Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Writing about other people is hard

For my class I have to write a 2 page paper on someone other than me. This is hard, and I'll tell you why:

To write about someone you need to know them, but if you know them and are thinking about writing about them, then you probably like them. Therefore, it is difficult to really write about them and not just list all the things about them that are great. Is that interesting? No, obvioulsy not! But as I write, I know my class will read this piece of work, and if I write about say, Panda, while I may see some less than desirable traits in her personality, I don't want the rest of the world to. So, you end up with flat, one-sided characters or run the risk of seriously hurting someone's feelings.

Now we arrive at my paper, and aside from being a bit one-sided, stylistically it is all over the place. While it is only supposed to be a first draft, I am still unhappy with how it has turned out. In short, my paper (not about Panda) is complete and total crapola and I will be embarrassed when my group reads it.

2 comments:

Scarlet Panda said...

I'm afraid I don't understand what less desireable traits you could possibly be referring to.

Of course, I do understand that a story about someone so one-sidedly awesome as I am could be slightly less interesting than a story about someone flawed. Also, I suppose it could hurt the feelings of the story's readers, who would be forced to confront their many shortcomings when they compare themselves to me.

Fishfrog said...

You should rewrite the paper and choose me as the subject. I have flaws enough to go around, but I do have one positive: I have a nice wife (also, you and Panda are both my friends, which is quite a positive). Good paper; plenty of ennui. Think about it.