Post 9: Likable Heroes and Villians

When I think of a hero in a book, I think of a likable character that goes on an adventure.  They don’t necessarily need to be in a literary piece or a more contemporary piece.  I don’t feel like there needs to be a direct connection between the genre of the book and the narrator. For example, take the movie The Other Guys. The movie is supposed to be about a serious matter of two detectives trying to solve the mystery of a guy covering losses in investments by stealing other people’s money. Throughout the movie, elements of comedy are introduced. They have a narrator throughout the story that comes in and out. He shares the situation at certain parts of the movie and has a serious attitude about it. Despite the seriousness, there is a lot of comedy throughout. Overall, it is probably one of my favorite comedy movies of all-time.

Right now, I am reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. In there,  I like the plot of the adventure because not only did Edmund join the side of the witch, but came back from the evil side. Also, Aslan died and came back to life. I am almost at the battle at the end of the story and I felt that C.S. Lewis set the stage for a good end to the book, I can’t wait for it.

Post 8: Thoughts of Non-Truthful Memoirs

When I hear the word memoir, I think of true stories. Apparently, that's not the most followed assumption. Over the years, many writers have written what they call "memoirs". In reality, their stories are skewed with stretching the truth and even making up the story all together.

My opinion of memoirs is 100% truth. Well, some of the story may not be truthful because the author may have a perspective that can be different from that of the reader. That is the only exception I can think of for a memoir, besides that, I expect the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

I think that a half-truth story is fine, as long as it is under the fiction genre. As long as the story is good, I'll read it. Some of my favorite books are realistic fiction and those have some truth to them. Some real events, some real people, the story happening in a real time in history, no doubt that I wouldn't mind reading about it. As long the genre fits with the story, I'll read it.

I think we take genres for granted, or maybe that's just me. Probably because when I find a fascinating book, I'll pick it up and read it. I don't care whether it is fiction or non-fiction, I'll read it. Talking about the truth when it comes to stories in class, I found out that I do mind whether non-fiction does tell the truth or not. The next time I find a fascinating book, I'll make sure that book matches the genre it is suppose to be.

Post 6: Readicide

I believe that readicide is a problem in today's schools. A lot of the teaching today is to prepare a student to pass a test rather than pursue a journey of wanting to read. I think the problem of readicide is the overanalyzing. I know that tests are important but courses are to driven to passing a test. For example, I think that Of Mice and Men was a good book, but we overanalyzed it too much for me to completely enjoy it. Analyzing is like the teacher that teaches you the material needed to be successful. They then tell you to work on your own on a project, but start to teach you something unrelated to your project. They are basically taking time away from you to completely enjoy the process of making your project. I don’t believe that genre fiction is less “worthy” than Literary Fiction because the enjoyment of reading in my opinion is to read something that fascinate you the reader. I think that we should allow students to read more books that fascinate them, no reading list is necessary. If we do, than I think people will rediscover the enjoyment of reading. With all the controversy of Literary versus Genre Fiction, I am on neither side. I like books on both sides of the spectrum. Some people might like Genre better than Literary or vice versa. People should explore what kinds of books they like to read and read them.

                I think that kids should read books because it helps them prepare for their future. Once they start to pursue a career, they would want to find more information about that career. How, through reading. Even though visual aids and videos are becoming more popular, the basis of showing how to demonstrate it will, require the skill of reading.

Post 5: Adopting the Book into a Movie

Right now I'm past the halfway mark in the book I am currently reading, Argo and I'm not really enjoying it that much. But if I had to make a new movie about the book, the three scenes I would still keep are the scene when the U.S. Embassy is being overrun, Tony assembling his team to enter Iran and the escapees of the Embassy seeking a safe haven with the Canadians. In the scene of the Embassy attack, I would show women flooding the grounds of the embassy like what really happened then the militants sneaking through the crowd to enter the buildings. After the workers isolate themselves from the outside, so them giving up and handing themselves into the militants. For the scene of assembling the team, I would show Tony calling for people to come in and him introducing each person of the team. In the scenes for the escapees of the attack, I would show them jump from every little place that they took refuge temporarily, leading up to them entering the Canadian Embassy.
Some scenes that I would cut out are the ones where he is in his art studio at home as well as the exfiltrations that he mentioned that he was a part of leading up to that current setting of the story. They had a scene at the beginning of the book where he is talking about painting in his home art studio and don't see the relevance to the main plot of the story which is helping to free the hostages at the Embassy. With the exfiltrations that Tony was a part of before the hostage crisis are interesting to help with his mission, though I feel that they distract you away from the real plot for the story.
All in all, I think that the book goes into too much detail about the people involved and there are too many side stories that distract you from the general plot. In the my rendition of the movie, I would make the main plot the focus of the movie with an occasional background story leading up to current setting.

