It
was a hustling and bustling day in the King of Prussia mall in King of Prussia,
Pennsylvania. It is a cold, snowy day but thousands of people still braved the
frigid temperatures to get in a shopping day at the mall. Our heroes are
perusing through the mall going from store to store of whatever peaks their
interest. It is a massive mall, like second biggest mall in American. Actually
it is the biggest mall if you are only counting retail space but that’s
technicality. Department stores, high-end purse stores, a store for Teslas, the
long halls of the mall seem to go on forever. The group stops to grab some low
fat gluten free smoothies from a stand by the main fountain and take a break
from the tiring day of shopping.
Bios
Kurt Vonnegut- Vonnegut was born November
11th, 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana. He studied at Cornell
University before enlisting to serve the US Army in World War II. During his
service, him and his regiment were captured and brought to a makeshift German
POW camp in a slaughterhouse. This ended up becoming Vonnegut’s inspiration for
Slaughterhouse-Five and many other of
his stories. After the war, Vonnegut came home and went on to attend the
University of Chicago. He began to write and his books were a huge success. His
famous works consist of Cat’s Cradle,
Slaughterhouse-Five, and Breakfast of
Champions. (Vonnegut 4)
George Orwell- Orwell was born on June 25th,
1903 in British India. He spent a lot of his early life in India and joined the
Indian Imperial Police Force in Burma. After five years, he moved back to his
parents’ hometown in England and began his career as a writer. One of his
famous books, Burmese Days, was
published shortly after and talked about his experiences while in Burma. Later
in his life, Orwell wrote his two most well known novels, Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal
Farm. Animal Farm was “an anti-Soviet satire in a pastoral setting featuring two pigs
as its main protagonists”. Nineteen
Eighty-Four was about a dystopian future where many things in life were
controlled by the government. (Orwell 3)
Andrew Maita: Maita was born on December
6th, 1995 in Bayonne, New Jersey. He is a freshman civil engineering
student at Drexel University with a decent amount of writing experience.
Andrew: “What kind of smoothies did you
two end up getting?”
Kurt: “I mean it is something without
gluten and it has copious amounts of fruits and floating lumps of which I don’t
want to know.”
George: “Does anyone actually even know
what gluten is?”
*group laughs and finds a table to sit
down at*
Andrew: “What do you guys think of the
mall? Pretty big right?”
George: “I think it is noisy and large
from a consumers standpoint. That LEGO store was pretty neat. It really does
get your brain turning as a writer, does it not Kurt?”
Kurt: “I was just about to say that!”
Andrew: “Well since I am not an amazing
writer here, what do you two mean?”
George: “ There is a ‘perception of
beauty in the external world, or, on the other hand, in words and their right
arrangement. Pleasure in the impact of one sound on another, in the firmness of
good prose or the rhythm of a good story. Desire to share an experience which
one feels is valuable and ought not to be missed’.” (Orwell 2)
Kurt: “Exactly! It is also important to
sound like yourself when you write about these experiences. You have to write it
as if it is a conversation like we are having right now. ‘The writing style
which is most natural for you is bound to echo the speech you heard when a
child’.” (Vonnegut 1)
Andrew: “So you basically just want to
sound like yourself and describe what you are seeing? Does this mean I’m gonna
win a Pulitzer now?”
Kurt: *laughs* “I wouldn’t get too far
ahead of yourself there, Andrew. Writing is more than sounding nice or writing
about something interesting. It is about finding something you care to write
about or making sure you are actually saying what you mean to say.”
Orwell: “Kurt is right” *laughs* “ It
took me a long time to find something I cared about to write with. First it was
poems and then school papers and then journalism and political writing. The
list can go on and on. You need to find your niche. But ‘all writers are vain,
selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a
mystery’, so it just depends on what you end up writing.” (Orwell 2)
Kurt: “You just have to find something
that you enjoy to write about. Everyone has a different thing that they are
good at writing; some people write good mysteries, some write good science
fiction like myself, and others are good at journalistic pieces like George did
for a period of time.”
Orwell: “It is all just a matter of
opinion to be honest but don’t limit yourself to one thing. Try it all and if
you’re not good at one thing, don’t write about it anymore. It may take years
before you find out what you are actually good at but it will come to you.”
Andrew: “I write a lot of random essays
and lab reports in school and that’s really not my thing. Who knows maybe I’ll
find out what I’m good at writing and be the first engineer and award winning
novelist.”
*the group laughs and gets up from the
table having finished their smoothies*
Andrew: “So where off to next? Comic
books? Macys? I know you wanted to go look at the nice sparkly bras in Victoria’s
Secret Kurt.”
Kurt: “Haha very funny. But actually lets
head over the Tesla store; I want to see how much they are charging for one of
their cars.”
George: “You can’t afford it.”
Kurt: “You don’t…”
George: “Can’t. Afford. The. Car.”
*the group laughs as they get on the
escalator to continue their day at the mall*
Works Cited
1. Vonnegut, Kurt. How to Write with Style. Elmsford, NY:
International Paper, 1980. Web.
2. "George Orwell." : Why I Write.
N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2015.
3.
"George Orwell." Bio.com.
A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2015.
4.
"Kurt Vonnegut." Bio.com.
A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2015.
No comments:
Post a Comment