptible to drastic changes in function. Since our brains are now conforming to a very streamlined source of information, our attention spans are indeed depleting. Not only that, but our patience when it comes to receiving information.

However I believe Carr may have overlooked something when describing our new habits. That being computer screens. You may have noticed how straining it is reading a lengthy Wikipedia article on a glowing box. Our eyes aren't meant to decipher small complicated symbols such as letters on a glowing screen, so we often skim. I don't know the science as to why, but it's much less comfortable for our eyes to read from a digital monitor. I think that is a big reason why texts on the internet are often hard to finish. Of course, brain evolution also being a major point.

I think Carr's fear of us turning into mindless drones can be put to rest though. The human brain, though very prone to change, will always have its creativity component. As long as that's there, we have nothing to worry about. Yes, our thought process is changing, but the essay itself pointed to times this has happened before. There's really no need to cling to the old world, as new generations simply aren't going to care. That's just the way it is.

Skunk Dreams

I have to say, reading this essay re-sparked my obsession with dreams, their meaning, and how they effect our conscious lives. The essay is a strange fusion between a romanticized recollection of the authors teenage transitional phase, and vividly transcribed dream sequences. Because of this innovative format, it is difficult form me to do an analysis of the essay as a whole. Instead I will share a couple of the passages I found particularly interesting and give you my thoughts on them.

"After a few years of living in the country, the impulse to simply get outside hit me, strengthened, and became again a habit of thought, a reason for storytelling, an uneasy impatience with walls and roads. "

Recently in my life I've felt a similar melodramatic lust for adventure; coincidentally, as a result of dreams. Dreams vivid in nature have always effected me more deeply then they probably should, so when I have a dream filled with adventure and fulfillment, I awake wishing to attain that structure in my conscious life. It always seems out of reach, however.

"The obstacles we overcome define us. We are composed of hurdles we set up to pace our headlong needs, to control our desires, or against which to measure our growth. 'Without obstacles,' Phillips writes, 'the notion of development is inconceivable. There would be nothing to master.'"

I like this passage because it's a great wording of my (common) philosophical view that we are mostly shaped by the events in our life. The passage only strengthens this view, explaining that without developing in order to overcome events (obstacles), we are but nothing.

Overall I liked what the author had to say, though I wasn't really feeling the skunk metaphor. I can't like everything I suppose though.

Talk of The Town

First off, I would like to applaud Adam Gopnik for a superbly written essay. Not only because I agree with what he had to say, but because from top to bottom I found the essay perfectly constructed. It wasn't at all a chore to read, it had smooth progression and a knack for for hitting all of his key points home at just the right time. I have to get out of the way just how impressed I was with his writing.

The opening of Gopnik's portion really grabbed me. The concept of a newly deceased person's cell phone ringing is a really abstract and disturbing thought. I feel in writing it's important to highlight strange phenomena such as this, rather than explaining what people already feel. Quickly, but without feeling rushed, the essay delved into the reasoning behind America's murder problem. He first pushed culturally driven problems off of the table by explaining how maniacs are profiled all over the world. This allowed him to tackle the real issue here, which is gun restrictions.

I was immediatly disgusted to find out that other countries were immediatley proactive in preventing gun related mass murders, tightening weapon control as soon as possible. Disgusted because America hasn't even come close to doing anything about it YEARS AND YEARS AFTER THESE MURDERS KEEP TAKING PLACE.

I am also disheartend to live in a country where an organization such as the NRA can influence such important measures. It's extremely irresponsible of our governmental system to give such pause for profit driven organizations.

Finally, I feel it's probably going to be impossible to outright ban firearms that could be used for self protection. The paranoia of our society is too great, Bubba needs his shot gun under his pillow to feel whole.

As for Susan Sontag's essay, I wasn't as enthralled. I agreed with her points, but the article feels very dated, which it is. Since it was written, hundreds of songs and dozens of documentaries have been made making the same protest as her, and I'm sick of it at this point. Yes, the media is broken, yes the Bush Administration was corrupt. At this point I've just been fed too much of this. It's by no means a bad essay though.

See ya next time!

Hello World

I've always had trouble introducing myself in written form. The mere thought of typing "hello in my name is Cody Dederich" brings chills down my spine. However, I was just able to trick myself into giving an introduction that didn't cause me to fall out of my chair. So there you have it, I'm Cody Dederich, I enjoy anything that makes me think, that is, think subjectively. Screw that straight forward stuff, I want my own perception of the topic at hand. I may seem opinionated at first, but I mostly just like to play devil's advocate. It's gotten to the point where I don't even realize it anymore, and fail to notice that I'm pissing off a new aquitance by trying to justify the latest political scandal.

Now I must stop talking about myself before I sound too arrogant. I don't even trust my own perception of myself because it's probably flat out wrong, if other people are any indication. So I bid you all farewell for now.