Book 1 Project

My idea to create a fan experience for Mockingjay and the rest of The Hunger Games Trilogy is to have a side story of what happened to Gale. At the end of the trilogy, the guy Katniss spends the rest of her life with is Peeta, “The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that” (Collins 388). With Gale on the other hand, it says he got a special job in District 2, but it doesn’t mention what exactly he did or what happened to him after he got the job, “I  have to remind myself that Gal’s in 2 with a fancy job, probably kissing another pair of lips” (Collins 385). Also, did Gale suffer any physical injuries, “Gale, who took two bullets in an escape attempt” (Collins 361), that disabled him years after the war and/or suffer from PTSD (Post traumatic Stress Disorder)? From all of these unanswered questions, I was thinking that another story about what happened to Gale would be a good idea to end my curiosity. I think people would enjoy it because it reminds me of the whole Team Edward/Team Jacob debate from the Twilight Saga. For the idea of the story for Gale,  a Mad Lib is what might work. Plus, it gives the people a chance to come up with their own ending to Gale’s fate.

In a Mad Lib, the author/ reader is allowed to come up with his/her own twists to the given plot. In the packet of plot outlines, there can be many adventures that Gale goes on after the war. For example, one could be about his special job while another can be about him making a visit to District 12 twenty years after the war to see how Katniss and Peeta are doing. The author-writer can make the story as dramatic or cut to the chase as they want, as serious or as goofy as they want it.

Gale’s life after the story doesn’t have to be the only way to bring out a fan experience. A video game of the war itself can attract fans of the trilogy to play it. In the game, you could be playing as one of the main characters such as Boggs, Gale, Katniss, etc. and fight on the front lines of the war in each district or go on the secret mission to liberate the previous Hunger Games victors that the Capitol took prisoner like they did in Mockingjay.  As a special feature in the game, you could compete in the Hunger Games itself or go hunting in the woods as they did in The Hunger Games or Catching Fire.

I think people would want to buy the game because they want another way to live out the trilogy and a video game would do the trick. It’s kind of like how every action movie that has come out recently. For example take Batman; he started off as a character in a series of comics. Twenty years later or so, they make a Batman TV show. Another 15 years past and they continue to expand the Batman franchise with the production of movies and that continues on today with The Dark Knight Rises when it was released in July 2012. They expanded the franchise even further, they made the Batman series of video games that still are being made today with the release of Batman Arkham Origins when it was released in October 2013.

                People like to experience the ways of characters that they read about or see in a movie. The only way people would want to continue to pretend that they are these characters is by means of trendy items. Today, people like to fill out Mad Libs and play video games. Using these two items that people flock to is a great way in my mind to expand not only the book I read in Mockingjay, but The Hunger Games Trilogy as well.

My Recap of Mockingjay

A few days ago, I finished reading Suzanne Collins Mockingjay. I read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire a couple years ago, but never got around to reading the final book of the trilogy. I had the opportunity this year and I enjoyed the book. Even though I liked it, I was a little dissapointed by it. I felt like it rushed through very quickly when Katniss was at places. What I mean is that I would read and she was at one location and a few pages later she was at a different location. I was also hoping that the final battle would be longer. On the good side however, I like how Katniss was able to fight on the front lines of the war at times dispite the fact that she was ordered to kind of stay away from the main fighting. Overall, I highly recommend reading it, only after you read the first two books of the series.

Post 2: What is a book?

A book is a story that can be as complex or as simple as you want, as long or short as you want, and has as many characters that are needed to make a good story. In other words, a book is a story. A book is like a baseball game, it can be played anywhere, different events occur, there are different people participate,  a game can end very early or very late, anything can happen and people still come back to watch (or read in the books case) for the entertainment. I recently read some excerpts from the book The Late American Novel: Writers on the Future of Books, and the many writers agree that there is something special about reading from a printed book rather than an electrical version and I agree. I feel that its cooler to read from a book rather than reading a book from an electrical device. Maybe it's me because I like to have a hard copy of everything. I don't trust electrical files all that much so I probably can't trust that an electrical version of a book will be readily available to read if the device gets a virus or the device were to freeze. Like I said, I don't read for pleasure a lot, but when I do, I want to read from a printed copy of a book. What I look for in a book is that the story is good, perferrably part of a series, the characters seem relateable to my life, age or activities I do, and the story always contains lots of action that will keep me from putting down the book, like battles or games in sports stories. Not to mention, a little bit of humor in the stroy will attract me even more but it won't hurt my opinion of the book if it lacks this element.