Story

Story: Includes great detail of information in variety of topics or issues and blossoms with implications meaning it lives in its particulars such as the individuality of person, place, and time. A storyteller selects and arranges materials so larger meanings can emerge.

"Revelation, someone's learning something, is what transforms event into story." -Tracy Kidder in Good Prose: The Art of Nonfiction

An Unspoken Hunger by Terry Tempest Williams

"It is an unspoken hunger we deflect with knives-one avocado between us, cut nearly in half, twisted then separated from the large wooden pit. With the green fleshy boats in hand, we slice vertical strips from one end to the other. Vegetable planks. We smother the avocado with salsa, hot chilies at noon in the desert. We look at each other and smile, eating avocados with sharp silver blades, risking the blood of our tongues repeatedly."

Magnets by Aralia Giron

"We are like the defective magnets on our refrigerator-it is evident in our averted gazes that although we can coexist within a certain vicinity, we will repel one another should we come close in proximity. My spoken word is something you hear when our voices are raised and our feelings are tangled. They are so knotted that they fall in clumps when we try to smooth them out. So I stray a bit further from you and tell myself to forget how it felt to be beside you."

What worked:

Terry Tempest Williams
-Why does the Williams use avocados in particular to describe the insatiable hunger between the group? Is it because its a fruit native to Mexico and the author hints that they live in the desert? Is it because it is essential in a healthy diet? Either way, this story "blossoms with implication" and creates a deeper meaning within the frame of the short story guidelines.

Aralia Giron

-By selecting a specific event and comparing it to a object in our household, I am able to describe the tension that has become my relationship with my guardian at a certain point. Although it is not said, it is implied that we had a falling out.

What didn't work:

Terry Tempest Williams

-Although there seems to be a larger meaning within the story, it is a bit obscure of what the author is learning which is essential, that stories are written to understand certain aspects in life.

Aralia Giron
-This particular event did not occur within one day, it is an occurrence that fell into place over time, the implication of this is slighted when I write in such a way that suggests it happened all at once. Also, I do not state what was the reason behind our falling out, I only give my resolve which is relative to a specific point in time.