FOUR: It Was a Stupid Bus.

                Over the past unit we studied Short Stories. Thinking back now, I can't really remember too many of the short stories we looked, except for a few. That could mean that I wasn't paying attention, or that could also mean that those were just the short stories that stood out to me the most. So, I'm going to go with the latter. I really liked the storyline of The Lottery. It was very different and suspenseful, and a little messed up, so that's always fun. As far as characters, I think the ones I remember the most are from Identities and the short story that I read, The Yellow Wallpaper. For Identities, I think it wasn't so much the character itself that interested me, but the way he was described. He was never given a name, and you kind of had to make your own implications about his life, appearance, and intentions. In The Yellow Wallpaper, I thought the main character was even more interesting. She, also, was not given a name which was interesting. But I think it's because you just needed to focus on the her, and how she was becoming more and more insane, kept in the room with the yellow wallpaper which was essentially, her. I really enjoyed the build-up and the progression in the short story. I had actually chosen that story because I had already read it a few years ago, and when we were told to chose one, it was the first thing that came to mind and coincidentally, it was also in the Inside Stories book we were using. I'm glad that I chose it because I feel that I have a much better understanding and also appreciation of it.

                As you might have been able to tell, I sometimes like short stories to be unusual. Looking at The Lottery  and The Yellow Wallpaper, they both seem to have an element of surprise as their ending. Other than that, I don't really think I have any particular type of short story that I prefer. I think if I only liked certain short stories with the same elements and settings and characters, that would be a little repetitive and boring. It seems that I just like stories that have the ability to go a little "dark" and weird, but not dark like "depressed tumblr teenage girl", dark. But then again, I would probably like a less heavy short story too, if it wasn't written by me. Speaking of which, writing a short story was hard. I felt like I knew how I wanted it to be but at the same time I didn't. I had an idea of how I wanted it to be but I didn't know how to do it. Or maybe I did, but I was over thinking it, which happens to be one of my many greatest qualities. Also, I hope that short stories don't have to have some sort of message or meaning, because mine definitely didn't. But one thing that I really didn't like about my short story was the ending. (Ouh! Spoiler Alert!) I wanted to show my character getting hit by a bus without actually saying she got hit by a bus. And I tried, but then what did I do? I wrote "It was a bus." I never thought I would ever get so worked up about a bus. Anyways, I wasn't really sure about my title, Two Weeks, but it made sense. It's also the name of a song by one of my favourite bands, Grizzly Bear. This seems to be a pattern. I don't even think that's legal, but I'll never be published anyway. And I also made some Twin Peaks references in there. Which hopefully added to the non-existent, weird atmosphere I was going for. But I guess you'd have to know David Lynch or Twin Peaks to even know that. So in conclusion, I think I'll just stick to reading the short stories.